View allAll Photos Tagged stutter
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(for the first edition, but later came up with alternate sentences) "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.
A recurring set. Portraits in foliage. Beauty and the color green.
The idea for this photo is inspired by Mr. Oliver Morris' flickr stream.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: (L-R) Guest, Carl Herder, Kenyatta Bolden and Kerri Chace attend the 2022 Freeing Voices, Changing Lives Gala at Guastavino's on July 11, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for American Institute for Stuttering)
Dark and emptied and deathlike
Full of fear and shadows
I went to the Sun King for help
He was too bright for me to look at
His radiance shone upon my iniquity
So in my shadow fright I stuttered a plea
That I might be soaked in everlasting Light
His laughter made me tremble
Echoing around the Universe
His sound almost shattered me
Finally he leaned my way
He explained that even he is a shadow
Though a very bright one
We play at being kings and children of kings
That we may lose and find ourselves in variations
That we may detach and witness every story
In every lump of coal a diamond waits
In every dark and spinning moon such radiance
In every black and brooding hour a promise lingers
This Light is ever with us
Regardless if we feel it or not
So now I can proclaim that I AM a child of the Sun
and shadows are not real
© Ganga Fondan, 2011
*Sometimes after long periods of silence and brooding, a new light shines. A new understanding emerges. We cannot explain it but it is there. After such excruciating heaviness and self-judgement ,we realize the inevitability of this change. Again and again, the letting go to this process reveals the mystery and the sublime joy of life. The brooding moon is overwhelmed with light again. The sun finds its joy in this. Both are subject to a greater love.
Ad Note (October 2015):
One day the sun admitted
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
the Infinite Incandescence
that has cast my brilliant image.
I wish I could show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing Light
of your own Being.
~ Hafiz
Taken from right-to-left, as I was sitting on the north side of the train, headed west.
I really like what happened when I set the camera on my phone to 'panorama' and then held it stationary against the window of the train: (from an email I wrote) "The camera accrues the image unevenly: it's looking for motion but its internal gyroscope ("accelerometer") is confused. If things aren't changing much in the foreground, the picture 'piles up' and the horizon stutters, but water or trees close-by trigger a richer capture
This was just after sunrise. Fall colours here, and lots of standing water."
since childhood i've stuttered and i've created several images along this theme.. this is one of them
Hi everyone! Just a quick update on the state of the photostream, my personal affairs which affect it in a direct way and some really bad news (at least for me).
UPD: Oh, yeah, probably SPOILER ALERT! 'Cause, you know, the picture surely was not taken from the beginning of the game. :P
-So I took a break from shooting racing games (in fact, I still have lots of unedited stuff on my drive. I blame my lazy for it mostly) and I tried games of other genres.
Of course I couldn't miss the upcoming Epic's Paragon in particular. And I had a few quite fun matches here and there, I got used to its replay editor and took some shots of its AMAZINGLY DETAILED world along with STUNNINGLY CRAFTED characters and effects.
These shots were made on the last days of August, before I went to the University to find out I was set to work on announcing students' science projects, conferences and other research activities. And it's quite an appointment, I must say.
"Everybody has his/ her own part in the teaching/ working process, so will you", just like that - even though I still work on my PhD thesis with my science instructor on the background. Ok then!
After all, it turned out to be a quite interesting to work on. Now I regularly meet people who are deeply interested in bringing new ways of researching and scientific thinking to the industry, not just my typical ecological stuff I'm heavily involved into when attending various annual conferences.
I forgot to mention how I actually got Win10 this July, how I almost completely got used to its UI (which is of course isn't as good as in Win7, but it's still nice nonetheless!), and how it appears not just to "boot faster" but work faster as well. At least in some apps that I use too often.
And I shot in Forza: Apex, too. Quite a delicious graphics engine, yup!
Last week I saw that infamous "Anniversary update" ad browsing Microsoft sites, and I decided to give it a try. It felt kinda weird, since Start Menu had lost its "Show All [Programs and apps]" option, and "Search in Web" wasn't there, too.
After a few days the system showed me 2 or 3 updates, I downloaded 'em without any second thought.
And then. THEN! The system couldn't boot up, showing this "Blue" screen of… sad smiley emoji (?). I guess. Also there was a QR-code completely useless for a man like me who haven't got any mobile connection (besides laptop "HostedNetwork" before the bed). And there was some text message, something about "NTFS ERROR", I haven't remembered what was there exactly.
Well, I tried to reboot the PC, but had no luck - the error message appeared again. Then I booted into my Win7 HDD, and got BSOD there as well! Reboot, CHKDSK and there we go, log in screen.
Then I probably committed the biggest mistake of my life: I didn't log in but rebooted PC again to see if CHKDSK fixed Win10 instead. Brilliant!
Shortly after that my PC entered endless loop of rebooting w/out even showing a thing on screen, it wasn't just "black", it didn't turn on, like, at all.
And I spent the whole weekend desperately trying to fix it, ending up removing both HDDs and inserting 'em into my old rig (thank god I didn't move it somewhere else!). It's slow, it has only 4GB of RAM, GTX 260 and I still feel it in a bad way (e.g. Chrome loads pages excruciatingly slow!), although it works!
And now I'm stuck between
*actually attempting to recover the data from the faulty Win10 HDD with MANY screenshots I love so much ['Cause, you know, "an artist puts a piece of his/ her soul into the work of art he/she's working on" kinda stuff]
AND
*one heavily time-consuming task related to students and their graduation works.
It's truly super sad to realize, I was just about to share my Paragon shots with you, I was so excited about it, and now I can't even see them, and lots of other unreleased works! I was painfully stabbed in the back by that monster that Win10 Anniversary Update surely is.
Word of advice: DO NOT INSTALL WIN10 ANNIVERSARY UPDATE BY ANY MEANS! It's still so faulty I just can't imaging how MS let it hit the users' update schedules and download queues.
Of course, it might be just my fault all the way, but I guess a little bit of a warning wouldn't hurt anyone.
P.S. Sorry for low shot quality, it was taken in this January when I was on my 1st playthrough trying to beat the game's stutter and other graphics problems, didn't even think of screenshooting it because of low amount of VRAM (* 2GB = only Low Textures, Medium ones take ages to stream correctly) and 1080p resolution (*because again - I was just playing it without any intension to shoot it, may be take some pics just to remember the finest moments of it. While now I decided to choose this particular shot is because I felt it's pretty fitting to the themes I explain here, below it).
I'm really sorry for both having that tragedic event happening (* I really, really-really loved those shots that are probably lost forever on Win10 HDD) AND for having you read this long-a$$ wall of text. I love you all! Stay positive people!
V. Vorsin @polyneutron
It was a rainy weekend. We were holed up and ate pizza and watched TV the whole day. We took photos of ourselves too!
I intend this to be a press photo for our band My Parasol (check us out: myparasol.bandcamp.com)
What do you guys think? Do you like?
