Schilder, Schmilder [signs]
View allAll Photos Tagged scatterbrained,
Happy belated Caturday!
Ginger and Liam know I'm scatterbrained and am often busy on weekends, particularly when there's holiday shopping to be done. They forgive me for missing Caturday once again.
One funny thing about this photo: Ginger, the orange tiger in the foreground, is only very slightly overweight, while Leemy, the brown tiger in the background, needs to lose some weight. The camera can lie!
Technical information:
Camera: Canon EOS 3
Lens: Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
Film: Portra 400
Developed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab
From the recently recovered archives. Maybe this is a good one to end the year on.
That said, some year end "news": upcoming gallery exhibition, opening January 16 at the University of Michigan (Dearborn campus), curated by Nadja Rottner. I don't post on Facebook (although I am new to Twitter and ello), but there will be an actual press release and mention on the news, apparently. That's a fringe benefit of exhibiting with Carlos Diaz, Bruce Harkness, and Tom Stoye. I'll take it.
Printing on the book began today. More on that after I see the proofs, hopefully Monday. Thanks to getting my last two years' photos (including this one) back, I'll also be self-publishing a themed book in 2015. More on that when I figure out which way is up.
And, there's some other stuff coming too, further forcing me to organize and create structure around my scatterbrained body of work, and stop being a "submarine." We'll see how that goes.
In the meantime, down turret... ;)
From I love Lucy. I miss that show
Burial::
Lake View Cemetery
Jamestown
Chautauqua County
New York, USA
Plot: Highland section
Birth: Aug. 6, 1911
Death: Apr. 26, 1989
Los Angeles
California
Legendary comedic actress, best known for the title role in the hit television sitcom of the 1950’s “I Love Lucy.” She was born Lucille Desiree Ball was on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Intent on becoming an actress, she left high school at age 15, and tried unsuccessfully to get into drama school in New York City. Undaunted, Ball took a job as a waitress while trying for jobs in modeling and in chorus lines of Broadway shows. Moderately successful in these pursuits, she was chosen to be the poster model for Chesterfield Cigarettes in 1933, which got her national exposure for the first time, and caught the attention of Hollywood. She started at the bottom, with bit parts in low budget films, but her initial success would lead to bigger and better parts. Ball would appear in over 60 films by the late 1940s. After performing in the musical "Too Many Girls," in 1940 with popular Cuban band leader, Desi Arnaz, Ball fell in love with her co-star, and married him later that year. Their performing schedules clashed frequently, and the newlyweds often found themselves on opposite sides of the country at the end of the week. This was a problem because of the time needed for long distance travel in the days before jet airliners. The young couple decided that the best chance for their marriage to work was if they worked together. Offered her own TV series in 1950, Ball refused unless Arnaz could co-star. Television was a godsend for the couple. They formed their own production company called "Desilu.” Arnaz discovered he had a natural executive ability, and was soon calling all the shots for the project that would become “I Love Lucy.” From 1951 through 1957, it was the most popular show on television, and Ball was at last firmly established as a megastar. Working on camera through her second pregnancy, ‘Lucy’ was the first obviously pregnant woman to appear on network television. When the much-publicized birth of her son, Desi Arnaz Jr., occurred on the show in January 1953, the story received more press coverage than President Eisenhower's inauguration. "I Love Lucy" won more than 200 awards, 5 Emmys and the respect and adoration of the country. After 179 episodes of the "I Love Lucy," Ball and Arnaz decided to call it quits for the sake of their marriage. They soon began taping another show, named "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” which didn't need the time and attention of their previous works. Arnaz was able to spend more at home, working with "Desilu." By the end of the 1950s, Desilu became a powerful, respected corporation, producing such hit TV shows as "Star Trek" and "Mission Impossible." After 20 years of marriage, Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960. While Arnaz turned to alcohol and was rarely seen in public again, Ball took out a loan for $3 million and bought her ex-husbands half of Desilu. Desilu was then the world's largest television production facility, so Lucy's take-over made her the first woman in Hollywood history to hold such a powerful position. In 1962, encouraged by fans, Ball reprised her role as ‘Lucy’ in a new TV series, as she starred in "The Lucy Show." It would run successfully for 6 years, and feature her real life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., and former “I Love Lucy” co-star, Vivian Vance. When "The Lucy Show" went off the air, Ball wasted no time in reformatting the show and starring in yet another series based on the same character. "Here's Lucy," was instantly picked up by the networks and ran on prime time through 1974. It was during this same period that Ball won rave reviews for her appearance on Broadway in, "Wildcat." On the heels of that success, Ball teamed with Bob Hope for two feature films and co-starred with Henry Fonda in the critically acclaimed, "Yours, Mine and Ours." Though she played a scatterbrained redhead, Ball was nothing of the kind in real life. Desilu Productions continued to grow and prosper under her leadership, ultimately acquiring RKO Studios, where both Ball and Arnaz had formerly worked as contract players. In 1967, she sold Desilu Productions to Gulf & Western for $17 million, netting some $10 million cash out of the deal. Ball remarried in 1968, taking Gary Morton as her second husband. Morton, a former comedian, worked with Ball to help create "Lucille Ball Productions." In the late 70s and early 80s, Ball made only sporadic appearances on TV, usually as the guest star. In 1985, she portrayed a New York homeless woman in the TV film, "Stone Pillow." Her last attempt at a new comedy series, "Life with Lucy," was a failure. Lucille Ball spent much of the rest of her life out of the spotlight. Her last public appearance was at the 1989 Academy Awards. One week after undergoing open heart surgery, on April 26, 1989, Lucille Ball suffered a ruptured aorta and died. She was 77 years old. Ball is survived by two children. Desi Arnaz died of cancer in 1986. Today, "I Love Lucy" is syndicated in more than 80 countries and remains one of the most popular and beloved TV shows of all time.
Walked into the dunes before light to discover there were tracks from people and critters everywhere, which is not what I was hoping for. Spent a few minutes shooting before sunup and then made it down to the shore. I would call walking through dune sand with a pack a labor of love and prefer walking the firmer path along the shore when possible so I decided to take the long way back along the water. Not until I had driven to another location did I realise my trigger realease was missing. I think I have went through more than 10 releases over the last decade due to forgetting them, or wire fatigue. I had just received this one in the mail and was mad at myself for being so scatterbrained. I like to shoot in MUP mode especially with a long lens and I had plans to use a telephoto, so I begrudgingly drove back to Sleeping Bear Point and retraced my steps. Of course the release was laying in the sand where this shot was made only the sun was much higher and hotter by then.
It hit me when I watched our choir perform to their parents this evening, that I was indeed, leaving behind a part of my life that had spanned 3 years, and that the choir, Ben and Greg had been a significant part of it all. From deep within I was overwhelmed by sadness at letting go of something that had mattered to me for so long now, and distress over the uncertainty of how our choir would proceed from hereon, and anger that everything we had done to build them to what they are now, will be destroyed by neglect and mishandling by scatterbrained colleagues with no interest or respect for choral singing.
It wasn’t however, the heavy and helpless sadness I feel when I experience depression, but rather, a sweet sorrow that reminded me I have the emotional capacity to care deeply about others.
I was thankful for their quiet company after the furore of running a 2 day camp with energetic teenagers, as we sat looking out at the rain, and the school shrouded in darkness across the street. There had been management hiccups in the execution of this camp, but they did not compromise on the experience that the students had of it, and we accomplished everything we had set out to achieve when we decided to do this in the first place. It is a fitting end to my years here, and I’m happy, knowing that I made a difference to this lot, at least, and can move on with peace of mind.
This is a shot of some beautiful grevalia (I think that's the name) flowers.
I'm getting a late start today and need to get so much done. It's scary sometimes how scatterbrained I can be!
Hope you are all having a great day!! :)
Dieser Glaskristall-Schlüsselanhänger mit meinem Hologramm-Sternzeichen "Schütze" hat leider mein mehrmaliges schusseliges Runterfallenlassen nicht überstanden. Etwa ein Drittel des unteren Bereiches ist zersplittert. Natürlich behalte ich ihn, da er ein Geschenk war. Mein neuer Schlüsselanhänger ist jetzt aus Holz und somit fast unkaputtbar.
Euch allen einen schönen "Crazy Tuesday".
This glass-crystal key pendant with my hologram star sign "Sagittarius" has unfortunately not survived my repeated scatterbrained falling down. About one third of the lower area is fragmented. Of course, I keep it because it was a gift. My new keyring is now made of wood and therefore almost unbreakable.
A nice "Crazy Tuesday" for you all..
Happy New Ye- oh wait, that was a few days ago. Well I originally didn't have a planned write-up about my thoughts on 2018 but it was aight I guess, although there is something that's been on my mind for awhile and I suppose I'll talk about it now. Recently, Flickr has been in a slough and I've noticed that alot of people on here have been leaving and/or have stopped posting altogether and it's kinda worrying. I'm not trying to sound exaggerated but I don't know if this community will be around in the next 5 years, I know it sounds crazy and I wanna be wrong but I honestly don't know if the Lego Military Community will be around for much longer. But don't quote me on anything of this because I get a bit scatterbrained when it comes to typing about my thoughts, I'm more of a talker than a typer. Also, don't worry, I'm not leaving anytime soon, but I have thought about expanding over to Instagram seening as alot on here have migrated over to there.
As for Simone Weil, her hunger was for God, not a slim waistline. She was not the first mystic to be a picky eater. She wanted the quickest possible life consistent with her own tenaciously held ideas...
... One feels sure that this brave and yet scatterbrained person, as shrewdly sane as could be and as wacky as could be, had a central dream: her moment of release, her giddy ascent, His welcome. Her intense moral imagination simply couldn’t stop doing its work, couldn’t stop distracting her from the routines the rest of us take for granted, including our meals. She refused the food offered her while awaiting the big feast she often mentioned, the one given the symbolic form of Holy Communion. She yearned to have her appetite appeased, not for a day or for a week, Sunday to Sunday, but forever.
-SIMONE WEIL A MODERN PILGRIMAGE, Robert Coles
OK, totally unrelated to the photo, but if you live in the Philippines and you have cable, they are airing "Genius of Photography" tomorrow night at 10 on the National Geographic channel. (I'm putting it here as a way to remind myself to watch it. You know how scatterbrained I am!)
Jewels by Rawr Royals
Grammerly 07/17/2021
“Lust and love by a fine line divided”
It was with a decidedly sweet bitterness that Veronica handled the piles of wealth that lay about her. It was all hers, all of it, and now that she had it, she found herself for the first time pondering at what its price would ultimately be?
For It had suddenly, icily, intruded upon her happy thoughts, a few lines from of one of the Sonnets Michael had read to her, one of his favorites. Within its verse, told the story of a haunted soul whose actions betrayed her conscience to the point of relentless misery….
“Lust and love by a fine line divided,
Upon which her souls’ destiny is ultimately decided,
A path like a daggers edge soon cutting,
Gambling that happiness is something binding… ”
She shook her head in a failed attempt to regain her happy thoughts; even the necklace she was now holding had suddenly lost its allure…
Veronica, knowing her window of opportunity was shrinking rapidly, was now for the first time in the heady previous few months, trying to rationalize her actions. A very crooked path was chosen, that had led to her attempting the theft of this climatic treasure trove ….
It had been her love for the impoverished underdog poet Michael that had led her to use her talents as an actress to try being ‘Discovered”. To make enough money to support them for the rest of their lives.
It had been an uphill struggle, one she was not finding fortune from...
It had been her lust to make that dream become a reality that had made her lure the attention of Hugh, a wealthy, and arrogantly vain man who collected mistress’s like some men collect fast automobiles, and tossed them aside just as quickly as one would discard the chewed end of a cigar. Which is pretty much how his conquests felt afterward, Chewed up, burnt, and spit out...
It had been Hugh’s so-called love for his high-born wife (love for her money more likely) that compelled him to keep his line of the mistress’s a secret. For it was his passionate lust for sexual conquests that compelled him to use his considerable wealth to achieving his erotic dreams.
