View allAll Photos Tagged seemingly
You'd be forgiven for wondering why we'd stop to explore and photograph this seemingly very ordinary - - even, some might say, ugly building in Dessau, with so much beautiful and famous architecture nearby. The balcony access units represent a very precise set of priorities for architecture as a socially engaged practice. The architect (and, briefly, Bauhaus director), Hannes Meyer, approached architecture not as an aesthetic discipline, nor an expression of the modern age or the will of the genius artist; architecture was simply building, the functional solution to practical problems. Others might have spoken about "Functionalism" as a style that connoted modernity and machine-made-ness - but for Meyer, the "functions" were real and pressing problems to be solved. Some lent themselves to nearly-mathematical analysis: getting adequate sunlight, for example. Most of his list is reducible to the provision of necessary services: cooking, heating, bathing, car maintenance (!). Others range into psychological territory which we might be more accustomed to seeing from Team X modernism: providing for pets, for example. The #1 item on his list of 12 essential functions is "sex life."
So if this isn't quite doctrinaire Marxism rendered by the cheapest means available at the time (in order to serve the greatest number of workers), it certainly comes closer than other, arguably more aesthetically-driven projects. But the '20s were a time when the "minimum existence dwelling" was still basically a brand-new idea, and the exact realization of it was very much up for grabs. This is about as rough-and-tough as it gets while staying within the genre of "minimize the typical apartment to its basics." With the savings left over, Meyer provides some surprising amenities for the time period: the bicycle storage in the plinth, for example, is rather thoughtful. Then there's the funny double-doors for the entry, certainly an extravagance but perhaps intended to improve insulation?
Others took the Existenzminimum as a more fundamental challenge to reinvent building types. The far-left Czech critic Karel Teige criticized all contemporary schemes for retaining bourgeois conceptions of the family: the socialist architects, he argued, were taking traditional ideas of the house and just trying to shrink them down. Not only did this limit the possibilities for maximal efficiency, it also preserved outmoded and class-inappropriate ideas about family living. Much greater efficiency, and more appropriate living arrangements, would begin with axing the entire idea of each family having to have its own, separate kitchen facilities. Not only were these a huge expense in terms of plumbing and appliances, Teige argued, they also lay unused for most of the day and would be better replaced by group kitchens, operated communally by resident-cooks employed by the collective. Note that the family dwelling, in turn, should be more like a dormitory suite, with some kind of shared space serving separate bedrooms for every member of the family. So while on the one hand Teige was pushing for a communal existence, he also gave precedence to the modern notion of individuals as atomized, independent individuals coming and going as they pleased, interacting with the rest of their family as coequal citizen-comrades.
That doesn't have so much to do with Meyer, really, but I think it's interesting to situate this work on a kind of continuum of housing theories, and remember that in the '20s, a building that looked like this one could be seen as a viable experiment in workers' housing for the future. Eighty years later, the language here is basically shorthand for "project housing" and nobody will touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Meyer, after being politely fired from his Bauhaus post, would head to Moscow with his friends to carry on the Communist building experiment. But it wouldn't last. As Stalin's dictatorship turned further from socialist utopianism and more towards the glorification of the State and its leader, the artists and architects most fervently committed to advancing the socialist experiment would be turned out in favor of monumental industrial classicism, not easily distinguished from Nazi architecture. By the time these people were bounced from the Soviet Union in the mid-30s, a return to Germany was unthinkable. Ernst May ended up in East Africa as mentioned previously; Bruno Taut went to Japan and then Turkey; Meyer shuffled between Switzerland and Mexico. As for Teige, he stayed in Soviet Czechoslovakia, but found himself suppressed and cut out of the picture as a Trotskyite. The thirties were a tough time for leftist architects.
No correspondence.
Seemingly uninjured, a small group of British prisoners of war are escorted past an ambulance and hospital.
A seemingly abandoned 2011 Peugeot RCZ 1.6L Coupé on a dark country lane, late at night and in the middle of nowhere..
There was a 'Police Aware' sticker on the rear.
I've never seen the word 'GAY' on a cherished registration mark before.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_RCZ
All my cherished registration marks www.flickr.com/photos/stuart166axe/tags/cherishedregistra...
My Peugeot Citroën Renault Fiat Lancia Alfa Romeo album flic.kr/s/aHskFQHNqe
..seemingly one of the girls crossing was called Taylor
and the other was called Ripley..believe it or not : )
Seemingly his full title was: Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE, ADC.
A Snaga Orc, seemingly having confused "Middle Ages" with "Middle-earth", during the medieval festival "Knights, Minstrels, Cut-purses" at Hilpoltstein Castle, Hilpoltstein, Franconia (Bavaria)
Some background information:
An orc or ork is a fictional humanoid creature that is part of a fantasy race akin to goblins. While the overall concept of orcs draws on a variety of pre-existing mythology, the main conception of the creatures stems from the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, in particular "The Lord of the Rings". In Tolkien's works, orcs are a brutish, aggressive, repulsive and generally malevolent species, existing in stark contrast with the benevolent Elvish race and generally pressed into the service of an evil power. They fight ferociously as long as the guiding will of Sauron compels or directs them.
Orcs are of human shape and varying size. They are depicted as ugly and filthy, with a taste for human flesh. Tolkien himself describes them as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes". Snaga Orcs are the most widespread subspecies of Orcs. They are quite small and therefore treated by the much taller and stronger Uruk-hai as lesser Orcs.
Hilpoltstein Castle is the ruin of a hill castle on a sandstone rock. It is located in the old town of Hilpoltstein in Middle Franconia in the federal state of Bavaria, about 30 km (19 miles) south of the city of Nuremberg.
The castle dates back to the 10th century, as archaeologists have found evidences for a first fortification already at that time. However the hill castle, as we know it today, was most likely built not before 1100. In 1109, it was first mentioned in a document. In 1154, the castle was named "castellum dicto Stein", which refers to its founders, the Knights von Stein.