Wild Thing
Many a Saturday night I’d just spend in the house on Victoria Blvd with a dozen beers and a mickey of Johnny Walker Red. Around 7 PM I’d send Shane and Suzanne out to Steffees B B Q to pick me up some ribs, as payment they got to chew on the bones. By now, seventeen or so many of us were following in the footsteps of the working class stiffs of our neighborhood. Scores of young fellows found love in the drink at a young age, some more than others. One evening at Victoria a friend named Scotty Collins was passed out on the couch, a few of us thought it would be funny pouring liquid honey, peanut butter, jam and such all over his thick combed back hair! Scotty was full of himself he thought he was Gods gift to women. He got up after some razzing singing his praises, like a white James Brown, “ain’t I beautiful, I am so good looking the women can’t resist me, ain’t I beautiful.” Then he realized the state he was in we all fell over in laughter.
There were a couple of other memorable nights at Victoria Blvd. The all time best was on a Saturday night when a local Toronto Disc Jockey named Dave Mickey was on a TV show doing a telethon to raise funds for something or the other. I got the free number and called in over a dozen times issuing challenges from the twelfth division police station for any other station to match our donation of a $100 if Mickey could do ten push ups on TV. Mickey did the pushups and then I’d call back using another voice saying I was the Softley Cartage baseball team and we meet the challenge and will give an extra $100 if Mickey can do fifteen more push ups and twenty sit ups. This was all happening live on channel 11 TV from Hamilton Ontario, there weren’t many channels at the time, maybe three in Canada, more if you had an antenna, I can’t recall if we had one, cable was still an idea as was sattelite. A big football star of the day Angelo Mosca was also on the telethon we had him doing pushups. I asked him why he was so mean on the field, this got under his skin when I suggested he was a dirty player, all live on air! That was my moment of fame. We tallied it up and we had fictitiously donated over a thousand dollars to the fund, several fire stations and police stations had unknowingly become donors. The loud mouthed Dave Mickey was so much clay in our prankster hands.
John the Italian lived next door to us on Victoria Blvd. His English was poor, what he could speak he spoke it with a stutter. His wife looked like she belonged on an Italian movie set as one of the mourners, rotund, olive skinned, kerchief forever on her head, she might have been bald except for her moustache! They did something to bug us, complained about the dog barking, or the loud noise of our parties. A bunch of us were sitting in the living room on a Saturday night drinking and the idea comes up to order some food for the neighbors. There was no such thing as call display in those days and the food joints relied on Take Out orders, they were ecstatic when you placed an order. One after another the delivery cars came to the neighburs front door, pizza delivery came from Little Tonys in Weston then Vesuvios brought some spaghetti from their shop in the Junction, then some chicken delivery from the Pic N Chick’n place up towards Weston, more pizza from the place I ordered my ‘butter pizza’ from Renatos, we even ordered Chinese food from Happy Buddha the Chinese place, we even called Steffee’s Barbecue using an Italian accent. While the delivery persons were at the neighbours door we were listening from our house bent over in laughter at the poor stuttering Italian who was about to pull his hair out, the poor guy was losing his mind. Towards the end of the night we called the fire department to report his house on fire and then an ambulance to pick up a sick child and then we had to stop or get ourselves in trouble. Our relationship with him was fine afterwards.
Every weekend there was some kind of event usually involving the drink. Some of us boys weren’t interested in anything other than drinking as if this was a remedy to the boring repetitiveness of our boring lives in Boringville. The soon to be famous group The Band were playing as the Hawks at the Crang Plaza Banquet Hall down at Jane and Wilson. I remember getting all duked up, nice strides, raincoat, mickey of lemon gin in the side pocket and taking in the show. It was a Canadian version of West Side Story. Several of us were giving off terrible energy by way of pseudo violence, throwing ones energy. Word was out that these black dudes from downtown were going to look for trouble, in our part of town. Word got around they had guns a bunch of us independents were in attendance. Fortunately there was no big brawl. Up on stage the Hawks rocked the place. They were dressed in tight silk mohair suits, their hair slicked back which was the fashion of the day, they wore pointy shoes maybe what we called Beatle Boots, the ties were thin, but boy could they play! I was no match for the bitter lemon gin. The evening turned out to be just a lot of posturing, somehow I managed to get picked up for being drunk and woke up in the 31 Division cells up around Jane and Sheppard, they were brand new so the name C Tuna was one of the first to be scratched into those walls. John and Gisele were not impressed when they had to come and bail me out again the next morning. Somehow at the age of sixteen I managed to get thrown in for these petty drunk charges several weekends in succession in various parts of Toronto. Nobody ever said this boy needs some help, not the judges, the cops, the parent or relations or the church it wasn’t an option back then. I wonder from time to time if the good folk weren’t afraid I’d hook someone or if it just wasn’t too much for mom to see this back then as that would question her values the mask of alcohol she was wearing to bear her own grief and I now know what a burden I must have been and at times feel terrible for this.
I knew I was a burden to her one weekend in Niagara Falls USA where we used to go drinking as the drinking age was only 18 in New York State. John Crossey and I were remotely involved in an afternoon disruption at a downtown bar, other people were also in town to party from the Nicks pool hall scene. Guys like Tom Brolley Rick Fordham, Scotty, Alfie my brother Alex. There was a minor skirmish with the doormen and the screws were called who caught John and I who were just belligerent at being falsely accused. Crossey was known to be nutty when drinking he later did a fin for armed robberies. They took us to the local bucket and this was a major drag as we could have been released and across the border for about twenty five dollars each. Those other guys didn’t give a fuck, it was their beef, just left us there to rot with the black inmates in the dirty city jail who did not want to share their Kools with us.
Well we sobered up and went to court on the Monday morning and got remanded for a couple of weeks to the county jail in Lockport New York about thirty miles from Niagara Falls. It was a modern structure, less than five years old quite an improvement from Toronto’s Don Gaol. When we got there they gave us orange coveralls to wear, fresh shorts, socks, soap, a toothbrush and fed us a meal of chicken and dumplings, it was like moms home cooking. We got taken up to a ward on the second floor with a bunch of other young guys in their late teens and early twenties. Both blacks and whites. Up till then I didn’t know any black people except Elton Horner who lived more or less in the Weston area and the Patterson family which had moved to Rogers and Keele from Nova Scotia but I didn’t know them, I saw them and was only aware that they were around. The other inmates liked us, we played cards or read all day long, fattened up on the great food. Canteen was allowed to be purchased if you had money. We had some dough I think John’s folks had sent him twenty or fourty dollars, not enough to bail ourselves out but enough to buy a carton of Luckys and Marlboro cigarettes each and both of us bought a box of chocolate bars, boy the other inmates really liked us then! I can with certainty recall eating sixteen chocolate bars one day, it was either eat them or give them away. They were Mars bars, John bought Three Musketeers bars, they cost a dime each, 24 in the box!
At cards, especially rummy five hundred I never lost, had a gimmick I’ll share with you. When the game is early and you have three in a row or three of a kind don’t lay them down but discard one of them into the pile, then a few moves later you can pick up that card and get to hold the rest of the cards that have been laid down then if possible discard another card from your hand that makes three of a kind or three in a row. You will always be able to control the game because you have almost all the cards. One black guy named Leroy (another Leroy) would remark in a voice not unlike one the comedian Eddie Murphy would later adopt, “you’re good Charlie Brown” and we’d all start laughing cause of course he said it with a stylized black American twang extending the vowels to make the phrase sing. “He Good”.