So Veronica had sold her soul to this devil, playing Hugh’s game, all the while planning on how she could achieve her dreams by planning a game of her own.
She should receive an Oscar for her performance of the mousy, scatterbrained petitely pretty, and oversexed country girl.
She had patterned her act after Carole Lombard’s character from ‘My Man Godfrey’. Veronica had even dyed her hair blonde and wore blue-tinted contacts. Telling Michael she was going it for a role, not entirely a lie.
The fruition of that game had led to this evening.
Hugh’s high-brow wife was out of town visiting her sister. Veronica was supposed to be waiting at her apartment to be picked up by Hugh to go to his summer cottage on the lake for the weekend.
Veronica’s easily fawning best friend Becky, who had not questioned why had intercepted Hugh at his club and had managed to cajole him into buying her a drink.
Becky had let Veronica know she had been successful and was obediently occupying Hugh for the next 3 hours, also that the turd had asked her out the following weekend. Veronica read into this the fact that she was soon going to be replaced. Tonight would be her only chance.
Becky had given Veronica a 3-hour window of opportunity needed to loot the safe located inside the master bedroom Hugh shared with his wife.
The room having a secret outside the entrance to which Veronica had managed to have a copy of the key made.
Veronica would then take her loot, consisting of money and jewels, and hide it in her apartment and then, with feigned innocence, wait there for Hugh to make his tardy appearance.
It had all gone so perfectly...
So why was she now, of all times, having second thoughts!
What was she going to do?
She again shook her head and rising, watching the house cats scurry off, began to collect the bags which held their future.
A future of easy living, a future with the love of her life...
But then it came back, the words… and she froze as they whispered in her mind, hauntingly with Michaels innocent voice:
“Lust and love by a fine line divided,
Upon which her souls’ destiny is ultimately decided,
A path like a daggers edge soon cutting,
Gambling that happiness is something binding… ”
Emilie || View On Black Flibbertigibbet: A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially a pert young woman with such qualities.
Miss Scarlett, in the Conservatory, with the candlestick?
Taken at Coven of Crows
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Liminal%20Worlds/144/139/40
Named as a reference to the infamous Board Game "Clue".
cluecluedo.fandom.com/wiki/Character
Characters:
Mr. Boddy is the owner of Tudor Manor or Boddy Mansion. This unseen host is the star of a murder that millions of adults have tried to solve. After inviting his closest friends, including Colonel Mustard and Mrs. White, Mr. Boddy ends up dead.
Colonel Mustard
This character is represented by the color yellow. He is your typical adventurer with a rich military background. Colonel Mustard (his first name in the British version is Michael) continues to practice archery and shooting by going hunting. He's a dashing and handsome man with a proud demeanor. He loves to challenge people to a duel if they cross him, and he isn't afraid to speak his mind. A bachelor, Colonel Mustard has been smitten by Mrs. Peacock and Miss Scarlet. He is a tough man to accuse, so you had better be right.
Mrs. White
Blanche White is the maid of the manor whose pawn color is white and isn't exempt from any accusations. She's got the common characteristics of an old biddy. She owns nothing to her name and takes her domestic duties very seriously. If something is out of place, she had better not know about it.
Professor Plum
Professor Plum is the purple pawn. He would be the smartest man on the planet if he wasn't so scatterbrained. Slightly balding and middle-aged, Peter Plum can't remember where he's been the last five minutes of any part of any day, so how could he remember if he murdered Mr. Boddy or not? He's a simple, intelligent man and good-natured at heart, but he likes to steal his own things. That's because he's just absent-minded enough to do so!
Mrs. Peacock
Mrs. Peacock is a widow who is dressed in blue. Her latest dead husband's estate is almost all gone because she must maintain an extravagant lifestyle. She's proper and has excellent manners, but is this just a disguise for her past? All four of her husbands have either disappeared or have died mysteriously. Is Mr. Boddy her fifth victim?
Mr. Green
Mr. John Green, indicated by the green pawn, is a smooth talker. His family is made up of shysters. His dad is a lowdown thief and his mom tells fortunes wherever and whenever she can. Guess what: she's not a psychic. Mr. Green found a calling in spirituality. This means he sets up traveling tents and asks people to give him money which is for the less fortunate, and that means the money is for him. During his travels, "Reverend" Green met and had certain dealings with Mr. Boddy. Did Mr. Boddy have something on the Reverend?
Miss Scarlet
Represented by the red piece, Miss Scarlet is the sexy flirt of the suspects. She knows she is beautiful and will flaunt that to her advantage. At a young age, she received all the attention and this made her mother mad. Miss Scarlet believes her mother is hiding massive amounts of wealth and since her mother won't share this money, the younger Scarlet has taken to dating wealthy bachelors. She jumps from one to the next without a thought, hoping her beauty and charm will carry her through into the next will.
El chico que jugaba con una cerilla (y no sé si un bidón de gasolina)
Sé de Lisboa (Portugal)
El interior de las iglesias con sus rosetones, contraluces, rayos de sol que entran por sitios inesperados y, sobre todo, sus velas, te permiten tomar imágenes de una riqueza impresionante. Muchas veces salen movidas, borrosas o desenfocadas, por falta de luz, trípode o talento del fotógrafo, a saber.
Pero de vez en cuando te llevas alguna alegría, encuentras a alguien en la inopia, totalmente sumido en su mundo interior, la luz es perfecta, tu cámara y tú estáis preparados. Y la magia ocurre.
Portugal me ha inspirado y me lo ha puesto fácil a la hora de hacer fotos, a partes iguales.
_________
A church can be very inspiring: the rosettes, backlights, sunbeams that come from unexpected places and, above all, the flames of the candles. This helps when taking photos. The possibilities are many and varied. Sometimes, pictures are blurred or out of focus, this may be due to lack of light, tripod or, perhaps, due to an untalented photographer.
But occasionally, this will bring some joy when you find someone in scatterbrained, fully immersed in his inner world, the light is perfect and your camera and you are ready. And then the magic happens.
Portugal has inspired me a lot and also made it easy for me when taking pictures, equally.
getty images - society6 - website - facebook- youtube - instagram
kinda a cop out ugly ass shot, but i suppose that is how i am feeling right now anyhow, so it works. :)
Exposure: 139 seconds, f5.6 ISO 200
Date: 06 September 2006
Location: Concrete Plant, Warwick RI
Notes: Nikon D50, Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We ventured out this evening to a concrete plant in Warwick RI. The group this time out was Threshold, Skazama, Rizzolo and rtlm40 and II Duce.
I was a bit scatterbrained this evening. Temperature was cool but it was super HUMID.
You can see a group pool here of all our shots on Flickr from the night or a slick slideshow here. It may take a week or so for all the shots to be posted.
Science nerd Rufus - a genius in the laboratory, unfortunately also a tad ditzy and scatterbrained.
Voted 'Girl most likely to make miraculous scientific breakthrough... or leave the zombie cage door open'.
Originally Dynamite Girls 'Vintage Vinyl' Rufus Blue
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 we are not in Lettice’s flat. Instead, we have followed Lettice south-west, through the neighbouring borough of Belgravia to the smart London suburb of Pimlico and its rows of cream and white painted Regency terraces. There, in a smart red brick Edwardian set of three storey flats on Rochester Row, is the residence of Lettice’s latest client, recently arrived American film actress Wanetta Ward. It is here that Lettice adds the remaining finishing touches to her redecoration of what was once a tired and dated interior.
Knocking loudly on the front door of the flat, Gerald turns the knob and finds the door opens, just as Lettice said it would. “Lettice?” he calls.
“Gerald, is that you?” comes Lettice’s voice from somewhere deep within the flat.
Gerald gasps as he steps across the threshold into the central hallway of the Pimlico flat. He looks about in delight at the beautiful gilded Japanese inspired wallpaper, stylish oriental furniture and sparking chandeliers, all of which are reflected in several long, bevelled mirrors which trick the eye into thinking the vestibule is more spacious than it actually is. “I say, Lettuce Leaf,” he utters in a rapturous voice. “This is divine!”
A soft thump against his thigh breaks his reverie. Looking down he finds the culprit: a long round white embossed satin bolster lies at his feet on the carpet. He stoops to pick it up.
“Stop calling me that, Gerald!” Lettice stands in the doorway to his right, her arms stretched across the frame, arrayed in a smart pale yellow day dress with a lowered waist and handkerchief point hem of his own making. “You know I don’t like it.”
“I know, but I just can’t help it darling! You always rise to the bait.”
“You’re just lucky I only hit you with a bolster, Gerald!” She wags her lightly bejewelled finger at him in a mock warning as she smiles at her old childhood friend.
“And you’re just lucky I didn’t drop the parcel you asked me to pick up from your flat.” He holds up a parcel wrapped up in brown paper, tied with string. “By the way, you look as divine as your interiors, darling.”
“In your design, of course, Gerald.”
“Of course! That’s why you look so divine, Lettice darling!”
“Of course!” She saunters over, her louis heels sinking into the luxurious oriental rug that covers most of the vestibule floor. “May I have my parcel, please Gerald?” She holds out her hands towards the package.
With a sigh of mock frustration, he hands it to her. “Anything else, milady?” He makes an exaggerated bow before her, like a toadying courtier or servant.
“Yes, you can make yourself useful by picking up that errant bolster and follow me.”
“You deserve this and a good deal more for bossing me about!” Gerald playfully picks up the bolster and thwacks it through the air before it lightly connects with Lettice’s lower back, making her squeal. “I come to your aid yet again, as you forget a vital finishing touch for your interior designs.”
Lettice giggles as she turns back to her friend and kittenishly tugs on the bolster, which he tussles back. “I know Gerald! I can’t believe how scatterbrained I was to leave this,” She holds the parcel aloft, hanging from her elegant fingers by the bow of string on the top. “Behind at Cavendish Mews! There has just been so much to organise with this interior design. I’m so pleased that there was a telephone booth I could use on the corner. The telephone has arrived here but hasn’t been collected to the exchange yet.”
“And isn’t it lucky that my fortunes seem to be changing with the orders from Mrs. Middle-of-the-Road-Middle-Class Hatchett and her friends paying for the installation of a telephone, finally, in my frock shop.”
“All the more reason not to deride Mrs. Hatchett, or her friends.”
“And,” Gerald speaks over his friend, determined not to be scolded again about his names for Mrs. Hatchett by her. “Wasn’t it lucky that I was in Grosvenor Street to take your urgent call.”
“It was!” she enthuses in a joking way.
“And the fact that I just happen to have the Morris*…”
She cuts his sentence off by saying with a broad smile, “Is the icing on the cake, Gerald darling! You are such a brick! Now, be honest, you’ve been longing to see this interior. You’ve been dropping hints like briquettes for the last week!”
Gerald ignores her good-natured dig at his nosiness. “Of course! I’m always interested in what my dearest friend is doing to build up her business.” Looking around again, a feeling of concern clouds his face. “I just hope this one pays, unlike some duchesses I could mention. This looks rather luxurious and therefore, costly I suspect.”
“Don’t worry Gerald, this nouveau riche parvenu is far more forthcoming with regular cheques to cover the costs, and never a quibble over price.”
“That’s a mercy! I suppose there is that reliability about the middle-classes. Mr. Hatchett always settles my account without complaint, or procrastination. Indeed, all her friends’ husbands do.” He looks again at the brown paper parcel in Lettice’s hand. “I see that comes from Ada May Wong. What’s inside.”
“Come with me, darling Gerald, on the beginning of your tour of Miss Ward’s flat,” she beckons to her friend with a seductive, curling finger and a smile. “And all will be revealed.”
Gerald follows Lettice through a boudoir, which true to her designs was a fantasy of oriental brocade and gilded black japanned furniture, and into a smaller anti-room off it.
“Miss Wanetta Ward’s dressing room.” Lettice announces, depositing the box on a small rosewood side table and spreading her arms expansively.
