You know what’s really getting me down about all of this? It’s knowing that a used to wade through much thicker sh*te and a did it all without a second thought. Now, am no saying that my teenage years were the roughest or the toughest going. I didn’t live in no ‘hood or nothing like that, but it had it’s moments, ken?

 

A mind one night I was out at ma mates flat. His Mum and Dad were away and he was having the obligatory house party that came with an empty parental home. It was a cracking night, all strobe lights, flying cats, heavy metal and a beer or two too many. We all bonded that night the way only teenagers can, the alcohol blowing away aw the cool poses and the nervy stutters. Every bugger was aw hugs and ‘a love you’s’. A will happily say that a got my fair share of ‘you know Gav, yer no such a geek after all’. Fair chuffed, so a was.

 

I got a bit giddy on all the newfound popularity and lost track of maself, time and if I’m honest, reality in general. It must have been about 5am when it was decided that the party required new fuel. By this stage I should say that the party consisted of me, my three best mates (Antny, Kenny Mooney and Platt) and a load of sleeping lads and lassies. Now, if I drank as much as I did then and stayed up that late now, Jesus, I dinnae ken what would happen but it would assuredly not have a happy ending.

 

Regardless, my younger self was a hardier, more energetic beast, which is a big part of my ongoing travails if you follow ma drift. So, me and ma pals unperturbed by the lateness of the hour stepped out of the flat in search of adventure and munchies.

 

Now, bear in mind that at this time, the bonny town of Paisley was the murder capital of Britain. If you were stupit enough to share that it was your hometown with anyone you either got a sh*te joke from them or they wid genuinely back away. What’s more, the area we wur in was one of the hotspots of this rather grizzly activity.

 

Y’see, there had been some slayings an’ that in the drug world and it had aw got a bit nasty. Now, I have no problem with scum shooting scum if that be the life they choose, but this was bad man, real bad. Dads shot down in front of their wee yins, teenagers caught up wi the wrong role models finding themselves stuck in the jail for deeds they never did and far, far too many eejits were bouncing about the streets high on whatever chemical was in vogue that week.

 

To be honest, the whole place stank. The atmosphere was tense and edgy as f*ck. What was worse was that all the kickings and the stabbings that were going around spilled into the lives of folks like me and ma pals. We were just stupid wee laddies kicking footballs around and pretending to chase girls. There was f*ck aw in our lives that had prepared us for Chelsea smiles, running street battles and territorial gang b*llocks, but that’s the nonsense that surrounded us and you quickly learnt the language.

 

Anyway, the four daft amigos stepped out of the relative sanity of the flat and onto the streets. Magic so it was, the world was still asleep and here were we as young as they f*cking come and free as we bloody well liked. That feeling never lasted long though.

 

We headed for the Garage up the road and that’s when things starting going a bit baws up. We came across three wee guys in the garage forecourt, fourteen years old at the most a reckon. A think they spotted us before we saw them because they were already armed. Empty glass bottles in hand, arms cocked back. A seriously had no clue whit was going on until Platt pushed me out of the way of a flying bottle. It smashed behind me on a wall and, to be blunt, a was too surprised to know whit the f*ck was going on. Antny and Platt were a bit more savvy than me and by the time a had some sort of orientation, they were chasing the wee lads down the street and round the corner.

 

A set off in hot and drunk pursuit, turning the corner just in time to see Platt, a big fella even then, slamming one of the wee lads into a neat garden hedge and pounding his ribs wi big f*ck off punches. F*ck me, a tell you, that was quite a sight. Ten seconds before I would have given the wee b*gger a kicking myself but with each punch he just seemed to get younger, you know. Platt was oblivious and just kept smacking away, teeth aw gritted, fist sinking in deeper and deeper. In the end we had tae pull him aff, f*ck knows when he would have stopped if we hadn’t. He was going to be hit by some stellar crap in his later life but back then, Platt was a smart, laid back lad, on the outside at the least. I guess like anyone at that age, the surface covers up a very muddled mind.

 

So, we let the wee guy go and he shot off into the warren of streets to find his mates. You’d think we might take stock and head home wouldn’t ye? But naw, we decided to try the other garage about a mile away. F*ck knows who had that idea but it was up there with their worst.

 

We were walking up one of the main roads towards the garage when part 2 of the f*cking nightmare came skiting down upon us. A motor flew past us, very much on the wrang side of the road. He clipped the kerb about 100metres from us, spun onto his roof, slid doon the road for about another 50m before hitting the other side of the road, doing an awfy neat flip and landing back on all four wheels. I reckon there was a wee minute of silence from the four of us before we ran down to check if any bugger had survived.

 

As we got to the car, the driver sprang out jolly as you like.

 

‘aw right lads’ he shouted ‘do youse wanna see ma swords’

 

There is no other answer to that question than a polite yes and sure enough, he sprung open his scraped boot and presented to our now very open eyes two pristine samurai swords strapped to his car. Now, there is a lot goin’ on in this story and a would love to explain a little more about what he looked like, what we said and how we were feeling but that would be a distraction cos things were about to turn a whole shade more shit*y.

 

As our durable companion was talking we heard the roar of a car, a very fast car. He bolted down the street leaving car, swords and the four of us wondering just what we had stepped into. The fast car was now visible and heading straight for us, and when I say straight for us a mean it literally. When it was about 15m from us the driver thumped up onto the pavement and drove his car at us. Two of us dived into bushes, two onto the rather more unforgiving road surface as the mentalist who was driving came all too few metres away from ending our thus far unfulfilled lives. He then clipped the side of the sword mans motor and span off.

 

Now, the glass bottles was a bit off putting, Platt and his crashing fists a wee bit disturbing, the car crash, well to be honest that was pretty cool but the sword display took us back down in the scary department. But f*ck me, this nutter in his stupid wee Nova just about ran us over, deliberately. He tried to f*cking kill us. Sh*t man a tell you, if we weren’t bonded afore then, we were stuck tight after that. Near death experiences with souped up family cars has that effect on you.

 

For once in our young lives we were savvy enough to know that heading home was the smart option, and head home we did. Sadly, we did not take into full cognisance the local road layout and as we reached the street where the safety of the party was, who should spin round the corner but Nova man and, as we were soon to find out, his screwdriver wielding mates. Given the lack of success with the mowing us down technique, the bastards went for the good old fashioned chase wi’ knives.

 

A was fast as f*ck then and was well ahead of the rest but Kenny, ah man, he was no athlete and they got to him. A saw the biggest of them all giving his legs a good kick, sending him face first onto the concrete with a yelp and a thud that proved to be his saving. The group seemed so surprised at the level of Kenny’s terror that they stopped, allowing him to get back to his feet and head off once again.

 

A still have no idea if they were just playing with us, but we were nae stopping to find out. We louped fences, ran through gardens and finally found home. The sleepers were still sleeping, the cat was still angry but we were stone cold sober.

 

The thing is, looking back, a wis bothered, but nae that bothered. A had kind of assumed I would get away, A had definitely assumed that this was whit happened on a night out, A assumed that it was alright to think of all of that as a bloody good story to tell. F*cking respect wee Gav. Those were the start of my party days and a had fights, a hud knifes put to my stomach, chest and face, a put in a marathons worth of running and fleeing from the neds and for a while, and of this I say with no pride, a carried ma own knife. Just for protection like.

 

Still, through aw of that and aw the sh*te that went down, what a really remember is the blazing hot summers on the pitches and the crammed dark nights down in the pub. A remember Oasis at loch Lomond and ma first T in the Park. A remember first kisses and aw the rest. A remember failing exams, scraping into university and dropping straight back out again, but most of all, I remember just being solid you know? Jist solid, as if none of the sh*te that was hurtling ma way could ever stop me for long.

 

Nowadays? Well, look at me man, whit a joke. All it takes is one outstretched leg and am down on that floor for f*cking weeks. Is it jist me, or does that go for everyone? Is there ever gonna be a time when a can stride through aw the muck and mess of this sh*tey wee life and not gie a f*ck? I guess that’s why am boring you with aw these tales and stories, you know? Just trying to find out when it changed, map out aw the mess in me head and see whit it was a left behind that made me change this way.

 

So, if ye have any thoughts, feel free to share them.

 

Si el espiral se mueve lo suficientemente lento en su tartamudear,

dicho movimiento se percibe como... circular.

(¡ª |º¡)

 

# # #

 

If the spiral moves slowly enough in its stutter,

that movement is perceived as... circular.

(¡ª |º¡)

Is anyone else totally fed up of all the porn spam that is going on right now? Endless 'Likes' on hundreds of my photos by 'young girls' - and it won't stop when you go to their Flickr page, click on About and block them. Blocking them does not work! Plenty of Flickr members are posting complaints on the help forum, but, so far, I haven't seen any response from Flickr staff.

 

Yesterday, I finally swapped one stressor for another - just crazy. I had been told to try out the replacement Nikon B700 while I was on my two-week trip. Part way through the trip, I gave up - so many of my photos were being ruined because of the shift in composition when I pressed the shutter button all the way down. These images jumped upwards, down or to either side, resulting in headless or half birds, etc.. I had taken three cameras with me - my old, trustworthy Panasonic FZ200 (which unfortunately only has 24x optical zoom); my FZ1000 (a brand new replacement that I received just days before I left the city, which, to my horror, I discovered had the same problem as the original - skipping photos while in Playback), and the Nikon B700. Much as I wanted/needed the 60x optical zoom of the B700, it was just not useable. So, yesterday, I returned it to the store and got a refund. Now I am back to using my old Canon SX60, which I was using just occasionally, and had put aside many months ago, as I find the image stabilization becomes so bad when more zoom is used.

 

The new stressor started yesterday, when I noticed a large brown stain on my dining room ceiling! A while ago, I had had two new toilets installed, and I discovered that the upstairs one has been leaking. I always turn off the water in my place when I go away, thank goodness, but now I will have to call the plumber and get him to come and take a look. My ceiling looks a mess!

 

The day before yesterday, 3 June 2018, I had hoped to drive out of the city for an annual morning walk followed by a delicious BBQ lunch. Unfortunately, I never heard back from the leader about whether any others would be going from Calgary (though I was going to drive there myself). As it turned out, I had a great afternoon within the city, with an afternoon walk in Weaselhead with friends, during which we found a Rufous and a Calliope Hummingbird. This long walk was followed by coffee and chat at Tim Horton's, which is always much enjoyed. Thanks, as always, Janet and Bernie!

 

On my drive home early evening, I made a split second decision to keep driving to Fish Creek Park. I had only been down there twice this year and saw the adult male Great Horned Owl. I had heard that the female was on the nest and later, that there was just one owlet. Yesterday was my first visit to try and find this young one, who had only just recently left the nest. Looking on the more important side, this meant one less person intruding on their area, of course, though I have to say that these owls are remarkably tolerant of humans. If a Canada Goose, on the other hand, should get anywhere near the nest or young ones, Mom or Dad flies in for an immediate attack. I think it would have taken me some time to find it, as it was so high up in a tree. Friends had already found it and were kind enough to take me to see it, which was much appreciated. They also showed me a very high Starling nest with three youngsters peering out. A tree cavity was also pointed out to me, with Mother Goose looking rather bored, incubating her eggs.

 

"With its long, earlike tufts, intimidating yellow-eyed stare, and deep hooting voice, the Great Horned Owl is the quintessential owl of storybooks. This powerful predator can take down birds and mammals even larger than itself, but it also dines on daintier fare such as tiny scorpions, mice, and frogs. It’s one of the most common owls in North America, equally at home in deserts, wetlands, forests, grasslands, backyards, cities, and almost any other semi-open habitat between the Arctic and the tropics.

 

Great Horned Owls are nocturnal. You may see them at dusk sitting on fence posts or tree limbs at the edges of open areas, or flying across roads or fields with stiff, deep beats of their rounded wings. Their call is a deep, stuttering series of four to five hoots." From AllAboutBirds.

 

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Horned_Owl/id

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horned_owl

Army Rangers log

We got a call to go assist some shock troopers with their wounded when we got to their position I realized who was wounded a younger soldier wearing Army ranger gear was lying on the ground his arm lying not to far away blood every were. Speedy I screamed as I threw down my M60 and sprinted towards him and the shock troopers, Boonie was right be hind me. HeY BoSs he stuttered and then fell unconscious..........

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

The last of this mini series

 

Marianna steped out of the great hall and looked out into the snowy courtyard, hearing footsteps behind her. "Oh, Uhm, Hi." she stuttered and tried to smile big with out any hint of dissapointment on her face. "How was uh, the dance?" she asked making sure her voice didn't sound any bit shakey. Mari wrapped her arms around herself, "I should have brought a jacket," she joked.

 

Visit this location at Mischief Managed RP in Second Life

  

Today's been pretty ace so far! For one thing it's Thursday, which for me is like Friday in terms of school, and I have a four day weekend up ahead :D

I also had to give a short presentation and instead of being the stuttering, sweaty mess I normally am, I managed to hold it together and get an A! Woohoo!!

 

On the way home we drive across Jordan Lake, and today it was absoluuuutely covered in fog, something we don't get to see very often around here. When it snowed last week it also completely froze over, and I have some photos I've yet to edit from that. That'll be a weekend project! Really though, you could walk across the lake, which is insane for central NC.

 

In general, it feels good to be up and about again with a structured schedule, working on assignments and achieving things on the regular. As awesome as it is having nothing but free time, eventually you get into a lazy slump out of which it's hard to crawl. Three cheers to productivity :P

 

Hope everyone's started the year off well so far!! xxx

Olney State Forest, The Watagans, New South Wales, Australia

 

Vulnerable

 

Contact me on jono_dashper@hotmail.com for use of this image.

"PARKER!!!!! These photos are great! Keep up the good work!" J. Jonah Jameson yells. "Uh-...The way you were yelling, I assumed you were... Angry?" Peter asks... "Oh ho ho no... Well, yes. But that's cause of Spider-Man! What a menace! I want him off the face of this planet!!! ...And also my medication, BUT THAT IS NOT YOUR CONCERN!!!!" J.J.J. explains... "Oh-..K... Bye..?" Peter stutters, before leaving the room...

~Scarecrow

TWH seems to have a glitch in his system. He has never stuttered before and I’m not sure how translate it.

"-Now the first inmate of the newly reopened Arkham Asylum, Jonathan Crane, alias The Scarecrow was apprehended by the GCPD in the early hours of the morning. His accomplice, Otis Flannegan, alias The Ratcatcher, was discovered badly injured beneath the Cobblepot Subway lines, with enough evidence to tie both himself and Crane to the string of childnappings across the city. Though the current whereabouts of these children are unknown, Commissioner Gordon promises that he'll utilise every method at his disposal to get answers from the perpetrators and return the children safely to their families."

 

"Kidnapping children, now, Leonard... Is there no low these monsters won't fall?" Walker mused to his associates. Fiasco nodded half heartedly. In another corner of the room, Paul Dekker lowered his paint brush, and raised a bony thumb in agreement. Drake scoffed. "Drubert, you have no idea. Back in my day, Supervillainy was an art form. Flashy costumes, dazzling charisma, stage presence unlike anything you'd have ever seen! These days it's all grime and filth. What was that assassin's gimmick?"