Those two weeks went by quite simply, you’d get a routine going, get up, wash, eat, play cards, out to exercise in the yard, in for lunch, take a nap or play more cards, dinner time, read a book brought around in the book cart by an inmate, wash a few floors, clean the pissers, tea and cookies for snack, smoke your brains out if you ran out of your own blowers they gave you some crappy papers and a cotton pouch called Bull Durham tobacco and you could roll your own, see what I mean about smoking? They gave it to you! The word was that the pouch tobacco was full of salt peeter which rumour has it cuts back on the need to jerk off. It sure never slowed me down.
I Never had a fight in Lockport, people respected us we were different, it was like being a foreigner. In court after the two week wait they dismissed the charges, we defended ourselves and told the judge we were just in the wrong place at the right time, which was true we weren’t even involved in the bar fight, we just happened to be there. The local cops looked bad when we got off and we were escorted across the border to Canada by a Border Patrol officer. We had a little bit of money to take the bus home to Toronto as Johns step folks (he was adopted) sent him dollars. That’s when I called home. I remember two things distinctly about that day..The Troggs song Wild Thing was number one on the charts and it could be heard on a cars radio as it passed us by when the Border Police were letting us go, and my mother saying, “Oh No” when I informed her from the payphone that I was coming home. She must have been enjoying the rest from my endless antics.
This would have probably been the summer of 66. Going to jail with someone really bonds the individuals cause now you’ve been doing something together that usually doesn’t happen except at school or in the military or on a sports team. In the summer of 67 Walter Husk, Pee Wee and myself drove to Montreal to see Expo 67. Top down summer in the city, three crazy guys thinking this was a big carnival or a party to attend. Walt had a beautiful Mercury convertible creamy white with a red vinyl top and interior. Here were the three most ineligible bachelors in the world in this luxury car heading down the highway. I recall the incredible array of structures of the fair, that modern architecture was lost on us, we found the beer tent quickly and afterwards guzzled down the quarts of beer we bought at the ‘deppanier’ downstairs from the room the three of us shared in an older area of Montreal. Expo 67 had created a wealth of money for those with rooms to rent, I suppose this was an economic spinoff. We brought a case of quarts home to Toronto where no one had seen them before, brands now non existent, Dow and O’Keefe. Dow was actually one of my moms favourite beers, not to many years on and it was removed from the market after several people in Quebec died from drinking it it. O’Keefe was a large brewery the O’Keefe Centre now called the Hummingbird Centre was their flagship.
Later that summer we took a trip to Parry Sound, up north to the great fresh air. We got a room out of town at a hotel on the water that had a big draft room, The Goat aka pee wee and self borrowed Walt’s mercury convertible to do some sight seeing. You know how it is when the afternoon booze suddenly hits you and you’re drunk, from nowhere you’re drunk, but not usually in the middle of the hills and lakes surrounding Parry Sound. Most often you are walking on a city street and that is much safer than driving. I tried the old squint one eye technique but forgot to put the car in forward gear instead putting it in reverse and I drove us backwards into a big ditch! We were miles from town, totally lost. We waited and waited then a young guy showed up and we went to a service centre and they called us a tow truck and not the police! Walt’s car went to a garage for extensive repairs to the undercarriage. We continued to party until the next day when we took the train home and had our own carry on bags of warm Labatts 50s in stubby bottles to entertain the long weekend crowds with. A few weeks later Walter took the train up to Parry Sound to get his car the repairs costing in excess of three hundred dollars. He never complained or harassed me and the G man for any cash it was all part of the friendship. Friends were friends, thicker than blood, lots of us created relationships out of frustration, out of lack of satisfaction with our lives at home, at work or in school. In these relationships the rules were made as life went on. Friends were family.
My calming down is an ongoing evolution. When I think of the years 64, 65 and 66 when I left York Memorial high school I realize I could easily have wound up in jail or dead from any sort of accident related to drinking and the fast life. When my buddies Ken Goobie and Eachie went away I lost my fast friends and changed crowds, went back to the Mt. Dinky corner boys with their cars who were a little less prone to adventures that might irk the lawmakers. One time before changing crowds a bunch of us were on a northbound Weston Road bus heading up to the Albion loop to catch the bus to Jane and Wilson and for no reason a few of those guys started to fight with passengers just for the sake of having a fight, I knew better and was always on the watch for them to explode. We ran off the bus via the side doors and got away. The next week with that same group we were eating in a Chinese restaurant up near Weston Rd and Oak street, it’s long gone. We ate piles and piles of food the Chinaman comes over for his pay and we all laugh then bolt out the door never to be seen again. The old eat and run trick……………
My job for a spell was shoplifter. I still have a bit of a problem not putting something in my pocket, it gets the adrenaline running, gives me a thrill, does this categorize me as a kleptomaniac? I don’t know, I never let a shrink or anyone like that get so personal. Yorkdale had just opened up it was a giant mall the biggest in Canada. Guys wanted hubcaps, wire ones off of fancy Caddys, Buicks, Olds’s and Impalas. I’d borrow Walts old cream coloured Volkswagen the one that you had to light the pilot light to get heat on. I’d tell him I was going out looking for a job and head up there to Yorkdale with my order book, looking for hubcaps. Not to long later I expanded the business to include suede coats. I Should have stuck with the hubcaps as they didn’t have things like cameras or roving security teams then in the parking lots the way they do today. I knew the mall quite well as I had worked there the year the mall opened as a busboy with my mother at the Noshery Encore dining room one of the better eateries at the plaza. Busboys were always being accused of stealing the waitresses tips, I never did, I drank the half filled cocktails from time to time though.
I got busted at 16 or maybe I was 17 for stealing a suede coat in the Yorkdale Eatons store. The security team were waiting for me as I’d already scooped three or four coats in the previous week, custom ordered for guys at the corner and at Mac’s BP. I asked the buyers their size and the style they wanted and I would go and get them a coat charging twenty five dollars a coat as nobody could afford the hundred or so bucks the stores were charging for these jackets. This bust really put my brakes on as I had to go to court and tell more lies, my lie this time to the judge was that I wanted to buy my dad a new coat for Christmas but only had enough money to buy my mom one as I had about a hundred and twenty bucks in my pocket when they arrested me. Fortunately the judge bought the story and my sentence was quite reasonable, first offence, probation, they didn’t even bar me from the mall. And thank the Lords that the cop who lived up the street on Victoria Blvd Mr Allen wasn’t on duty in the court room when I was telling the judge my story, my dad had been dead for about four years!
That summer prior to getting busted I used to score coats at the Miracle Mart store down by Crang Plaza, it was a forerunner to Walmart and K Mart. Here again I’d worked the same store in the restaurant when it first opened up with my buddy from York Memo, Eamon Lever. He was a rascal as well, we were both petty thieves, small time. As servers at this lumpy snack bar inside the Miracle Mart store we got to take the cash from each order and put it in the till or at least it was supposed to go into the till, most of it went into our pockets, that is until Eamon got busted and they checked his locker and found about fourty bucks in change. Warren Beasley who owned the snack bar also owned some racehorses, he fired him fast and I left shortly after as they plugged the holes for me to make any graft. The Miracle Mart store had their own line of suede coats, not as nice as the Eatons coats but still nice. Ken Goobie and I were looking quite dapper in our new coats our hair all slicked back one wet Saturday afternoon when we strolled into the Mercury dealership on Wilson Avenue beside the new Beverly Hills Hotel and asked to test drive a brand new 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente.