“Oh darling!” Gerald enthuses breathlessly as she looks about the small room.
Beautiful gold wallpaper embossed with large flowers and leaves entwining cover the walls, whilst a thick Chinese rug covers the parquetry floor. Around the room are furnishings of different eras and cultures, which in the wrong arrangement might jar, but under Lettice’s deft hand fit elegantly together. Chinese Screens and oriental furniture sit alongside select black japanned French chinoiserie pieces from the Eighteenth Century. White French brocade that matches the bolster Gerald holds are draped across a Japanese chaise lounge. Satsuma and cloisonné vases stand atop early Nineteenth Century papier-mâché tables and stands.
“So, you like it then?” Lettice asks her friend.
“It’s like being in some sort of divine genie’s bottle!” Gerald exclaims as he places the bolster on the daybed where it obviously belongs and clasps his hands in ecstasies, his eyes illuminated by exhilaration at the sight. “This is wonderful!”
“And not too gauche or showy?”
Gerald walks up to the chinoiserie dressing table and runs his hands along its slightly raised pie crust edge, admiring the fine painting of oriental scenes beneath the crystal perfume bottles and the gold dressing table set. “You know, when you suggested using gold wallpaper, I must confess I did cringe a little inside. It sounds rather gauche, but I also thought that might suit an up-and-coming film actress.”
“I remember you telling me so.” Lettice acknowledges.
“However, I must now admit that this is not at all what I was expecting. It’s decadent yes, but not showy. It’s elegant and ever so luxurious.” He traces a pattern of a large daisy’s petal in the raised embossing of the wallpaper. “This must have cost a fortune, Lettice!”
“There is a reason why this is the only room decorated with this paper, Gerald.”
“So, what’s in the box that is the finishing touch for in here?” Gerald asks, looking around. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything lacking.” He looks at the silvered statue of a Chinese woman holding a child on the right-hand back corner of the dressing table, her face and the child’s head nuzzled into his mother’s neck reflected in the black and gilt looking glass. “It seems you’re even providing Miss Ward with dressing table accessories.”
“Ah, yes,” Lettice remarks as she takes a pair of scissors and cuts the string on the parcel. “Well, that was Miss Ward’s request, not mine. She wanted a dressing table set to match the dressing room. She says that she will keep her existing set in her dressing room at Islington Studios**. The bottles of perfume she had sent over the other day. Which brings me to what’s in the parcel!”
Lettice removed the brown paper wrapping, the paper tearing noisily. Opening the box inside, she rummages through layers of soft whispering tissue paper and withdraws a large, lidded bowl with an exotic bird on the lid and a pattern of flowers around the bowl.
“It’s Cantonese Famille Rose,” she explains to her friend. “And it will serve as Miss Ward’s new container for her trademark bead and pearl necklaces.”
She walks across the small space to the dressing table and places it on the back left-hand corner. Standing back, she sighs with satisfaction, pleased with her placement of it.
“Now, let me give you a tour of the rest of the flat, Gerald.” Lettice says happily.
“Oh!” her companion remarks suddenly, a hand rising to his mouth anxiously. “I almost forgot!”
“Forgot what, Gerald?”
“This.” Gerald reaches into the pocket of his black coat and withdraws a small buff coloured envelope which he hands over to Lettice. “Edith gave it to me to give to you since I was coming over here. She thought it might be important.”
Lettice looks quizzically at the envelope. “A telegram?”
“Apparently, it arrived a quarter of an hour after you left this morning.”
Lettice uses the sharp blade of the scissors to slice the thin paper of the envelope. Her face changes first to concentration as she reads the message inside, and then a look of concern clouds her pretty features as she digests what it says.
“Not bad news, I trust.”
“It’s from the Pater.” Lettice replies simply as she holds it out for Gerald to read.
“Lettice,” Gerald reads. “Come to Glynes*** without delay. Prepare to stay overnight. Do not procrastinate. Father…”
“I wonder what he wants?” Lettice ponders, gnawing on her painted thumbnail as she accepts the telegram back with her free hand.
“Only your father would use a word like procrastinate in a telegram. It must be important if he wants you to go down without delay.” Gerald ruminates.
“And we were going to the Café Royal**** for dinner tonight!” Lettice whines.
“I’m the one who should be complaining, darling. After all you are my meal ticket there! Don’t worry, the Café Royal will still be here when you get back from Wiltshire, whatever happens down there. I’ll be waiting here too. I’d offer to drive you down tomorrow, but I have several dress fittings booked for tomorrow, including one for Margot’s wedding dress.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Lettice flaps Gerald’s offer away with her hand. “I’ll take the train and have Harris pick me up from the railway station in the village.” She folds the telegram back up again and slips it back into the envelope before depositing it into one of the discreet pockets Gerald had designed on the front of her dress. “Come, let’s not let this spoil the occasion.” She smiles bravely at her friend, although he can still see the concern clouding her eyes. “Let me give you a guided tour of the rest of the flat.”
“Lead the way!” Gerald replies, adding extra joviality to his statement, even though he knows that it sounds false.
The pair leave Miss Ward’s dressing room as Lettice begins to show Gerald around the other rooms.
*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
**Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
***Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.
****The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.
Luxurious it may be, but this upper-class interior is not all that it seems, for it is made up entirely of items from my 1:12 miniatures collection. Some of the pieces I have had since I was a child, whilst others I have acquired in the subsequent years from specialist doll house stockists and online artisans and retailers.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The beautiful black japanned and gilded chinoiserie dressing table which is hand decorated with on its surface with an oriental scene, was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
On the dressing table’s surface there is a gilt pewter dressing table set consisting of comb, hairbrushes and hand mirror, the latter featuring a real piece of mirror set into it. This set was given to me as a gift one Christmas when I was around seven years old. These small pieces have survived the tests of time and survived without being lost, even though they are tiny.
There is a selection of sparkling perfume bottles on Wanetta’s dressing table too, which are handmade by an English artisan for the Little Green Workshop. Made of cut coloured crystals set in a gilt metal frames or using vintage cut glass beads they look so elegant and terribly luxurious.
The Cantonese Famille Rose export ware lidded jar I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street dolls house specialty shop. It has been hand painted and decorated, although I am not sure as to whom the artist is that created it. Famille rose, (French: “rose family”) group of Chinese porcelain wares characterized by decoration painted in opaque overglaze rose colours, chiefly shades of pink and carmine. These colours were known to the Chinese as yangcai (“foreign colours”) because they were first introduced from Europe (about 1685).
The stylised silvered statue of a Chinese woman carrying her child is an unusual 1:12 artisan figurine, which I acquired along with a range of other metal statues from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.
The looking glass hanging on the wall, whilst appearing to be joined to the Bespaq chinoiserie table, is another piece from my childhood. It is actually a small pink plastic framed looking glass. The handle broke off long ago, and I painted in black and gilded it to give it a Regency look. I think it matches the table very nicely, as I’m sure Lettice would have thought too!
The blue and gold vase featuring lilac coloured wisteria on the far left of the photo is really a small Satsuma export ware vase from the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century. It is four centimetres in height and was the first piece of Satsuma ware I ever owned. I have had it since I was eight. Satsuma ware (薩摩焼, Satsuma-yaki) is a type of Japanese pottery originally from Satsuma Province, southern Kyūshū. Today, it can be divided into two distinct categories: the original plain dark clay early Satsuma (古薩摩, Ko-Satsuma) made in Satsuma from around 1600, and the elaborately decorated export Satsuma (京薩摩, Kyō-Satsuma) ivory-bodied pieces which began to be produced in the nineteenth century in various Japanese cities. By adapting their gilded polychromatic enamel overglaze designs to appeal to the tastes of western consumers, manufacturers of the latter made Satsuma ware one of the most recognized and profitable export products of the Meiji period.
The oxblood cloisonné vase with floral panels to the left of the dressing table I bought, along with its pair, from the Camberwell Market in Melbourne many years ago. The elderly woman who sold them to me said that her father had bought them in Peking before he left there in the 1920s. She believed they were containers for opium. The stoppers with tiny, long spoons which she said she remembered as a child had long since gone missing. Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects. In recent centuries, vitreous enamel has been used, and inlays of cut gemstones, glass and other materials were also used during older periods. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné. The decoration is formed by first adding compartments (cloisons in French) to the metal object by soldering or affixing silver or gold wires or thin strips placed on their edges. These remain visible in the finished piece, separating the different compartments of the enamel or inlays, which are often of several colours. Cloisonné enamel objects are worked on with enamel powder made into a paste, which then needs to be fired in a kiln. The Japanese produced large quantities from the mid Nineteenth Century, of very high technical quality cloisonné. In Japan cloisonné enamels are known as shippō-yaki (七宝焼). Early centres of cloisonné were Nagoya during the Owari Domain. Companies of renown were the Ando Cloisonné Company. Later centres of renown were Edo and Kyoto. In Kyoto Namikawa became one of the leading companies of Japanese cloisonné.
The Chinese folding screen to the left of the photo I bought at an antiques and junk market when I was about ten. I was with my grandparents and a friend of the family and their three children, who were around my age. They all bought toys to bring home and play with, and I bought a Chinese folding screen to add to my miniatures collection in my curio cabinet at home! It shows you what a unique child I was. Reflected in the mirror is a matching screen with different patterns on it, in this case vases of stylised Japanese flowers, which I recently acquired through a seller on E-Bay.
Also reflected in the mirror is a wooden Chinese dragon chair. It is one of a pair, which together with their matching low table I found in a little shop in Singapore whilst I was holiday there. They are beautifully carved from cherrywood.
The gold embossed wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it as wallpaper for my 1:12 miniature tableaux.
I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head all at once. In fact, I’m actually diagnosed with ADHD, and this constant scatterbrainedness can make it difficult for me to complete long-term projects and assignments in an organized manner. Therefore, I’d like to ask you guys’ input on what kind of figures you’d like to see next! The school year is winding down, and once I’m done with finals, it’ll be 50 hr work weeks with 3-4 hours of MCAT study in the evenings. So I’ll need to be very careful with my time if I want to continue building over the summer.
Here are some of my ‘bouncing’ ideas, and if you have any of your own that you don’t see on this list, let me know in the comments!
(In no particular order):
1. Redoing my Forever Evil set with more accurate characters (and added ones)
2. Classic JSA
3. Continuing to keep up with current Rebirth storylines for new characters and "Page to Pictures"
4. X-Men (as teased, heh heh)
5. Super-Family
6. Bat-Family, and/or generally a greater focus on Batman
7. Priest’s current Deathstroke run
8. "Generations” (spoiler, it’s all the incarnations of the Teen Titans/Titans, this one would take a while)
9. Justice League International
10. Suicide Squad (this one’s for you, Adam)
11. Summer landscape/cityscape photography
12. Nudes
Fig formulas:
Updated Indigo-1: Star Sapphire head/torso/arms/hips, White Tiger plume, Balloon Escape Joker coattails, TLGM Velma Staplebot CMF legs
Mystique: Friends Ariel hair, GotG Vol. 1 Nebula head, reversed Pepper Potts torso, LBM Catman CMF utility belt, Lightning Lad legs
Monarch Containment Suit (retired): changed the hips and added the yellow utility belt for accuracy
Or, when were lounging under the chair and Mom calls you because she cannot find you and you suddenly appear 😊.
Sorry for the IPhone pics this week; we went to the cabin for the week-end and I forgot to bring my PC, so I couldn’t work on the other pictures and load them… I’ll be less scatterbrained next time 😂.
“Lust and love by a fine line divided”
It was with a decidedly sweet bitterness that Veronica handled the piles of wealth that lay about her. It was all hers, all of it, and now that she had it, she found herself for the first time pondering at what its price would ultimately be?
For It had suddenly, icily, intruded upon her happy thoughts, a few lines from of one of the Sonnets Michael had read to her, one of his favorites. Within its verse, told the story of a haunted soul whose actions betrayed her conscience to the point of relentless misery….