 

"Mr Lawton? I tried reaching out, but-"

 

"Guns!" Drake bellowed. "What kind of motif is there to be had with shallow gunplay? If the Injustice Society had ever-"

 

"You were in the Injustice Society, were you, Morty? Dekker interrupted, applying a fine brush stroke to his painting. "You've never said..." he murmured sarcastically.

Drake looked down at him, adjusted his hat, then stormed back upstairs.

 

"In other news, Wayne Enterprises Chairman Lucius Fox has announced that himself and Wayne Heir Bruce Wayne will be travelling to Paris this week, for their annual shareholders meeting. Wayne stock has gone up two percent since-"

 

"Wayne..." Fiasco muttered bitterly. "Bruce stinkin' Wayne."

 

Drury turned to him curiously. "Do... You want an autograph? You know, I *am* on the museum board, I could-"

 

...

 

"No, Dru," he sighed. "It's dumb, it's childish. But back in school, there was this girl I liked. Celia Smith. Big brown eyes, blonde curls, and everything. I wasn't an ugly kid, alrigh', but... Well, you try getting her attention when you share a classroom with Bruce freakin' Wayne. Didn't stop me trying, mind, but you see, I wasn't the brightest kid neither. Always rubbing out mistakes. "Ooh, look at the Eraser," they said, I wouldn't have had that problem if I just used fuckin' white-out, I guess. But the name stuck, and the next thing I knew Celia's going off to the Ice Carnival with Wayne. I knew, that if I hadn't been in detention that day, I could've asked her! Detention, all because of my stupid mistakes... Do you think, boss, that he actually saw a future with her? Because I don't. You see all those models he goes out with? You think he sees any kind of future with *them*? He just doesn't care, boss, didn't care about Celia, didn't care about me. I just wish she knew that I did, ok? I cared."

 

"Leonard-"

 

"Look, drop it. What's done is done."

 

Walker nods. "Of course. I meant no disrespect."

 

Fiasco sighs. "I know. I know, I get it," wandering off. Drury turns back to Dekker, proudly showing off his self portrait. His skin was green, and his moustache was blue, but the likeness was good enough, Drury thought to himself.

 

===Keystone City, 10:53 AM===

 

The next day, Drury Walker took a bus to Keystone City. He got a few odd looks, but he could manage that. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugged on his collar, and adjusted his tie. She was gonna love this. Four hours later, he got off the bus, and walked the rest of the way. It was liberating in it's own way. No Fiasco or Dekker, no need to pretend, no need for the accent or the fancy words. He could just be there. With her. He places his hand on the fence, smiling. An actual, white picket fence- a rarity. A sign that today, today was going to be a great day.

 

"Drury, is that you?"

 

"Hi Lou," Walker smiles, as he leads a pony into the garden. Upon seeing him, his daughter runs to him, landing in his arms at the speed of a truck.

 

"Daddy! You're back!" she grins, planting kiss upon kiss on his face, trapping him in her arms.

 

"Of course I am, kitten! Couldn't forget about you, now could I? I brought you someone-"

 

She sees it, and squeals in delight. "A pony?!"

 

"He's called Othello, and he's yours on one condition-"

 

"Ahem." Katie's foster mom stands in the doorway, a coat over her dressing gown. "Drury. A word."

 

Walker nods, and places his hand on Katie's shoulder "I'll be right back."

 

===The kitchen===

 

Alison hands Drury the pot of sugar, and he proceeds to empty five cubes into his tea. She rubs her face, keeping a close eye on her husband, Lewis, trying to saddle Katie up on the pony.

 

"A pony Drury, really?"

 

Walker stares at the table, avoiding eye contact, stirring the cup. "It's her birthday..."

 

'No, her birthday is on the sixteenth."

 

Walker- Well, a little early but-

 

Ally- Of June.

 

...

 

She takes the pot and places it back in the cupboard, sighing. "Where did you get it? Is it stolen?"

 

Walker stutters. "No, Ally, it's not like that, I- Morty gave it to me."

 

She chokes on her tea. "Morty.... Morty... Oh my god, that was *you*! You broke him out! That's why the fucking accent's back!"

 

"I just- He's practically family-," he starts.

 

Ally- I knew, I knew it! You said you were gonna change, get out of prison, and *change*!

 

Walker mumbles something as he stirs his tea with a chocolate finger. "She's my kid, I just... I just wanted to impress her."

 

"Oh, I'm sure she's very impressed! Her dad robbed six banks and burst open a prison!"

 

Walker places his tea on the table and rubs his eyes.

 

...

 

"Gar's dead."

 

====Gotham City, 16:05====

 

Fiaco looked out his apartment window. Every morning, he'd wake up and the first thing he'd see was Wayne Tower staring back at him. At night, he'd struggle to sleep, it's neon lettering mocking him, every hour of the day. It was funny, most people would kill for a view like that. He'd settle for anywhere else. There was a knocking at the door, Walker, if the rhythmic pattern was any indication. Just what he needed. After they lost Lynns, he'd gotten more reserved, less, well, camp, but he still, at the end of the day, dressed like a flamboyant insect... He always dreaded their chats.

Walker smiled, handing him a bright package, held inside a scrubby looking plastic bag.

 

"Here," he began, bags under his eyes. "After you told me about what happened between you and Miss Smith, I couldn't help but ask for Dekker's expertise. Open it."

 

"I told you to drop it, it's fine," Fiasco mumbled as he undid the string binding it together.

 

"No. No it's not. Bruce Wayne took that young lady from you. What might have been a wonderful relationship never was, and Miss Smith was used like Playboys always use beautiful women, as a plaything for the night-"

 

"We were sixte-"

 

"And you, were cast to the wayside, taunted for your mistakes. *Sigh* I've been where you were, Leonard. Mocked. Derided. I know what that can to do to a person. This suit, will begin to set things right. Please, just give it a chance."

 

Len looked down at the yellow and black suit jacket, silently staring for several minutes. "I- It's beautiful."

==Greendale Cafeteria==

 

Day 2

 

As the study group looked for a table, they spotted Chuck, Blake and Flannegan sitting together, each sat at opposite ends of the table. As Annie moved towards them, Jeff raised an arm forward to block her.

 

"Don't sit with them," he warned, as she caught Chuck's eye. He smiled, and waved over at them warmly.

 

"Well, I'm going to sit with them," Britta announced, as Annie and Shirley followed suit.

 

"Oh, come on- Don't- I specifically said don't..." Jeff mumbled, as the girls sat beside Chuck and Flannegan. Chuck waved at them cheerily, and went back to eating his sandwich.

 

As Mayo entered, he paused, and made a 180 degree turn away from the group, sitting at the far end of the hall instead.

 

"Why's he not sitting with us?" Britta asked.

 

Chuck ran his hand through his hair, struggling to think of an acceptable explanation. "Oh, that's Mayo's- he's well-" he fumbled.

 

"Simple. He's simple. Doesn't gel with us, at all," Blake nodded firmly.

 

"Arkham was tough on him," Chuck continued. "Tough on all of us, I guess, but he's the Condiment King. That doesn't exactly inspire a lot of respect. Or, um, any."

 

"Wait, he was in Arkham City?" Britta interjected.

 

Chuck's eyes widened, as he noted his mistake. "No, I- I mean-" he stuttered.

 

"Wait here," she instructed the others, as she got up and walked off towards him.

 

"Yeah, it's terrible, you know I was in Arkham City too-" Blake called after her, stirring his milkshake with his straw absent mindedly. Before he could say anything damning however, Chuck swiftly kicked him under the table.

 

"Oh, boohoo!" Flannegan yelled back loudly. "I lived in the sewers!"

 

The group glared at Flannegan.

 

"Yeah, but that's, like, a lifestyle choice," Blake replied sternly.

 

"I know," Flannegan said defensively, as he licked his plate of squeezy cheese clean. "But while we're sharing-"

 

~

 

"I protested Arkham City, you know," Britta began, patting Mayo on the shoulder. He looked up from his pasta, and smiled uneasily.

 

"Oh, well. That's good," he nodded.

 

Britta nodded. "Savages. Screw the government. We the people have the right to rule ourselves."

 

Mayo shifted uncomfortably, before standing to his feet. "Cool. Yeah, that's good. I'm just gonna get an orange juice from the cafeteria. I hope there's... pulp," he said unconvincingly, before running out the building.

 

~

 

Abed stood above Chuck, a tray laden with buttered noodles in his hand. His best friend, Troy, slid in beside Blake.

 

"I've made a decision, and I'm willing to see how this goes," Abed announced to Chuck.

 

"That's great, buddy," he smiled back.

 

"But there are some things you should know first," he declared, leaning in beside him.

 

"Hey, you're not eating?" Troy asked, glancing at Blake's empty tray.

 

"Nah, there, uh, was a monkey raking through the salad bowl," Blake said, a little unsure of himself.

 

"Oh, that's Annie's Boobs," Troy said proudly, a smile on his face. "I named him after-"

 

He gestured over to Annie. Blake waved at her and proceeded to eye her up and down. As she adjusted her blouse, he turned back to Troy and nodded in approval. "You'll go far kid."

 

"Thanks," he replied, blushing slightly.

 

"Hey! What the hell is this?" a voice yelled out indignantly.

 

Blake spun around. Looking at them, was an older man in his late sixties- Pierce, the last member of the study group. "Oh, hi, I was just teaching Troy how to... Fish," Blake began.

 

"Come on, you think I don't know a Booty Band when I see one?" Pierce said suspiciously.

 

Blake paused. "We prefer the term Pussy Patrol."

 

"No, we do not," Troy muttered behind him.

 

"Gah!" Pierce exclaimed. "You lot never invite me to anything! What, you think that just because I'm a little older-"

 

"- A lot older-" Blake noted.

 

"-I can't pick up chicks? I'm twice the ladies man you two geeks are. I banged Eartha Kitt."

 

Blake raised an eyebrow. "When?"

 

...

 

"I dunno, when she was hot, I guess. So can I join in?"

 

Blake looked at Pierce, then placed his hand on Troy's shoulder. "Troy. Sidebar."

His voice lowered. "What's his game like?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.

 

Troy shrugged. "He's rich?"

 

Blake shook his head. "Not gonna work for me, I like to hunt."

 

"Awesome. And a little gross."

 

"The answer is no, old man," Blake snarled, turning back to Pierce. "And, for your information, Eartha Kitt was always hot."

 

"Screw you guys, I'll make my own Pussy Patrol," he scowled back.

 

"Ew," Blake winced, yelling after him. "You make it sound gross! It doesn't work without the double entendre!"

 

"I'd watch yourself around Pierce, Blake," Abed interjected, soda in hand. "He's a serial rapist."

 

"Please," Blake said, puffing his chest out. "I was possessed by one."

 

Troy and Abed looked over at him. "In Dungeons and Dragons?"

 

Blake paused, as he mulled it over. "Yes."

 

"There's something off about those guys," Jeff shook his head, as he observed the Misfits.

 

"Hm?" Annie asked distractedly.

 

"I'm just saying. Don't you think there's something off about them?" Jeff asked.

 

"Oh. Maybe," she said, in an effort to protect Jeff's feelings.

 

==Study Room F==

 

Day 3

 

"What the Dekk..."

 

Blake looked up from the table. Dressed in a multicoloured, patchwork robe, and looking very much like Crazy Quilt, was the Dean.

 

As Jeff waited expectantly for the Dean to clutch his shoulder, he instead strutted past him, and grabbed Chuck's instead.

 

"Ladies, Gentlemen, Britta, in partnership with Lloyd Webber Andrews, Greendale is offering up tickets to see Joseph and his Technicolour Dean-Coat, live-! At the Greendale sound stage," he announced, trailing off.

 

"Dean, do you mean Andrew Lloyd Webber?" Shirley asked in a sing-song, yet condescending tone.

 

"No, I do not. It's Greendale, Shirley, get some perspective," the Dean said, as he walked off.

 

"Does he, uh, do this often?" Chuck whispered, gesturing to the colourful costume.

 

Collectively, the group bit their lips, and nodded forlornly.

 

===The Trailer===

 

Day 4

 

"So? What about Kuttler?" Drury inquired.

 

"Weeeell, it's complicated," Chuck admitted. "We talked to him after class, but he wanted nothing to do with us. Partly because of that business in Nanda Parbat, partly because we're kinda parked in his space. Since then, he's taken to locking his door between lectures, so we can't even reach him now."

 

"Ah, you'll get through to him, I know it," Drury said assuredly. "Are the dorms serving you alright, at least?" he asked.

 

"Oh, we don't get much sleep," Chuck chuckled slyly.

 

"Don't tell me you're having sex?" Drury asked apprehensively.

 

"Oho, far from it!" Mayo declared, nudging Chuck proudly. "We made a blanket fort!"

 

"Are you five?" Gar tutted, lowering his laptop. "You said you were hanging out with a couple of students?" he continued. "You think they're clean?"

 

"I don't think they're Carsons in disguise, if that's what you're asking," Chuck said.

 

"Look, I say stick with them," Drury nodded. "Might be good to have someone who knows the lay of the land. Someone to help point out the tropes, clichés, etcetera... While you're at it, be sure to find out their stances on crass humour, farcical violence, GLOW too. That one's particular important to me, as you well know."

 

"Yes, don't we all..." Reardon muttered.

 

"What was that?" Drury spun around.

 

"No, yeah," he nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

 

Chuck shifted around in his seat uneasily. "Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea, Drury. I- Well, we had a slip-up on Tuesday that nearly blew our cover. I don't think it's all that smart to-"

 

"My-oh-my, what a cute couple!" a familiar voice bellowed outside.

 

Concerned, The Misfits peered out the window. Flannegan had cornered a pair of students, his eyes red and bloodshot. "Walk in front of me again, and I'll ram your cute faces into a fuse box. I've done it to twelve pensioners, I'm not stopping because you're young," Flannegan called out, as he climbed into the trailer. "Fuck!"

 

"Having fun, Otis?" Rigger asked, smiling slightly.

 

"You, can shut up and all. First things first, Pandemic Awareness class isn't about preventing pandemics, it's about causing them."

 

"You knew what you were getting into," Chuck said, turning to Drury. "Did you know that Hellfern's the teacher?"

 

Otis continued, scowling. "Badass Class ain't about badasses either, it's some perverted seminar on flat butts."

 

"Oh, no," Rigger said, shaking his head. "I actually read about that one. It's spelled "Bad Ass class," with a space in-between. Totally on you."

 

"'Course that's the one you look up," Lynns tutted.

 

"And worst!" Flannegan finished, slamming his bag onto the table, "The Dean's a bald Dekker. Fucker won't let go of my abs."

 

"Otis, that was me," Chuck corrected him.

 

"What abs?" Blake chuckled, standing in the doorway.

 

"And where are my pens?!" Otis snapped at him, as he searched through his bag feverishly.