Between 1220 and 1230 the great hall and the keep were built. In 1250 the imperial ministerialis Heinrich von Stein pushed on with the further expansion of the castle. He passed the stronghold on to his son Hilpolt I, who also became its name giver. After the death of Hilpolt V in 1385, Hilpoltstein Castle was acquired by the House of Wittelsbach, but not for a long time. Further owners over the next two centuries were the Dukes of Bayern-Landshut and the Dukes of Pfalz-Neuburg.
In 1606, Dutchess Maria Dorothea, who was the widow of Duke Ottheinrich II of Sulzbach, the patriarch of a branch line of the House of Pfalz-Neuburg, chose the castle as her residence. Hence Hilpoltstein Castle was extended again. But after her death in 1639, the estate was abandoned.
In 1793 it was acquired by private persons, who used it as a stone quarry. In 1972, the administrative district of Roth took possession of the meanwhile badly damaged castle and in 1989, the administrative district began to realise extensive measures of protection.
Hilpoltstein Castle can be visited between April and October each year. Every year in May it is the venue of three-day medieval festival "Knights, Minstrels, Cut-purses", where people dress themselves up as medieval citizens and act out their romantic imagination of the Middle Ages.
The town of Hilpoltstein has a population of more than 13,000 and is situated in the administrative district of Roth in Northern Bavaria. The history of the town also dates back to the 10th century. In 1392, Duke Stephan of Bayern-Landshut approved the town privilege of Hilpoltstein. In 1505 Hilpoltstein was attributed to the princedom of Pfalz-Neuburg and in 1542 it was pledged to the free imperial city of Nuremberg for the following 36 years. After this period of time Duke Philipp Ludwig of Pfalz-Neuburg bequeathed both town and castle to his brother Ottheinrich II. After the death of Dutchess Maria Dorothea in 1639, who had chosen Hilpolstein as her place of residence, the castle derelicted and in the following years also the town lost its status as a ducal seat.
In 1799, Hilpolstein was awarded to the Electorate of Bavaria. Due to a boundary adjustment between the Upper Palatinate and Middle Franconia in 1880, the town was affiliated to Middle Franconia. Until 1972 Hilpoltstein was the administrative centre of the administrative district of Hilpoltstein, but has lost this function in the course of local government reorganisation.
A cat sleeping seemingly against the laws of gravity at Crumbs and Whiskers, a cat cafe in Georgetown, D.C.,on July 31, 2015
Having seemingly missed the boat on the Hot Wheels Japan Historics premiums which VERY briefly appeared at Smyths Toys along with the equally quickly sold out Door Slammers, I consoled myself by getting a few more Case F goodies from them instead. Hot property when it was first released, this new Nissan Silvia is already becoming much easier to find as most collectors are now waiting for Case G to arrive. Mint and boxed.
A seemingly close call, this FedEx MD-11 was actually a couple hundred feet above the bluff yet. Makes for a pretty dramatic image, though!
This is an excellent spot to, well, "spot" approaching aircraft. The bluff effectively blocks out the aircraft's engine noise once passed...all that is left is the sound of vortices generated by the aircraft. At first it's a low rumble (as if a portion of the engines' sound is carried rearward through the vortices...then suddenly a "ripping" like sound occurs as the last of the vortices passes by. Very cool...you gotta try it if in Anchorage!
Seemingly now re-timed to a far more user friendly 1203 departure from Westerleigh, 60092 heads past Grovefield Way, Cheltenham with 6E45 to Humber OR. 25th May 2021.
Seemingly unrelated things! Two handsome jeeps, a children playroom, a Plumeria rubra and Sai Kung Village Association, and they form an interesting scene worthy to sketch.
兩部Toyota吉普車、一所幼兒園、加一棵雞蛋花同西貢區同鄉會，再添一點陽光，就係一幅畫。
This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.
The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.
As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.
The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.
Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.
Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.
Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.
In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.
However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.
Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.
With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.
In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.
Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.
As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.
In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.
Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.
This seemingly inconspicuous SUV is used as a mobile crime scene laboratory by the portuguese criminal (judicial) police. One of the few vehicles, bought in 1999, usually seen in scenes of violent crimes, murders, suicides and other situations in which forensic identification is required.
Seemingly a lot of TK Maxx stores never got the new Majorette Suzuki Jimny in so I count myself very lucky to have found three! Part of the basic Street Cars series but almost semi-premium next to your average Hot Wheels and Matchbox! Mint and boxed.
A seemingly rare car. Spotted at a school car park, I had to be careful. Only seen a few. I had no idea these were the second generation of the Festiva with a different name.
Seemingly at one time owned by coal merchant Compton of Shaftesbury, this FA45/130 now acts as a livestock transporter
I seemingly have a knack of finding these in other countries. Like a few other cars in this car park, it didn't seem to have moved for a while, and unfortunately the beach opposite this was the most disappointing one I have seen for some time.... Although the nicer beach is about 10 minutes away, I felt the urge to explore down this side of Kos too.
After seemingly being available exclusively in Toys R Us for a few months the new Hot Wheels Lamborghini series has now become available in many other U.K. retailers who predictably charge a premium for them even though they only cost one Dollar in the States! Admittedly they arn't too expensive and are a welcome distraction from the poor choice of Mainlines we've had to endure over the last few months. This set has a great choice of mainly modern Lamborghinis such as this Reventon roadster which does look particularly stunning especially when clothed in this metallic silver paintwork with contrasting black stripe and blacked out wheels. The majority of my Lamborghini models came from ASDA who normally lead the way in this type of Hot Wheels series. Mint and boxed.
Seemingly a strange name for a 50cc machine. Honda probably thought so too because it was soon to be renamed the C50 after its engine was changed from OHV to OHC.
One of the Honda Cub family of machines that to date has by far the largest production run of any motor vehicle. I don't know what the figures are; to an extent this depends on what exactly one includes as a Cub, and also there are many copies and clones. I'm guessing that it's close to 100 million machines.