“Lust and love by a fine line divided,
Upon which her souls’ destiny is ultimately decided,
A path like a daggers edge soon cutting,
Gambling that happiness is something binding… ”
She shook her head in a failed attempt to regain her happy thoughts; even the necklace she was now holding had suddenly lost its allure…
Veronica, knowing her window of opportunity was shrinking rapidly, was now for the first time in the heady previous few months, trying to rationalize her actions. A very crooked path was chosen, that had led to her attempting the theft of this climatic treasure trove ….
It had been her love for the impoverished underdog poet Michael that had led her to use her talents as an actress to try being ‘Discovered”. To make enough money to support them for the rest of their lives.
It had been an uphill struggle, one she was not finding fortune from...
It had been her lust to make that dream become a reality that had made her lure the attention of Hugh, a wealthy, and arrogantly vain man who collected mistress’s like some men collect fast automobiles, and tossed them aside just as quickly as one would discard the chewed end of a cigar. Which is pretty much how his conquests felt afterward, Chewed up, burnt, and spit out...
It had been Hugh’s so-called love for his high-born wife (love for her money more likely) that compelled him to keep his line of the mistress’s a secret. For it was his passionate lust for sexual conquests that compelled him to use his considerable wealth to achieving his erotic dreams.
So Veronica had sold her soul to this devil, playing Hugh’s game, all the while planning on how she could achieve her dreams by planning a game of her own.
She should receive an BAFTA for her performance of the mousy, scatterbrained petitely pretty, and oversexed country girl.
She had patterned her act after Carole Lombard’s character from ‘My Man Godfrey’. Veronica had even dyed her hair blonde and wore blue-tinted contacts. Telling Michael she was going it for a role, not entirely a lie.
The fruition of that game had led to this evening.
Hugh’s high-brow wife was out of town visiting her sister. Veronica was supposed to be waiting at her apartment to be picked up by Hugh to go to his summer cottage on the lake for the weekend.
Veronica’s easily fawning best friend Becky, who had not questioned why had intercepted Hugh at his club and had managed to cajole him into buying her a drink.
Becky had let Veronica know she had been successful and was obediently occupying Hugh for the next 3 hours, also that the turd had asked her out the following weekend. Veronica read into this the fact that she was soon going to be replaced. Tonight would be her only chance.
Becky had given Veronica a 3-hour window of opportunity needed to loot the safe located inside the master bedroom Hugh shared with his wife.
The room having a secret outside the entrance to which Veronica had managed to have a copy of the key made.
Veronica would then take her loot, consisting of money and jewels, and hide it in her apartment and then, with feigned innocence, wait there for Hugh to make his tardy appearance.
It had all gone so perfectly...
So why was she now, of all times, having second thoughts!
What was she going to do?
She again shook her head and rising, watching the house cats scurry off, began to collect the bags which held their future.
A future of easy living, a future with the love of her life...
But then it came back, the words… and she froze as they whispered in her mind, hauntingly with Michaels innocent voice:
“Lust and love by a fine line divided,
Upon which her souls’ destiny is ultimately decided,
A path like a daggers edge soon cutting,
Gambling that happiness is something binding… ”
Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff.
Today Mrs. Bradley, fondly known as Cook by most of the Wickham Place family and staff, has been given instructions by Lady Southgate to come up with a splendid dinner with very little notice. She had to go and visit the local grocers in person, yet there is still part of the servant’s dinner* to prepare, and she cannot do both, and this leaves her with a decision to make.
“Agnes! Agnes!” Mrs. Bradly calls to her scullery maid who is standing over the sink, a place she is often found to be in the kitchen. “Have you finished scouring those pots yet, Agnes?”
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes enthuses, indicating to the gleaming copper pot in her careworn hands that she has just dried. “They’s all set to go back into their place on the dresser!”
“’They are’, is what you mean to say my girl!” she corrects her. “No lady of distinction is going to hire a cook who can’t speak the Queen’s English properly.”
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley. They are all set to go back into their place on the dresser.”
“That’s better.” Mrs. Bradley replies, satisfied. “Well come over here then girl. I have a job for you.”
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes scuttles across the flagstone floor, her skirts rusting and her shoes clattering in her haste. It is only at that moment that she realises that Mrs. Bradley is dressed to go out, wearing a thick black coat and an impressive felt picture hat covered in black feathers. Her reticule** hangs about the wrist of her black leather glove clad ring hand. “You’re all dressed up, Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes observes, her mouth falling open in surprise.”
“Oh for goodness sake, you silly girl!” Mrs. Bradley scolds. “There’s no need to gawk at me like that! It’s not like you’ve never seen me dressed to go out on an errand before. Close your mouth at once, or you might just swallow a fly!”
“Yes, Mrs, Bradley!” Agnes shuts her mouth immediately, gulping self-consciously.
“Now, before I set you this task, I need to make sure you’ve been listening to me Agnes.” Mrs. Bradley says, giving the young girl a serious look. “I need to know I can trust you not to be a silly goose and muck it up.”
“Oh, you can trust me, Mrs. Bradley.” Agnes nods emphatically.
“Hmmm…” the older woman ponders, a doubtful look clouding her face and deepening the wrinkles in her forehead as her lips purse. “I do wonder…”
“For certain, you can trust me Mrs. Bradley. Honest!”
“Well, I certainly hope so, because I need your help, Agnes. Let’s see if you’ve been listening.”
“I listen to everything you say, Mrs. Bradley.”
“I should think you do, my girl.” the older woman remarks loftily. “Now, can you tell me how to bake a lemon cake?”
Agnes stands silently for a moment and thinks, her eyes cast to the ceiling above. “Can I refer to the notebook you gave me to write recipes in.”
“You may, Agnes!”
The scullery maid scuttles over to the dresser and pulls open a drawer where she keeps her precious notebook and stubs of pencils. She returns to stand before the cook and flicks through her book. Mrs. Bradley’s face twitches as she glances up at the old clock hanging on the wall. Time is wasting. Time she doesn’t have. She huffs impatiently, but her anxiety falls on deaf ears as Agnes concentrates on finding the recipe that Mrs. Bradley has recited to her a number of times.
“Here it is!” Agnes says in triumph. “Two cups of good flour, one and three quarter ounces of butter, two large eggs, the juice and grated peel of two to three lemons, a cup of sugar and two thirds of a cup of milk, with an extra half a cup of sugar for dressing the cake.”
“Good! Good, Agnes!” Mrs. Bradley replies, pleasantly surprised at the correct measurements recited by her sometimes scatterbrained scullery maid. “Keep going.”
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley.” Agnes replies, looking back down to her little notebook, her blushing face screwing up in concentration. “Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, keeping back a quarter of the lemon juice and the extra sugar to dress the cake. Mix thoroughly until all the ingredients are well combined, then pour mixture into a greased springform tin. Place in a moderate oven for three quarters of an hour to an hour when the top should be golden brown, the cake firm, yet springy to the touch, and a skewer comes out cleanly from its centre. Mix retained juice and sugar in a cup, then pour over the top of the cooked cake. Return to the oven for ten minutes. Remove the cooked cake and allow to cool. Remove cake from the springform and allow to fully cool on a rack. Serve with cream.”
“Excellent my girl!”
“Do I pass, Mrs. Bradley?” Agnes asks anxiously.
“You do, my girl, with flying colours.” the older woman affirms with a smile.
“So can I help you, Mrs. Bradley.”
“You can, Agnes.” Mrs. Bradley beams. “Her Ladyship,” She casts her eyes heavenwards. “Needs me to whip up a feast for a dinner party tonight, with next to no warning I might add, and I don’t have enough ingredients. So, I need to go to Mr. Willson’s the grocers. Servants’ dinner is partially ready with a nice beef and suet pie in the oven, but I’ll need you to make the dessert whilst I’m out.”
“Oh, yes Mrs. Bradley.” Agnes says excitedly. “What shall I make?”
“What… what should you make?” Mrs, Bradley splutters in astonishment. “Good heavens girl! What recipe did I just get you to recite?”
“Lemon cake, Mrs. Bradley.”
The cook’s eyes turn heavenwards again before she continues, trying with all her might not to lose her temper at her scullery maid, “Then that’s what you should make. Do you think you can do that? Make the lemon cake for servants’ dinner dessert? Before I come back?”
“Oh! Oh yes, Mrs. Bradley!” Agnes enthuses.
“Then off you go, girl!” the older woman shoos her with flapping hands. “Quickly!”
“Yes, Mrs. Bradley.” Agnes scuttles about the kitchen, gathering the ingredients to make the cake.
Mrs, Bradley walks across the kitchen to the door leading to the alleyway entrance used by the servants and tradespeople who frequent Wickham Place. As her fingers curl around the brass doorknob, worn smooth by many hands turning it over the years, the older woman takes one final look back across the kitchen. Agnes has laid out all the ingredients for the lemon cake and now stands at the deal table before the kitchen range looking very satisfied with herself, and to Mrs. Bradley’s surprise, remarkably confident. Her usual trembling kowtow has been replaced with a proud stance with shoulders back and her heard held high. Mrs. Bradley releases as satisfied sigh, shakes her head slightly and slips out through the door.
*Servants dinner was actually their midday meal. It was the largest meal in a servants’ day, usually involving simple courses with meat and vegetables followed by a pudding of some kind, with a lighter meal of tea and bread with jams or cheese later in the evening. This allowed to cook to prepare the grander upstairs meals for the evening without having to worry about serving a hot servants’ dinner as well.
**A reticule also known as a ridicule or indispensable, was a type of small handbag or purse, typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading, similar to a modern evening bag, used mainly from 1795 to before the Great War.
This year the Flickr Friends Melbourne Group have decided to have a monthly challenge which is submitted on the 5th of every month. This month’s theme for the 5th of August is “in the pantry”, chosen by Laszlo. This was a great challenge, and I wanted to show the ingredients, easily accessible from the pantry, for a French Lemon Cake recipe that was given to my Great Grandmother by her cook, Eadie, when she left service in the 1960s. Eadie gave my Great Grandmother a small hand written book of recipes that were easy, failsafe and made with easily accessible ingredients, as my Grandmother had never had to cook a meal in her life. What Eadie didn’t know was that my Great Grandmother just hired another cook and never made a single recipe from the book. It was passed to my Grandmother (who also didn’t cook), and for some reason it bypassed my mother (who does cook) and came to me. The way the recipe is recited in the story by Agnes is the way it is written in the book. To illustrate the ingredients from the pantry for the recipe, I decided to use my miniatures collection.
This tableau is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood like the ladderback chair in the background. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the chopping board in the centre of the picture you will see two lemons, a knife and a citrus juicer. The lemons are vintage 1:12 artisan pieces that have come from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in England. The attention to detail on these is amazing! You will see the stubs in the skin were the stalk once attached them to the tree, but even more amazing is that, if you look very closely, you will see the rough pitting that you find in the skins of real lemons! The kitchen knife with its inlaid handle and sharpened blade comes from English miniatures specialist Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniature store. The metal citrus juicer comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The onions hanging net to the range in the background also come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures.
Cook’s yellow stoneware mixing bowl and wooden spoon to the right of the chopping board I have had since I was a teenager. I bought it from a high street doll house miniature specialist. Also from the same shop is the mixing bowl containing eggs and the whisk. You can even see the egg yolks in the bowl. All these items are 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail so they match the life size equivalent.
To the right of the bowl, and to the far left of the picture, stand two of Cook's Cornishware cannisters. A Cornishware bowl of eggs also stands in the foreground. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
The Art Nouveau silver cup to the left of the chopping board is a dolls’ house miniature from Germany. Made in the first decade of the Twentieth Century it is a beautiful work of art as a stand alone item, and is remarkably heavy for its size.
