Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a land called Tír Na Nóg there was a boy who lived in a sweet shop. He was a hapless, sweet stutterer, a nervous piebald boy, a speckled thing, pale skinned, and shy, freckled and ginger. He was a mammy’s boy, or at least one that only a mammy could love, or so he, and everyone else, thought. He was at that awkward age, although as far as he understood every age to that time, and including that present, had been awkward, in a trajectory that stammered forward, torn between the baby Jesus and Jellybean-stained rotting teeth. However, it was that particular age of burgeoning when things began to grow and nether regions sprouted rebelliously, and ginger started to assert itself around other outcrops, besides that on his crowning misery. Pubescence was raising its ugly and persistent head, dragging him away from his twin devotions to his own mother and the mother of his infant Saviour. Tumescent solace was initially found in the base of the old built-in wardrobe where he had once watched in awe as Tibbles gave birth to one of her many braces of, temporarily blind, kittens. This first solitary soiling, which occurred around midnight, as his brother’s slept in the next bed, Ruin having crept into the wardrobe to investigate strange rumblings in what he had been told (by the blessed Christian Brothers, his educators) was his 'base area'. This loaded description represented the total sum of his sex education at the time of this particular crisis. Obviously, something had snapped, something had been broken, there was a wetness. He instinctively knew that he had damaged himself and was probably bleeding to death in total darkness on that spot where Tibbles had created new life. Luckily his arsenal for such emergencies was, at that time, full, and the Blessed Virgin Mary was invoked, rudely awoken, and implored so that this cup might pass over, and that this ignominious death might not have to happen. It was Ruin Bon-Bon’s Gethsemane, and it was followed on closely by an orgy of rosaries, embracing the Joyful and the Glorious mysteries, feverishly intoned, until sleep mercifully and delicately intervened. The glowing dawn brought evidence that a miracle had truly occurred. Any ruddy stain of his brokenness had disappeared leaving just a slight stiffness in his ragged underwear. All sign of his sin had been removed by the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) herself. For weeks this nest at the base of the wardrobe would become a place of sanctuary and prayer, a place of devout pilgrimage and daily recitation of Hail Mary’s and Glory Be to the Fathers stuttered in gratitude for this divine intervention.

“I’m dying, I get to choose the video”.

Sitting bolt upright Jeffrey reasserted his dominance over the situation, silencing his parents. His mouth at the apex hushed the base of this inverted family triangle. That Jeffrey could sit bolt upright, at that moment, was somewhat of a miracle. His six-foot four-inch frame had been prone for weeks, reduced from its once impressive sixteen stone to a mere seven stone. ‘Singing in the Rain’ was inserted into that other gaping hole at the base of the television as Jeffrey collapsed back onto his re-adjusted pillows and his parents resettled themselves into their protracted vigil as Debbie Reynolds and her cohorts salved their shocked essences. I gasped, laughed, and loved, inwardly at Jeffrey’s delicious assertion, and made some tea to further salve and anaesthetize their whipped souls. For this was an age of soul whipping. It was a time when parents would find out, in the same week, that their only son was not only gay, but was also dying. It was a time when the usual divine-right-order of children burying their parents would be inverted repeatedly, and geriatrics would drag their weary carcasses from Virginian, or other, backwaters on invented shopping trips to the 'Big Apple', to secretly sit next to their emaciated progeny. It was a time of great shame.

How do I describe Rack? There is thirty-five years of evidence to sift through, but these were years that could be described as life lived ‘in extremis’. Maybe this is not true. I am not even sure of this. Perhaps dealing with your friends in their twenties and thirties dying all around you is normal. Maybe HIV was just our generation’s Vietnam. Rack owns this story with me, I think of it as ‘our’ story. It is not my story alone. It is simply a story, a fiction clinging onto a battered, and battering, ‘reality’.