This one looked in good unrestored condition and from memory had about 17,000 miles on the clock. There are no DVLA records so it must have been off the road since the early 80's at least. The plate is a Berkshire issue from July 1966.
In a contrast to the seemingly incessant pace of repaints into yellow, here's a repaint out of yellow in readiness for its exit from Greater Manchester.
The newest Alexander Dennis E20D with Transdev Rosso are in the process of receiving two-tone orange Burnley Bus Company colours as Rossendale prepares to surrender its Bury and Rochdale area services to the Bee Network later in the month.
766 is pictured in Bamford on the B3 Norden - Bury service, which under the regulated regime becomes the 433 and in an appropriate nod to the past, it carries registration letters synonymous with a batch of other buses to serve Bury - the rather splendid AEN-C Daimler Fleetlines with East Lancs bodies from 1965.
This image is copyright and must not be reproduced or downloaded without the permission of the photographer.
We had so much fun hiking on glaciers our first time in Iceland that we had to make sure we could do it again on our second trip. We went out with Aron from Öræfaferðir / Local Guide Travel Service again, this time for a glacier hike on the Fjallsjökull Outlet of the Vatnajökull Glacier. We would highly recommend their services! Please feel free to check out the link below for more information.
This shot was hard to capture, with a deep fissure in the glacier seemingly disappearing into the void.
Another seemingly brand new Suntoys casting now appearing in a Revz branded four vehicle set at Smyths Toys. Generic or loosely based on a real vehicle? I truly have no idea! Mint and boxed.
Seemingly unlicensed but definitely one of the best pocket money Matchbox sized models i've ever encountered of an AEC Routemaster. You can thank Welly for such low cost excellence and one I hope they'll maximise with other liveries. Part of a three vehicle set found recently at Home Bargains. Mint and boxed.
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, and William Schallert. Directed by Herbert L. Strock.
When two scientists at a top-secret government installation devoted to space research are killed -- in their own test chamber, seemingly by an experiment gone awry -- Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent out from Washington to investigate. Sheppard mixes easily enough with the somewhat eccentric team of scientists, though he always seems in danger of being distracted by the presence of Joanne Merritt (Constance Dowling), who serves as the aide to the project director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) but is, in reality, another security agent. Sheppard is as puzzled as anyone else by the seemingly inexplicable series of events overtaking the installation -- properly operating equipment suddenly undergoing lethal malfunctions, and the radar tracking aircraft that aren't there -- until he puts it together with the operations of NOVAC (Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer), the central brain of the complex. But the mystery deepens when he discovers that NOVAC was shut down during one of the "accidents" -- and even the computer's operators can't account fully for the whereabouts of GOG and MAGOG, the two robots under the computer's control.
"...and then without warning, the machine became a frankenstein of steel," says the sensationalist poster text. This is the third story in Ivan Tors' OSI trilogy. His first "Office of Scientific Investigation" story was Magnetic Monster in early 1953. The second was Riders to the Stars in early '54. With Gog the loose trilogy is complete. Unlike the Star Wars trilogy in which the stories build upon each other, each of the three OSI stories are separate tales which have nothing to do with each other. The common thread is the idea of there being a sort of Science FBI agency whose job it is, is to check out the scientifically strange. In that regard, Tors' OSI is a bit like a foreshadowing of the X-Files TV series, but without any of the New Age paranormal focus.
In keeping with the previous two stories, Gog is more of a detective murder mystery movie. Tors was a huge fan of "hard" science, not fanciful fiction fluff, so Gog, like the other two movies, is chock full of reveling in sciencey stuff in an almost geeky way. This reverence for real science keeps things from getting out on shaky limb, as many sci-fi films to. The events are much more plausible, less fantastic.
Synopsis
At a secret underground research facility, far out in the desert, scientists working on preparations for a manned space mission, are getting murdered mysteriously. Two agents from the OSI are dispatched to solve the mystery and keep the super secret space station program on track. The scientists are killed in various ways, mostly through equipment malfunctions. The facility director and the agents suspect sabotage. Small transmitter/receiver boxes are found within equipment in different parts of the facility. They suggest that someone on the outside is transmitting in the "malfunctions" in order to kill off the program's scientists. Occasional alarms indicate some flying high intruder, but nothing is clearly found. One of the base's two robots, named Gog, kills another technician while it's mate, Magog, tries to set up an overload within the base's atomic pile. The OSI agents stop Magog with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, interceptor jets scramble and find the highflying spy jet and destroy it with missiles. Once the trouble is past, the Director announces that they will be launching their prototype space station the next day, despite the sabotage attempts to stop it. The End.
The time spent reveling in techno-geekery has a certain Popular Science charm to it. There's an evident gee-whiz air about space and defense sciences which is fun to see. People were fascinated with things rockety and atomic. For various fun bits, see the Notes section.
Gog oozes Cold War from every frame. First is the base's underground location to make them safe from A-bombs. Next is the mysterious killer trying to stop the space station program. The high-flying mystery plane is "not one of ours." (that leaves: Them, and we all knew who they were.) The space station is to be powered by a solar mirror. Even that benign mirror has sinister possibilities. While demonstrating the mirror, the scientists use it to burn a model of a city. "This could happen...if we're not the first to reach space," says the Director. Space is the next "high ground" to be contested. At the end of the movie, when discussing the launch (despite the sabotage attempt) of the prototype space station, the Director says, "Through it's eye, we'll be able to see everything that goes on upon this tired old earth." The Defense Secretary says, "Nothing will take us by surprise again." An obvious reference to Pearl Harbor.
B-films often re-used props and sets from prior films in order to save on their budgets. Gog, even though shot in Eastman Color, was no exception. Two old prop friends show up in Gog. One is our venerable old friend, the space suits from Destination Moon ('50). Look for the centrifuge scene. The research assistants are dressed in them, and as an added bonus, they wear the all-acrylic fish bowl helmets used in Abbot and Costello Go to Mars ('53). Our second old friend is scene in the radar / security room, (the one with the annoying tuning fork device). Check out the monitor wall. It's been gussied up a bit, but it is the spaceship control panel wall from Catwomen of the Moon and Project Moon Base -- complete with the empty 16mm film reels on the right side. It's fun to see old friends.