Behind Cook’s Art Nouveau measuring cup stands a bag of Dry Fork Four. The Dry Fork Milling Company was based in Dry Fork Virginia. They were well known for producing cornmeal. They were still producing cornmeal and flour into the 1950s. Today, part of the old mill buildings are used as a reception centre.
The pat of butter in the glass bowl standing to the right of the white bowl of eggs waiting to be whisked has been made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.
To the right of the butter stands a miniature Blue Calico milk jug. Traditional dark blue Burleigh Calico made in Staffordshire, England by Burgess & Leigh since 1851. It was inspired by Nineteenth Century indigo fabrics. Blue Calico is still made today, and still uses the traditional print transfer process, which makes each piece unique.
The copper kettles on the range and the copperware in the dresser in the background are all made of real copper and come from various miniature stockists in England and America. Cook’s floral teapots, one resting on the range and the other on her dresser in the background, I acquired from a specialist high street tea shop when I was a teenager. I have five of them and each one is a different shape and has a different design. I love them, and what I also love is that over time they have developed their own crazing in the glaze, which I think adds a nice touch of authenticity.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
This was intended to be an app for Arsenal in the DCSG, I had planned on fixing up the character and bringing him back to his prime, pre rise of arsenal, I was told I couldn't use him since he was In the outlaws series, I assumed it would be like the league where characters from it have their own series, but I decided not to argue and now I'm going to release this one story, and maybe if I get lucky I can nudge this into DCSG cannon, though that's just wishful thinking, anyways enjoy.
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Star City
A couple days ago I had gotten an anonymous tip that there was gonna be some robbery in Star City, honestly I don’t know why I didn’t just tell Ollie, but nonetheless I headed back to my old home. I have been alone recently,some of my friends have left town recently on their own business, so i've been alone, if I'm being honest with myself, I'm not in the best shape right now, but I won't let that slow me down, I can take out some thugs. Soon enough two shady looking men dressed in black walk in, one's wearing a long coat, the other one a jacket, one's bearded, the other one clean shaven,normally I would be drawing my bow, but I've been using a crossbow recently my advanced arsenal helps a lot, after all there's nothing like it. __________________________________________________
"Alright Roy, you know why we came down here to the range, right?”
“Well sure Ollie, I've gotta show you my archery skills.”
“Yeah, now it's okay if you mess up at first, I'm here to support you through this” we prepared to shoot, but in a shocking turn of events, I was able to draw my bow faster, with one swift motion I launch the arrow out of my hand, when it's began to take off, Oliver launches his, the two arrows race to their respective targets, and with a loud sound on impact, Roy's arrow hits first.
“Wow...that’s speedy!” he yelled out, joy and amazement came over his words.
“You know I kinda like that name, can you call me Speedy?”
“That sounds good, Speedy." _________________________________________________
I get my mind back on the mission, trying to concentrate I keep remembering that first time firing my bow with Ollie, I look down at my crossbow, with distain. Now time for the mission to really start, gotta get these thoughts off my mind, the thugs dash out of the bank and make a break for a little alley way on the right, but they won’t get away tonight. I jump down and shoot at the bearded thug, who in a scatterbrained move, jumped on to the other thug, knocking him down.
“COME ON LET’S GET OUTTA HERE!” the bearded thug scrams away, he doesn’t have any money, only this guy. I aim the crossbow at his face and he cowers in fear. I can see him clearly now, young man, early twenties, looks like a good kid, looks can be deceiving, I’m sure scum like this would use that.
“P-please man, I’ve got a little brother at home, come on man…please” I keep my crossbow pointed directly at his head, I might do it, I haven’t done it too recently, and I used to never do it, hell it wasn’t too long ago that I switched to using a crossbow.
Looking at this young man, cower in fear of me, as I hold a deadly weapon directly at his skull, it saddens me, things, things were different back then, everything was, back in Star City, now maybe it’s time to use an old trick Ollie liked.
“Your little brother, why are you taking care of him, what caused you to get custody?”
“My family visited Gotham, me my mom, and little brother, we had so much fun, then one day, one of the big time criminals showed up, we didn’t find her body for a week, when It finally turned up it was a miracle, she was alive, but comatose, I’ve been taking care of him ever since” the words fade into the black night as I begin to ask him more questions.
“Sorry for prying, but what about your father?”
“Was a good man worked for the CIA, during the prometheus incident he was killed, that damn man took a lot away from all of us” as I hear that I look at the portion of my arm that was cut off, covered by one of the gloves I wear, back when I worked for the Government on my last mission some pretty bad stuff happened and it led me on this path. Killing, causing pain, it’s not the right way, I've been operating In newer ways recently, and now it's time to change that. “Leave and go to your brother, but you need to let me bring the money back to the bank, and stay away from your partner, he seems like he intends to get you killed, oh and nice cap, much better than a trucker hat, I hate those things” I look around, cops will be here soon, he better hurry up.
“Alright, I’ll get outta here, and I defiantly agree with you on trucker hats” he begins to sprint the opposite direction of the alley, good to see those two won’t be meeting up, now it’s time to set out on a new chapter of my life, a story of redemption.
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So that was the first part of my Arsenal series, It may last north of twenty issues, maybe more, It was essentially supposed to be a Roy Harper Rebirth, but in a big epic story where he confronts an old enemy, I hope you guys enjoyed it have a good day, bye.
A game only one dog can win… at a time.
This shot it's Zachary, but there were just as many with Henry as the winner.
Three Cheers for Henry, who didn't miss a single Cookie today!
Woo Hoo!
Our Daily Challenge - Sep 20, 2014 - "Winners and Losers"
Daily Dog Challenge 1054. "Starts With S"
Today was Spa Day, leaving them Silky Soft but Sleepy and Scatterbrained, so Some Snazzy Scarves and Snack Snarfing will have to do.
Today's Post: www.bzdogs.com/2014/09/winners-and-losers.html
Stop on by Zachary and Henry's blog: bzdogs.com
yesterday in class, my wonderful professor/mentor linda connor told me that i have "mastered the vacant expression." that was nice to hear (i think?!) since that's what i'm 'going for' with some of my shots. [specifically the sleepwalker series, which is the set of photos she was commenting on.] i don't really think i'm vacant in real life, though i am very scatterbrained and 'head in the clouds' some/most of the time. but it's not vacancy... very much the opposite, actually. consumed by my own thoughts, scheming, imagining, planning, constructing truth trees (any logic nerds out there? anyone? bueller?), concocting witticisms, remembering things i should have done earlier that day or week...etc. only giving the impression of disinterestedness. i am a very good actress, you see...
please listen
+
follow me on twitter if you'd like
not gonna pressure you
i'll just be sitting here, quietly judging you
:)
www.radioblogclub.com/open/117926/prince/Prince - The Very Best Of Prince - Let's Go Crazy
So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own
And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor
If u don't like the world you're living in
Take a look around u
At least u got friends
Are we gonna let de-elevator
Bring us down
Oh, no Let's Go!
Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Let's look 4 the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!
We're all excited
But we don't know why
Maybe it's cuz
We're all gonna die
And when we do (When we do)
What's it all 4 (What's it all 4)
U better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door
Tell me, are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down
Oh, no let's go!
Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Look 4 the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!
- Prince: Let's go crazy (fragments)
*****
And yeah, the tongue, I know. It's fine now, thank you. ;-)
for MAM theme best of 2011
One of my favorite shots from 2011..at the time I didn't like it as much as I do now..
for me it symbolizes the year...a very difficult year for me, full of deep thoughts.. searching for inner strength and finding my voice...a year filled with many ups and downs, joys and heartaches..and tons of lessons and ultimately.. awakening ( still in that process)
Thank you friends for the continued support, despite me being a terrible contact lately...
I struggle to balance my love for flickr and other obligations i have in my life right now..please understand if i have not been visiting streams as much lately it is not an intentional "diss".. it's just my scatterbrained state of mind and lack of time.
BTW- i start a new job tomorrow.. first one in over 4 years! part time office manager at a chiropractor's office :-) real adult interaction! yipeeeee!
HMAM & happy holidays!
Dutch postcard by MPEA. Sent by mail in 1948. Photo: Clarence Sinclair Bull / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
American red-haired actress Lucille Ball (1911-1989) was well-known as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo in the television series I Love Lucy (1951-1957). She appeared in numerous films in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s before becoming one of America's most popular television comedians in 1951. She was also a producer on I Love Lucy and subsequent television series featuring the character of "Lucy" with her company Desilu Productions, making her the first head of a major film studio in the American show business.
Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1911. Her father was Henry Durrell Ball and her mother Desiree Eve Hunt. Her father died in 1915 before she was four. Lucille and her younger brother Fred were raised by their grandparents while their mother worked several jobs. Her grandfather was an avid supporter of the theatre and encouraged Lucy to participate in plays at school. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to "make some noise". She enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts. There, however, she had a tough competitor who trumped her, Bette Davis. The teachers said she was 'too shy' and had no future and Ball returned home. In 1932, she moved to New York to become an actress and had success there as a mannequin and revue dancer. But her acting career did not take off till she was chosen to be a "Goldwyn Girl" and appeared in the film Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1933) starring Eddie Cantor. She was put under contract with RKO Radio Pictures and several bit roles, including one in Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935). She became friends with Ginger Rogers. In the 1930s she was under contract to RKO and Columbia Pictures and slowly worked her way up from small roles, unnamed in the credits, to more substantial parts. One of her first supporting roles was in Chatterbox (George Nichols Jr., 1936) in which she plays a temperamental actress. It was one of the first times her name was mentioned in the credits. She also got a good role in the A-picture Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937) with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. She played more supporting roles, including in Room Service (William A. Seiter, 1938) with the Marx Brothers, but she rarely got leading roles in major films, however, and usually when all the major film stars at RKO had already turned down the part. In 1940, Lucille Ball met Cuban bandleader-actor, Desi Arnaz, while filming the musical Too Many Girls (George Abbott, 1940). Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. The couple received a lot of media attention. Two years later, Arnaz had to join the army and was unfaithful. A knee injury allowed him to leave the army. In 1944, Ball filed for divorce but later recanted.
In the 1940s Lucille Ball moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (Roy Del Ruth, 1943) with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly, Best Foot Forward (Edward Buzzell, 1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (Harold S. Bucquet, 1945). She failed to achieve major film success there either and returned to Columbia. She was known in Hollywood circles as the "B-movie queen" with Macdonald Carey as her "king". In 1948, she got a role in the radio comedy 'My Favorite Husband', in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. The show became a success and CBS asked her to turn it into a television series. She only wanted to do this if she could work with her husband, and they had creative control over the series. Ball wanted to work with Arnaz to save her marriage. So 'I Love Lucy' was born, the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time. The couple had started their own production company: Desilu Productions. CBS, however, was not impressed with the TV pilot episode, but after Ball and Arnaz toured vaudeville theatre with great success, the series came to television. As a side effect, she practically invented the sitcom and was one of the first stars to film with a live audience. The show was shot directly to film stock, unlike most other television shows of the time, which used the low-quality kinescope process to film images from a television monitor. The better quality of the Lucy show allowed it to be repeated via syndication (on independent television stations not affiliated with one of the major television networks ABC, CBS or NBC). During the production of I Love Lucy, German-born cameraman Karl Freund invented the "3-camera setup", now standard in television. Another unusual technique used on the Lucy show was to paint over unwanted shadows and hide lighting defects with paint that was kept in the studio in various shades from white to medium grey for this purpose. In 1951 her first child was born, Lucie Arnaz, followed a year later by Desi Arnaz Jr. The pregnancy was also supposed to be televised but CBS was not in favour of that, eventually, they were allowed to do it but they were not allowed to use the word "pregnant" but had to say "expecting". In 1953, Ball had to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities because, at the insistence of her socialist grandfather, she had registered as a supporter of the Communist Party for the 1936 primaries. In 1956, Desilu bought the RKO lot and moved there. In 1957, the last episode of I Love Lucy was aired and was followed by its sequels The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960) and The Lucy Show (1962-1968), which was later renamed Here's Lucy (1968-1974).