Incredulously, the salesman in his stupidity and greed mistook us for two preppies from Forest Hill and gave me the keys to a brand new car. He never asked for my drivers license or any information whatsoever, I guess we just snowed him under with our bullshit story and fine apparel we were off to the races. I recall the car being a sporty two door model, baby blue in colour. It was a sleek model with vinyl front bucket seats. Brand new. We headed right for the 401 and sped along the highway making the odd stop here and there to see if we could show off our ride. We didn’t see anyone, all the better because ten minutes turned into an hour or more and we got worried that the salesman might call the police on us as it was getting close to five. The newly under construction Weston Rd cloverleaf ramp loomed ahead. If only I had slowed down in the pouring rain before entering the hairpin turn. The Comet spun out of control at the top of the turn and rolled down a thirty foot or so hill the back end catching up to where the front had been moments before. The car did three full turns in all before it landed on its roof, tires spinning, motor running right beside the busy expressway! Kenny and I checked each other out and got the hell away from there by climbing the embankment and we ran like hell down a street named Pimlico and hid in someone’s utility shed for what seemed like hours as the cops were going crazy looking for the drivers of this abandoned car. Cops were everywhere in unmarked cars, patrol cars. They were knocking on the doors of homes to see if anyone had seen us. After some time, an hour or so we headed over to the corner of Albion Road across from the area we had been hiding in and we asked two guys in their late twenties to give us a lift. They were driving a black suicide door 1950 something Lincoln Continental. We got in and immediately noticed there were no handles on the inside rear doors to use to get out. We naturally thought we had been busted! These guys with leather jackets and the old ducktail hairdos said they’d heard about the accident at the police station where they must have been paying tickets or something. They drove us right down to Weston Rd and Lawrence and after stocking up on some booze at the John St. liquor store in Weston we went to a party at the Kirkpatrick house in Mount Dennis on Brownville Avenue where many other notables were gathered. Joe Budiki was there along with Bobby Miller and this guy Dave Harris from Weston whom I later worked with at Dyer and Miller Brothers fire extinguisher service and repairs. There was a lot of boasting that night about the car ride and it was in the day when guys wanted to test you, to see how tough you were, I almost got in ten fights but for some reason that night I was an untouchable. That old problem of getting drunk was still with me as I recall being out of it. Again. But for the grace of the Ten Buddhas I was still alive and kicking!!!
Another story relating to cars took place a few years earlier when I was fifteen. I know I was fifteen because I got taken to Juvenile Hall down on Jarvis street in downtown Toronto and my poor mother had to come and get me or I’d still be in there. Brian Hishon and self got a key at Nicks poolhall from someone that purportedly opened the doors to and worked in the ignition of certain GM cars. It was a master key. Well now, a free ride! We weren’t long in finding a two tone 57 Chevrolet on one of the side streets off of the main drag. We headed north on the main drag Weston Rd and then east on Trethewey Drive when we noticed we were being chased by the cops who were being secretive by not turning their cherry light on. Hishon sped it up making a quick left onto the Hearst Circle in an area of wartime houses, in a maze of small side streets, as he flew around the corners I jumped out at a parkette as it motored on, I rolled a little bit first onto the hard pavement then onto a grassy area in the parkette, just like in the movies. I stayed low under the trees as the cops passed me by chasing the car and then I got up and ran for hell. Across from the Hearst Circle the Dominion Steel plant welcomed me except I had to climb their eight foot high steel fence, which I eventually did and found my way to the friendly train tracks which led to the bottom of the streets in our working class neighborhood.
About two in the morning there was a knock at the front door of 26 Victoria Boulevard, it was the police, two plain clothes officers. Hishon had ratted me out and after some questioning and the usual laying of guilt they took me right downtown to the Juvenile Centre where the quarters were as modern as a motel room, but when they locked your door you didn’t come out. I was only there for two or three days at the most. Memory tells me that they did some group de-criminalizing sessions that were a waste of time and of course some do-gooder was always testing you to see if you were telling the truth. The food sucked and if anything this was a bad place to be as there were kids from ‘very’ troubled situations sharing rooms with kids like me, not really bad but adventurous. In court some time later I received a light sentence to see a probation officer once a month who was another do gooder that was always busy undermining you, running down your successes and discriminating against your lifestyle, your clothes, your brand of smokes the music you listened to. I felt then and I do now that I could never please a probation officer. He made such an impression on me I don’t recall his or her name or face and never will. My friendship with Hishon was never the same after he ratted on me, even at this young age he should have kept his trap shut. Mum was pretty pissed off having to come downtown to attend court and take me home, she had five other kids at home to look after, I don’t know who looked after them while she did this, a neighbour?
Seeing this reminded me of 2 things: 1) the scene from the movie: "little miss Sunshine" where brother Dwayne finds out he is colourblind (and he wants to become a pilot!!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVcNv4VLLA8&NR=1
2) this beautiful song by The Counting Crows
The real fun thing is that when trying to find the scene on youtube, I find a link where they combine it with the Counting Crows song!!! Pretty amazing! (see next link)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSUd2u33UnY
And the original vid from the CC's
www.youtube.com/watch?v=164jS1qnCU0
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready (repeat 3 times)
I am taffy stuck and tongue tied
Stutter shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside
I am ready (repeat 3 times)
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 (repeat 3 times)
I am fine (repeat 3 times)
Counting Crows
Ian Prowse and Lara Simpson at Alexander’s in Chester. Backdrop of the ancient Roman walls. Outdoor concert. Audience obeying the rules; organisers getting it spot on. Great venue.
It’s different these days. Our glorious leader hasn’t a fucking clue about running a country. Drowning not waving.
Still you Tory bastards support the liars. You are all cunts and I hope you die soon. Some of us - and maybe you will have to deal with unnecessary deaths because you voted for a stuttering-on-purpose,serial philanderer, who cares about one person only. You swallowed his spaff. You are as guilty as he is.
Anyway, we had tunes like Raid The Palace echoing over Chester (a city that voted for Gyles Brandteth) and we took it back.
Roy was dancing on the walls. He came down to take centre stage.
There is still joy and hope.
The Fern GP team are concerned to see Felix Baggott's Dallara F301 stutter to a halt on the way to the assembly area for the first Monoposto Tiedeman Trophy race. After several unsuccessful attempts the car managed to get on its way, albeit slowly, and finished the race in 11th place. Whatever the problem was he improved in race two and came home 6th.
These may seem a little odd, but yesterday morning turned out to be very, very interesting for me.
I was just working on my comic at my computer, hearing the local bus (#80) that runs past the front door of my house coming up the hill, when all of a sudden there was the most outrageous bang followed by the bus stuttering for power, it then limped to a halt outside my front drive in a fog of acrid black smoke, whereupon the driver immediately opened the engine bay door and started dousing the street with sand from what had apparently been a fuel leak.
Passengers were unloaded, and Country Bus sent up another two buses to cover. Eventually their engineers arrived in their company coloured LDV Convoy, as did a local hero of the roads, the Count of Heathfield, a gigantic tow truck used to rescue HGV's and Coaches.