B-films often include stock footage of military units, tanks, jets, battleships, etc. to fill things out. Gog is no different, and even commits the common continuity error of showing one type of plane taking off, but a different kind in the air.
What amounts to a small treat amid the usual stock footage of jets, some shots of a rather obscure bit of USAF hardware -- the F-94C Starfire with its straight wings and huge wing tanks. In 1954, the Starfire was one of America's coolest combat jets, yet we hear little about it. The swept-wing F-86 Sabers (which we see taxiing and taking off) were the agile fighter which gained fame over Korea. They're common stock footage stars. The F-94, with its onboard radar (in the nose cone) was deemed too advanced to risk falling into enemy hands. So, it didn't see much action , and therefore little fame. The heavier, yet powerful F-94C (one of the first US jets to have an afterburner) was 1954 America's hottest Interceptor -- designed to stop high flying Soviet bombers. It's blatant cameo appearance in Gog, intercepting the high-flying mystery plane, was a fun little bit of patriotic showing off.
The very name of the movie, Gog, is charged with meaning to American audiences of the mid 50s, though virtually lost on viewers of the 21st century. The names of the two robots, Gog and Magog, come from the Bible. More specifically, from the prophecies of Ezekiel (Chapter 38) and the Book of Revelation (chapter 20). While just who they are (nations? kings?) has been debated for centuries, their role as tools of Satan in the battle of Armageddon is clear. Mainstream American patriotic Christendom had settled on the idea that the Soviet Union was the prophesied "nations from the north" who would join Satan to oppose God. This gives the title of the movie a special Cold War significance. It also puts an interesting spin on the Dr. Zeitman character for having named the two robots in the first place. Since they were tools of the mega-computer NOVAC, what was he saying about NOVAC?
It is interesting that the base's radar could not detect the mystery plane (which was beaming in the 'kill' instructions to NOVAC) because it was made of "fiberglass" which rendered it invisible to radar. Now, fiberglass itself isn't sturdy enough for high-speed jets, and it would take until the 1990s before composite materials advanced to make the dream of a stealth aircraft a reality. Nonetheless, the dream (or nightmare) of stealth aircraft was on-screen in 1954 in Gog.
The super computer, NOVAC, controlled everything on the base. Even though the machines were not really killing scientists on their own, but following human orders from the mystery plane, there was the on-screen depiction of machines having a murderous mind of their own. (all pre-Steven King) In the techno starry-eyed 50s, it was fairly uncommon for the technology itself to be turning on its masters. This idea would gain traction later in the 50s, and especially in the 60s, but in '54, it was unusual.
A cautionary subtext to Gog is the danger of trusting in a supercomputer to manage defenses and a whole base. NOVAC doesn't go bad on its own, as the computer will in The Invisible Boy, Hal in 2001 or Colossus in The Forbin Project. In this movie, it was the nefarious "others" who hacked into NOVAC to make it do the killing, but this just demonstrates the danger. People were getting a little nervous about letting machines take over too much responsibility. We were starting to distrust our creations.
Until Gog, robots were fairly humanoid.
They had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Audiences had seen the mechanical Maria in Metropolis ('27), the fedora-wearing metal men in Gene Autrey's Phantom Empire serial ('35). The water-heater-like Republic robot appeared in several rocketman serials. There was the gleaming giant Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) and the cute left over fedora-dudes in Captain Video ('51). The metal giant in Devil Girl from Mars ('54) was also humaniod, in a chunky way. Gog and Magog were a departure from the stereotype. They were noticeably in-human, which was part of the mood.
Bottom line? Gog seems a bit bland, as far as sci-fi tends to go, but it has a lot in it for fans of 50s sci-fi.
Ralph* is a 28-year-old student and police officer in the Gok area of the Greater Lakes region.
But there is something wrong in this seemingly promising picture of a gainfully employed young man making progress in life. About a week ago, Ralph began to serve a six-month-long prison sentence in Cueibet. The young bachelor was caught committing adultery.
As another two men were involved in this unlawful sexual encounter, the customary fine for adultery, seven cows (paid to the woman’s husband), was divided among the culprits, with Ralph requested to provide three of the bovines due.
“I could only afford two cows, so now I’ll be here in prison for the next six months,” Ralph says, adding that finding a wife of his own would probably have been a better idea.
The latter admission elicits howls of laughter amongst a group of fellow inmates and a couple of prison wardens surrounding us.
Considering the dire conditions of those forced to spend time at the Cueibet Prison, the predominantly male prisoners are jovial and in good spirits. Ralph, who has been a police officer for four years, is hopeful of a successful return to his work, and to his community.
“I’ll use myself as a warning example. What happened to me, as a police officer, will show people that nobody is above the law.”
The prison in Cueibet, recently renovated by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan as part of its Quick Impact Project programme, holds more than 200 male and juvenile inmates and nine women.
Some 120 of them are crammed into two cells in a building measuring approximately 120 square metres in total. The no-frills structure (bare walls and a roof) was intended for 30-50 inmates, which goes to show that, with its current population, swinging a cat about is hardly an option. Another 100 or so prisoners inhabit a similar abode, with the nine women enjoying a comparatively spacious hut.
Yet, conditions used to be worse. The UNMISS-funded renovation included fitting windows (with bars) onto the cell walls.
“At least now we can breathe and not worry about suffocating or picking up respiratory diseases from each other,” one relieved inmate says.
Serving one meal a day, a late 3 pm lunch, offering no leisure or educational activities and with fourteen hours a day (from eight in the morning till six in the evening) spent inside, a night at Cueibet prison is still not likely to feature on anyone’s bucket list anytime soon.