In 1960, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's marriage was divorced after problems Arnaz had with alcohol, drugs and other women. Lucille Ball bought his share in Desilu, making her the sole owner of the studio. In the following years, Desilu developed such popular television series as The Untouchables (1959-1963), Star Trek (1966-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) and Mannix (1967-1975). In 1967, Desilu was sold to Gulf and Western Industries, which merged Desilu with Paramount Studios, located on the property next door. Arnaz and Ball remained good friends until his death in 1986. In 1961, Ball married stand-up comedy actor Gary Morton who was 12 years younger. He had never seen her on television because he himself performed on primetime when Lucy was on TV. He got a job at Desilu. After The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Lucille got a series of her own, The Lucy Show (1962-1968) with Gale Gordon and Vivian Vance. It was again a success. Vivian Vance was given the name Viv, which she got because she was tired of being addressed as Ethel on the street. In 1968, after Lucille sold Desilu, she founded Lucille Ball Production. Lucille's third sitcom was Here's Lucy (1968-1974), played with her real children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. Also in this series, Gale Gordon was her co-star. After I Love Lucy, Lucille starred in several more films including Yours, Mine, and Ours (Melville Shavelson, 1968) with Henry Fonda, the musical Mame (Gene Saks, 1974) and the TV movie Stone Pillow (George Schaefer, 1985). In 1986, she made a comeback with the series Life with Lucy, but it flopped with critics and viewers alike. After playing for less than two months, the series was cancelled by ABC. Ball was a guest on several shows. In 1989 at the 61st Academy Awards, she presented the Academy Awards with Bob Hope, she then received a standing ovation. A month later in 1989, Lucille Ball died of aortic dissection at the age of 77. She was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles but was later moved by her children, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz, to Lake View Cemetery in her native Jamestown.
Source: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
The Helstorm Rocket Battery is an experimental artillery piece used by the Empire of Man as a means to shower the enemy with a hail of explosive rocket munitions.
After watching the spectacular fireworks of a Cathayan emissary to Altdorf, Master Engineer Herman Faulkstein was inspired to transform this eastern technology into a weapon. His early research infamously blew apart entire laboratories of the Imperial School of Engineers, but the perpetually soot-blackened engineer never lost faith that his designs had a military value and succeeded in creating a deadly, if unpredictable, weapon.
Faulkstein's original rockets were wildly inaccurate; madly corkscrewing weapons that had no chance whatsoever of hitting anything other than (eventually) the ground.
Further refinements such as fins, long sticks added to the base of a rocket and a launch carriage to aid aiming further improved stability and accuracy--at least a little bit. However, when these rockets do land on their intended target, the results are devastating; entire regiments can be blown apart by a series of earth-shattering explosive impacts.
After Elector Count Boris Todbringer was almost hit by an errant barrage, they were dubbed "Helstorm" rockets after the colorful language he used to reprimand the unfortunate crewmen.
One of the most famous Helstorm Rocket Batteries is the Sunmaker which was designed shortly before his death by the scatterbrained Talabheim alchemist Jurgen Bugelstrauss.
They all look the same, dress the same way, use the same facial expressions and body language but each will tell you he's "doing his own thing" Interactions, mirroring consists of the parent imitating the infant's expressions while vocalizing the emotion implied by the expression. This imitation helps the infant to associate the emotion with their expression, as well as feel validated in their own emotions as the parent shows approval through imitation. Studies have demonstrated that mirroring is an important part of child and infant development. According to Kohut's theories of self-psychology, individuals need a sense of validation and belonging in order to establish their concepts of self. When parents mirror their infants, the action may help the child develop a greater sense of self-awareness and self-control, as they can see their emotions within their parent's faces. Additionally, infants may learn and experience new emotions, facial expressions, and gestures by mirroring expressions that their parents utilize. The process of mirroring may help infants establish connections of expressions to emotions and thus promote social communication later in life. Infants also learn to feel secure and valid in their own emotions through mirroring, as the parent's imitation of their emotions may help the child recognize their own thoughts and feelings more readily.When we meet others for the first time, we need to assess quickly whether they are positive or negative towards us, just as most other animals do for survival reasons. We do this by scanning the other person's body to see if they will move or gesture the same way we do in what is known as 'mirroring'. We mirror each other's body language as a way of bonding, being accepted and creating rapport, but we are usually oblivious to the fact that we are doing it. In ancient times, mirroring was also a social device which helped our ancestors fit in successfully with larger groups; it is also a left-over from a primitive method of learning which involved imitation.Additionally, individuals are likely to mirror the person of higher status or power within the situation. Mirroring individuals of higher power may create an illusion of higher status, or create rapport with the individual in power, thus allowing the person to gain favor with the individual in power. This mechanism may be helpful for individuals in situations where they are in a position of bargaining with an individual who possesses more power, as the rapport that mirroring creates may help to persuade the higher status individual to help the person of lower status. These situations include job interviews, other work situations such as requesting promotions, parent-child interactions, and asking professors for favors. Each of these situations involve one party who is in a more powerless position for bargaining, and another party who has the ability to fulfill the person of lower status's needs, but may not necessarily wish to. Thus, mirroring can be a useful tool for individuals of lower status in order to persuade the other party to relinquish goods or privileges for the lower status party.Mirroring generally takes place subconsciously as individuals react with the situation. Mirroring is common in conversation, as the listeners will typically smile or frown along with the speaker, as well as imitate body posture or attitude about the topic. Individuals may be more willing to empathize with and accept people whom they believe hold similar interests and beliefs, and thus mirroring the person with whom one is speaking may establish connections between the individuals involved.
One of the most noticeable forms of mirroring is yawning - one person starts and it sets everyone off. Dr. Robert Provine found that yawning is so contagious you don't even need to see another person yawn - the sight of a wide-open mouth is enough to do it. It was once thought that the purpose of yawning was to oxygenate the body but we now know that it's a form of mirroring that serves to create rapport with others and to avoid aggression - just as it also does for this pictured boat and yawning building.
Wearing the same outfit as another woman is a mirroring no-no. But if two men show up at a party wearing the same outfit, they could become lifelong friends.
Non-verbally, mirroring says 'Look at me; I'm the same as you. I feel the same way and share the same attitudes.' This is why people at a rock concert will all jump to their feet and applaud simultaneously or give a 'Mexican Wave' together. The synchronicity of the crowd promotes a secure feeling in the participants. Similarly, people in an angry mob will mirror aggressive attitudes and this explains why many usually calm people can lose their cool in this situation.
The urge to mirror is also the basis on which a queue works. In a queue, people willingly co-operate with people they have never met and will never see again, obeying an unwritten set of behavioral rules while waiting for a bus, at an art gallery, in a bank or side by side in war. Professor Joseph Heinrich from the University of Michigan found that the urges to mirror others are hardwired into the brain because co-operation leads to more food, better health and economic growth for communities. It also offers an explanation as to why societies that are highly disciplined in mirroring, such as the British, Germans and ancient Romans successfully dominated the world for many years. Mirroring the other person's body language and appearance shows a united front and doesn't let either get one-up on the other
Mirroring makes others feel 'at ease'. It's such a powerful rapport-building tool that slow-motion video research reveals that it even extends to simultaneous blinking, nostril-flaring, eyebrow-raising and even pupil dilation, which is remarkable as these micro-gestures cannot be consciously imitated.
Creating the Right Vibes
Studies into synchronous body language behavior show that people who feel similar emotions, or are on the same wavelength and are likely to be experiencing a rapport, will also begin to match each other's body language and expressions. Being 'in sync' to bond with another person begins early in the womb when our body functions and heartbeat match the rhythm of our mother, so mirroring is a state to which we are naturally inclined.
When a couple are in the early stages of courtship it's common to see them behave with synchronous movements, almost as if they are dancing. For example, when a woman takes a mouthful of food the man wipes the corner of his mouth; or he begins a sentence and she finishes it for him. When she gets PMT, he develops a strong desire for chocolate; and when she feels bloated, he farts.
When a person says 'the vibes are right' or that they 'feel right' around another person, they are unknowingly referring to mirroring and synchronous behavior. For example, at a restaurant, one person can be reluctant to eat or drink alone for fear of being out of sync with the others. When it comes to ordering the meal, each may check with the others before ordering. 'What are you having?' they ask as they try to mirror their meals. This is one of the reasons why playing background music during a date is so effective - the music gets a couple to beat and tap in time together. Mirroring on a Cellular Level
American heart surgeon, Dr Memhet Oz, reported some remarkable findings from heart recipients. He found that, as with most other body organs, the heart appears to retain cellular memories, and this allows some patients to experience some of the emotions experienced by the heart donor. Even more remarkably, he found some recipients also assume the same gestures and posture of the donor even though they have never seen the donor. His conclusion was that it appears that the heart cells instruct the recipient's brains to take on the donor's body language. Conversely, people suffering from disorders such as autism have no ability to mirror or match the behavior of others, which makes it difficult for two-way communication with others. The same goes for drunk people whose gestures are out of sync with their words, making it impossible for any mirroring to occur.
Because of the phenomenon of cause and effect, if you intentionally assume certain body language positions you will begin to experience the emotions associated with those gestures. For example, if you feel confident, you may unconsciously assume the Steeple gesture to reflect your confidence, but if you intentionally Steeple you will not only begin to feel more confident, others will perceive that you're confident. This, then, becomes a powerful way to create a rapport with others by intentionally matching their body language and posture.
Mirroring Differences Between Men and Women
Geoffrey Beattie, at the University of Manchester, found that a woman is instinctively four times more likely to mirror another woman than a man is to mirror another man. He also found that women mirror men's body language too, but men are reluctant to mirror a woman's gestures or posture - unless he is in courtship mode.
When a woman says she can 'see' that someone doesn't agree with the group opinion she is actually 'seeing' the disagreement. She's picked up that someone's body language is out of sync with group opinion and they are showing their disagreement by not mirroring the group's body language. How women can 'see' disagreement, anger, lying or feeling hurt has always been a source of amazement to most men. It's because most men's brains are simply not well equipped to read the fine detail of others' body language and don't consciously notice mirroring discrepancies.
Men and women's brains are programmed differently to express emotions through facial expressions and body language. Typically, a woman can use an average of six main facial expressions in a ten-second listening period to reflect and then feed back the speaker's emotions. Her face will mirror the emotions being expressed by the speaker. To someone watching, it can look as if the events being discussed are happening to both women.
A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through the speaker's voice tone and his emotional condition through his body language. This is exactly what a man needs to do to capture a woman's attention and to keep her interested and listening. Most men are daunted by the prospect of using facial feedback while listening, but it pays big dividends for the man who becomes good at it.
Some men say 'She'll think I'm effeminate!', but research with these techniques shows that when a man mirrors a woman's facial expressions as she talks she will describe him as caring, intelligent, interesting and attractive.
Men, on the other hand, can make fewer than a third of the facial expressions a woman can make. Men usually hold expressionless faces, especially in public, because of the evolutionary need to withhold emotion to stave off possible attack from strangers and to appear to be in control of their emotions. This is why most men look as if they are statues when they listen.
The emotionless mask that men wear while listening allows them to feel in control of the situation, but does not mean men don't experience emotions. Brain scans reveal that men can feel emotion as strongly as women, but avoid showing it publicly.
What to Do About It if You're Female
The key to mirroring a man's behavior is in understanding that he doesn't use his face to signal his attitudes - he uses his body. Most women find it difficult to mirror an expressionless man but with males this is not required. If you're a woman, it means that you need to reduce your facial expressions so that you don't come across as overwhelming or intimidating. Most importantly, don't mirror what you think he might be feeling. That can be disastrous if you've got it wrong and you may be described as 'dizzy' or 'scatterbrained'. Women in business who listen with a more serious face are described by men as more intelligent, astute and sensible.