Jeffrey didn’t die at the beginning of this tale, but I need to ‘kill’ him here. I injected morphine into his chest through a catheter, set up by his doctor in our loft in Manhattan, to help him die. There was little choice, he was about to universally hemorrhage and the only way to stop this sanguine explosion was to slow down his vital signs so that coma and release could happen, otherwise he would have bled through every orifice. His parents asked me to assist him and absented themselves to their hotel, or disappeared by going on a shopping trip to ‘Bergdorf Goodmans’. Although I was HIV negative at the time, and would remain negative for another ten years yet, his parents needed to blame me for Jeffrey’s condition. I recognize that they needed to blame someone, and I was the closest to hand. The poor maligned cuckoo in the nest is not always the culprit. These negotiations were not particularly delicate, it seemed that most accommodations were reached in a state of numbness, and we despised each other for our tacit agreements.

How do you describe ‘damage control’ without making it sound pathetic? How do you find the words to describe that accommodation which is an act of mutual abuse based on trust and which is an attempt to reverse that initial damage? The only way forward is to describe an inter-weaving, time strands taken from different ages and woven and plaited into a whole, which might describe the healed self in tandem with the healed and healing other, that is your abuser and object of your abuse. I am talking about a reversal, a road back from abuse but through abuse, it is the only way back. Attached to the Gordian knot of the self, blind and trusting, walking backwards to the healed and knowing self, to a point of innocence and enlightenment. This is what I want to attempt to do with this story. I am not going to judge it until it is finished. I am not going to allow her to judge it either. Otherwise, we would both turn into pillars of salt, blubbering salt licks.

Ok Beatrice, AKA Rack, get your blindfold on. We have some backward walking to do.

It seems that from the moment we met we were screaming, love me, don’t love me, at each other.

Time strands.

Memory has a renegade nature. It teases and occasionally attacks in blinding, apparently inconsequential, flashes. It is never persistent enough to demand honouring. It presents itself, skittishly. It never pretends or admits to its worth. It is like gold masquerading as fool’s gold, Dutch metal, teasing you to pick it up, downplaying its own value. We are prospectors of our own memories, we sieve diligently or allow it all to flow through our fingers unchecked, malnourished, and dishonoured. Prospecting is an art form. It demands discipline and commitment. Seams open slowly, they are teased open, until they are seduced and are capable of self-lubrication and discharge. Memory wants to be seduced. The first demand that memory makes on the seducer is that she be respected, no matter how skittish she might appear. The seducer of memory picks up on every sign, constantly moving forward, in the hope that he might deserve, or earn, the right to remember more.

Hail Queen of heaven, the ocean star

Guide of the wanderer here below!

Thrown on life's surge we claim thy care

Save us from peril and from woe

Mother of Christ

Star of the sea

Pray for the wanderer

Pray for me!

O gentle chaste and spotless maid

We sinners make our prayers through Thee

Remind thy Son that He has paid

The price of our iniquity

Virgin most pure

Star of the sea

Pray for the sinner

O pray for me!

Ruin’s mother had always claimed that we all have a book in us. His mother left school at twelve, though her affinity with words was never obviously lacking. It was this statement of hers that infected him early on, although there were no books in the house. She never much valued learning and when he told her he wanted to go to university her response was, "‘sure ‘n’ learning will never make you happy, don’t you know ignorance is bliss?". Even then he loved the way she simply inverted the cliché in an effort to back him into a civil service position and pension. As things turned out she was right (ish). For her, being the oldest of seventeen children, bliss was a gaggle of well-fed offspring contributing to the support of that communist whole. Too much education was the obvious enemy of this Pol Pottish idyll. The contradiction of having a mammy, who stood peeling the potatoes for her brood, in those heady days before ‘McCain Oven Chips’© made their ascension, singing ‘One Fine Day’ from Madame Butterfly, may have added to his confusion and later aspirations. The sins of the mother and absent father were to be visited on the son.

Suki: *nods* "To some little Scottish chippy."

Chloe *visibly upset* "B-b-but, I d-d-didn't know he w-w-was--"

Suki (calmly): "Slow down, Chlo. You're stutter's showing. Take a deep breath and start again."