The precarious facilities may offer an insight as to why a number of inmates have wanted, and successfully attempted, to make a dash for freedom. They have managed to escape despite the inclusion of a two-metre-tall fence, topped with a bit of barbed wire, in the Quick Impact Project renovation, and despite the eleven armed and watchful prison wardens lurking on the outside of the perimeter.
“This prison needs a higher fence, actually a high, proper wall,” Ralph says, with his peers behind bars voicing their agreement.
Prison Director Ambrose Marpel pinpoints the problem:
“The people of this area are Nilotic. They are very tall and can jump very high,” he says, adding that two prisoners escaped just a couple of days before our visit.
Overly congested cells, not enough food, insalubrious sanitary conditions, a lack of sports or other available outdoor activities and the absence of possibilities to use their time in prison to learn a new vocation are all items featuring on the inmates’ long list of grievances.
“Prisoners need to pick up new skills, like carpentry or something similarly useful, to prepare themselves for their return to civilian life. The rehabilitation part of being imprisoned is very important,” Ralph stresses.
Other, primarily younger, inmates miss being able to study, and want to go back to school.
Chol*, an 18-year-old boy, is one of them.
“I have to go back to school, because I want to become a politician and work in the local government in my area,” he says.
There is a hitch, however: Chol has been sentenced to capital punishment for murder.
A group of other prisoners approach us with a different kind of problem. Displaying a variety of skin rashes and vigorously scratching their genitalia, they are unhappy with the hygienic standards of their seemingly infection-infested ablution units.
“We want them to bring doctors to circumcise us. This will help us keep diseases away, as we share the same urinals,” one inmate believes.
According to Isaac Mayom Malek, minister of local government, better times lie ahead for those in captivity, with both sports activities and vocational trainings being considered.
“Insecurity was our biggest problem in the area. Now that we have peace, many government programmes will be implemented, including activities for the prisoners who are here,” he says, admitting that he does not, as of yet, have a time frame for this to happen.
“We have talked to doctors and they are organizing to come here to circumcise everyone who wants it done,” adds Mr. Marpel, commenting that two inmates underwent the procedure during the last medical visit to the prison.
The incarceration facilities in Cueibet hold a number of people on remand, charged with but not convicted of murder and other serious offences. Some of them have been here for more than two years without appearing before a judge, and they share a sentiment of “justice delayed is justice denied”.
The root cause of these extended detentions is that, till August this year, Cueibet did not have the kind of high court needed to try these cases.
Photo: UNMISS / Tonny Muwangala
Seemingly laid up Belgian 306. A high spec prefacelift from the look of it and in a well-used condition. Plates were of note: old style BWE-486 on the front, new style 01-BWE-486 on the back.
A local oddity.
Some City churches seem to be open, if not all the time, then frequently. But others rarely seem to open their doors to visitors. Then there are those who seemingly don't want anyone to see inside their wonderful buildings. Which is more than a shame, really. These houses of God should be for everyone, not just the custodians.
Saying that, I must take another opportunity to thank The Friends of the City churches, and the time given by their volunteers who give up their time to ensure that these are open at least one day a week.
So, in the past two years, I think I have visited all of the churches that they are keyholders for, and so without this fine organisation, I would not have seen inside many of them.
St Benet's is open between 11:00 and 15:00 on Thursdays, and despite wondering whether it would be open as advertised, the greeters assured me it is open each and every Thursday.
St Benet's is unique in that I think I am right in saying that it is the only City Wren church that survived the Blitz undamaged. In which case, Wren would reconise this church, over all others he helped rebuild after the great fire in 1666.
It is now situated tucked in the corner of an off ramp of Queen Victoria Street, and the pedestrian has to walk through an unwelcoming subway to get to the door, which on this occasion was open.
I was greeted warmly, and given a tour of the history of the church, plus tips on visiting other churches. A wonderful visit and a fine church.
----------------------------------------------------
The Church of St Benet Paul's Wharf is a Welsh Anglican church in the City of London. Since 1556, it has also been the official church of the College of Arms in which many officers of arms have been buried. In 1666 it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, after which it was rebuilt and merged with nearby St Peter's. The current church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren.[1] It is one of only four churches in the City of London to escape damage during World War II.
St. Benet's traces its history back to the year 1111, when a church was built on the site and dedicated to St Benedict. Over time the name was abbreviated to St. Benet. To the west of the site was the watergate of Baynard's Castle, which is referenced in the biographies of Queen Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. Both the church and the castle were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It was rebuilt by the architect Christopher Wren, and reopened in 1683.
St Benet Paul's Wharf, London, taken from the top of nearby St Paul's Cathedral. Visible behind the church is the City of London School.
On 2 March 1706, Henrietta Hobart married Charles Howard, 9th Earl of Suffolk, a captain in the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons there. (Henrietta Howard subsequently became mistress to the future King George II.)[2]
The church was narrowly saved from destruction in the late 19th century, when its parish was merged with that of St Nicholas Cole Abbey. After an energetic campaign by its supporters, it was preserved and reconsecrated in 1879 as the London Church of the Church in Wales.[3] It is now the City's Welsh church, with services conducted in Welsh.[4]
In 2008 the church was closed for a few months due to a "dwindling congregation"[5] but reopened in time for the carol service in December that year. Welsh services are held weekly on Sundays at 11 a.m and 3.30 p.m and the church can be toured on Thursdays between 11 a.m and 3 p.m.
The church is of dark red brick, with alternate courses of Portland stone at the corners. The tower is situated to the north-west of the nave and is capped by a small lead dome, lantern and simple short spire.