When Men and Women Start to Look Alike
When two people live together for a long time and have a good working relationship, they often begin to look alike. This is because they are constantly mirroring each other's facial expressions, which, over time, builds muscle definition in the same areas of the face. Even couples who don't look facially similar can appear similar in a photograph because they use the same smile.
n 2000, psychologist Dr John Gottman of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his colleagues, discovered that marriages are more likely to fail when one partner not only does not mirror the other's expressions of happiness, but instead shows expressions of contempt. Instead, this opposite behavior affects the smiling partner, even when they are not consciously aware of what is happening.
Do We Resemble Our Pets?
You can also see mirroring occur in the pets some people choose. Without realizing it, we unconsciously tend to favor pets that physically resemble us, or that appear to reflect our attitudes. To demonstrate the point, here are a couple of examples: too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.
Be careful however not to extrapolate the metaphor too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
The next time you attend a social function or go to a place where people meet and interact, notice the number of people who have taken the identical gestures and posture of the person with whom they're talking. Mirroring is the way one person tells another that he is in agreement with his ideas and attitudes. One is non-verbally saying to the other, 'As you can see, I think the same as you.' The person with the highest status often makes the first moves and the others copy, usually in pecking order.
In the image above it is apparent by virtue of the facial expressions and other body language that there is a good rapport between the US President's wife Michelle Obama, of informally superior status, and a university president. If Michelle changes her body posture, one might expect there is a reasonably good chance the gentleman will unconsciously emulate her posture, indirectly demonstrating they are of the same mind. Mirroring happens among friends or between people of the same status and it is common to see married couples walk, stand, sit and move in identical ways. Albert Scheflen found that people who are strangers studiously avoid holding mirror positions.
Matching Voices
Intonation, voice inflection, speed of speaking and even accents also synchronize during the mirroring process to further establish mutual attitudes and build rapport. This is known as 'pacing' and it can almost seem as if the two people are singing in tune. You will often see a speaker beating time with his hands while the listener matches the rhythm with head nods. As a relationship grows over time, the mirroring of the main body language positions becomes less as each person begins to anticipate the other's attitudes, and vocal pacing with the other person becomes a main medium for maintaining rapport.
Never speak at a faster rate than the other person. Studies reveal that others describe feeling 'pressured' when someone speaks more quickly than they do. A person's speed of speech shows the rate at which their brain can consciously analyze information. Speak at the same rate or slightly slower than the other person and mirror their inflection and intonation. Pacing is critical when attempting to make appointments by telephone because voice is your only communication medium.
Intentionally Creating Rapport
The significance of mirroring is one of the most important body language lessons you can learn because it's a clear way in which others tell us that they agree with us or like us. It is also a way for us to tell others that we like them, by simply mirroring their body language.
If a boss wants to develop a rapport and create a relaxed atmosphere with a nervous employee, he could copy the employee's posture to achieve this end. Similarly, an up-and-coming employee may be seen copying his boss's gestures in an attempt to show agreement when the boss is giving his opinion. Using this knowledge, it is possible to influence others by mirroring their positive gestures and posture. This has the effect of putting the other person in a receptive and relaxed frame of mind, because he can 'see' that you understand his point of view. Before you mirror someone's body language, however, you must take into consideration your relationship with that person. Let's say, for example, a corporate employee has asked for a pay rise and is called into his manager's office. The employee enters the office, the manager asks him to sit down and assumes the Catapult with a Figure-Four showing the employee a superior, dominant attitude. But what would happen if the subordinate then instinctively copied the manager's dominant body language while discussing the potential salary increase? A boss might perceive a subordinate's mirroring behavior as being pushy or impertinent
Even if the employee's manner of speaking and phrasing was typical of a subordinate, the manager could feel affronted by the employee's body language, placing the employee's pay increase request in doubt and perhaps posing a threat to his future promotability. Mirroring is also effective for intimidating or disarming people who deem themselves 'superior' and try to take control of situations. Accountants, lawyers and managers are notorious for using superiority body language clusters around people they consider inferior. By mirroring, you can disconcert them and force a change of position. But never do it to the boss. Through mirrored multi-tasking, these business associates are taking their minds off what can seem an awkward encroachment on their personal zones.
Who Mirrors Whom?
Research shows that when the leader of a group assumes certain gestures and positions, subordinates will copy, usually in pecking order. Leaders also tend to be the first of a group to walk through a doorway and they like to sit on the end of a sofa, table or bench seat rather than in the center. When a group of executives walks into a room, the person with the highest status usually goes first. When executives are seated in the boardroom, the boss usually sits at the head of the table, often furthest from the door. If the boss sits in the Catapult, his subordinates are likely to copy in order of their importance within the group You can see this in a meeting where people 'take sides' with others by mirroring their body language. This lets you see who will vote with you and who will vote against you.
Mirroring is a good strategy to use if you are part of a presentation team. Decide, in advance, that when the team spokesperson makes a gesture or takes a posture when speaking, the entire team will mirror. This not only gives your team the powerful appearance of being cohesive, it can frighten the hell out of competitors who suspect something is up, even though they can't quite figure out what it is. When presenting ideas, products and services to couples, watching who mirrors whom reveals where the ultimate power or final decision-making ability lies. If the woman makes the initial movements, however small, such as crossing her feet, lacing her fingers or using a Critical Evaluation cluster and the man copies, there is little point in asking him for a decision - he doesn't have the authority to make it. When we rub both of our eyes simultaneously, it is as if we are telling our psyches, "I wish I never saw that", or "I can't believe he did that". We are trying to wipe it from our minds. People will also display this body language tell when recalling a past event in the "mind's eye".
Group Mirroring
It happens on fall season Sundays in American football stadiums around the country. Suddenly, 50,000 individuals became a single unit, almost a single mind, focused intently on what was happening on the field - that particular touchdown grab or dive into the end zone. Somehow, virtually simultaneously, each of those 50,000 people tuned into what the other 49,999 were looking at.
Becoming part of a crowd can be exhilarating or terrifying: The same mechanisms that make people fans can just as easily make them fanatics. And throughout human history we have constructed institutions that provide that dangerous, enthralling thrill. The Coliseum-like stadiums that host American football games or soccer games throughout the world are, after all, just modern knockoffs of the massive theater that housed Roman crowds cheering their favorite gladiators 2,000 years ago.
In fact, recent studies suggest that our sensitivity to crowds is built into our perceptual system and operates in a remarkably swift and automatic way. In a 2012 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, A.C. Gallup, then at Princeton University, and colleagues looked at the crowds that gather in shopping centers and train stations.
In one study, a few ringers simply joined the crowd and stared up at a spot in the sky for 60 seconds. Then the researchers recorded and analyzed the movements of the people around them. The scientists found that within seconds hundreds of people coordinated their attention in a highly systematic way. People consistently stopped to look toward exactly the same spot as the ringers.
The number of ringers ranged from one to 15. People turn out to be very sensitive to how many other people are looking at something, as well as to where they look. Individuals were much more likely to follow the gaze of several people than just a few, so there was a cascade of looking as more people joined in.
In a study in Psychological Science, Timothy Sweeny at the University of Denver and David Whitney at the University of California, Berkeley, looked at the mechanisms that let us follow a crowd in this way. They showed people a set of four faces, each looking in a slightly different direction. Then the researchers asked people to indicate where the whole group was looking (the observers had to swivel the eyes on a face on a computer screen to match the direction of the group).
Because we combine head and eye direction in calculating a gaze, the participants couldn't tell where each face was looking by tracking either the eyes or the head alone; they had to combine the two. The subjects saw the faces for less than a quarter of a second. That's much too short a time to look at each face individually, one by one.
It sounds impossibly hard. If you try the experiment, you can barely be sure of what you saw at all. But in fact, people were amazingly accurate. Somehow, in that split-second, they put all the faces together and worked out the average direction where the whole group was looking.
In other studies, Dr. Whitney has shown that people can swiftly calculate how happy or sad a crowd is in much the same way.
Other social animals have dedicated brain mechanisms for coordinating their action - that's what's behind the graceful rhythms of a flock of birds or a school of fish.
Summary
Mirroring someone's body language makes them feel accepted and creates a bond and is a phenomenon that occurs naturally between friends and people of equal status. Conversely, we make a point of not mirroring those we don't like or strangers, such as those riding with us in a lift or standing in the queue at the cinema.
Mirroring the other person's body language and speech patterns is one of the most powerful ways to build rapport quickly. In a new meeting with someone, mirror his seating position, posture, body angle, gestures, expressions and tone of voice. Before long, they'll start to feel that there's something about you they like - they'll describe you as 'easy to be with'. This is because they see themselves reflected in you. A word of warning, however: don't do it too early in a new encounter as many people have become aware of mirroring strategies. When someone takes a position you have one of three choices - ignore it, do something else or mirror it. Mirroring pays big dividends. But never mirror a person's negative signals.
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British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1283. Photo: Radio.
American red-haired actress Lucille Ball (1911-1989) was well-known as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo in the television series I Love Lucy (1951-1957). She appeared in numerous films in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s before becoming one of America's most popular television comedians in 1951. She was also a producer on I Love Lucy and subsequent television series featuring the character of "Lucy" with her company Desilu Productions, making her the first head of a major film studio in the American show business.
Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1911. Her father was Henry Durrell Ball and her mother Desiree Eve Hunt. Her father died in 1915 before she was four. Lucille and her younger brother Fred were raised by their grandparents while their mother worked several jobs. Her grandfather was an avid supporter of the theatre and encouraged Lucy to participate in plays at school. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to "make some noise". She enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts. There, however, she had a tough competitor who trumped her, Bette Davis. The teachers said she was 'too shy' and had no future and Ball returned home. In 1932, she moved to New York to become an actress and had success there as a mannequin and revue dancer. But her acting career did not take off till she was chosen to be a "Goldwyn Girl" and appeared in the film Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1933) starring Eddie Cantor. She was put under contract with RKO Radio Pictures and several bit roles, including one in Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935). She became friends with Ginger Rogers. In the 1930s she was under contract to RKO and Columbia Pictures and slowly worked her way up from small roles, unnamed in the credits, to more substantial parts. One of her first supporting roles was in Chatterbox (George Nichols Jr., 1936) in which she plays a temperamental actress. It was one of the first times her name was mentioned in the credits. She also got a good role in the A-picture Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937) with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. She played more supporting roles, including in Room Service (William A. Seiter, 1938) with the Marx Brothers, but she rarely got leading roles in major films, however, and usually when all the major film stars at RKO had already turned down the part. In 1940, Lucille Ball met Cuban bandleader-actor, Desi Arnaz, while filming the musical Too Many Girls (George Abbott, 1940). Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. The couple received a lot of media attention. Two years later, Arnaz had to join the army and was unfaithful. A knee injury allowed him to leave the army. In 1944, Ball filed for divorce but later recanted.
In the 1940s Lucille Ball moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (Roy Del Ruth, 1943) with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly, Best Foot Forward (Edward Buzzell, 1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (Harold S. Bucquet, 1945). She failed to achieve major film success there either and returned to Columbia. She was known in Hollywood circles as the "B-movie queen" with Macdonald Carey as her "king". In 1948, she got a role in the radio comedy 'My Favorite Husband', in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. The show became a success and CBS asked her to turn it into a television series. She only wanted to do this if she could work with her husband, and they had creative control over the series. Ball wanted to work with Arnaz to save her marriage. So 'I Love Lucy' was born, the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time. The couple had started their own production company: Desilu Productions. CBS, however, was not impressed with the TV pilot episode, but after Ball and Arnaz toured vaudeville theatre with great success, the series came to television. As a side effect, she practically invented the sitcom and was one of the first stars to film with a live audience. The show was shot directly to film stock, unlike most other television shows of the time, which used the low-quality kinescope process to film images from a television monitor. The better quality of the Lucy show allowed it to be repeated via syndication (on independent television stations not affiliated with one of the major television networks ABC, CBS or NBC). During the production of I Love Lucy, German-born cameraman Karl Freund invented the "3-camera setup", now standard in television. Another unusual technique used on the Lucy show was to paint over unwanted shadows and hide lighting defects with paint that was kept in the studio in various shades from white to medium grey for this purpose. In 1951 her first child was born, Lucie Arnaz, followed a year later by Desi Arnaz Jr. The pregnancy was also supposed to be televised but CBS was not in favour of that, eventually, they were allowed to do it but they were not allowed to use the word "pregnant" but had to say "expecting". In 1953, Ball had to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities because, at the insistence of her socialist grandfather, she had registered as a supporter of the Communist Party for the 1936 primaries. In 1956, Desilu bought the RKO lot and moved there. In 1957, the last episode of I Love Lucy was aired and was followed by its sequels The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960) and The Lucy Show (1962-1968), which was later renamed Here's Lucy (1968-1974).