 

"What, you mean the pens you stole from Kuttler?" Blake asked, bemused.

 

"The pens I liberated from Kuttler. Five second rule, asshole. Where are they? God, I bet those fuckers took 'em," he exclaimed, as he bolted out the door.

 

"Oh, no." Chuck groaned. "Otis! Otis, it's not worth it man."

 

The Misfits all turned to face Chuck, their faces eyeing him up suspiciously.

 

"What?" Chuck sighed, as he pulled the pen out of his back pocket. For a moment, he just stared at it, horrified.

 

"You stole Flannegan's pens?" Gar asked, sounding ever so slightly impressed.

 

"Well, I didn't think he'd miss one," he called out, as he slid the pen into Drury's hanging jacket, and rushed after Flannegan, Blake joining him.

 

As Drury eyes followed the pair out of the room he groaned. "Ah, crap."

 

"What?" Gar asked.

 

"We just became the B-Plot."

 

==Study Room F==

 

"Hey, dickheads!" Flannegan bellowed, kicking the door aside.

 

"Or hello, as people used to say," Jeff retorted sarcastically, texting on his phone disinterestedly.

 

"Shut it, Hammerhead!"

 

Flannegan flung the papers off the desk, enraged. Annie immediately began reorganising them. Next, he leapt onto the table, to the study group's horror. "Where's my pen? Where's my pen? Where's my fucking pen?"

 

Abed looked up at him, inspired. "Oh. We're swearing now? I really hope they censor that in the edit."

 

"Otis, calm down... The monkey probably took it," Jeff sighed, not looking up from his phone.

 

"He has a name you know," Troy mumbled.

 

"We all know," the group answered back, exasperated.

 

Pierce looked over at Jeff, and frowned. "Hey, I want to find the pen as much as anyone, but let's not bring race into it."

 

The group turned to him next, disgusted. "... We didn't."

 

As Flannegan went for his knife, the door flung open.

 

"Oh, Otis, there you are!" Chuck coughed, out of breath. "Let's all just take a breather, don't stab anyone and- Blake," he instructed.

 

He snapped his fingers, and Blake jumped on the table, wrapped his arms around Flannegan's waist, and lifted him up off the ground.

 

"He's fine most days, I swear," Chuck swallowed.

 

"I'll kill all of you!" Flannegan twitched maniacally.

 

"Oh, you..." Blake chuckled, as he pulled him off of the table with a surprising amount of ease.

 

"Hah! Bad case of the Mondays, that's all" Chuck laughed nervously, as he and Blake dragged Otis from the room, still screaming.

 

"It's Thursday," Shirley stated.

 

Chuck pondered this. "It's a really bad case."

 

Pieter Bruegel der Ältere -

Zwei angekettete Affen [1562] -

Berlin, Gemälde-Galerie - wm

**********************************************************************************

  

Wislawa Szymborska

Two Monkeys by Brueghel

(trans. from the Polish by Magnus Kryski)

 

I keep dreaming of my graduation exam:

in a window sit two chained monkeys,

beyond the window floats the sky,

and the sea splashes.

 

I am taking an exam on the history of mankind:

I stammer and flounder.

 

One monkey, eyes fixed upon me, listens ironically,

the other seems to be dozing--

and when silence follows a question,

he prompts me

with a soft jingling of the chain.

 

english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/szymborska....

**********************************************************************************

 

By Marleen Stoessel - Updated 30.06.2023-17:30

From Breughel to Kafka: an early poem by the Polish Nobel laureate who was born a hundred years ago.

The painting to which this poem refers hangs in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. Two monkeys crouched chained in a kind of embrasure, with a view of the water and sailing ships deep below them; birds crossing the vast sky bounded only by the round arch of the window, the suggestion of a city far off in the right-hand background of the picture. But none of the monkeys is looking out. The one in front crouches with its back to the lookout, staring impassively in the direction of the viewer. The second one crouches to the side, as if dozing. A picture from 1562 that has been interpreted in numerous ways and, almost 400 years later, becomes the dream image of a young Polish poetess who, at that time, in the thaw period a few years after Stalin's death, frees herself from the ideological clutches, i.e. chains, of socialist realism. An image that, like any true work of art, music or literature, reveals new layers, aspects and perspectives in every era, recreating itself with every viewer, listener or reader, with everyone who responds to it in their own time, in their own individual reading.

 

1957, when this poem was written, was the year in which the poetry of Wisława Szymborska, who was thirty-four years old at the time, underwent a decisive turn and transformation, a turn towards the simplicity, light-footedness and laconicism that are her trademarks - an attitude gained from paradoxical experience of the world, with which she observes the objects of the small everyday world and the big world and seasons them with subtle, often cheerful irony. Small things become big, but the big ones shrink as if casually to their proper size - all of them overshadowed by an indulgently humorous smile with which the poet seems to wink at herself again and again.

The quiet clanking of chains

It is impossible to exhaust the manifold connotations, associations and references that open up in this poem: the paradoxical reversal of the situation that the dream image, overwriting its model as it were, undertakes, in which man is tested by the ape for his "maturity", in human history of all things. Is evolution testing itself backwards here, so to speak? Is man maturing into an ape as his more human counterpart? And yet fails at the same time "stuttering" and "faltering", deeply ashamed?

 

"Ich schäme mich sehr, ich - Menschenaffe" ("I am very ashamed, I - ape") is the title of another poem from that time, expressing the shame of the spectator in the face of the bullied and whipped circus animals (the title of the 1952 poem). The shame here appears more planar, in simple reflection, while the later dream image shows the chains in multiple reflections, onsets and offsets. They are the examination material before which the examinee fails. And all the required correct answer is contained in the "quiet clanking of the chains", in an answer that also has to be recited. It doesn't get more mocking than this, and more devastating for the dreaming human ego can't be the ape-like contempt. "Failed" would be the verdict of this maturity test, to which a notation from Walter Benjamin's passages seems to correspond: "In every century, humanity must be detained", according to the sober insight of the historical-philosophical thinker, equally illusionless, ironic and bitter.

 

All the art of paradox, which Szymborska, who died in 2012, developed in her later work with inimitable fine irony, as generously indulgent as she was laconically sober and always with a light hand, is contained in this early poem. Indulgent, however, towards herself, insofar as one wants to relate the aforementioned shame to her earlier ideological aberrations. It is expressed only indirectly, in stuttering and faltering, and its tragedy is reminiscent of and touches on the shame that the ape in Kafka's "Report for an Academy" inflicts on us when, with the awakening consciousness of himself to which, of all things, imprisonment has freed him, he becomes aware of the ape-like nature of his "half-dressed" companion: "she has," we are told towards the end of the text, "the madness of the confused trained animal in her gaze; only I recognise this, and I cannot bear it. "

 

It is the abyss of shame that opens up in all these paradoxical references - and becoming aware of it is at the same time the only chance of our being human and being human.All of this, shame and opportunity, resonates in the "quiet clanking of the chains" from which the poetic I also frees itself.For as if the poet, who received the Nobel Prize in 1996, had made a virtue out of the faltering need for examination, she will elevate the sober statement "I don't know" to her poetological motto and source of inspiration in her Stockholm speech.Three words, "small, but with strong wings", she says. Chains to wings, then, as only art or a poem can do. Tomorrow, Sunday, (2nd of July 2023) Wisława Szymborska will be one hundred years old.

 

**********************************************************************************

 

Source:

ww.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/frankfurter-anthologie/frankfurter-anthologie-wis-awa-szymborska-die-zwei-affen-von-breughel-19002140.html

 

sound of the day from soundgarden:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSkyEyBczU

 

BLACK HOLE SUN

 

In my eyes

Indisposed

In disguise

As no one knows

Hides the face

Lies the snake

The sun

In my disgrace

Boiling heat

Summer stench

'Neath the black

The sky looks dead

Call my name

Through the cream

And I'll hear you

Scream again

 

Black hole sun

Won't you come

And wash away the rain

Black hole sun

Won't you come

Won't you come

 

Stuttering

Cold and damp

Steal the warm wind

Tired friend

Times are gone

For honest men

And sometimes

Far too long

For snakes

In my shoes

A walking sleep

And my youth

I pray to keep

Heaven send

Hell away

No one sings

Like you

Anymore

 

Hang my head

Drown my fear

Till you all just

Disappear

 

Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido)

 

This beautiful bird in on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List, which lists bird species that are at risk of becoming threatened or endangered without conservation action.

 

A grouse of open grassland, the Greater Prairie-Chicken is known for its mating dance. Males display together in a communal lek, where they raise ear-like feathers above their heads, inflate orange sacs on the sides of their throats, and stutter-step around while making a deep hooting moan.

 

Photographed in New England National Park

 

The wall did not ask to be read.

It asked to be bled into.

 

Every line is a scar rehearsing its own disappearance,

every curve a stutter in the syntax of obedience.

This is not writing; this is pressure escaping flesh disguised as concrete.

 

The city exhales through vandalized throats,

through sprayed vowels and amputated consonants.

Meaning collapses here,

not from chaos,

but from excess of control.

 

These signs were never meant to say.

They were meant to interrupt.

 

A broken alphabet chewing on surveillance,

a dialect born where cameras blink too slowly.

The wall remembers what the archive deletes:

the tremor before submission,

the itch before silence becomes law.

 

Night rewrites the grammar.

Light fractures into permission and threat.

Smoke becomes a temporary god,

curling around the wound to keep it open.

 

This corridor is a throat.

This graffiti, a cough that refuses diagnosis.

Here, language is no longer a tool; it is a symptom.

 

And somewhere beneath the paint,

beneath the gesture,

beneath the fear of being seen,

 

the city confesses:

it was never mute; it was strangled.

"Oh, hey L-ana. What's up? I thought you wanted space?" I ask, slightly stuttering my words throughout. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Teresa's friends helping her up, making their way towards the bathroom. I open the nearby sliding door, and take a few steps out onto the balcony, with Lana following behind me. She suddenly stops, which causes me to almost slip when I turn around. Luckily, I'm able to catch myself before anything embarrassing happens.

 

"I thought that was what I needed Peter. Time to figure everything out. You left without so much as a goodbye.. I know you were probably off saving the world or something. But it just really hurt! I was alone, once again. Cheyenne left town, and Harry, well, did his best to move on. With everything that I've gone through with my shitty excuse of a mother, I didn't want to be left by myself again. And yet, I was alone. Alone to face the fact that my mother's now out there out of prison, raising hell, with no one to talk to about it. I mean sure, there's school councilors.. But they just don't get it, in the same way that you do. You see the best in people, even when they don't necessarily deserve it. I sure as hell didn't.. For everything I've done in my past as Bombshell. But you saw past it. You're the reason I was able to make it through that first day at Midtown, and the many days after it. I've come to realize that it hurts more not having you in my life. Talking about the silliest of things, like Sparkles, and other bizarre people you encounter. I miss it all."

 

"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like it if you called him that to his face." I say, trying to lighten the mood, before continuing on with my train of thought. "I'm sorry Lana. I honestly am. If I could've said goodbye before leaving for two months, I would've. One minute I was on the subway, and the next I was somewhere else. Which is where I learned about the Spider-Verse. Thousands of different earths, all with their own Spider person. It all probably sounds like gibberish to you, and that's p-" I'm interrupted by her moving closer, kissing me seconds later. I can feel myself getting flustered, with my face going beat red. This is definitely not how I saw tonight going. Moments later, she pulls away from me, with the biggest grin on her face. I can't help myself, but look like a lost deer in headlights. Why'd she kiss me? I thought she only saw me as a friend... This is one time I'm glad I'm wrong.

 

"Was it really that bad?" She asks, her voice trailing off, as she looks down.

 

"What?! No, sorry. It just caught me off guard, that's all. Besides, if anyone were to screw things up, it would be me." I reply, trying to reassure her.

 

"Cause of that classic Parker luck, right? Well don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here with you till the end of the line. But please don't leave again, okay?" She asks.

 

"Glad to hear it! And I can't guarantee that'll never happen again, just due to the world we live in, but I'll do my best, okay?"

 

"Hmm okay.. Oh, and Peter?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Will you go out on a date with me?" That's a complete 180 from just a few hours before at school. That's quite the turnaround. Here I am though, giddy as a schoolgirl on the inside. She feels the same way.

 

"Uhh, yeah! If we're being honest here, I've uhm kind of had feelings for you for a while now. But I uh didn't think you felt the same though, so there wasn't a point in uhm bringing it up." And there's the stuttering once again. Great job Peter! Talking to her has never been this hard before.

 

"Awwh, you're stuttering. It's okay Peter.. Wanna go out on patrol or something? This party is kind of a buzzkill." She says, rolling her eyes at the thought of being here for another minute.

 

"Didn't seem that way when you were playing Mortal Kombat, but okay.. Could we get a rain check on that team up? It's just that I should probably make sure my sister gets home safe. Has had one drink too many. "

 

"Right, of course. Family comes first. I get it. Well, I'm heading out, so I guess I'll see ya tomorrow!" She answers, still smiling. Though, I can tell she's slightly disappointed. And no, it wasn't a spider-sense feeling. With that, she leaves. I head back inside, looking for Harry, but he's nowhere in sight. So I decide to call it early. I find my sister with her friends coming out of the bathroom.

 

"Hey, sorry to ruin what's clearly been a good time for all of you, but I think we should probably head out. Looks like she won't make it much longer anyway." They nod, as I help Teresa up. I have her leaning against my shoulder as we walk out of the mansion. I call a taxi, and about 10 minutes later, it arrives. Opening the door, I place Teresa in the back seat, making sure the seatbelt is fastened in. Getting in the car, I hand over what little money I have on me, but I quickly realize it's not nearly enough for the drive to the Hardy Estate. Just great.. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, the taxi driver pulls over, and I get out. After opening the door, I pull her up so that she's back in the same leaning position as before.

  

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

 

45 minutes later, at the Hardy Estate

 

Finally we're here, and somehow I was able to get Teresa to her room, without Mrs. Hardy, or Aunt May noticing. Felicia catches us, but only smirks, before going back to what she was doing beforehand. Not really feeling all that tired myself, I head into my room afterwards, and start-up my computer. It's ridiculously slow and outdated, but it's better than nothing I guess. Time to figure out who this Brock guy is that mister Jameson was talking to. Brock, New York City, freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle. That's all I really know. Which means it takes me at least 30 minutes of research before anything of value pops up. I didn't get a really good look at the guy, but I'm pretty sure this is him. Edward Brock. Formerly a photographer for the Daily Globe.. Something about his photos being faked. I'm not able to get much more, as it turns out, I'm more tired than I initially thought. I end up falling asleep right then and there. Guess it makes sense, it's been a pretty long day..

WARNING: THIS SERIES FEATURES DARK THEMES SUCH AS ALCOHOL, RAPE, DRUGS AND VIOLENCE. WHILE THESE TOPICS MAY OR MAY NOT BE IN THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE, THE SERIES IS MORE ENJOYABLE IF READ BEGINNING TO FINISH, SO IF YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE READING ABOUT THESE TOPICS, THIS IS NOT THE SERIES FOR YOU

 

Speeding past a receptionist, Dorothy Walker waltzed into her daughter’s hospital room. She sprinted straight to the bed Trish was lying atop, immediately giving her a hug.