The interior is almost a square. Unusually for a Wren church, the ceiling is flat rather than domed or curved. The north gallery was formerly used by the Doctors' Commons, and is now used by the College of Arms. Most of the original 17th century furnishings are still intact, including the magnificent altar table, reredos and pulpit, designed by Grinling Gibbons. The lectern and baptismal font are also original.[7]
The galleries are supported by Corinthian columns. There is a memorial to Inigo Jones, who was buried in the previous church, and a medallion bust of Sir Robert Wyseman, a benefactor of St Benet's who died in 1684.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Benet%27s,_Paul%27s_Wharf
A church has been on this site since 1111. Destroyed in the Great Fire, the present church was built by Wren and Hooke (possibly owing more to the latter) between 1677 and 1683. It was one of only four Wren churches to escape damage in the Second Word War but was vandalised in 1971: repaired and reopened in 1973. It has a long-standing connection with the College of Arms across the road. Also since 1879 the church has accommodated the Welsh Episcopalian congregation in London. It is therefore sometimes known as “the Welsh church”, though that is a misnomer. Paul’s Wharf was the wharf on the Thames from which stone and other building materials were conveyed for the Wren reconstruction of St Paul’s cathedral.
www.london-city-churches.org.uk/Churches/StBenetPaulsWhar...
There has been a church on this site, dedicated to St Benet (or Benedict), since the Twelfth Century.
Shakespeare refers to it in Twelfth Night: Feste, the Clown asking Duke Orsino to add a third to the two coins he is offering reminds him: “...the bells of St Bennet, sir, may put you in mind -– one, two, three.”
In the Sixteenth Century, because the watergate of Baynard’s Castle was close by, both Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey may have received the last rites at St Benet on their way to execution at the Tower. The River Thames was, of course, an important thoroughfare at the time and the unlucky women could have completed their journey by boat.
St Benet is the only unaltered Wren church in the City. All but four were damaged in the Second World War and the other three either suffered the effects of an IRA bomb or have been restored.
The royal connection continued with Charles II having a special door at the side of the building and a private room from which he could take part in services. The Stuart arms can be seen above the west door marking the vantage point from which the king observed proceedings below.
Until 1867 St Benet was the parish church of Doctors Commons, a legal institution which, among its other activities, could provide facilities for hasty marriages. There is a record, for instance, of some 1300 weddings taking place in one year alone in the Eighteenth Century.
In 1747, Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, married his second wife here.
In 1879 Queen Victoria removes St Benet from the list of churches to be demolished and grants the use of the church to the Welsh Anglicans for services.
The Officers of the College of Arms still have their own seats in St Benet’s and their personal banners hang from the gallery together with that of the Duke of Norfolk. At least 25 Officers are buried here.
In the 1870s the church was regarded as redundant and scheduled for demolition. Eminent Welsh Anglicans petitioned Queen Victoria to be allowed to use the building for services in Welsh. In 1879, Her Majesty granted the right to hold Welsh services here in perpetuity and this has continued ever since, with a service each Sunday morning.
In 1954, in the reorganisation of the City churches and parishes, St Benet became one of the City Guild churches as well as the Metropolitan Welsh Church.
The eminent composer Meirion Williams was the church organist in the 1960s and 1970s. As well as a Mass, Missa Cambrensis, he wrote a number of other works, including songs which are particular favourites of contemporary Welsh opera singers.
In 1971 a fire started by a vagrant damaged the north side of the church. During the repair work, necessitated mainly by smoke and heat damage, the Nineteenth Century organ was moved and rebuilt in its present (and original) position in the west gallery. When the church was reopened in May 1973, the congregation received a message from the Prince of Wales and trumpeters from the Royal Welsh Regiment blew a fanfare in celebration.
Today, the growing congregation at St Benet's remains committed to making known the good news of Jesus afresh to the current generation of the Welsh in London.
Seemingly uninhabited, but this resembles many dwellings in Alice Springs & Outback Australia. No one should have to live this way. Every successive government has a solution to the problem. Each & every time the solution is the same, throw more money at it & hope it goes away.
Of course there are numerous point of views in relation to this problem, who is the cause & who is responsible to find a resolution. I'll refrain from publishing my opinions or proportioning blame here.
But what I will say is, children, regardless or race or background should not have to live in these conditions. Mr Rudd & Mr Abott (who recently visited here), stop burying your head in the sand & fix the bloody problem
Considering the amount of MY/OUR money that was embezzeled through ATSIC & the corruption that existed within. I think it's due time that we saw a return on our investments. Start representing your constituents, stop the theatrical bickering for five minutes & work together at resolving the biggest blight on our society.
Note: the 'blight on our society' is equally shared between the appalling conditions that Indigenous Australians live in & the waste of tax payers funds that have been squandered. Only to see the situation worsen.
A seemingly random look at a CD display... but actually, this was me trying to capture the differences in price tags. Late last year, Target implemented new price cut and other tags that are slimmer, feature a different font, and stick on the display rather than having to be inserted like the older, bulkier ones. The old price tags are the ones with the half-circle jutting out; the new ones are, well, the ones that don't have the half-circle!
TUESDAY – more cookbook ad uploads!
(c) 2015 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
Ralph* is a 28-year-old student and police officer in the Gok area of the Greater Lakes region.
But there is something wrong in this seemingly promising picture of a gainfully employed young man making progress in life. About a week ago, Ralph began to serve a six-month-long prison sentence in Cueibet. The young bachelor was caught committing adultery.
As another two men were involved in this unlawful sexual encounter, the customary fine for adultery, seven cows (paid to the woman’s husband), was divided among the culprits, with Ralph requested to provide three of the bovines due.
“I could only afford two cows, so now I’ll be here in prison for the next six months,” Ralph says, adding that finding a wife of his own would probably have been a better idea.
The latter admission elicits howls of laughter amongst a group of fellow inmates and a couple of prison wardens surrounding us.
Considering the dire conditions of those forced to spend time at the Cueibet Prison, the predominantly male prisoners are jovial and in good spirits. Ralph, who has been a police officer for four years, is hopeful of a successful return to his work, and to his community.
“I’ll use myself as a warning example. What happened to me, as a police officer, will show people that nobody is above the law.”