Chloe: *inhales deeply and says slowly* "I didn't know he was dating anyone serious."

Suki: "You and me both. Apparently, she's Yuri and Kumi's cousin on their dad's side. That's how he met her, hanging out at their place."

Chloe: "Oh."

Suki: "I called Yuri after Z told me the news, and she said the marriage was a shock to them all. I plan to call Kums later and get her side of it. She's less tactful, thus there will be more dirt."

Chloe: "Oh."

Suki: "I can't believe he did this! Last I checked, marriage was the farthest thing from his mind. I wonder what this Emma is like..."

Chloe: *rubs eyes*

Suki (intently): "She better pray to the surf gods I like her. That's all I'm sayin'--"

Chloe: *sobs*

Suki (surprised): "Chlo, hon, don't cry! I'm sure it'll be fine. I was just b***hin' a little. Zin usually knows what he's doin'."

Chloe: "N-n-not t-t-that."

Suki: *searches bag for Kleenex* "Then, tell me what's wrong."

Chloe: *shakes head and sobs harder*

Fashion Credits

Chloe

Re-root by valmaxi (love)

Bikini Top: Mattel - Beach Baby Marissa

Bikini Bottom: Momoko - Beach Rodeo

Sunglasses: MGA - America's Next Top Model

Necklace and Bracelets: Me

Suki

Bikini: Auntie Betty, a.k.a. watbetty

Shirt: Mattel - CaliGirl Barbie

Skirt: Momoko - Wild 'n' Sexy Tune

Bag: Cangaway (Etsy)

Earrings and Bracelets: Me

Sketches by: Alex May / DARYL_GAMMA / Davide Della Casa / Dorkbot London / Jonny Stutters / Sally Northmore / Sophie McDonald

Original music by: Jonny Stutters, edited by Davide Della Casa

You can play/modify these sketches online at: www.sketchpatch.net

Wilderness area near Prescott, Arizona, 2017.

Then Garp got some hate mail of his own. He was addressed in a lively letter by someone who took offense at Second Wind of the Cuckold. It was not a blind, stuttering, spastic farter - as you might imagine - either. It was just what Garp needed to get himself out of his slump.

Dear Shithead,

[wrote the offended party]

I have read your novel. You seem to find other people's problems very funny. I have seen your pictures. With your fat head of hair I suppose you can laugh at bald persons. And in your cruel book you laugh at people who can't have orgasms, and people who aren't blessed with happy marriages, and people whose wives and husbands are unfaithful to each other. You ought to know that persons who have these problems do not think everything is so funny. Look at the world, shithead - it is a bed of pain, people suffering and nobody believing in God or bringing their children up right. You shithead, you don't have any problems so you can make fun of the poor people who do!

Yours sincerely,

(Mrs.) I. B. Poole

Findlay, Ohio

That letter stung Garp like a slap; rarely had he felt so importantly misunderstood. Why did people insist that if you were "comic" you couldn't also be "serious"? Garp felt most people confused being profound with being sober, being earnest with being deep. Apparently, if you sounded serious, you were. Presumably, other animals could not laugh at themselves, and Garp believed that laughter was related to sympathy, which we were always needing more of. He had been, after all, a humorless child - and never religious - so perhaps he now took comedy more seriously than others.

But for Garp to see his vision interpreted as making fun of people was painful to him; and to realize that his art had made him appear cruel gave Garp a keen sense of failure. Very carefully, as if he were speakingto a potential suicide high up in a foreign and unfamiliar hotel, Garp wrote to his reader in Findlay, Ohio

Dear Mrs. Poole:

The world is a bed of pain, people suffer terribly, few of us believe in God or bring up our children very well; you're right about that. It is also true that people who have problems do not, as a rule, think their problems are "funny".