 

Trish: H-… Hey, mom…

 

Trish said over her mother’s shoulder, stuttering as caught off guard by her mother’s sudden appearance.

 

Dorothy: I’m so glad that you’re okay, you nearly gave me a heart-attack!

 

Dorothy announced while stepping away from the warm embrace. Now standing farther back, she took notice of the plastic vase with a pink tulip and a rose sitting beside Trish. The shadow of the rose was cast across Trish’s shoulder.

 

Dorothy: Who got you these?

 

Trish: Jess. I don’t think she paid for it, she was probably re-gifting.

 

Dorothy: That’s in-character. Well, I also got you some things…

 

Dorothy reached into her purse, and out of it pulled out a plastic bag, placing it beside Trish. Trish rummaged through it, finding several comic books reading “Patsy Walker” or “Patsy and Hedy” on each of the covers.

 

Dorothy: I brought you more unfinished Patsy issues so you can proofread them for accuracy.

 

Trish: Gee, thanks…

 

She rolled her eyes while giving her sarcastic reply. Trish didn’t care much for these comics, Dorothy started the line to get Trish more publicity, which is something Dorothy is always doing. Always trying to make her daughter a household name, getting Trish things like her podcast, the TV series Trish was the star of as a child, or the previously mentioned comics.

 

Trish: Did you bring any of my scripts?

 

Dorothy: Oh, please, you’re not fit to host a podcast, look at yourself. Hedy’s filling in for you until you’re out of the hospital.

 

Trish: Mom, I got stabbed in the stomach, that doesn’t make me unfit to talk into a mic.

 

Dorothy: You have bandages around your head, how do I know you didn’t get a concussion?

 

Trish: I hit my head on a brick wall when I fell, but it barely hurt. I’m fine, trust me.

 

Dorothy: How many fingers am I holding up?

 

She faced her palm towards Trish, all 5 fingers pointing upward.

 

Trish: 5.

 

Dorothy: The correct answer was 4, thumbs aren’t fingers.

 

Trish: Whatever..! Forgetting thumbs aren’t fingers doesn’t mean I’m unfit to host Trish Talk, I’m still going to.

 

Dorothy: No, you’re not.

 

Trish: Mom, please, I have to-

 

Dorothy: Nah-ah-ah! Mother knows best.

 

Trish: Ugh, fine!

 

Dorothy: I’ll be back on Friday, then I’ll reevaluate whether or not you’re able to come back to hosting.

 

Dorothy slowly walked backwards toward the door.

 

Trish: Okay, bye.

 

Dorothy: Bye, love you.

 

Dorothy stood in the doorway for a second…

 

Dorothy: I’m waiting.

 

Trish: …Love you too.

 

Dorothy: There it is..!

 

Dorothy left the room, smiling, before shutting the door behind herself. Before the door was shut, Trish saw what she swore to be a large yellow wheel of some kind being driven by a man wearing green across the road.

 

Trish: ...The f#ck..?

 

~Madam Web

...Henricus, The so called Papa (and more) had been captures, first he was stripped of any of his bourgeoisie adornments of gilded jewelry and his priestly papal crown... all while dirty working class workers and peasants screamed nasty words like: strip the upperclass pig from all his riches and then his pride...

 

or:

 

Ha, ha, is this the one that once was King, then self proclaimed religious leader, he looks so small not a king at all...

 

Some spat at him and other threw dirt an faeces at him...

 

then later on they brought him to the Tree-dungeon for "special interrogation"

 

Here a blond stutterer with a really friendly face greeted him:

 

H-h-h-hey Mr. H-H-Henricus, or should I call you pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-p-p-p-paa?

 

I I I I I have just arrived ba-b-ba-ba-ck f-f-f-f-f-rom a study abroad, I was in la-la-la-la-tin a-a-a-a-merica and studi-st-st-studied Mental torture and interrogation techniques with the gue-guer-guer-il-il-illa, They though me th-th-thi-thi-this technique, Thay callled it bashing the Cat or pinjata, bu-b-bu-b-bu-but I ha-ha-have renamed it bashing the capitalist pig!

 

The Forestmen was the only part of the alliance that hadn´t signed the queens legal document banning all for of torture...

 

The king screamed, I need something to drink!!! have mercy I was once your ally against the hordes of the barbarians!

 

one nice Wolf-pack soldier had some mercy and came with a goblet filled with crystal clear water... the king gulped down all in one go!!!

 

No it was water, You fool, that was water, then he had a fit and passed out...

 

The friendly looking Dungeon-torture-master looked really, sad, he had already handed out canes...

 

then he said: we-we-well, I guess we ha-ha-have to wait until he wakes up again!

Clockwise from upper-left:

 

* M5A1 Stuart Light Tank

* M7 Priest Howitzer Motor Carriage

* M2A1 Light Tank (by Brickmania)

* M4 Sherman Tank (by Brickmania)

* M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage / M3 Halftrack

* M4A2E2 Sherman "Jumbo" Medium Tank

* M8 Greyhound Armored Car

 

Read the write-up on The Brothers Brick.

A funny thing happened while walking to the restaurant a middle aged man walked besides me and said "I hope you don't mind me saying" so I replied In my normal voice "go ahead" the poor man nearly fell over hearing my voice, he stumbled and stuttered and then said "well I have to say you have amazing legs even in flats, I didn't realise you were a gender bender" I laughed said thanks and he walked of smiling. My other half who was walking five paces to my right was having a right old laugh. We he made me feel good.

 

The sky no longer opens.

It is tapped.

 

A foreign geometry inserts itself

between voltage and prayer,

between the cable’s tension

and the tree’s last memory of roots.

 

This triangle is not a symbol.

It is an instrument.

 

It does not descend; it interfaces.

 

It drinks the static breath of clouds,

coils perception into recursive angles,

teaches the horizon to stutter.

 

Inside it, forests are archived,

light is folded into procedural wounds,

and time forgets which direction

was ever considered forward.

 

The poles do not transmit electricity anymore.

They transmit obedience.

 

A ritual hum travels through copper veins,

rewriting the weather as doctrine.

Rain becomes a protocol.

Thunder, a checksum failure.

 

No god arrives.

Only infrastructure wearing the mask of revelation.

 

This is the age where the sky is no longer above us,

but plugged into us.

 

The triangle waits; not to be worshipped,

but to be accepted as inevitable.

 

When it finally disconnects,

there will be no blackout.

 

Only the unbearable silence

of a world realizing

it had been thinking

on borrowed circuits.

Working on 'a' coronation altarpiece (with bicycles and spermatozoon light fitting). Photograph taken on September 10th, 2007, 'multiply' uploading (like a stutter). Stir.

 

multiply

1 of 3

verb

mul·​ti·​ply ˈməl-tə-ˌplī

multiplied; multiplying

Synonyms of multiply

transitive verb

1

: to increase in number especially greatly or in multiples : AUGMENT

2

a

: to find the product of by multiplication

multiply 7 and 8

b

: to use as a multiplicand in multiplication with another number

multiply 7 by 8

intransitive verb

1

a

: to become greater in number : SPREAD

b

: BREED, PROPAGATE

2

: to perform multiplication

multiply

2 of 3

adverb

mul·​ti·​ply ˈməl-tə-plē

: in a multiple manner : in several ways

multiply talented children

 

multiply (stutter)

2 of 3

adverb

mul·​ti·​ply ˈməl-tə-plē

: in a multiple manner : in several ways

multiply talented children

multi-ply

3 of 3

adjective

mul·​ti-ply ˌməl-tē-ˈplī -ˌtī-

: composed of several plies

This craft is not the venerable T-65B from the the original trilogy, nor is it the T-70 from the new trilogy. This X-Wing is the XJ-3 model featured in the old Star Wars Expanded Universe material of the 80s and 90s. The XJ-3 was built by Incom to supplement the newer, more advanced, but considerably more expensive and complex E-Wing fighters. The advancements made over the T-65 model are newer engines, bolstered shields, and a better armament. The XJ-3's laser cannons could be fired in "Stutter-fire" mode, which allowed it to shoot through the shields of Yuuzhan Vong ships (which also means that it shoots blue pew pews instead of red). Instead of 2 torpedo launchers, the XJ-3 had three.

 

Ah, the mammy, now there’s a place to start, he thought, but he hadn’t thought of her as ‘the mammy’ for years. She had been that f*cking c*nt-sow (Note. 1) for over 50 years. There’s a hill to climb, he thought, to be sure, to be sure. He didn’t talk in that mock-Irish way either, that was an affectation, an attempt to get back there, back to the point where that sorry sow was loved, and a time when he did talk like that, or tried to through his epiglottal stutter, and black first-teeth. Time, art, pretence, and disease had intervened. He recognised the monster he had become, but his excuse, to that point anyway, was that this was the only way he knew how to survive. He loved her in this image, he understood what had happened to her, her relentless choicelessness. This was a start at least.

  

He had survived in a queer sort of way, a running-away way. He had generated a life of leaving, of making an escape. He recognised this as a ‘classic’, or at least a classic story as far as his nation's gene-pool was concerned. It manifested a coping mechanism, something generations before him had honed into an over-arching description of themselves, a wistful, somewhat lyrical, travelling waterfowl. He had become, as if by instinct, one of those fabled ‘Wild Geese’. He liked the romance of that description, those coasting birds. There was that mythological cadence, that Barry Lyndon meets John McGahern of it all, those camaraderie-generating Irish bars and ‘come-all-ye’, wistful ballads about 40 shades of verdure and the sorely missed mammy, alone and pining over the wild Atlantic, or Irish, sea. Throw in Colm Wilkinson singing ‘Bring Him Home’ and you might be attaining towards a sort of gloriously mawkish, yet heart-rending, perfect storm. It would take 50 years before he could tell her that ‘home’ was, and always had been, the least safe place in the world for him.

  

Note 1: f*cking c*nt-sow: He had decided to veer towards subtlety, not to offend, to somehow make his hatred palatable, or to asterisk it to just within the bounds of decency. This was the best he could do for now, and the hope was, that with time and writing, this description would become obsolete anyway. He saw it as the beginnings of forgiveness, while recognising that the asterisks were a necessary, though transparent, cover-all. It was to be hoped that eventually a dawning softness might completely vanquish the need for this bitter descriptor.

  

But as it happened, nowhere turned out to be safe. There was no haven, in the same way that there was no heaven. He had successfully scorch-earthed London, New York, Paris, Helsinki, Stockholm, Chicago and a few other minor megapolises such as Galveston, centres of thriving settlers, places where he failed to generate the wherewithal to nurture that life-supporting instinct, and places that never even noticed his ‘scorched-earthing’ of them. These were, in essence, just ‘own goals’, self-damaging and nothing else. When it came to fight or flight there only seemed to be one option. Flight it was then. The nuns and priests had us by the maw, there was no getting away from it. But now, at least, he knew that this wasn’t the mammy’s fault, not at all, at all.

  

MAW

noun.

1. The mouth, stomach, jaws, or gullet of a voracious animal, especially a carnivore.

2. The opening into something felt to be insatiable: "I saw the opening maw of hell" (Herman Melville).

  

Some, obviously, managed it better, being born into it, and having that, perhaps inherited, temperament to survive and thrive with it. Some didn’t. It was the sort of generational abuse, seemingly eons of it, that might as easily cause you to sing as not. Some geese do sing, the best, perhaps with a trepone-mad Triestino gusto, even. The rest of us muddle along, squawking it out, flapping furiously, cutting that V formation through the sky-blue over that Joycean “snot-green”, searching for a landing-strip, Brazilian or otherwise, one that might temporarily offer some respite, some succour, in a ‘Girl from Treponema’ sort of way. The country didn’t really matter, all that mattered was the flight itself. But this was many years before they came up with that fancy word for us, that Celtic-Tiger attempt to re-embrace us, to re-teat us, to somehow makes us palatable. You were no longer the ‘Wild Geese’. You were ‘The Diaspora’, that not so blooming wandering Jew.

  

But back to that sad, lost, and sorry, abused sow.

  

He knew he was filling his head full of ideas through books, mainly books he had read before, adding back ideas he had forgotten, and would forget again if he didn’t write them down. He guessed that the idea was to follow a sort of meat-grinder progression, to tamp stuff in, hoping it might dislodge, and push out, the stuff that had become stuck, that stuff that had been forgotten or mis-remembered, either intentionally, or in that rush to survive. He knew there was meat there, he was beginning to see it already.

  

The sow, the sow, the sow, and why not the sow? He had described himself as a pig for decades, that noble beast had become his shameless badge of honour, equal to everything, and everyone else, two-footed, four-footed, on all-fours head in the trough with his rump, on offer, in the air shooting the breeze, or footless, even. He had been all of these at some stage or other. She, the mammy, didn’t get to eat him after all, but sometimes it seemed like a very close thing. Chronos would never have allowed that, he said never, but also recognised that this was debatable. Eating children was time’s purlieu, that border, that severing of the new forest from the old, and it might take Maupassant’s ‘Savage Mother’ to manage to circumnavigate that domain, with a little help. The mammy wasn’t savage, not wild enough by half, she was desperate and hurt, lost and parentless, uncontrollable, but never wantonly savage enough to set about intentionally eating her farrow. Maupassant embraced his savagery with that afore-mentioned little help, a certain spirochete driver having traversed his blood-brain barrier, to describe itself in all its glory, before discarding the vehicle that the writer was. He knew that his story was a description of those drivers, those multitudinous trillions, described, recognised, and named, and those we knew nothing about, those that hadn’t been yet named, and would probably never be. He knew that it was to be about that awesome all-consuming power of nature itself, and those who are driven to describe it, and those named or un-named ferocious drivers.

  

“Soon mercury will be my staple diet. My hair is beginning to grow again . . . the hair on my arse is sprouting. . . . I’ve got the pox! at last! the real thing! not the contemptible clap, not the ecclesiastical crystalline, not the bourgeois coxcombs or the leguminous cauliflowers—no—no, the great pox, the one which (King) Francis I died of. The majestic pox, pure and simple; the elegant syphilis . . . I’ve got the pox . . . and I am proud of it, by thunder, and to hell with the bourgeoisie. Allelujah, I’ve got the pox, so I don’t have to worry about catching it anymore, and I screw the street whores and trollops, and afterwards I say to them ‘I’ve got the pox.’ They are afraid and I just laugh.”