The prison in Cueibet, recently renovated by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan as part of its Quick Impact Project programme, holds more than 200 male and juvenile inmates and nine women.
Some 120 of them are crammed into two cells in a building measuring approximately 120 square metres in total. The no-frills structure (bare walls and a roof) was intended for 30-50 inmates, which goes to show that, with its current population, swinging a cat about is hardly an option. Another 100 or so prisoners inhabit a similar abode, with the nine women enjoying a comparatively spacious hut.
Yet, conditions used to be worse. The UNMISS-funded renovation included fitting windows (with bars) onto the cell walls.
“At least now we can breathe and not worry about suffocating or picking up respiratory diseases from each other,” one relieved inmate says.
Serving one meal a day, a late 3 pm lunch, offering no leisure or educational activities and with fourteen hours a day (from eight in the morning till six in the evening) spent inside, a night at Cueibet prison is still not likely to feature on anyone’s bucket list anytime soon.
The precarious facilities may offer an insight as to why a number of inmates have wanted, and successfully attempted, to make a dash for freedom. They have managed to escape despite the inclusion of a two-metre-tall fence, topped with a bit of barbed wire, in the Quick Impact Project renovation, and despite the eleven armed and watchful prison wardens lurking on the outside of the perimeter.
“This prison needs a higher fence, actually a high, proper wall,” Ralph says, with his peers behind bars voicing their agreement.
Prison Director Ambrose Marpel pinpoints the problem:
“The people of this area are Nilotic. They are very tall and can jump very high,” he says, adding that two prisoners escaped just a couple of days before our visit.
Overly congested cells, not enough food, insalubrious sanitary conditions, a lack of sports or other available outdoor activities and the absence of possibilities to use their time in prison to learn a new vocation are all items featuring on the inmates’ long list of grievances.
“Prisoners need to pick up new skills, like carpentry or something similarly useful, to prepare themselves for their return to civilian life. The rehabilitation part of being imprisoned is very important,” Ralph stresses.
Other, primarily younger, inmates miss being able to study, and want to go back to school.
Chol*, an 18-year-old boy, is one of them.
“I have to go back to school, because I want to become a politician and work in the local government in my area,” he says.
There is a hitch, however: Chol has been sentenced to capital punishment for murder.
A group of other prisoners approach us with a different kind of problem. Displaying a variety of skin rashes and vigorously scratching their genitalia, they are unhappy with the hygienic standards of their seemingly infection-infested ablution units.
“We want them to bring doctors to circumcise us. This will help us keep diseases away, as we share the same urinals,” one inmate believes.
According to Isaac Mayom Malek, minister of local government, better times lie ahead for those in captivity, with both sports activities and vocational trainings being considered.
“Insecurity was our biggest problem in the area. Now that we have peace, many government programmes will be implemented, including activities for the prisoners who are here,” he says, admitting that he does not, as of yet, have a time frame for this to happen.
“We have talked to doctors and they are organizing to come here to circumcise everyone who wants it done,” adds Mr. Marpel, commenting that two inmates underwent the procedure during the last medical visit to the prison.
The incarceration facilities in Cueibet hold a number of people on remand, charged with but not convicted of murder and other serious offences. Some of them have been here for more than two years without appearing before a judge, and they share a sentiment of “justice delayed is justice denied”.
The root cause of these extended detentions is that, till August this year, Cueibet did not have the kind of high court needed to try these cases.
Photo: UNMISS / Tonny Muwangala
Seemingly quite a rare trim level these days, and one that has thinned out rapidly in the past few years. In all honesty though, in the areas I look around, the Sierra is still a fairly easy find, but only the late ones seem to be abundent in any way now, even the diesels are nigh on impossible to spot. This looked mega sun bleached, but is happily still on the road at the moment, an undesirable model like this though is a long way off from an appreciating value however.
Seemingly anything goes in this classy Blackpool Bed and Breakfast:-
Footballers
Contractors
Stag-Dos
Hen Parties
Single Sex Parties
Families
In seemingly fine condition, and living at a retirement home as you might expect! A first gen mid-'80s model, and not a curve to be found above the wheel arches.
Seemingly there is still a once a year bus service registered from the City Centre to Hazlehead Park.
Service 15A runs for the duration of the Highland Games only and has run since 2007 on a 30 minute frequency from 934am to 504pm.
It did run this year with B9TL 37634 but as no one seems to have produced a 2011 display it just ran with Woodend 14 and with no timetable or publicity it ran empty when I saw it. Had I clocked what it was at the time I might have made my way up to Hazlehead to get a shot of it in the old terminus. Maybe 2012...
The events that raise a welt in my experience of life are sometimes seemingly trivial. Being a parent seems impossible because it is a necessary part of life that one's child gets hurt and that the parent will be the cause and that the cause might be seemingly trivial and that the child might remember it forever. The big, nontrivial injuries are what I am sure parents try to avoid and still they happen too. Bad things happen. Rents in the fabric. Often the little things take a turn for the worse...
Eventually a terminally bad thing happens. Today one of my patients died. He was very sick and was sick from the moment I met him. The little aching in his gut, the stomach ache, took on a life of its own. It changed from an annoyance to being his only sensory input, within hours. Before he could really understand what was happening, he fell out, collapsed. He had perforated an ulcer in stomach and leaked out liters of dilute acid into his abdominal cavity. We operated on him twice in 24 hours, an entire team of physicians and nurses came to his aid, to help. His kidneys shut down and we gave him emergency dialysis; his lungs stopped exhaling and we placed him on a ventilator; his heart gave out and we gave him epinephrine in his IV; etc. We never got him even close to coming back around. The shock took him.
One definition of shock, penned in the 1800's by Samuel Gross, is "the rude unhinging of the machinery of life". I read that when I was a third year medical student and I have thought of it often. It is the best definition of shock I know. All the processes come unglued, the wheels are off. If we catch shock early it is often reversible, but there comes a point at which the rent is too deep, the unhinging. At that point, nothing works.