Horace Walpole once said that the world is comic to those who think and tragic to those who feel. I hope you'll agree with me that Horace Walpole somewhat simplifies the world by saying this. Surely both of us think and feel; in regard to what's comic and what's tragic, Mrs. Poole, the world is all mixed up. For this reason I have never understood why "serious" and "funny" are thought to be opposites. It is simply a truthful contradiction to me that people's problems are often funny and that the people are often and nonetheless sad.

I am ashamed, however, that you think I am laughing at people, or making fun of them. I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them.

Laughter is my religion, Mrs. Poole. In the manner of most religions, I admit that my laughter is pretty desperate. I want to tell you a little story to illustrate what I mean. The story takes place in Bombay, India, where many people starve to death every day; but not all the people in Bombay are starving.

And among the nonstarving population of Bombay, India, there was a wedding, and a party was thrown in honor of the bride and groom. Some of the wedding guests brought elephants to the party. They weren't really conscious of showing off, they were just using the elephants for transportation. Although it might strike us as a big-shot way to travel around, I don't think these wedding guests saw themselves that way. Most of the were probably not directly responsible for the vast numbers of their fellow Indians who were starving all around them; most of them were just calling "time out" from their own problems, and the problems of the world, to celebrate the wedding of a friend. But if you were a member of the starving Indians, and you hobbled past that wedding party and saw all those elephants parked outside, you probably would have felt some disgruntlement.

Furthermore, some of the revelers at the wedding got drunk and began feeding beer to their elephant. They emptied an ice bucket and filled it with beer, and they went tittering out to the parking lot and fed their hot elephant the whole bucket. The elephant liked it. So the revelers gave him several more buckets of beer.

Who knows how beer will affect an elephant? These people meant no harm, they were just having fun - and chances are fairly good that the rest of their lives weren't one hundred percent fun. They probably needed this party. But the people were also being stupid and irresponsible.

If one of those many starving Indians had dragged himself through the parking lot and seen these drunken wedding guests filling up an elephant with beer, I'll bet he would have felt resentful. But I hope you see I am not making fun of anyone.

What happens next is that the drunken revelers are asked to leave the party because their behavior with their elephant is obnoxious to the other wedding guests. No one can blame the other guests for feeling this way; some of them may have actually thought they were preventing things from getting "out of hand," although people have never been very successful at preventing this.

Huffy and brave with beer, the revelers struggled up on their elephant and veered away from the parking lot - a large exhibition of happiness, surely - bumping into a few other elephants and things because the revelers' elephant plowed from side to side in a lumbering wooze, bleary and bloated with buckets of beer. His trunk lashed back and forth like a badly fastened artificial limb. The great beast was so unsteady that he struck an electric utility pole, shearing it cleanly and bringing down the live wires on his massive head - which killed him, and the wedding guests who were riding him, instantly.

Mrs. Poole, please believe me: I don't think that's "funny." But along comes one of those starving Indians. He sees all the wedding guests mourning the death of their friends, and their friends' elephant; much wailing, rending of fine clothes, spilling of good food and drink. The first thing he does is to take the opportunity to slip into the wedding while the guests are distracted and steal a little good food and drink for his starving family. The second thing he does is start to laugh himself sick about the manner in which the revelers disposed of themselves and their elephant. Alongside death by starvation, this method of enormous dying must seem very funny, or at least quick, to the undernourished Indian. But the wedding guests don't see it that way. It is already a tragedy to them; they are already talking about "this tragic event," and although they could perhaps forgive the presence of a "mangy beggar" at their party - and even have tolerated his stealing their food - they cannot forgive him for laughing at their dead friends' elephant.

The wedding guests - outraged at the beggar's behavior (at his laughter, not his thievery and not his rags) - drown him in one of the beer buckets that the late revelers used to water their elephant. They construed this to represent "justice". We see that the story is about the class struggle - and, of course, "serious", after all. But I like to consider it a comedy about a natural disaster: they are just people rather foolishly attempting to "take charge" of a situation whose complexity is beyond them - a situation compsed of eternal and trivial parts. After all, with something as large as an elephant, it could have been much worse.