  

--Guy de Maupassant

  

It was a toss-up as to which would go first, in that loosened hail of bullets in his grey matter. It would be definitely one of two, he thought, either the priests or the nuns, this was sure. They would be first to go. This was certain in his head, in that blistering cacophony up there north of his gullet, perhaps the only thing that seemed carved in stone. It sat there like a ‘truth’, similar to those ten written down on that tablet, brought down from that holy mountain. There were miraculously few of those truths, but this was most assuredly one. He had quietened his howling voice-box, mostly by removing himself, but whoever that driver was, whether it was himself or something else entirely, it, or he, or she even, continued to chatter. Sometimes he wondered was it the disease itself or was it one of the by-products of the cure, those schizophrenia-inducing magic bullets, or whether these were both just stories he told himself to justify his outrages. It spoke mostly in the mornings, that waking-up period when dreams become confused with the past in a “did that really happen?” sort of way. It was becoming that now, all part of the aging process, he presumed. There was really no knowing what happened, or what was remembered as having happened, and what was dreamt. He thought to himself, that this must happen to everyone eventually, though he also thought that he could always be wrong about that too. There was consistently that

nagging voice, which might, or might not, be him. It was the only thing he could be sure of, that ‘ever-presence’, rather than what it might be telling him.

  

He was glad that he had kept a record, images and texts, emails, and immediate messages, over the years. He knew these might provide a groping way back. It was all ‘fiction’ anyway, stories he had told others, and stories he had allowed them to tell him, mutual self-justifications which, over time, generated patterns called relationships. He hoped that in the telling he might encourage them, or others, to tell their stories, even if these fables were completely mutually contradictory.

  

He had this vague idea that the sum of these stories, those we tell ourselves and others, describes our time, and that ownership is, perhaps, a moot point. We all tell the same story differently; it is impossible not to. But he would take it one step further and say we are all driven to tell the same story, even. It was those drivers he wanted to learn to know, identify, expose, and even celebrate.

  

Enter the driver, and it’s easy to say who or what the driver is. To put it simply it’s everything/non-thing and everyone else, the veritable soup itself. This, of course, leads back to that idea of universal innocence, that there is no blame to be apportioned, so that even the nuns and priests in his head must be forgiven, even the mammy who ‘pimped’ him, bartered him for sex, as a child has to be forgiven.

  

He had decided to start, but then realised he had already been at it for most of his sorry, and enjoyably sordid, life. He could remember some of it, but had forgotten most; those drugs, both life-saving and recreational, what could he say? At the same time, he also realised that he was just going to have to make it up, as he went along, in whatever time there was left. He had made extensive notes, and copious images, along the way. However, he wasn't at all sure where he had put them. He knew they were all on his voluminous external hard drives, but they would have to be retrieved and somewhat put in order, at least in such a way so that they might be fashioned into a story.

  

Sequester is a lovely word.

  

He thought, perhaps, that one of his drivers might be able to help. There was always that possibility, always that hope. He could already identify a few of those, and he was sure that more, with the welcomed unravelling, would emerge.

  

He was beyond ready to fully entertain forgetting, and to allow his memory to be something outside of him, sequestered on that steel-grey, blinking, external solid-state device. He was almost ready to begin.

  

He knew in his heart of hearts that all roads would eventually lead to ‘Rack and Ruin’.

  

You are dropped into life like you are being dropped onto an uncharted battlefield. It just happens, no time to prepare, no strategies to plan, no protective clothing or weapons, just a naked screaming you, ushered, even forced, through someone else’s protestations, into life.

  

That’s if you’re very lucky.

  

You are vaguely aware you are causing trauma even before your descent begins, you hear the noises around you echoed in the beating of your own heart. You hear the groans and screams and rallying cries from unfamiliar voices, all speaking a language utterly foreign to you.

  

You have to start somewhere, so you start with a ripping. You are both ripped out of, and you are the ripper, rending your way towards life or death, or ideally both, you are the traumatised and that bringer of trauma. Again, this would be the ideal situation, the best possible route and outcome, but there can be complications too; that once more unto that breach assault. You aren’t even aware, yet, that you have a tendency towards doing things arse-backwards, and you have no awareness of the outsize of your own head, that bringer of future trauma. You are frighteningly unaware that these red pulsating walls cannot be breached with a backwards ramming. You are unschooled, and no one ever sets out to be an inverted battering ram.

  

You have no idea during this rending, that the host, which is seemingly so violently rejecting you, is an entity called a mother, you are only aware that you are being aggressively sundered from the only safety you have ever known.

  

John: I'm still bouncing between image and extraordinary text.

  

Ruin: and I am still changing words and thinking about what another 'family' member has written to me.

  

His mother was not one for sharing the details of the birth, other than the wholesale and generous brandishing of the ‘miracle’ word around. Apparently, he was born dead, or strangled by the umbilical cord. He was also born at home, 20 Walkinstown Drive, in his parents’ bed. Then she told him that he was a ‘blue baby’, He didn’t even know if she knew what that meant, congenital heart condition and all that, or if he had just turned blue from the choking. Either way, there was no doctor there, just a midwife, and he weighed 10.5 lbs., a big-headed baby apparently. She mentioned breeched once or twice, but he never knew if it was true or not. Maybe a doctor had arrived by then, but he didn’t really know who performed that ‘miracle’, that reviving. So, he might have been breeched, and might have gotten entangled in the umbilical cord in the turning. He knew that this manoeuvre could happen and could result in this type of endangerment. Apparently, his mother was washing the floor, on her hands and knees, just as her waters broke. He was possibly enjoying some inversion at the time.

  

Ruin: I wrote the opening in the second person, for this reason. It’s obviously me, but it doesn’t have to be, the details don’t have to be true, but they might be.

  

I am saying yes to the primal and the universal. That is what I would like to head towards with the opening, and away from the particular. I would like it to resonate as a birth from the big headed, gender free, inverted, baby’s point of view. I will probably re-write as I continue, but I am pleased to have started anyway.

  

John: My Mother's legend was that I was walking and conversing by my first birthday. Many people say I've never shut up since.

  

Ruin: As Rack would always say to my Ruin, rave on John!

The second part is rough and unedited. The pronouns are not definite yet, as to which person it will be written in, but then, nowadays, do the pronouns really have to be defined?

  

Either way, he had attempted to start with something he could not possibly have remembered. He was fictionalizing himself already. This appeared to be the only way forward.

  

Giving Birth To Myself.

  

Laying that Egg, and, perhaps, taking 'Subtle (or Covert) Narcissism' to a new level.

 

He decided to make an icon of her, to go with the other icons, having realised that there was nothing at all to forgive.

 

Hunter Zolomon, the terrifying Pre-Flashpoint archenemy of Wally West, has officially returned to mainstream DC continuity. How do I feel about this? I’m not sure. Sure he’s unnervingly creepy, but his entire character is built around some nonsense that he needs to make Wally suffer in order to become a better hero. This is something that never really made sense to me and probably never will.

 

The eyes on this figure were done with black and red sharpies on a small slip of paper inserted beneath the cowl. I hadn’t originally planned to pick up the Speed Force Freeze Pursuit set until I had an nifty idea for a figure that I’ve yet to reveal (it’s not this guy). Nevertheless, I guess I’m happy to have visually distinct Thawne and Zolomon figs in my collection now!

the library project is a project creating a subtle dialogue about the issue of giving,lending and taking.as most of my pieces have a lifespan of a stutter in the street (either because of collectors or weather or the street cleaners), i thought i would try to embrace it and play around with the circumstances. before placing the pieces on the surface, i wrote "i let you borrow my heart for a while,let others borrow it as well", and then placed the piece over the writing,covering it.

the pieces in this series are applied with double sided tape (which can be easily removed) with some unpeeled scraps of tape on the cardboard left for the borrower to replace anwhere.i think its great if someone wants to take it home, but it raises the conflict of the fact that its in the street for the art to be shared with the people using it.therfore, whoever dispatches the piece can replace it in it original location, or even better, a new location,making him/her part of the arts existence and making it even more part of the collective reality than it was before.

 

Taken at one of my local patch sites in Northwest Leicestershire.

 

Overcast but quite worm and still

graveyard austerity

 

a stuttering contempt unfolds in some

but others blinded by attempts at reason

deny the discontent and bleak horizons pending

 

sustainable or not it will unfold

the damage done in years to to come

with futures wrapped uneasy

round a knife thats steadied by a clumsy hand

intent on slicing through the fabric

misguided in intentions deep and cutting

too much that is good consigned to earth

You're upstairs with the boyfriend while I'm left here to listen (angry)

I hear you calling his name, I hear the stutter of ignition (angry)

I could hear you whispering as I crept by your door

So you found some other joker who could please you more

 

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

 

Ooh, I know what you're doin'

I know where you've been

I know where, but I don't care

'Cause there's-a no such thing as an original sin

 

I've got this camera click, click, clickin' in my head (angry)

I got you talking with your hands, got you smiling with your legs (angry)

Spent all my time in a vanity factory

Wonderin' when they're gonna come and take it all back

 

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

 

Ooh, I know what you're doin'

I know where you've been

I know where, but I don't care

'Cause there's-a no such thing as an original sin

 

Yeah, yeah

Oh, there's no such thing as an original sin

Oh, there's-a no such thing as an original sin (angry)

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

I'm not angry (angry)

I'm not angry anymore (angry)

I'm not angry (angry)

 

BW image shot in the Seventies, toned and watercolorized in the Eighties.

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 233/007. Photo: Roman Freulich / Universal Pictures. Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935).

 

British actor Boris Karloff (1887-1969) is one of the true icons of the Horror cinema. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which resulted in his immense popularity. In the following decades he worked in countless Horror films, but also in other genres, both in Europe and Hollywood.

 

Boris Karloff was born as William Henry Pratt in 1887 in London, England. Pratt himself stated that he was born in Dulwich, which is nearby in London. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and his third wife Eliza Sarah Millard. ‘Billy’never knew his father. Edward Pratt had worked for the Indian Salt Revenue Service, and had virtually abandoned his family in far off England. Edward died when his son was still an infant and so Billy was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder brothers and sisters. As a child, Billy performed each Christmas in plays staged by St. Mary Magdalene's Church. His first role was that of The Demon King in the pantomime Cinderella. Billy was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable throughout his career in the film industry. After his education at private schools, he attended King's College London where he took studies aimed at a career with the British Government's Consular Service. However, in 1909, the 22-years-old left university without graduating and sailed from Liverpool to Canada, where he worked as a farm labourer and did various odd itinerant jobs. In Canada, he began appearing in theatrical performances, and chose the stage name Boris Karloff. Later, he claimed he chose ‘Boris’ because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that ‘Karloff’ was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, Karloff or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. He did not reunite with his family until he returned to Britain to make The Ghoul (T. Hayes Hunter, 1933), opposite Cedric Hardwicke. Karloff was extremely worried that his family would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his brothers jostled for position around him and happily posed for publicity photographs. In 1911, Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Company and later joined the Harry St. Clair Co. that performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year in an opera house above a hardware store. Whilst he was trying to establish his acting career, Karloff had to perform years of difficult manual labour in Canada and the U.S. in order to make ends meet. He was left with back problems from which he suffered for the rest of his life. In 1917, he arrived in Hollywood, where he went on to make dozens of silent films. Some of his first roles were in film serials, such as The Masked Rider (Aubrey M. Kennedy, 1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, and The Hope Diamond Mystery (Stuart Paton, 1920). In these early roles, he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. Other silent films were The Deadlier Sex (Robert Thornby, 1920) with Blanche Sweet, Omar the Tentmaker (James Young, 1922), Dynamite Dan (Bruce Mitchell, 1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (J.P. McGowan, 1927) in which James Pierce played Tarzan. In 1926 Karloff found a provocative role in The Bells (James Young, 1926), in which he played a sinister hypnotist opposite Lionel Barrymore. He worked with Barrymore again in his first sound film, the thriller The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929).

 

A key film which brought Boris Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (Howard Hawks, 1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. With his characteristic short-cropped hair and menacing features, Karloff was a frightening sight to behold. Opposite Edward G. Robinson, Karloff played a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), a film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Karloff's role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), based on the classic Mary Shelley book, propelled him to stardom. Wikipedia: “The bulky costume with four-inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and extensive makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job in itself for Karloff with the shoes weighing 11 pounds (5 kg) each.” The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?." The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. Universal Studios was quick to acquire ownership of the copyright to the makeup format for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had designed. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932). The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) with Charles Laughton, and the starring role in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) quickly followed. Steve Vertlieb at The Thunder Child: “Wonderfully kinky, the film co-starred young Myrna Loy as the intoxicating, yet sadistic Fah Lo See, Fu Manchu's sexually perverse daughter. Filmed prior to Hollywood's infamous production code, the film joyously escaped the later scrutiny of The Hayes Office, and remains a fascinating example of pre-code extravagance.” These films all confirmed Karloff's new-found stardom. Horror had become his primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal Horror films. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in two other films, the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939), the latter also featuring Bela Lugosi. Steve Vertlieb about Bride oif Frankenstein: “Whale delivered perhaps the greatest horror film of the decade and easily the most critically acclaimed rendition of Mary Shelley's novel ever released. The Bride of Frankenstein remains a work of sheer genius, a brilliantly conceived and realized take on loneliness, vanity, and madness. The cast of British character actors is simply superb.” While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ullmer, 1934). Follow-ups included The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935), the rarely seen, imaginative science fiction melodrama The Invisible Ray (Lambert Hillyer, 1936), and The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945). Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides Horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in Howard Hawks' classic Scarface (1932) starring Paul Muni.. He played a religious First World War soldier in John Ford’s epic The Lost Patrol (1934) opposite Victor McLaglen. Between 1938 and 1940, Karloff starred in five films for Monogram Pictures, including Mr. Wong, Detective (William Nigh, 1938). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (Rowland V. Lee, 1939) as the murderous henchman of King Richard III, and with Margaret Lindsay in British Intelligence (Terry O. Morse, 1940). In 1944, he underwent a spinal operation to relieve his chronic arthritic condition.

 

Boris Karloff revisited the Frankenstein mythos in several later films, taking the starring role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944), in which the monster was played by Glenn Strange. He reprised the role of the ‘mad scientist’ in Frankenstein 1970 (Howard W. Koch, 1958) as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original creator. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e., Karloff's) to the monster. From 1945 to 1946, Boris Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945), The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945), and Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946). Karloff had left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. Karloff was a frequent guest on radio programs. In 1949, he was the host and star of the radio and television anthology series Starring Boris Karloff. In 1950, he had his own weekly children's radio show in New York. He played children's music and told stories and riddles, and attracted many adult listeners as well. An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. In 1962, he reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. In 1955, he returned to the Broadway stage to portray the sympathetic Bishop Cauchon in Jean Anouilh's The Lark. Karloff regarded the production as the highlight of his long career. Julie Harris was his co-star as Joan of Arc in the celebrated play, recreated for live television in 1957 with Karloff, Harris and much of the original New York company intact. For his role, Karloff was nominated for a Tony Award. Karloff donned the monster make-up for the last time for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66 (1962), which also featured Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors (Jacques Tourneur, 1963) with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, The Raven (Roger Corman, 1963), The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963) with Jack Nicholson, and Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965). Another project for American International release was the frightening Italian horror classic, I tre volti della paura/Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963), in which Karloff played a vampire with bone chilling intensity. He also starred in British cult director Michael Reeves's second feature film, The Sorcerers (1966). He gained new popularity among a young generation when he narrated the animated TV film Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones, Ben Washam. 1966), and provided the voice of the Grinch. Karloff later received a Grammy Award for Best Recording For Children after the story was released as a record. Then he starred as a retired horror film actor in Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968), Steve Vertlieb: “Targets was a profoundly disturbing study of a young sniper holding a small Midwestern community, deep in the bible belt, terrifyingly at bay. The celebrated subplot concerned the philosophical dilemma of creating fanciful horrors on the screen, while graphic, troubling reality was eclipsing the superficiality so tiredly repeated by Hollywood. Karloff co-starred, essentially as himself, an aged horror star named Byron Orlok, who wants simply to retire from the imagined horrors of a faded genre, only to come shockingly to grips with the depravity and genuine terror found on America's streets. Bogdanovich's first film as a director won praise from critics and audiences throughout the world community, and won its elder star the best, most respectful notices of his later career.”. In 1968, he played occult expert Professor Marsh in the British production Curse of the Crimson Altar (Vernon Sewell, 1968), which was the last Karloff film to be released during his lifetime. He ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films, which were released posthumously. While shooting his final films, Karloff suffered from emphysema. Only half of one lung was still functioning and he required oxygen between takes. he contracted bronchitis in 1968 and was hospitalized. Early 1969, he died of pneumonia at the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, in Sussex, at the age of 81. Boris Karloff married five times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fourth wife.