The bus is a 2004 Dennis Dart SLF with SC Coachbuilders body, and is a regular on this route. I overhead one of the engineers mentioning something to do with the 'Big End', which is part of the Connecting Rod, and connects to the bearing journal on the crank throw.
HP5+ @IE 100, ID11 8min @21°C
By accident exposed @IE100, reduced agitation to 3 inversions every 2min during development, increased agitation to 3 inversions every 30sec during fixation
The Werra II on the left has a defective shutter that wouldn't open at all, the Zenit on the right has a stuttering shutter. Gladly, the Werra IV in the middle is working fine.
Piglet: A "Very Small Animal" and best friend of Winnie-the-Pooh who has a stutter, a timid disposition, and a big heart.
Gamorrean Guard: A porcine humanoid from the planet of Gamorr who guards the Tatooine palace of Jabba the Hutt.
If they had to fight, who would win?
#322 in the Duel 365 series.
who did walk down the street
white robe with no shoes on his feet
and on top of his head place a box with two slits
and the sign from his neck said
'I do not exist'
or a woman who could not remember her name
did stutter and stutter
again and again
and saw you and called you her son
her eyes said
'my being is gone
but still I'm not dead'?
Yep, inspired by Miserere - The Cat Empire =)
It took me hours to edit this shot... literally. I started preparing at, like half past 1, began shooting one hour later, finished shooting at 3 o'clock, finished editing at 5 and finally the decision between this and a slightly different version took me another hour...
I guess you need to view it larger
Mar 8 68/366
League of Heroes: Ascent
Episode 3: Darkest Before Dawn - Part 2
“We interrupt our continuing coverage of the New Brickton prison break, it seems that we are getting an unexpected live feed from the madness in Midtown.” The news anchor stuttered, nervously shuffling through the stack of papers on the news desk. “Frank, can you switch us over…”
Static… and then the picture suddenly changed from the busy news room to a devastated street. A blonde woman, statuesque and menacing stares into a shaky camera lens.
“Good morning citizens of New Brickton. From this day forward, it will be remembered that you sent forth your champions to face Celedon the Destroyer… and I have found them wanting. They lie here now in pathetic heaps, driven before me and broken at my feet. Is this really the best you have to offer? I demand a challenge worthy of my strength! For every hour that I am unsatisfied, I will raise another block of this insignificant city! Your only other option is complete surrender. Death or servitude, I give you the gift of choice mortals. Your first hour begins now.”
The broadcast suddenly cuts to a rainbow test pattern. Unseen by the camera, a winged figure descends to the devastated street. Upon touching down on the pavement, she kneels over the motionless form of the Indestructible Man.
“Wake up! Please!” She shakes Fred’s seemingly lifeless body, “Fred, I don‘t know what’s happened to us, but I do know that you are still alive and I know that we need to get you and your friends out of here.”
This was built for the League of Lego Heroes Group… www.flickr.com/groups/llh/
I was shown Lake Merced last night and instantly fell in love. It was way too dark for me to see anything but I found a couple people smoking weed and cigarettes and decided to take a polaroid for them, which as my best polaroid to this date.
I love this city, but i am still confused if it's just because it is a different city, where I am away from family and stress; or it is just because I am truly happy here.
Everywhere I look, I see a future photo shoot. I see the beauty in everything here; San Fran. I do not see the beauty in everything at home (Huntington Beach). All I see is ugly memories that torture me and keep me tied down to that city. I see beauty in the cultivation of life and liberty here.
The weather isn't the most promising here. It is cloudy, foggy, but still beautiful. I love watching the people walk by, each and everyone of them are different and have a story that rests in them; but so do I. I share my story and grief through my eyes, I can tell about theirs by the way of their body language and I really love everything about that.
I talk to random people here, which I cannot do at home. I stutter at home. I cannot complete a sentence without condemming myself of how unworthy I am for the other person.
I do not miss my problems, I do not miss my family at home. I hope they are not lonesome without me there... BUT I do need to find out who SCOTT is before anything else.
To move here, or not... That is the question.
1. As I've mentioned before, when I'm stressed or worried or nervous, I tend to laugh. *laugh laugh laugh*
2. As I uploaded this I glanced at yesterday's photo. Hilarious how they look like they were taken by different photographers, huh.
3. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday.
4. My son spilled Cheetos in my closet. Don't ask me A. Why he was in my closet or B. Why he had Cheetos.
5. I love typos. They make me laugh.
6. I haven't worn my hair down in weeks. But, I have a Dr. Appt tomorrow so I figured I'd look somewhat presentable for a change.
7. I'm drinking a Sprite. It's yummy.
8. I saw an article today that had a poll about mothers never having painted nails when their kids are young. For once I'm NOT in the minority. What's nail polish, anyway?
9. I napped with my kid today. Like, literally, he laid on me and slept. Gotta take these opportunities before he's a linebacker asking to borrow my truck for the weekend.
10. I can't take a compliment. I blush, then stutter, then say something completely smartass.
11. If I ran into myself on the street I'd probably think "Nice pants, pluck your eyebrows, and why do you have a huge phone in your pocket?"
12. I totally should count how many pairs of socks I have and tell you tomorrow. I may do that.
13. I cleaned my humidifier today. In retrospect, I should have eaten first because it killed my appetite. Just saying.
14. I have a secret love of post-it notes. Especially the smaller ones. They're like...adorable post-it note babies.
15. Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
~Bill Cosby
Goodnight All
mwah
.K
Random Fact: The average roll of toilet paper has 333 pieces.
In the low light of sunset we approached the open field of green and golden Serengeti grasses. A cool breeze mixed with the remaining warmth of the sun's radiant glow filters softly through the air, carrying distant scents and sounds. A small voice filtered through the blades in a characteristic style not unlike that of Billy Crystal on an HBO stage. "So did you hear the one about the big cat that failed his exam on gazelle hunting? He tried to have another cat take the exam for him! They failed him for being a Cheetah...." We, the Serengeti's paparazzi, fired away with our digital cameras, recording every moment. It's an interesting scenario, don't you think?
So, do you think leopards laugh? Well, we all know that this leopard is really yawning, but then, what's a yawn? Even less is known about that pre-slumberous reflex activity. If this were a polar bear then, undoubtedly, some expert in polar bear psychology would try to tell me that this is a "stress yawn." But if leopards do laugh, would we even recognize it? Might we ever get a chance to see or hear it? I can imagine a leopard with his mouth agape, tongue wagging asymmetrically about, letting out a stuttering belly like growl. Can you? Oh well, so leopards probably don't laugh, but let's talk hyenas! Now that's altogether another story! #ILoveWildlife #ILoveNature #WildlifePhotography in #Tanzania #Animals of #Africa #Nature on the #Serengeti #Cats #BigFive #Leopards #Yawns #BigCats
I came to in a dark room, my hands cuffed behind my back. My eye felt swollen from where the gun hit me. Above me stood the man in the ski mask, clutching a machete. Off to the side stood the man in the baseball.
"Had a nice nap now have we, princess?"
"Wh-where am I?" I stutter.
"Pffffttt... I'd say the middle of nowhere, South Africa, twenty metres or so under ground level? No one can hear ya scream for shit if that's what you're gonna do..."
"Who.... who are you?"
"I'll be the one asking the questions here, kitten... but I guess you should know, seein' as you'll be here till you're no longer deemed a threat-"
"A threat? A threat to who?"