I hope, Mrs. Poole, that I have made what I mean clearer to you. In any case, I thank you for taking the time to write to me, because I appreciate hearing from my audience - even critically.

Yours truly,

"Shithead"

Garp was an expressive man. He made everything baroque, he believed in exaggeration; his fiction was also extremist. Garp never forgot his failure with Mrs. Poole; she worried him, often, and her reply to his pompous letter must have upset him even further.

Dear Mr. Garp,

[Mrs. Poole replied]

Irene Poole

Garp was, like his beliefs, self-contradictory. He was very generous with other people, but he was horribly impatient. He set his own standards for how much of his time and patience everyone deserved. He could be painstakingly sweet, until he decided he'd been sweet enough. Then he turned and came roaring back the other way.

Dear Irene,

[Garp wrote to Mrs. Poole]

[wrote Irene Poole]

[Garp shot right back]

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."

The Compur shutter from Rolleiflex Old Standard No. 403037. With the circular black facia ring removed step (84) and the control plate ring removed step (87) we reach the insides of the shutter where all the action takes place. This shutter was 'stuttering' on the slow speeds particularly 1 sec & 1/2 sec. The cause of this is a dirty shutter speed escapement mechanism: my finger points to this speed escapement mechanism and this mechanism can be considered to be the 'heart' of a Compur shutter. This piece of clockwork controls every one of the different speeds (except the shortest one and B & T) Clean it by brushing some lighter fluid petrol very lightly across it and into it with a fine brush then blow out the solvent with a jet of air from a rubber lens blower bulb. This generally is all that is required to get it running sweet again. The main problem with all these leaf shutters is that dirt and or dried down grease has got into the clockwork to stop it working. These mechanisms are extremely reliable and quite robust. Very rarely do they fail completely or break down in my experience. IF THE SHUTTER BLADES WON'T OPEN AT ALL when you release the shutter (and it just goes 'click') it's very likely grease or dirt has dried on the shutter blades and is sticking them together.Again try cleaning them with a hydrocarbon solvent such as cigarette lighter fluid petrol applied on a cotton bud or fine brush. Work the mechanism (read the WARNING BELOW first) and clean the blades with cotton buds. Let the solvent dry out completely (the blades won't open and close if they are wet with solvent). The solvent will hold the wet blades together until it dries out. [To understand this get two pieces of wet glass such as two microscope slides then put the wet pieces together and you'll find they slide over each other only with difficulty and pulling them apart is very difficult because of surface tension (caused by hydrogen bonding in the water molecules)] BIG WARNING DON'T COCK THE SHUTTER AND TRY TO FIRE IT UNTIL THE CONTROL PLATE IS BACK ON : see step (89).

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: (L-R) Tina Brown and Emily Blunt 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)

from The Prodigal: 10

The ground dove stuttered for a few steps then flew

up from his path to settle in the sun-browned

branches that were now barely twigs; in drought it coos

with its relentless valve, a tiring sound,

not like the sweet exchanges of turtles in the Song

of Solomon, or the flutes of Venus in frescoes

though all the mounds in the dove-calling drought

the hills and gulches all briary and ochre

and the small dervishes that swivelled in the dust

were like an umber study for a fresco

of The Prodigal Son, this scorched, barren acre.

He had the smell of cities in his clothes,

the steam and soot of trains of Fascist stations

and their resounding vaults, he had the memory of rain

carried in his head, the rain on Pescara's beach

with the pastel hotels, and instead of the doves

the air-show with the jets soaring and swooping

over the Fair, the smell off that beach

came back on the rock-road where the turtle lifted

its mating music into the dry acacias,

and mixed with the smell off the galloping sea-flock,

each odour distinct, of sheep trampling their pens

as if their fear had caught the wolf-scent.

The rock-brown dove had fluttered from that fear

that what he loved and knew once as a boy

would panic and forget him from the change

of character that the grunting swine could smell.

A sow and her litter. Acknowledged prodigal.