 

Sources: Steve Vertlieb (The Thunder Child), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

2020 Elf Off the Shelf

 

December 4, 2020

9/31

  

Frodo and Maurice turn around, and standing at the end of the platform appeared to be a station manager. He appeared out of nowhere. So did the passenger train! The two travelers had their back to the rails that they hadn’t seen or heard the train roll quietly in.

 

“W-we were l-looking for the sch-schedule of arrivals and d-departures from this station,” Frodo hesitantly replies in a stuttered sort of way.

 

“We’re here now,” the man gruffly answered. “Now, do you have your ticket? Or do I have to sell you one on the train? You can’t ride for free, you know.”

 

Maurice stepped up and countered, “Sir, I have the money for my ticket, but I won’t have any leftover for my second-cousin-twice-removed.” Maurice touched Frodo’s shoulder and tells him sadly, “I wish we could continue together, but I don’t think that’s possible. Will you forgive me for not being able to take you along?”

 

Frodo turns and faces Maurice with slightly tearful eyes. “I understand. There are many times people make trips to a distance place, wanting to take family and friends with them, but they are the ones who must make the journey alone. Of course, I forgive you, but will you remember to do me a favor?”

 

“Anything!” Maurice replied quickly. “What is it you need?” Maurice had no idea if he could even deliver on this promise, and inside he wondered if he should have even offered in the first place.

 

“Could you please bring back warmth and peace here to Middle Earth? Ever since the scourge hit, everyone has been on edge and agitated. We face a common, unseen enemy, but we don’t know how best to confine that enemy to a cave and shut him in. Perhaps you can find a way and help us.” Frodo stood still for a moment, then stretched out his arms to give Maurice a big hug. Hobbits love to give hugs, when appropriate.

 

Maurice was taken aback by Frodo’s desire, but knew he could help. Maurice was heading to the North Pole, and soon Christmas will arrive. Will he know Santa well enough to ask him about this request? He could only hope.

 

20201204 339/366

 

JN Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge

Sanibel Island, Florida

USA

 

The dapper Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) makes a great ambassador for the notoriously difficult-to-identify shorebirds. They occur all across North America, they are distinctive in both looks and actions, and they're handsome. They also have intriguing social lives in which females take the lead and males raise the young. With their richly spotted breeding plumage, teetering gait, stuttering wingbeats, and showy courtship dances, this bird is among the most notable and memorable shorebirds in North America.

 

The Spotted Sandpiper is the most widespread breeding sandpiper in North America. Female Spotted Sandpipers sometimes practice an unusual breeding strategy called polyandry, where a female mates with up to four males, each of which then cares for a clutch of eggs.

 

One female in Minnesota laid five clutches for three males in a month and a half. This odd arrangement does not happen everywhere and often they are monogamous, with the female pitching in to help a little.

 

The female Spotted Sandpiper is the one who establishes and defends the territory. She arrives at the breeding grounds earlier than the male. In other species of migratory birds, where the male establishes the territory, he arrives earlier.

 

The male takes the primary role in parental care, incubating the eggs and taking care of the young. One female may lay eggs for up to four different males at a time.

 

Despite the gender roles, male Spotted Sandpipers have 10 times the testosterone that females have. However, that’s only in absolute terms. During the breeding season, females see a sevenfold increase in their testosterone levels, perhaps accounting for their aggression and the overall role reversal between male and female. The female may store sperm for up to one month. The eggs she lays for one male may be fathered by a different male in a previous mating.

 

counting crows - colorblind

 

i am color...blind

coffee black and egg white

pull me out from inside

i am ready

i am ready

i am ready

i am

 

taffy stuck, tongue tied

stuttered shook and uptight

pull me out from inside

i am ready

i am ready

i am ready

i am...fine

 

i am covered in skin

no one gets to come in

pull me out from inside

i am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding

i am...colorblind

 

coffee black and egg white

pull me out from inside

i am ready

i am ready

i am ready

i am...fine

 

www.countingcrows.com

www.myspace.com/countingcrows

 

camera: nikon d60 / nikkor af-s 18-200mm

aperture: f11.0

exposure: 1/800

focal lenght: 80mm

iso speed: 200

shewantstheb.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/you-feel-so-good-yo...

With the DCs having largely been sidelined by the union for cab rust issues and the DFs having to fill in on lesser jobs, it seems to have been "all GEs" here for the past month or so.

 

So a relief to hear that 925 was a triple, with no DXs and led by a DC had me hitting the road in the rain, as I figured the DC wouldn't lead south of Timaru (being taken off for stuttering 920, the old 922).

 

The all EMD consist sounded good (and a pleasant change) coming into Timaru in light drizzle at the end of the day

 

4421-7036-4012, Smithfield, Timaru, 22 June 2017, train 925

Working on 'On The Pig's Back' (after the fall). Feeling a little backed-up, with stuttering images.

 

Mind the Gap.

After a stuttering start with Coastliner 2421 was in service today and is seen in Malton.

8. “But can I at least see where this pit is?” The newbie wanted to know so he could certainly avoid this horrid place.

“It’s against my better judgment,” replied the chairman, “but I’ll show you the entrance where the pit is found. It is heavily guarded, so you know the seriousness of what we mean.”

They descend a few flights of stone stairs into the deep basement of the Secret Society Hall. The light becomes dimmer as they approach the entrance. The guard on duty straightens up, holding his sword and shield in readiness to defend the entrance.

“It is I,” the chairman said with an air of authority. “Please lower your weapons.”

The guard dutifully obeyed. Then the chairman pointed into the darkness and told the newbie, “Beyond this entrance and a few steps to the right is the infamous pit. Those who go down that pit seldom return.”

The newbie simply swallowed hard. “You...you...you... mean they ne...ne...never come out?” He stuttered due to the fright instilled in his very being.

“I haven’t seen anyone come out since I have been chairman.”

“How long have have you be...be...been the chairman?”

“About 30 years now.”

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3uG4T8pJfwYeah

Be careful, be careful, be careful with me

Yeah, look

 

[Verse 1]

I wanna get married, like the Currys, Steph and Ayesha shit

But we more like Belly; Tommy and Keisha shit

Gave you TLC, you wanna creep and shit

Poured out my whole heart to a piece of shit

Man, I thought you would've learned your lesson

'Bout liking pictures, not returnin' texts

I guess it's fine, man, I get the message

You still stutter after certain questions

You keep in contact with certain exes

Do you, though

Trust me, nigga, it's cool, though

Said that you was workin', but you're out here chasin' culo

And putas, chillin' poolside, livin' two lives

I could've did what you did to me to you a few times

But if I did decide to slide, find a nigga

Fuck him, suck his dick, you would've been pissed

But that's not my M.O., I'm not that type of bitch

And karma for you is gon' be who you end up with

Don't make me sick, nigga[Chorus]

The only man, baby, I adore

I gave you everything, what's mine is yours

I want you to live your life of course

But I hope you get what you dyin' for

Be careful with me

Do you know what you doin'?

Whose feelings that you're hurtin' and bruisin'?

You gon' gain the whole world

But is it worth the girl that you're losin'?

Be careful with me

Yeah, it's not a threat, it's a warnin'

Be careful with me

Yeah, my heart is like a package with a fragile label on it

Be careful with me

 

[Bridge]

Care for me, care for me

Always said that you'd be there for me, there for me

Boy, you better treat me carefully, carefully, look

 

[Verse 2]

I was here before all of this

Guess you actin' out now, you got an audience

Tell me where your mind is, drop a pin, what's the coordinates?

You might have a fortune, but you lose me, you still gon' be misfortunate, nigga

Tell me, this love's got you this fucked up in the head

You want some random bitch up in your bed?

She don't even know your middle name

Watch her, 'cause she might steal your chain

You don't want someone who loves you instead? I guess not though

It's blatant disrespect, you nothin' like the nigga I met

Talk to me crazy and you quick to forget

You even got me trippin', you got me lookin' in the mirror different

Thinkin' I'm flawed because you inconsistent

Between a rock and a hard place, the mud and the dirt

It's gon' hurt me to hate you, but lovin' you's worse

It all stops so abrupt, we start switchin' it up

Teach me to be like you so I can not give a fuck

Free to mess with someone else, I wish these feelings could melt

'Cause you don't care about a thing except your mothafuckin' self

You make me sick, nigga

 

[Chorus]

The only man, baby, I adore

I gave you everything, what's mine is yours

I want you to live your life of course

But I hope you get what you dyin' for

Be careful with me

Do you know what you doin'?

Whose feelings that you're hurtin' and bruisin'?

You gon' gain the whole world

But is it worth the girl that you're losin'?

Be careful with me

Yeah, it's not a threat, it's a warnin'

Be careful with me

Yeah, my heart is like a package with a fragile label on it

Be careful with me

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 233/06. Photo: Roman Freulich / Universal Pictures. Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

 

British actor Boris Karloff (1887-1969) is one of the true icons of the Horror cinema. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which resulted in his immense popularity. In the following decades, he worked in countless Horror films, but also in other genres, both in Europe and Hollywood.

 

Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in 1887 in London, England. Pratt himself stated that he was born in Dulwich, which is nearby in London. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and his third wife Eliza Sarah Millard. ‘Billy’ never knew his father. Edward Pratt had worked for the Indian Salt Revenue Service and had virtually abandoned his family in far-off England. Edward died when his son was still an infant and so Billy was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder brothers and sisters. As a child, Billy performed each Christmas in plays staged by St. Mary Magdalene's Church. His first role was that of The Demon King in the pantomime Cinderella. Billy was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable throughout his career in the film industry. After his education at private schools, he attended King's College London where he took studies aimed at a career with the British Government's Consular Service. However, in 1909, the 22-year-old left university without graduating and sailed from Liverpool to Canada, where he worked as a farm labourer and did various odd itinerant jobs. In Canada, he began appearing in theatrical performances and chose the stage name Boris Karloff. Later, he claimed he chose ‘Boris’ because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that ‘Karloff’ was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, Karloff or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. He did not reunite with his family until he returned to Britain to make The Ghoul (T. Hayes Hunter, 1933), opposite Cedric Hardwicke. Karloff was distraught that his family would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his brothers jostled for position around him and happily posed for publicity photographs. In 1911, Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Company and later joined the Harry St. Clair Co. which performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year in an opera house above a hardware store. While trying to establish his acting career, Karloff had to perform years of difficult manual labour in Canada and the U.S. to make ends meet. He was left with back problems from which he suffered for the rest of his life. In 1917, he arrived in Hollywood, where he went on to make dozens of silent films. Some of his first roles were in film serials, such as The Masked Rider (Aubrey M. Kennedy, 1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, and The Hope Diamond Mystery (Stuart Paton, 1920). In these early roles, he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. Other silent films were The Deadlier Sex (Robert Thornby, 1920) with Blanche Sweet, Omar the Tentmaker (James Young, 1922), Dynamite Dan (Bruce Mitchell, 1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (J.P. McGowan, 1927) in which James Pierce played Tarzan. In 1926 Karloff found a provocative role in The Bells (James Young, 1926), in which he played a sinister hypnotist opposite Lionel Barrymore. He worked with Barrymore again in his first sound film, the thriller The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929).

 

A key film which brought Boris Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (Howard Hawks, 1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. With his characteristic short-cropped hair and menacing features, Karloff was a frightening sight to behold. Opposite Edward G. Robinson, Karloff played a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), a film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Karloff's role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), based on the classic Mary Shelley book, propelled him to stardom. Wikipedia: “The bulky costume with four-inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and extensive makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job in itself for Karloff with the shoes weighing 11 pounds (5 kg) each.” The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?." The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. Universal Studios was quick to acquire ownership of the copyright to the makeup format for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had designed. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932). The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) with Charles Laughton, and the starring role in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) quickly followed. Steve Vertlieb at The Thunder Child: “Wonderfully kinky, the film co-starred young Myrna Loy as the intoxicating, yet sadistic Fah Lo See, Fu Manchu's sexually perverse daughter. Filmed before Hollywood's infamous production code, the film joyously escaped the later scrutiny of The Hayes Office, and remains a fascinating example of pre-code extravagance.” These films all confirmed Karloff's new-found stardom. Horror had become his primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal Horror films. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in two other films, the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939), the latter also featuring Bela Lugosi. Steve Vertlieb about Bride oif Frankenstein: “Whale delivered perhaps the greatest horror film of the decade and easily the most critically acclaimed rendition of Mary Shelley's novel ever released. The Bride of Frankenstein remains a work of sheer genius, a brilliantly conceived and realized take on loneliness, vanity, and madness. The cast of British character actors is simply superb.” While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ullmer, 1934). Follow-ups included The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935), the rarely seen, imaginative science fiction melodrama The Invisible Ray (Lambert Hillyer, 1936), and The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945). Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides Horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in Howard Hawks' classic Scarface (1932) starring Paul Muni.. He played a religious First World War soldier in John Ford’s epic The Lost Patrol (1934) opposite Victor McLaglen. Between 1938 and 1940, Karloff starred in five films for Monogram Pictures, including Mr. Wong, Detective (William Nigh, 1938). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (Rowland V. Lee, 1939) as the murderous henchman of King Richard III, and with Margaret Lindsay in British Intelligence (Terry O. Morse, 1940). In 1944, he underwent a spinal operation to relieve his chronic arthritic condition.