"Us. Not gonna lie to you, sweets, this here? Golden for us. None of your costumed little shits can come find you here. You're ours. Forever."
The man in the cap stifles a chuckle. Sick bastard....
"Care to elaborate? You couldn't be less vague if you tried." I spit at him.
*Sigh* "Us? We work for a guy... calls himself Mordred. Doubt you know of us. We barely know ourselves... heh! All we know? Mordred's a righteous outlaw Robin-Hood type. Hell, he fits out morals like a glove!"
"Those morals being?"
"The corrupt shouldn't rule! The rulers of our great homeland, the good ol' US of A... corrupt pile of shit if you ask me. You? You help the pigs hunt the free! The ones who dare overthrow the corrupt system!"
"Soooo... you're just locking me here for the rest of my life so this 'Mordred' fucker can attempt to singlehandedly, and likely fail to, capsize America?"
"You're right, all except for one small thing... Mordred ain't gonna fail! Heheheheheheheh!!"
I roll my eyes as the lunacy of this group's ideals. Radicalism at its rock-bottom worst. The man in the cap removes his cap and flops it onto a crate. He exhales deeply, crack his knuckles and flips his hair. He reaches into his hip holster and pulls out a gun. He clicks the hammer and performs a little wild-west-like spin. I nearly shit myself. This isn't how I'm gonna die, twenty feet under, miles from civilization.
But no, that's not how. At least not yet. He points the barrel at the machete-toting barbarian in front of me and without blinking or letting the other man at least let out a gasp, a loud pop echoes throughout the room and the man's brain matter paints the walls. He falls down dead, clutching his knife still. The other man walks out briefly and returns with a flak vest, cargo pants and other military gear in hand.
"Put this on. They'll recognize you too quickly in what you're wearing right now. I'll leave the room if you like."
I nod, and he leaves. I change into the heavy fitting clothes, much bulkier than my Zulu armour for damn sure. It's uncomfortable, but it might save my life. I let him back in.
"As you can tell by now, I'm not with these hooligans. In any way, shape or form."
"...So you're a turncoat?"
"Can't say I am. I'm here on official business, but you, Zulu? What are you doing here? Gotham could use you right about now anyway..."
"How do you-"
"Ah! Yes, allow me to introduce myself!"
I'm a little freaked out by this guy, I'm gonna admit.
"Yes, please do..."
"Colonel Hal Jordan, United States Air Force, covert CIA agent and all around badass. Pleased to make your acquaintance, and I'm absolutely, one hundred percent sure the feeling's mutual!"
__________________________________________________________________________
My self-portrait on the cover of a book. I licensed it to marchand de feuilles
You can read more about it on my blog. :)
_________________
For a two volume ebook, a very pretty drug-addicted street prostitute allows her life to be documented by photographs and tape-recorded interviews for an entire year while she is working the streets of Atlanta. She does it for an ebook available from the usual websites. Here is Volume One on Amazon:
Street Prostitute: A Streetwalker Tells Her Story While She’s Working the Streets
If you want to read what happens her first full day in the hospital, check out Volume One. You may read it in its entirety for free by clicking on "Look Inside this book."
**************************************************************************
I get out of the car and lean against the hood. If Ronda does keep me waiting, at least I can spend the time taking in the stirrings of spring. The jonquils are already in bloom...the redbuds will be bursting forth any day...the birds are beginning to sing...
"Mar—Mar—Mar—Marcie—"
Ronda is suddenly back. A sweater draped over one arm, she is stuttering her hooker friend Marcie's name.
Very emotionally, her voice breaking, she tells me Marcie had just admitted that she did indeed have the ring that Ronda thought she had stolen from her. And then, after Ronda told her she could keep it, Marcie had started to cry...
Ronda seems so moved by this, I'm thinking. Really and truly and genuinely moved...
Suddenly she grabs my shirt—just below my neck— twists it—hard —and jerks me toward her—
"Give me some money for a pill—or I'm gonna kill you!"
"WHAT!?" I'm shocked.
She releases my shirt. Her tone had been only half kidding.
"You're full of shit," I say. "What are you talking about? You know I'm not gonna do that."
"I'm getting strung out again, George. I discovered the other day I'm getting strung out again... Please. "
"I will not!" I declare.
"Pleeeeease!"
"I told you what the deal was before. And I'm not changing."
"Don't be on principle!"
"That's not—"
"Fuck principle!" She's almost shouting.
"That's not just principle."
"Principle sucks, man!"
I back up: "What do you mean...you're... What do you mean that you're stru— You said you discovered the other day that you're strung out again."
"I am, I'm strung out again. I know I am."
"All right, explain to me what that means... That you're strung out again."
She yells her answer—
"I—WANT—A—FUCKING—PILL!"
"Okay"—my voice is normal, or fairly normal—"but that doesn't mean strung out. I thought, basically, strung out, the way you've used the term strung out...was that you had to have it so damned much and you were doing it constantly— "
Ronda interrupts: "I have been doing it constantly—that's the problem."
"Well, Melvin said you've been averaging two a day. How many have you really been averaging?"
"Five or six. He don't know what I've been doing."
"Okay. You've been doing five or six a day?"
"I'll give you this watch."
"You've been averaging five or six a day for how long?"
"I don't know! "
She clenches her teeth in frustration.
"A week?" I push. "Two weeks? A month?"
No answer from Ronda.
"Two months?"
Still no answer.
Then: "Since my coat got stolen. At least. Before then. I don't wanna talk about it. Pleeease, George, what can I do?”
"You have been averaging five or six a day for...a month? And Melvin doesn't know that. Is that correct?"
"What have I got to do?" she asks—no, demands. "Have a goddamn—" She stops.
"Is that correct?"
"Yeah." [Sounding definitive.]
"Okay. Well, this is what I've been asking you for a long time, was to tell me the truth about the pills. So you're getting strung out? "
"I am strung out."
Now I raise my voice:
"But you're not getting strung out like you have been, Ronda! Because I know how you were."
"Well, lemmee..." She gives a frustrated little sigh. "You can have everything in my house," she offers. "You can have Melvin included. You can have me. "
I just look at her.
"I'll be your personal slave for a week," she says—and laughs. "You can say, 'Ronda...'"
"You're lying. You have not been doing five or six a day for that long."
"I have," she contends. Her brow furrows... "A hundred and fifty, two hundred...about three hundred dollars a day. That's six, right? Yeah."
"So where do you shoot up?" I ask, looking her hard in the eye.
"Here. At Rick's. They don't tell anybody. [Pauses.] What can I do?"
"So... So you're strung out again..."
"What can I do?" she interrupts, repeating her question more forcefully.
"Well, what do you usually do?"
A sound of exasperation is her response.
Then suddenly I'm wondering:
Did she mean something more by her question? Something more crucial? More hopeful?
So quickly I ask: "What can you do about what?"
"George," she answers," I will do anything..."
My hopes evaporate.
"...I swear to God I would."
"I'm not," I say, "in the business of supporting your habit. You understand? I don't like it!"
"I know... That's not..."
She stops in mid-sentence and for a minute she's quiet.
"I would do it for you," she says finally.
"And besides that," I remind her, "we had a deal. We had a deal. We had a deal."
Ronda snaps her fingers:
"Broke."