In 1960, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's marriage was divorced after problems Arnaz had with alcohol, drugs and other women. Lucille Ball bought his share in Desilu, making her the sole owner of the studio. In the following years, Desilu developed such popular television series as The Untouchables (1959-1963), Star Trek (1966-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) and Mannix (1967-1975). In 1967, Desilu was sold to Gulf and Western Industries, which merged Desilu with Paramount Studios, located on the property next door. Arnaz and Ball remained good friends until his death in 1986. In 1961, Ball married stand-up comedy actor Gary Morton who was 12 years younger. He had never seen her on television because he himself performed on primetime when Lucy was on TV. He got a job at Desilu. After The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Lucille got a series of her own, The Lucy Show (1962-1968) with Gale Gordon and Vivian Vance. It was again a success. Vivian Vance was given the name Viv, which she got because she was tired of being addressed as Ethel on the street. In 1968, after Lucille sold Desilu, she founded Lucille Ball Production. Lucille's third sitcom was Here's Lucy (1968-1974), played with her real children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. Also in this series, Gale Gordon was her co-star. After I Love Lucy, Lucille starred in several more films including Yours, Mine, and Ours (Melville Shavelson, 1968) with Henry Fonda, the musical Mame (Gene Saks, 1974) and the TV movie Stone Pillow (George Schaefer, 1985). In 1986, she made a comeback with the series Life with Lucy, but it flopped with critics and viewers alike. After playing for less than two months, the series was cancelled by ABC. Ball was a guest on several shows. In 1989 at the 61st Academy Awards, she presented the Academy Awards with Bob Hope, she then received a standing ovation. A month later in 1989, Lucille Ball died of aortic dissection at the age of 77. She was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles but was later moved by her children, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz, to Lake View Cemetery in her native Jamestown.
Source: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
We're both on the ground, Sarah lying there, at ease, me sitting in the street, happy to have a model that's willing to lie on the sidewalk for me, that is willing to keep going even though my digital camera has just broken and I'm more than a little scatterbrained.
We're both on the ground, conversation flowing, both having ourselves a good time, I take the shot, and the winding mechanism jams.
My digital breaks, my Mamiya is now being cranky...it'd make a man less cynical and atheistic than myself think forces were at work. Bad forces.
But I believed no such thing, opened the back slowly, wound the roll, moved on.
And got this, a week later.
Science bless us all.
American postcard by The American Postcard Co. Inc., no. 781, 1983.
American red-haired actress Lucille Ball (1911-1989) was well-known as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo in the television series I Love Lucy (1951-1957). She appeared in numerous films in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s before becoming one of America's most popular television comedians in 1951. She was also a producer on I Love Lucy and subsequent television series featuring the character of "Lucy" with her company Desilu Productions, making her the first head of a major film studio in the American show business.
Lucille Désirée Ball was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1911. Her father was Henry Durrell Ball and her mother Desiree Eve Hunt. Her father died in 1915 before she was four. Lucille and her younger brother Fred were raised by their grandparents while their mother worked several jobs. Her grandfather was an avid supporter of the theatre and encouraged Lucy to participate in plays at school. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to "make some noise". She enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts. There, however, she had a tough competitor who trumped her, Bette Davis. The teachers said she was 'too shy' and had no future and Ball returned home. In 1932, she moved to New York to become an actress and had success there as a mannequin and revue dancer. But her acting career did not take off till she was chosen to be a "Goldwyn Girl" and appeared in the film Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1933) starring Eddie Cantor. She was put under contract with RKO Radio Pictures and several bit roles, including one in Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935). She became friends with Ginger Rogers. In the 1930s she was under contract to RKO and Columbia Pictures and slowly worked her way up from small roles, unnamed in the credits, to more substantial parts. One of her first supporting roles was in Chatterbox (George Nichols Jr., 1936) in which she plays a temperamental actress. It was one of the first times her name was mentioned in the credits. She also got a good role in the A-picture Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937) with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. She played more supporting roles, including in Room Service (William A. Seiter, 1938) with the Marx Brothers, but she rarely got leading roles in major films, however, and usually when all the major film stars at RKO had already turned down the part. In 1940, Lucille Ball met Cuban bandleader-actor, Desi Arnaz, while filming the musical Too Many Girls (George Abbott, 1940). Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. The couple received a lot of media attention. Two years later, Arnaz had to join the army and was unfaithful. A knee injury allowed him to leave the army. In 1944, Ball filed for divorce but later recanted.
In the 1940s Lucille Ball moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (Roy Del Ruth, 1943) with Red Skelton and Gene Kelly, Best Foot Forward (Edward Buzzell, 1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (Harold S. Bucquet, 1945). She failed to achieve major film success there either and returned to Columbia. She was known in Hollywood circles as the "B-movie queen" with Macdonald Carey as her "king". In 1948, she got a role in the radio comedy 'My Favorite Husband', in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. The show became a success and CBS asked her to turn it into a television series. She only wanted to do this if she could work with her husband, and they had creative control over the series. Ball wanted to work with Arnaz to save her marriage. So 'I Love Lucy' was born, the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time. The couple had started their own production company: Desilu Productions. CBS, however, was not impressed with the TV pilot episode, but after Ball and Arnaz toured vaudeville theatre with great success, the series came to television. As a side effect, she practically invented the sitcom and was one of the first stars to film with a live audience. The show was shot directly to film stock, unlike most other television shows of the time, which used the low-quality kinescope process to film images from a television monitor. The better quality of the Lucy show allowed it to be repeated via syndication (on independent television stations not affiliated with one of the major television networks ABC, CBS or NBC). During the production of I Love Lucy, German-born cameraman Karl Freund invented the "3-camera setup", now standard in television. Another unusual technique used on the Lucy show was to paint over unwanted shadows and hide lighting defects with paint that was kept in the studio in various shades from white to medium grey for this purpose. In 1951 her first child was born, Lucie Arnaz, followed a year later by Desi Arnaz Jr. The pregnancy was also supposed to be televised but CBS was not in favour of that, eventually, they were allowed to do it but they were not allowed to use the word "pregnant" but had to say "expecting". In 1953, Ball had to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities because, at the insistence of her socialist grandfather, she had registered as a supporter of the Communist Party for the 1936 primaries. In 1956, Desilu bought the RKO lot and moved there. In 1957, the last episode of I Love Lucy was aired and was followed by its sequels The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957-1960) and The Lucy Show (1962-1968), which was later renamed Here's Lucy (1968-1974).
In 1960, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's marriage was divorced after problems Arnaz had with alcohol, drugs and other women. Lucille Ball bought his share in Desilu, making her the sole owner of the studio. In the following years, Desilu developed such popular television series as The Untouchables (1959-1963), Star Trek (1966-1969), Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) and Mannix (1967-1975). In 1967, Desilu was sold to Gulf and Western Industries, which merged Desilu with Paramount Studios, located on the property next door. Arnaz and Ball remained good friends until his death in 1986. In 1961, Ball married stand-up comedy actor Gary Morton who was 12 years younger. He had never seen her on television because he himself performed on primetime when Lucy was on TV. He got a job at Desilu. After The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Lucille got a series of her own, The Lucy Show (1962-1968) with Gale Gordon and Vivian Vance. It was again a success. Vivian Vance was given the name Viv, which she got because she was tired of being addressed as Ethel on the street. In 1968, after Lucille sold Desilu, she founded Lucille Ball Production. Lucille's third sitcom was Here's Lucy (1968-1974), played with her real children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. Also in this series, Gale Gordon was her co-star. After I Love Lucy, Lucille starred in several more films including Yours, Mine, and Ours (Melville Shavelson, 1968) with Henry Fonda, the musical Mame (Gene Saks, 1974) and the TV movie Stone Pillow (George Schaefer, 1985). In 1986, she made a comeback with the series Life with Lucy, but it flopped with critics and viewers alike. After playing for less than two months, the series was cancelled by ABC. Ball was a guest on several shows. In 1989 at the 61st Academy Awards, she presented the Academy Awards with Bob Hope, she then received a standing ovation. A month later in 1989, Lucille Ball died of aortic dissection at the age of 77. She was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles but was later moved by her children, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz, to Lake View Cemetery in her native Jamestown.
Source: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
New Journal "Bandar-Log" now live: zvereff.com/journal/bandar-log/
One year ago I was sitting in a train station somewhere in-between Varanasi and New Delhi, India, en route to meet some friends. I unfastened a staple from a semi-opened plastic bag of peanuts, poured them into my mouth and bit directly into a rock. I spit it out, extremely disappointed because I hadn’t eaten in hours. Everything had been a mess and I was in a rut -- I just couldn’t catch a break. I turned around to see a book-seller that had a few books in English, and placed in front for every tourist to see was Kipling’s "The Jungle Book". I gave the man a few rupees and hopped on the train, book in hand. I lied down on the stiff bed for the 12-hour train ride and began to read the book that I remembered as a Disney movie from my childhood.
One year later, as I am sitting here and reading headlines that India is once again celebrating its Holi Festival, memories come flooding back. The month I spent there was an extraordinary experience. Traveling long hours and resting only short periods of time, my friends and I jammed as many possible destinations as we could into that month. For most of that time we were extremely uncomfortable: I caught a virus of some sort, which lasted almost the entire first month I was there, and lost a lot of weight; I simply could not function, nor focus, as my senses were completely overwhelmed. In my fevered state, my impressions of India were that of a country that had gone completely mad. As I got better, I began to look for ways to focus on small moments, and I started to isolate and hone in on the beautiful little things occurring everywhere around me amidst the chaos. India is incredible: it is unique, and the contrasts-- stark.
In the western hemisphere we are raised with organization. Our homes are built as perfect boxes that all look exactly the same in neighborhoods with roads on a grid. We have stores which have bins where everything is neatly placed. When we buy tickets, food, or almost anything for that matter, we form a queue. We have a mutual understanding to remain calm and stand in line. Even if there are no posted rules, we automatically apply them in an orderly fashion. In India this kind of order is simply not part of the culture, and though it is incredibly frustrating at first, when embraced, it can be liberating. Chaos can work-- it finds a way, just like our universe.
When I arrived in Delhi, I left "The Jungle Book" behind, but it stayed with me, especially the part about the Monkey People (Bandar-Log). I kept thinking of how they seemed so wild, and how Mowgli was hungry and exhausted while they danced, scatterbrained, around the destroyed human city they occupied. It was his discomfort and regret for coming to the lost city that mirrored my own feelings at the start of the journey. I realized that to really understand this place, at first I had to get over the physical discomfort and accept the chaos. Reading that book on that train ride gave me a sense of perspective on my own adventure. Experiences can only be as high as they have been low, and India certainly blessed me with both of those. In India, when the highs came, they were vastly more powerful than could be imagined. Daily life is lived in the moment: it is freedom at its essence, chaotic and unplanned. Every breath taken is a gift; every sunrise is beautiful. India presents a conscience reality that is fragile and exposed to the core. Although India has already been heavily documented by much better and more prominent photographers than I, I have no qualms being one of the many. My experiences there are now a cherished memory: colorful, filthy, sickly, and joyous. I present “Bandar-Log”.