 

Boris Karloff revisited the Frankenstein mythos in several later films, taking the starring role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944), in which the monster was played by Glenn Strange. He reprised the role of the ‘mad scientist’ in Frankenstein 1970 (Howard W. Koch, 1958) as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original creator. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his face (i.e., Karloff's) to the monster. From 1945 to 1946, Boris Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945), The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945), and Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946). Karloff had left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. Karloff was a frequent guest on radio programs. In 1949, he was the host and star of the radio and television anthology series Starring Boris Karloff. In 1950, he had his own weekly children's radio show in New York. He played children's music, told stories and riddles, and attracted many adult listeners as well. An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. In 1962, he reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. In 1955, he returned to the Broadway stage to portray the sympathetic Bishop Cauchon in Jean Anouilh's The Lark. Karloff regarded the production as the highlight of his long career. Julie Harris was his co-star as Joan of Arc in the celebrated play, recreated for live television in 1957 with Karloff, Harris and much of the original New York company intact. For his role, Karloff was nominated for a Tony Award. Karloff donned the monster make-up for the last time for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66 (1962), which also featured Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors (Jacques Tourneur, 1963) with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, The Raven (Roger Corman, 1963), The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963) with Jack Nicholson, and Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965). Another project for American International release was the frightening Italian horror classic, I tre volti della paura/Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963), in which Karloff played a vampire with bone-chilling intensity. He also starred in British cult director Michael Reeves's second feature film, The Sorcerers (1966). He gained new popularity among the young generation when he narrated the animated TV film Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones, Ben Washam. 1966), and provided the voice of the Grinch. Karloff later received a Grammy Award for Best Recording For Children after the story was released as a record. Then he starred as a retired horror film actor in Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968), Steve Vertlieb: “Targets was a profoundly disturbing study of a young sniper holding a small Midwestern community, deep in the bible belt, terrifyingly at bay. The celebrated subplot concerned the philosophical dilemma of creating fanciful horrors on the screen, while the graphic, troubling reality was eclipsing the superficiality so tiredly repeated by Hollywood. Karloff co-starred, essentially as himself, an aged horror star named Byron Orlok, who wants simply to retire from the imagined horrors of a faded genre, only to come shockingly to grips with the depravity and genuine terror found on America's streets. Bogdanovich's first film as a director won praise from critics and audiences throughout the world community, and won its elder star the best, most respectful notices of his later career.”. In 1968, he played occult expert Professor Marsh in the British production Curse of the Crimson Altar (Vernon Sewell, 1968), which was the last Karloff film to be released during his lifetime. He ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films, which were released posthumously. While shooting his final films, Karloff suffered from emphysema. Only half of one lung was still functioning and he required oxygen between takes. he contracted bronchitis in 1968 and was hospitalized. In early 1969, he died of pneumonia at the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, in Sussex, at the age of 81. Boris Karloff married five times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fourth wife.

 

Sources: Steve Vertlieb (The Thunder Child), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Civita di Bagnoregio (Viterbo):

Civita (the dying town), like an island in our memory or a figment of our imagination, is connected by a narrow walkway to reality and to the surrounding countryside; it takes us far away, not so much in distance as in time....There is a feeling that one is leaving the real world, and this filling becomes stronger after entering the ancient city gate, standing guard over a sheer drop between the remains of two houses with thir windows opened wide over the emptiness.One almost has the impression that this gate opens into a supernatural world, surviving in another dimension.

 

Civita di Bagnoregio (Viterbo):

Storia, arte, cultura e tradizioni, sono i requisiti fondamentali di un territorio che sembra quasi essersi fermato in un passato ricco di avvenimenti.

Civita di Bagnoregio è un esempio di meraviglia unico nel suo genere.

Unita al mondo solo da un lungo e stretto ponte, la "Città che muore", ormai da tempo così chiamata a causa dei lenti franamenti delle pareti di tufo, racchiude un ciuffo di case medioevali ed una popolazione di pochissime famiglie.Appoggiata dolcemente su un cucuzzolo, la cittadina sovrasta imperiosamente l'immensa vallata sottostante, offrendo così al turista un incantevole e indimenticabile scenario.

 

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

 

"Colorblind" - Counting Crows

it.youtube.com/watch?v=y0s7ycdUcHk

 

I am colorblind

Coffee black and egg white

Pull me out from inside

I am ready

I am taffy stuck and tongue tied

Stutter shook and uptight

Pull me out from inside

I am ready

I am fine

I am covered in skin

No one gets to come in

Pull me out from inside

I am folded and unfolded and unfolding

I am colorblind

Coffee black and egg white

Pull me out from inside

I am ready

I am fine

  

Girl kept padlocked in leg braces as part of a psychology experiment - by Angela Fox, inspired by a tale written by Garth Toyntanen (INSTITUTIONALISED volume 3) toyntanen.blogspot.co.uk/ note the padlocks used to secure the leg braces and the card marked "stutterer" hanging around the girl's neck.

 

Here psychological pressure is being applied in an attempt to deliberately induce stammering as part of a residential experimental psychology study the poor thing has been fooled into volunteering for by her scheming guardian. Note the straitjackets visible within the cupboard at the rear (the threat against non-compliance is obvious), the spiral device used for hypnotherapy on the psychologist's desk, and of course the ever-present school cane.

 

More of Angela Fox's artwork can be found on Garth Toyntanen's website beyondthebarredwindow.weebly.com/ and her books on LULU, for example www.lulu.com/shop/angela-fox/the-wardress/ebook/product-2...

 

YOUNG CHILDREN HAVE an uncanny ability to pick up new languages. Not only do they soak up vocabulary, they also construct new sentences of their own. This ability to use grammar is the essence of language. It’s not enough to know the meanings of words, you also have to understand the structures and rules by which words are put together.

 

The predominant view has been that humans are unique in this ability. But any time that we utter the words ‘uniquely human’, scientists seem to take it as a challenge to disprove this notion. And language is no exception. If you’re looking for the species that most closely matches our linguistic prowess, surprisingly, you won’t find it in the apes, the primates, or even in the mammals. You have to travel to a far more distant relative, all the way to a family of birds known as the songbirds.

 

The vocal life of a songbird is similar to ours in many ways. They learn songs by imitating their elders. Like human speech, these songs are passed down from one generation to the next. Songbirds are also best equipped to learn songs in their youth, and they have to practice to develop their ability. They can improvise and string together riffs into new songs, and over generations these modified songs can turn into new dialects. And like us, they come hard-wired with ‘speech-centers’ in their brain that are dedicated to language processing.

 

But languages are not just learned, they can also be invented. A striking example comes from the deaf community of Nicaragua in the 1970s. Back then, deaf people in Nicaragua were isolated both physically and through language. By the 1980s, the government set up schools for the deaf to teach them Spanish and how to lip-read. This turned out to be an unsuccessful endeavor. The teachers were growing increasingly frustrated as they were not getting through to the students.

 

However, things were quite different from the point of view of the students. For the first time, they were in contact with many other deaf people, and they started to exchange gestures that they had invented in isolation. At first the teachers thought this gesticulation was a kind of mime, but the reality was far more interesting. By getting together and pooling their ideas, these children had actually invented a new type of sign language, complete with its own grammatical structure. Here was proof that a new language could be born out of cultural isolation, a testament to our innate abilities to understand grammar. And in a few generations, users of this language were employing newer, more nuanced grammatical structures.And this re-invention of language has been mirrored in the songbirds. An experiment from 2009 by Fehér and colleagues took newly hatched songbirds of the zebra finch species and raised them in sound proof chambers. They did this during their critical period of language development. Much like the Nicaraguan children, these birds were raised in a world without song. What happened next is quite surprising.

 

Just like the children, this culturally isolated generation of birds began to develop their own songs. These songs were less musical than your typical songbird song - they had irregular rhythms, they would stutter their notes, and the notes would sound more noisy. But the researchers were curious where this would lead. They listened to the songs of the next few generations of pupils, the offspring of these children of silence. What they found was quite amazing. In just two generations, the songs started to change in unexpected ways - they were becoming more musical. In fact, they started to converge upon the song of the wild songbirds, even though none of these birds had ever heard the wild songs.

 

I find this a rather poetic thought - these songbirds are somehow carrying within them the songs of their ancestors. This study suggests, but does not prove, that songbirds must have an innate understanding of the structures of their language. In other words, they seem to have a built-in intuition about grammar. Over time, they may be using these intuitions to develop their phrasing and tone.

n mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of the birds is postulated as a mystical, perfect divine language, green language, Adamic language, Enochian, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated.The “language of birds” has many names; some call it the “Language of the Gods”, others the “Green language”. Michael Sells has referred to this “sacred language” as the “language of unsaying”, whereby the core of what needs to be said, is actually not said, though everyone understands what is being said.

The “language of birds” is therefore the mystical language, by default an unpopular subject amongst scholars, specifically because of the apparent lack of “clarity”: a clear and distinct sense. The sense is inferred. And whereas this may be possible to map in extant languages, when it comes to extinct languages, or even extant languages the way they were spoken in the past, grasping this “undefined core sense” is not an easy task.

 

Want to know your future? Try my free online Rune Readings!

 

The link with green – as in the Green Language – as the colour of alchemy is never far away, specifically as alchemy is equally “obscure” in its words. Alchemy is not so much obscure in what it tried to do; even when it is clear that the process described is chemical in nature, the substances themselves are difficult if not impossible to identify. Birds are also present in alchemy, specifically the phoenix that rises from its own ashes. But a peacock, the pelican, the white swan and the black crow all feature in alchemy. Birds in general represented the element air, but at the same time, their flight was identical to the ascension to heaven. The phoenix also incorporated the element fire, thus portraying the union of two elements and its transformative – regenerative – outcome. What is “bird language”? On first inspection, it would be the language that the birds use to communicate amongst themselves. It is a language the birds understand, but we humans do not. Largely, it is a system of human communication, which has been around for a very long time, but which is ill-understood. Then again: the ability not to be understood unless by those who were initiated into the language was actually its purpose. Fulcanelli stated that the alchemists had to resort to this means in order to obscure from one that which was to be disclosed to the other. To many, the language of birds is therefore nothing more or less than a series of secret codes and phrases, which pass by in daily conversation, except for those with ears that “hear”. The most famous example of this today are certain key words, learned amongst Masons. Each group and grade of Masons has their own specific keywords, which are largely unrecognisable when spoken in daily conversation. Some of these expressions have nevertheless become part of normal parlance. One Masonic expression is “to give someone the third degree”, referring to the strenuous initiation a third degree mason had to undergo. This, together with a series of handshakes and other signals, identify a person and his role – whereby a non-Mason sitting in on the conversation may be totally unaware of what is going on.

 

English is largely void of a “green nature”, whereas French seems to be full of it. The words “L’hasard” – coincidence – and “Lazare” – Lazarus – are pronounced identically. But in certain conversations, people will play with these two words, and ask whether it is “L’hasard” or “Lazare”, whereby it is interpreted that “Lazare” is no coincidence at all. Anyone not “in” on the conversation will be completely bewildered and will not understand.

 

In the final outcome, it is nevertheless clear that Masonic and the “green language” as present in French is more a system of codes than a specific “language”. If anything, they seem to be only remains of what was once perhaps a vast system of knowledge. Some have described the “language of birds” as “the tongue of Secret Wisdom. Its vocabulary is myth. Its grammar is symbolism.” They argue that the development of the written language and the language of birds go hand in hand. According to the Fables of Caius Juliius Hyginus, the god Mercury (the Greek Hermes) invented the alphabet by watching cranes, because “cranes make letters as they fly”. The Egyptian god of writing is Thoth, and his animal is actually a bird: the ibis. For the Egyptians, hieroglyphics therefore was the language of birds – and one often recurring hieroglyph is a bird itself.

 

Hieroglyphics is a symbolic system of writing. Some have argued that hieroglyphs were indeed the “sacred – secret – language” of the Gods, specifically because they were symbols – and the Egyptians only used them within a religious setting. Though they were an alphabet, it is felt that at some point, the symbol itself had a meaning, which is now lost. What Champollion was able to decode, was only the basest of its nature – and no-one has since been able to fathom its deepest meaning. The origin of the “bird language” may go back to primitive societies. When shamans enter a trance, they attempt to speak the language of nature; they are said to speak “the language of birds”. Historians of religion have documented this phenomenon around the entire world and depictions of shamans with wings or as a bird are common.

 

One biblical example is King Solomon. Solomon was told that he would “be able to understand the language of the birds and beasts… Then Solomon woke up from his dream. He wondered if God had really spoken to him or whether it had been a spirit beguiling him in his dreams. Then he heard the birds squawking and twittering to each other in his garden below. He heard one suddenly cry out, ‘Silly birds — stop all this noise! Don’t you know that the God has just given Solomon the ability to understand what we say and to make us do as he wishes!’” In these societies, bird language is usually learnt by eating snake or some other magical animal. These animals can reveal the secrets of the future because they are thought to be receptacles for the souls of the dead or epiphanies of the gods. The birds are psychopomps, as birds were believed to undertake the ecstatic journey to the sky and beyond; they made the voyage to the Otherworld. Equally, serpents were said to be able to understand the language of birds.

 

In Christian tradition, some saints are said to have communicated with the animals, whereas the exploits of St Patrick in Ireland, which involves both flight and snakes, clearly have the saint following in the footstep of the “Celtic shamans”. Still, Robert Temple has argued that this “language of birds” was in essence a large con, practiced by the oracles of the ancient world. He argues that the “language of birds” was in fact a form of communication: birds were used as messenger services, as they would be throughout history, until the advent of modern means of communication. The ancient Greek world would use them to dispatch information across the nation, whereby the oracles were the first to receive this information. Therefore, Temple claims, what they prophesized was not so much “Otherworldly”, but merely information from elsewhere in this world, dispatched by “express pigeon”, to give the oracles the semblance of psychic ability. Most authors, including Andrew Collins, in From the Ashes of Angels: The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race, argue that the origins of the association of the bird and the shaman should be sought within the anthropological realm. He and others have shown that shamans often dressed up as a bird, or used the feathers of a bird to resemble a bird. From a man dressed with feathers to an angel is a small step. Furthermore, the link between the shaman and the bird occurs specifically because in a trance, the shaman is said to be able to fly – like angels. But the connection goes beyond this. In the tenth Homiliarum in Ezcechielem, Gregory the Great compared the music of the angels, heard in the heavenly spheres, to birds’ singing. This was then encapsulated in the “Gregorian chants” that became famous throughout the Christian world – and which continue to lure people to churches.

 

Still, the angels were said not to speak; like birds, they articulated sounds in the air. At the same time, the sound that was produced was not their mode of communication; angels – like shamans – were believed to be psychic – they only required thoughts to communicate; there was no need for a “language” and the “music of the spheres” was merely the outcome; in short, music had to be dissociated from its lyrics, for in origin, music was either felt to be instrumental, or “Gregorian”. People who are fluent in several languages – including many autistic people – know that thinking often occurs in symbols. They will see an apple, but need to scan their brain for the word, sometimes in all languages, some only in a few. Learning to speak is exactly that: the process by which we associate words with shapes. “Apple.” “House.” “Car.” Words such as “altruistic” or “disingenuous” only come about at a much later state; not because they are more difficult, but because they themselves require a definition that is based on other words.

 

So where does this leave the language of birds? Some argue that modern languages are a diminutive form of an original, “non-linguistic language”, which is precisely the origin of the “language of birds”. It echoes the story of the Tower of Babel and the scattering of the tongues. It is therefore an interesting phenomenon to note that English, which is a very basic language when compared to other extinct and extant forms of verbal communication, is making major inroads in uniting the world once again in a common tongue. Some have even joked that we are getting God back on the Tower of Babel.