"What?"
Another quick snap of her fingers:
"Broke."
"What's broke?"
"The deal just got broke. Now. Look..."
"It did not," I counter. "Not on my side it didn't."
"It's not supporting my habit"—she softens her tone—"it's not that."
"Please," she adds in a sexy little voice.
"Ronda, we made a contract on this deal. And I work thirty or forty hours a week on it." I pause. "Look, just get...get in the car and we'll go to Popeye's and—"
"If you'll buy..."
"...you're not hurting that much!"
"If you'll buy me a pill, we'll have a four-hour interview!"
She laughs. She's obviously enjoying this new line of argument.
"You've just had your methadone..."I say again "...you're not—"
"Fuck the methadone! The man won't raise my goddamn dose— I'm tired of his bullshit. He takes it personal if I can't make it to counseling. It hurts his feelings..."
She lowers her voice: "I'd do anything; I swear to God I would. I'd kill somebody. If I had to. But I ain't got no way to kill somebody."
"You would kill somebody?"
"If I had a gun."
"If you had a gun, you would kill..."
She interrupts, speaking louder now: "No, if I had a gun, I'd take it to Rick and trade it for a pill."
"Okay, but otherwise," I continue, "if you couldn't trade it for a pill, would you kill somebody for one?"
"I'd rob somebody. [A pause.] There's gotta be something I could do."
"Well, you could turn a trick, right?"
My question is met by a long silence.
Finally I say very nicely—and hopefully, "I wish that we would just go...get something to eat...and do this interview. They've got to be done, Ronda! If this book is gonna come together."
"Uh...let's get it," Ronda says. "I promise, we'll sit...we'll sit for hours. Upon hours."
"I can see— I can see that you are...you must... You've got to be strung out again."
"We'll go to your office..."
"I really... I really could not tell it before..."
"We'll go to the office..."
"...because you haven't done this..."
"In a long time," she finishes for me.
"In a long time."
"We'll go to your office," she says again, "and we'll just sit there. Because the pill, you know, it'll hold me for...about four hours. I'll just sit there and talk, talk, talk. Four hours, I promise."
I level my eyes at her. "After all the work I've put into this book, I'd ditch it before I gave you the money for a pill right now."
"Please"—now she's sounding like a little girl—"I'll pay it back to you."
"Give it up, give it up. It's not like you're hurting... physically hurting."
"Yeah"—she places a finger on her chest. "Right here it is. Right here."
"But you just had your methadone!"
"Fuck that methadone."
There's a silence.
"How do you feel about getting strung out again? If you are."
"I—just—like—the—way—the—stuff—feels. Okay?"
She climbs up onto the hood of my car.
"If you've been doing five or six a day"—I address her up there—"that means you've been on the street a fair amount. Right?"
Quickly: "Not in front of the hotel! George, you know I get that check the first of the month—can't you go on that?"
"Ronda, I'm not available for this."
"Pleeease!" she implores. "I don't know nobody to ask. ... Don't fuck with me."
"Ronda, I'm not gonna do it. So if you need to get it, go ahead. I'm not gonna do it."
"Why?" She asks it like she truly wants to know.
"Do you want me to spell out the reasons?"
She nods that she does.
"Number one," I say calmly and seriously, "we had a deal. Which you agreed to. I'm sticking to my part of the deal. In what I will do and will not do. That's the main thing.
"Number two: I don't have that kind of money. I'm in debt myself right now. Number three: you're always able to talk folks into...getting your drugs for you."
"No, I'm not!"
"You're not able, " I say, "to talk me into it."
There's a long, frowning silence from Ronda, still perched on my hood.
"But I wish to God," I say, "that you'd...get into shape or whatever, because if you get totally strung out, the only time I'll be catching you will be a little bit on the street, and that's it."
She slides down off the hood. With great agitation, she walks to the rear of the car—then back to me...
"Jesus Christ! Fuck it. I've gotta go turn a date, George. I'm sorry, I can't—"
"I'm sorry too. Now when are we gonna do this interview?"
"We could've done it right now."
"All right. Are you—" I start to ask, "are you—"
Wheeling around, Ronda walks off.
I draw deeply on my cigarette. Across the street, an old woman is sweeping the sidewalk in front of her house. As I'm watching her, I hear the slamming of my car door, and turning, I see that Ronda has climbed into the car and is pulling her shirt off over her head. I look quickly away. Through the windshield, I'd caught only a brief glimpse of her small but pretty breasts. I watch the old woman sweeping until I hear the car door shut again.
Now wearing the sweater she'd brought out from Rick's, Ronda is standing by the door, her eyes on me.
"I appreciate the, uh...I appreciate that," she says. Her tone is sincere. "You know?"
"What?"
"The, um...respect you just showed by not watching. I appreciate that."
"Well," I reply, "I would appreciate it if we can—even if you get strung out—if we can continue on this book without you making—"
She interrupts: "Where are you gonna be? At your office?"
"Yeah."
"After I get my dope," she says, "I'll come see you."
"You'll what?"
"I'll get a trick to bring me over there."
For a few seconds she just stands there.
"You don't want to loan me just ten dollars if I lay something on it?"
I shake my head.
"I've got to go straight broke, right?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Fuck you."
This she had said without raising her voice. But she sounds, for the first time today, truly angry.
She starts walking away.
I say to her back: "Are you saying you're coming over there?"
She stops; she turns and faces me:
"I'll be over there. I don't know why. Because I'm mad at you. I'm real mad at you, but I'll still come over."
"Okay."
Again she starts toward Ponce de Leon, then speaks over her shoulder:
"I'm coming because we're friends. You know what I mean?"
--------
A little hopeful, I wait at my office.
She never comes.
_________________
For a two volume ebook, a very pretty drug-addicted street prostitute allows her life to be documented by photographs and tape-recorded interviews for an entire year while she is working the streets of Atlanta. She does it for an ebook available from the usual websites. Here’s is Volume One on Amazon:
Street Prostitute: A Streetwalker Tells Her Story While She’s Working the Streets
Chloe: *eyes wide, stutters* “R-r-reef, I—”
Reef: *forges on* “Because, for me, lovin’ you is like breathin’: instinctive. And even when I take it for granted, I’m still well aware that if I ever stop, I’ll die. If you could just love me half as much as I love you, I figure we’ll still have more between us than most other couples ever—”
Chloe: “Whoa! S-s-stop! Just stop t-t-talking!”
Reef: *mouth closes with an audible click, as he starts to rise from the bed*
Chloe: *grabs Reef’s arm, clinging to it* “N-n-no, don’t go! I d-d-didn’t mean…”
Reef: *with a casualness that doesn’t match the hard set of his jaw* “No worries, Chlo. I didn’t mean to push. I’ll just give you some space and we’ll talk about it later.”
Chloe (forcefully): “N-N-NO! Stay! *exhales loudly* You know I’m s-s-slow when I’m upset. Just give me a d-d-damn second.”
Reef: *settles back onto the bed* “Okay.”
Chloe: *takes several deep breaths, carefully begins choosing her words* “I am not upset over the depth of your feelings for me, Reef. I am upset that you think you love me more, and you just accept it like that’s the way it’s gotta to be and you’ll settle for it.”
Reef: “I will.”