Standing at the bedside of a patient in this place is lonely business even though I have never stood alone at this kind of bedside. There are always many people around. We are all working, but I know that we are also all feeling the pull of the drain as the patient circles. We know what is coming and we remain silent in the knowing, we keep doing. In those moments, just being is too hard. We cling to our own lives while we helplessly watch another's simply end. For the first decade or two of a career in medicine, this also happens unconsciously.
As I have gained experience as a surgeon and as a person, I see my role differently in these moments. As soon as I have that tug of the rope's end in my own gut, I stop. I find the family and I tell them everything. Earlier we have talked and they already know that things are grim and I have told them about the possibilities, options etc. That is one conversation. The conversation I am talking about now has far fewer words. This conversation involves walking with them to the edge of a cliff and holding their belt while they lean over. The family is cursed with the same blood as the dying person. The vibration of the unhinging is rattling in them palpably. I can feel it. My job is to be. there. with them. I must have enough of me to be at their side, not talk them out of it and stop giving them hope of a different reality. If I don't let them honestly have the feeling of that moment, they don't get the understanding they need to let the person go in peace. If I help them look over the cliff, they find a way to say goodbye and even more miraculously, they usually find a way to not jump.
Seemingly conscious of self-awareness, this tattered pearl crescent butterfly has mastered the art of camouflage. Boylston, MA.
a sage (seemingly) clearing the water to take a dip in the holy river Godavari in Parnasala near Bhadrachalam, an important pilgrimage center in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is located in the very picturesque Dandakaranya forest.
I am a little unhappy about the composition, but I nevertheless posted it for my own sake. Comments/brickbats most welcome!
Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.
Although he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish Border country descent, and this claim may have been supported by the fact that his coat of arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of Annandale. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother remarried two years later, to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in St. Martin's Lane, and was later sent to Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. Jonson remained friendly with Camden, whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the latter's death in 1623. On leaving, Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge; Jonson himself said that he did not go to university, but was put to a trade immediately: a legend recorded by Fuller indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. He soon had enough of the trade, probably bricklaying, and spent some time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere. In conversations with the poet William Drummond, subsequently published as the Hawthornden Manuscripts, Jonson reports that while in the Netherlands he killed an opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons.[1]
Ben Jonson married, some time before 1594, a woman he described to Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest." His wife has not been definitively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who married a Benjamin Jonson at St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge. The registers of St. Martin's Church state that his eldest daughter Mary died in November, 1593, when she was only six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (Jonson's epitaph to him On My First Sonne was written shortly after), and a second Benjamin died in 1635. For five years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separately from his wife, enjoying instead the hospitality of Lord Aubigny.
By the summer of 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose. John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer.
By this time, Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Lord Admiral's Men; in 1598, he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play.
In 1597, a play co-written with Thomas Nashe entitled The Isle of Dogs was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were subsequently issued by Elizabeth's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and famously charged with "Leude and mutynous behavior", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing another man, an actor Gabriel Spenser, in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields,[1] (today part of Hoxton). Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was subsequently released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse in Latin, forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.[2]
In 1598, Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humour plays that had been begun by George Chapman with An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among the first cast. This play was followed the next year by Every Man Out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes. It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published, it proved popular and went through several editions.
Jonson's other work for the theater in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was unsurprisingly marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirized both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness, probably in Histrio-Mastix, and Thomas Dekker, against whom Jonson's animus is not known. Jonson attacked the same two poets again in 1601's Poetaster. Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report - boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays, and calling attention to himself in any available way.
This "War of the Theatres" appears to have been concluded with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho, a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment landed both authors in jail for a brief time.
At the beginning of the reign of James I of England in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the reign of the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced with the new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark.
Jonson flourished as a dramatist during the first decade or so of James's reign; by 1616, he had produced all the plays on which his reputation as a dramatist depends. These include the tragedy of Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only limited success, and the comedies Volpone, (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and Volpone appear to have been successful at once. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured. In 1603, Overbury reported that Jonson was living on Aurelian Townsend and "scorning the world."
His trouble with English authorities continued. In 1603, he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus, a politically-themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he appears to have been asked by the Privy Council to attempt to prevail on a certain priest to cooperate with the government; the priest he found was Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession(Teague, 249).
At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career as a writer of masques for James' court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are but two of the some two dozen masques Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne; the latter was praised by Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing, and spectacle. On many of these projects he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theaters for a decade. Jonson later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together.
1616 saw a pension of 100 marks (about £60) a year conferred upon him, leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate. This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. [See: Ben Jonson folios.]
In 1618, Ben Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the best-remembered hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. In the postscript added by Drummond, he is described as "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".
While in Scotland, he was made an honorary citizen of Edinburgh. On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University.
The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) and Lady Mary Wroth. This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst.
The 1620s began a lengthy and slow decline for Jonson. He was still well-known; from this time dates the prominence of the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation.
Jonson returned to writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest for the study of the culture of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience (the Ode to Myself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben," to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognize his own decline.[3]
The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Justly or not, Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine.
Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones.
Jonson is buried in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" (sic) set in the slab over his grave. It has been suggested that this could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), which would indicate a deathbed return to Catholicism, but the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".[4] Researchers suggest that the tribute came from William D’Avenant, Jonson’s successor as Poet Laureate, as the same phrase appears on his gravestone nearby.[4][clarification needed] The fact that he was buried in an upright grave could be an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his death,[5] although it has also been written that Jonson asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space.[6] The same source claims that the epitaph came from the remark of a passerby to the grave.
It took forever, seemingly, but it has made the long journey and now stands before her. As the sun sets behind the majestic Olympic Mountains, storm clouds let loose their rain over the Hood Canal. The show of such brilliant colors, such sights never before seen. Her time has come, only but for a moment.
If you'd like to see this in a higher resolution, please visit my website. Thanks for looking!
Copyright © 2012 Damon D. Edwards, All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.