 

So where does this leave the language of birds? Was it indeed a communication of symbols – whereby the core needs to be divined, and remains elusive, unless “understood”? Does it underline the old distinction between “hearing” and “understanding”? Was hieroglyphics an attempt to bring down into the material world this “divine language”, whereby symbols were transformed into letters – whereby we are now no longer able to grasp their core meanings? Birds in the Egyptian alphabet include the Egyptian vulture, the owl and the quail chick. As such, each played a part in the divine utterances of the Egyptian gods, and their message to the nation. But it was the Bennu bird’s cry at the creation of the world that marked the beginning of time… for the Egyptians, the primeval scream was that of a bird…

Language of the Birds as “the language which teaches the mystery of things and unveils the most hidden truths.” Often called the Green language or language of the gods, this sacred form of communication is believed to reveal the most perfect knowledge and secret wisdom to those initiated into its wonder.

 

Considering the different names applied to this hidden language may provide hints on how it is learned or re-discovered. The association of the language with the color green gives the impression the language is one which comes with new life or a reconnection. As mentioned, while discussing The Green Cross, the color green has been seen for centuries to signify rebirth. A possible indication a person who understands the mysterious green language may have been spiritually awakened.

 

Taking into account other clues, one may ponder the attributes of birds for their relation to the mysterious wisdom. Most notably are the bird’s songs. Music is well known to hold great power. If man is quiet enough, the beautiful sounds relax and uplift. A pastor friend, who has worked with terminally ill patients, shares the following comforting effects of song; “in knowing their time has come, prepared to go, but struggling to let go, I ask if they mind if I hum a song to ease them. Humming a tune and holding their hand, the soothing sound soon connects to something deep within and they peacefully pass.”

 

Although this account is one of sadness, it conveys the strong touching sense of harmonious song. Perhaps the Language of the Birds is a music which speaks straight to the soul. To know a connection to the Divine, here now on Earth, could bring a welcomed peace to the common demands and bustle of this world.

 

Fulcanelli stated it was through Jesus sending his Spirit to his Apostles that caused the green language to be revealed to them. One may wonder if the song of the Dove, symbol of the Spirit, may be of importance to understanding the secret language; or if there is a link to Psalms 40:1, “He puts a new song in my mouth.”

 

However, the Language of the Birds transcends systems and has been seen in various ways for thousands of years. During the founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC, Romulus and Remus are said to have settled an argument about which hill to build the first site, by use of Augury. Augury is a form of divination by birds. The flight formation, noises, or kinds of birds (a language of birds) were believed to reveal the will of the gods. Romulus, seeing more birds than Remus, claimed victory, and went on to build around Palatine Hill. From this myth, this language of the birds is recognized to communicate the Will from above.

 

In Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, there is mention of another parallel form of divination; the divining of the liver, called haruspicy. Most commonly used was that of a sheep liver, but sometimes the liver of poultry was known to be employed. The liver, seen as a life force, was regarded like a mirror of heaven. Different marks noticed on different sections would convey the will of the Gods to the sage.

 

This practice is identified with an ancient board game called the Royal Game of Ur or Game of Twenty Squares. Dating back to 2600BC, the game held deep spiritual significance. Like many ancient games, they have been discovered buried inside tombs and believed to aid in the afterlife. Played during life, possibly during rituals, they offered assurance of a life after death.

 

Found etched on a model of a sheep liver at excavations of Kamid el Loz was a board of Twenty Squares. This clay model is believed to have been used to teach and/or record the results of divination by the liver. The combination of game board and clay liver model, used for divination, attests the mutual importance of sacredness to both.

 

Curiously, on a cuneiform tablet written in 177 BC, rules for playing the game of Twenty Squares were inscribed and included names of five gaming pieces characterized as birds; Storm-bird, Rooster, Swallow, Raven, and Eagle. Although the tablet discloses directions for game playing (as translated by Irving Finkel), these ‘five flying game pieces’, portray birds which could signify the remnants of past divination beliefs. Here, the birds, moving across the board, recorded and revealed the will of the gods by spaces they landed on. The Language of Birds, seen again, to communicate knowledge from above with rolls of the dice.

 

On a brief side note, another interesting game board of Twenty Squares (of different design) was formed from the image of an entwining snake. Inside the coils were the spaces to land on. Where the head and tail of the snake met (similar to ouroborus), marked the position where the player’s piece was believed to have escaped the ‘board’.

  

Talking about games may seem to some as a distraction from discovering the meaning of the Language of the Birds. However, games have transcended and spread through all cultures. They are one of the first inventions of civilizations and often incorporate beliefs and visions of the time. Many symbolized and represented deeper meanings to life.

 

A 1283 AD manuscript, called Alfonso X’s Book of Games begins by saying games were created because “God wanted man to have every manner of happiness.” Games were said to give that delight. In the same manuscript, games are used to demonstrate crucial values of life. Playing the games gave awareness and experience to situations found outside of the game.

 

Presently, there is a game called Mad Gab which some people may like to see Fulcanelli and Henri Boudet play (if it were possible). Boudet was the author of The True Celtic Language and the Cromlech of Rennes-les-Bains. The game of Mad Gab shares one of the important concepts suggested by these two men; the play of words by sound. Fulcanelli connects it with the Language of the Birds.

 

An example of this coded language is shared within Gerard de Sede’s book, The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau. Sede writes, “But Boudet pretends, against all the evidence, that “Cayrolo” comes from three English words, namely “key”, “ear”, and “hole”.”

 

Reverse of the Mad Gab game, the sound of Cayrolo hid three words. In Mad Gab, the words are given, like “Pretty Share Weighs.” These need ‘sounded’ to provide the answer of “British Airways.” Players are encouraged to ‘listen’ in order to discover.

 

For many, the Maranatha puzzle or researching the mystery of Rennes le Chateau offers a playing field for which the game pieces move. Discovery of the language of the birds may be only one of the spaces or could offer the means to move onto another ‘space.’

 

To wonder what voice could accomplish Fulcanelli’s description of the Green Language in ability to reveal ‘the most hidden truths’, may lead some to feel it is none other than the first, green, voice; the Will of God. It’s possible that in order to hear it, one must be silent and listen.

  

Contents

1History

1.1Mythology

1.1.1Norse mythology

1.1.2Greek mythology

1.2Middle Eastern folklore

1.3Folklore

1.4Alchemy

1.5Literature and culture

2See also

3Notes

4Bibliography

5External links

History[edit]

In Indo-European religion, the behavior of birds has long been used for the purposes of divination by augurs. According to a suggestion by Walter Burkert, these customs may have their roots in the Paleolithic when, during the Ice Age, early humans looked for carrion by observing scavenging birds.[1]

 

There are also examples of contemporary bird-human communication and symbiosis. In North America, ravens have been known to lead wolves (and native hunters) to prey they otherwise would be unable to consume.[2][3] In Africa, the greater honeyguide is known to guide humans to beehives in the hope that the hive will be incapacitated and opened for them.

 

Dating to the Renaissance, birdsong was the inspiration for some magical engineered languages, in particular musical languages. Whistled languages based on spoken natural languages are also sometimes referred to as the language of the birds. Some language games are also referred to as the language of birds, such as in Oromo and Amharic of Ethiopia.[4]

 

Ukrainian language is known as "nightingale speech" amongst its speakers.[citation needed]

 

Mythology[edit]

Norse mythology[edit]

In Norse mythology, the power to understand the language of the birds was a sign of great wisdom. The god Odin had two ravens, called Hugin and Munin, who flew around the world and told Odin what happened among mortal men.

 

The legendary king of Sweden Dag the Wise was so wise that he could understand what birds said. He had a tame house sparrow which flew around and brought back news to him. Once, a farmer in Reidgotaland killed Dag's sparrow, which brought on a terrible retribution from the Swedes.

 

In the Rígsþula, Konr was able to understand the speech of birds. When Konr was riding through the forest hunting and snaring birds, a crow spoke to him and suggested he would win more if he stopped hunting mere birds and rode to battle against foemen.

 

The ability could also be acquired by tasting dragon blood. According to the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga, Sigurd accidentally tasted dragon blood while roasting the heart of Fafnir. This gave him the ability to understand the language of birds, and his life was saved as the birds were discussing Regin's plans to kill Sigurd. Through the same ability Áslaug, Sigurd's daughter, found out the betrothment of her husband Ragnar Lodbrok, to another woman.

  

The 11th century Ramsund carving in Sweden depicts how Sigurd learnt the language of birds, in the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga

The 11th century Ramsund carving in Sweden depicts how Sigurd learnt the language of birds, in the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga.

 

Sigurd is sitting naked in front of the fire preparing the dragon heart, from Fafnir, for his foster-father Regin, who is Fafnir's brother. The heart is not finished yet, and when Sigurd touches it, he burns himself and sticks his finger into his mouth. As he has tasted dragon blood, he starts to understand the birds' song.

The birds say that Regin will not keep his promise of reconciliation and will try to kill Sigurd, which causes Sigurd to cut off Regin's head.

Regin is dead beside his own head, his smithing tools with which he reforged Sigurd's sword Gram are scattered around him, and

Regin's horse is laden with the dragon's treasure.

is the previous event when Sigurd killed Fafnir, and

shows Ótr from the saga's beginning.

In an eddic poem loosely connected with the Sigurd tradition which is named Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, the reason why a man named Atli once had the ability is not explained. Atli's lord's son Helgi would marry what was presumably Sigurd's aunt, the Valkyrie Sváfa.

 

Greek mythology[edit]

According to Apollonius Rhodius, the figurehead of Jason's ship, the Argo, was built of oak from the sacred grove at Dodona and could speak the language of birds. Tiresias was also said to have been given the ability to understand the language of the birds by Athena. The language of birds in Greek mythology may be attained by magical means. Democritus, Anaximander, Apollonius of Tyana, Melampus and Aesopus were all said to have understood the birds.

 

The 'birds' are also mentioned in Homer's Odyssey : "“[...] although I am no prophet really, and I do not know much about the meaning of birds. I tell you he will not long be absent from his dear native land, not if chains of iron hold him fast. He will find a way to get back, for he is never at a loss."[5]

 

Middle Eastern folklore[edit]

In the Quran, Suleiman (Solomon) and David are said to have been taught the language of the birds.[6] Within Sufism, the language of birds is a mystical divine language. The Conference of the Birds is a mystical poem of 4647 verses by the 12th century Persian poet Attar of Nishapur.[7]

 

In the Jerusalem Talmud,[8] Solomon's proverbial wisdom was due to his being granted understanding of the language of birds by God.

 

In Egyptian Arabic, hieroglyphic writing is called "the alphabet of the birds".[citation needed]

 

Folklore[edit]

The concept is also known from many folk tales (including Welsh, Russian, German, Estonian, Greek, Romany), where usually the protagonist is granted the gift of understanding the language of the birds either by some magical transformation, or as a boon by the king of birds. The birds then inform or warn the hero about some danger or hidden treasure. One example is the Russian story The Language of the Birds.[citation needed]

 

Alchemy[edit]

In Kabbalah, Renaissance magic, and alchemy, the language of the birds was considered a secret and perfect language and the key to perfect knowledge, sometimes also called the langue verte, or green language (Jean Julien Fulcanelli, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa de occulta philosophia, (Emmanuel-Yves Monin, Hieroglyphes Français Et Langue Des Oiseaux),[citation needed]

 

Literature and culture[edit]

Compare also the rather comical and satirical Birds of Aristophanes and Parliament of Fowls by Chaucer.

 

In medieval France, the language of the birds (la langue des oiseaux) was a secret language of the Troubadours, connected with the Tarot, allegedly based on puns and symbolism drawn from homophony, e. g. an inn called au lion d'or ("the Golden Lion") is allegedly "code" for au lit on dort "in the bed one sleeps".[9]

 

René Guénon has written an article about the symbolism of the language of the birds.[10]

 

Chinese writer Pu Songling wrote about "The Bird Language" in his anthology Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio".

 

Hiéroglyphes Français Et La Langue Des Oiseaux, Editions du Point d'Eau by Emmanuel Yves-Monin is a systematic study on the subject but is only available in French.[citation needed]

 

The artificial language zaum of Russian Futurism was described as "language of the birds" by Velimir Khlebnikov.[citation needed]

 

The children's book author Rafe Martin has written "The Language of Birds" as an adaptation of a Russian folk tale; it was made into a children's opera by composer John Kennedy.[citation needed]

 

Melanesian creole Tok Pisin is sometimes called "language of the birds", because the word "pisin" has a double meaning (from English words "pidgin" and "pigeon"). Mian speakers, for example, refer to Tok Pisin as wan weng, literally "bird language".

 

See also[edit]

Bird vocalization

Confusion of tongues

Glossolalia

Musical language

Notes[edit]

^ Marzluff, John M.; Tony Angell (2007). In the Company of Crows and Ravens. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 284–287. ISBN 0-300-12255-1.

^ McDougall, Len (2004). The Encyclopedia of Tracks and Scats. Globe Pequot. p. 296. ISBN 1-59228-070-6.

^ Tipton, Diane (2006-07-06). "Raven Myths May Be Real". Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Retrieved 2017-10-29.

^ Kebbede Hordofa and Peter Unseth. 1986. "Bird Talk" in Oromo. Quaderni di Studi Etiopici 6-7:74-83

^ The Odyssey - Chapter 1 - What Went On in the House of Odysseus

^ 27:16 "And Solomon inherited David. He said, "O people, we have been taught the language of birds, and we have been given from all things. Indeed, this is evident bounty."

^ METmuseum.org

^ Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1909

^ Letarot.com

^ René Guénon - Symbols of Sacred Science, Chapter 9 - The Language of birds

Bibliography[edit]

 

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Animal Symbolism in Celtic Mythology, by Lars Noodén (1992)

Davidson, H.R. Ellis. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions. Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, NY, US, 1988.

Yves Monin (Emmanuel), Hiéroglyphes Français Et Langue Des Oiseaux, Editions du Point d'Eau.

Richard Khaitzine, La Langue des Oiseaux - Quand ésotérisme et littérature se rencontrent, France-spiritualites.com

René Guénon, The Language of the Birds, Australia's Sufi Magazine "The Treasure" 2 (1998).

Ormsby-Lennon, Hugh "Rosicrucian Linguistics: Twilight of a Renaissance Tradition," passim. Ed. Ingrid Merkel, Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe (1988), pp. 311 - 341.

(in French) Le verland des oiseaux (The Verlan of the Birds) Collection "Pommes Pirates Papillons", Poèmes de Michel Besnier. Illustrations de Boiry, Editions Møtus

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_birds

Merry Christmas flickr friends!

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and thank you for your Flickr friendship all year long.

... sorry I haven't been able to catch up with you all yet, but will have more time once I am back from Christmas.

Take care!

The Guillotines

Silverlake, Los Angeles, March 2011

Set