Chloe: *holds her finger up, fierce look demanding silence* “Who says you love me more? Who made that decision, huh? And I didn’t realize love was a quantifiable commodity that you can weigh and measure! Or that this was a contest!”
Reef: *suddenly angry* “What about Z?”
Chloe (nonplussed): “What about him?”
Reef: “You loved him for years, Chlo. Are you telling me that it’s all gone? Maybe another girl could pull that off, but not you. You don’t love easily and you don’t forget. You don’t work that way!”
Chloe: *matching Reef’s anger with her own* “No, I don’t! And I never said I didn’t love Z anymore! I just don’t love him like I love you!”
Reef: “Right. Because you love him more!”
Chloe: *growls in frustration* “Geeeez, Reef, sometimes you’re so…*quickly pulls her legs underneath her, bouncing agitatedly on the bed*…ugh! I didn’t even realize this was an issue for us anymore! How long has this been festerin’?”
Reef: *violent shrug* “I didn’t realize it was until just now. Green-eyed is so not cool, Chlo. You think I don’t know that? I hate feeling this way! You’re my best girl. He’s my brosef. Hell, I’m frickin’ sick of it! The jealousy. The fear…afraid I’ll do something to push you away. Turn you off. Realize you can do better. *buries his face in his hands, softly* I’m not him, Chlo. I never will be.”
Chloe: *stricken, crawls over to Reef, encircling him with her arms, propping her chin on his shoulder* “I never asked you to be! I don’t want you to be! I don’t want you to be anyone but you.”
Reef: *shoulders rigid, refusing to look at Chloe, mutters* “Sure.”
Fashion Credits
**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**
Chloe
Crochet Top: watbetty
Short: Mattel – CaliGirl Barbie
Boots: Snow’s Shopping Paradise (ebay)
Necklace: Me
Bracelets: Knife’s Edge Designs – Into the Woods – Earthly Delights Bracelet Set
Red “Bracelets”: Goody’s Hairbands
Doll is a Costume Drama Giselle re-rooted by the amazing valmaxi(!!!).
Reef
Shorts: Gwen of Gwendolyn’s Treasures
Tank: Mattel – Playline Ken – Underwear Pack
Necklace: Me
Doll is an IFDC High Elite Pierre.
Twenty are Whimbrels, but two are Knot. And the collective noun for Whimbrels include bind and fling. Although I doubt that many of these collective nouns were really used, though they persist through quiz questions. They were supposed to be a covert way of communicating between hunters, without giving the game away to those not in the know (A bit like Rhyming Slang or Palare).
Whimbrels breed on northern tundra around the globe, but in America Hudsonian Whimbrels lack the white V on the rump. In Britain they are rare breeding birds, mainly in Shetland, but passing through in large numbers each spring and autumn while traveling to and from their African wintering grounds. They are similar to Curlews, but a little smaller with a shorter bill and a stripey head. If you click to zoom in you can see the stripey heads. They also have a stuttering whistling call, which gives rise to their folk name Seven Whistlers, and which is quite unlike any Curlew call.
I photographed this V-formation flying south along the Northumberland coast in late July, probably failed breeders heading down to Africa. There are two breeding plumage Knots in positions one and three in the flock. Most of the Knots that winter in Britain are from Greenland and Arctic Canada but they stop to refuel in Iceland. So I think these Whimbrels are probably from the Icelandic breeding population and this is where the two Knot latched onto this flock. But that is just my idle speculation.
The expression "In a bind" means in a box, or hole, or jam, or tight corner, or tight spot. In a difficult, threatening, or embarrassing position; also, unable to solve a dilemma. It was also one of the opening lines of the Charlie Daniels Band 1979 hit The Devil Went Down to Georgia (...he was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind, so was willing to make a deal). It's not an expression I hear very often so I think it was this record that brought the words to mind.
Hermosa Beach, April 2011
This is probably the 2nd wedding arch I saw that day. There's something that drew me in taking a photo of this one: Is it the calmness before the craziness? Or the calmness after the craziness? The arrangement of the seats in perfect pattern? The lonely cleaning guy? I really don't know.
Nikon D50 50mm 1.8d lens reversed. Aperture of f8 and 1/500 stutters peed with pop-up flash. Follow my 500px for more photos: 500px.com/iloveburgersomuch
Fluorescents 'R' Us.
I was ingesting New York like a testosterone driven, heart-torn, needy monster, with my friends dying around me. I had no idea how, or where, to start.
Where to begin and how to make a record of it all?
I knew I wasn't 'normal', and didn't care. That was, at the very least, a great start.
This is a single exposure edited in Lightroom. 1.5 second exposure with multiple flashes from my flash unit to create the double exposure. The strobe on stage to the left of the dj had also been going off which created a stutter on the deck in front on the dj.
ISO: 400
f13
Shutter speed: BULB
Flash trigger: Thumb on the 'test flash' button.
Flash Settings: M 1/8 power.
On aspirations beyond one's background or capabilities. There is a certain irony in the recognition that this has never changed.
To laugh might appear to be the best response.
This film (1962) impressed me as an 8-year-old. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that a stutterer doesn't stutter whilst singing. It felt good to let rip, to allow words, now and then, to flow. The yodelling would be part of the warm-up, I guess.
I fantasised about being chosen to be in the 'Vienna Boys Choir'.
Then along came Julie (The Hills Are Indeed Alive), reminding me that a certain Mr. Hitler was Austrian.
This was the colour of my hair, more auburn than ginger, and the freckle proliferation is about right. Freckles are difficult to 'tie down' in Infrathin.
That this was all happening 'mid-Hayley Mills' and 'The 5 Find-Outers' was only doubly confusing.
I did end up singing a stutter-free 'Panis Angelicus', solo, in church.
Two of the boys on the poster were ginger, which seemed to convince me that young paddies were in with a chance.
'Sean Scully', even, blimey O' Reilly!
(no, i did not stutter)
can you tell that i am really looking forward to spring?
art teacher friends/contacts: see much more of my school's work on Artsonia. :)
Bob. Big, beefy, but stutters when the situation goes awry.
Canon A1 - Canon FD 50 mm 1.4 s.s.c Kodak Ektar 100
Born in Newtown, NSW in 1888, son of James and Ethel Inglis; husband of Kathleen Inglis (nee Corderoy).
He was educated at Barker College 1905.
He enlisted with the AIF 20th Infantry Battalion, later 55th Battalion 14 June 1915 and served in France.
He was killed in action 2 September 1918 Peronne France aged 29.
He is buried in Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Picardie France. Plot IV, Row E, Grave No. 2.
Australian War Memorial (Panel 161)
We were in action at Peronne. Lieutenant Inglis was killed alongside me. I went out a few days after and found his paybook and other effects. Shell fire was still going on but the body had been removed. I handed his effects in to the Company Clerk. He was buried but I cannot say where. He was very popular in the battalion. He had been shell shocked previously and had a slight stutter through it. He was in C Company (55th Battalion). I had a section in his platoon, he appointed me just before we went up. He took out 22 of us and 3 of us came back. He was aged 28 to 30, height about 5’6’’.
[Informant Private 2728 J McGee, 55th Battalion – Australian War Memorial A J Inglis Red Cross Wounded & Missing file]
Lest We Forget
[Photo: Barker College World War 1 Memorial]