Grey sunrise through a sky of frosted glass,

the great trees sodden, the paths below them pooled,

the headlands veiled and muslin-thin, no birds,

and pale green combers cresting through the drizzle;

a change of climate, the clouding of the self

in a sudden culture but one more confident

in its glazed equestrian statues in wet parks,

its railway stations echoing like the combers

in the ground-shaken caves under the cliff;

gathering, cresting then dissolving shallows

as light steps quietly into the house.

Light that inaudibly fits in the house

as a book on a bookshelf with its spines of tombs

and names, mouths slightly parted, eager to speak

wherever their station now. Every library

is a cemetery in sunlight. Sometimes, a shaft . . .

Across the dry hillock, leaves chasing dead leaves

in resurrecting gusts, or in the ochre quiet

leaves too many to rake on the road's margins,

too loaded to lift themselves, they lapsed singly

or in a yellow chute from the cedar, burnt branches;

lyres of desiccation choked the dry gutters

everywhere in the country, La Feuillée, Monchy,

by the caked track to Saltibus, over D'ennery.

Drought. Song of the wireless harp of the frangipani

that still makes a tangled music out of silence.

II

Now to cherish the depredations of April

even on the threshold of March, its sunlit eve—

the gommier maudit unshouldering its leaves,

barrow after loaded barrow, the leaves fading, yellow,

burnt grass and the tigerish shadows on the hillside,

and the azure a trowelled blue, and blue hill-smoke,

parched shortcuts and rust, cattle anchored in shadows

and groaning like winches, the didactic drought

against the hot sea that teaches what? Thirst

for the grace that springs in grooves of oblivious dust.

A fine haze screens the headland, the drizzle drifts.

Is every noun: breakwater, headland, haze,

seen through a gauze of English, a bright scrim,

a mesh in which light now defines the wires

and not its natural language? Were your life and work

simply a good translation? Would headland,

haze and the spray-wracked breakwater

pronounce their own names differently?

And have I looked at life, in other words,

through some inoperable cataract?

"What language do you speak in your own country?"

Every noun has its echo, a noun is a noise,

as every stone in the expanding sunlight

finds an exact translation in its shadow,

and it may be that you were halved by language

as definitively as the meridian

of Greenwich or by Pope Alexander's line,

but what makes this, if this is all it is,

more than just bearable, in fact, exultation

is the stone that is looked at, and the manchineels,

bitter, poisonous yellow berries, treacherous apples

that look like Eden's on the tree of knowledge

when the first noun was picked and named and eaten

and the shadow of knowledge defined every edge

originating language and then difference,

and subtlety, the snake and contradiction

and the sudden Babel of the manchineel.

III

The blank page grows a visionary wood.

A parallel section, no, in fact a whole province

of far, of foreign, of self-translating leaves

stands on the place where it has always stood

the right-hand margin of the page

loud, soft but voluble in their original language,

an orchestrating lexicon, veined manuscripts

going far back in time and deep in roots

and echoing in the tunnel of the right ear

with echoes: oak-echo, beech-echo, linden-echo,

and beech and birds a half-ancestral forest

whose metre was an ocean's and whose break,

parting declared the white-lined conjugation

of combers' centuries. This ocean, English and this forest weald,

this clattering natterer "burn," this distance, mist,

kept its high columns marching as my pen moves

towards that gap of light that comes upon

the bright salt arc of a bare unprinted beach

or where the piper leaves a print, its claws,

dim, imperceptible as an ancient rune—

that is the landscape, that, the stand of forest

made up of all these leaves and lines that

still rasp with delight with rhyme and incantation

pages of shade turning into translation.

And my left hand another vegetation

but not their opposite or their enemy,

palms and wild fern and praising them, the sea,

sea-almond, grape and vine and agave

that the wind's finger folded carefully

drawing its thumb to mark the dog-eared wave

across the dry hill, leaves chasing leaves

in a shiny, scurrying wind, and, in the brown quiet,

leaves, unraked, tiling the road's margins,

so loaded they don't lift, they lapse singly, yellow,

or chute from the cedars. Lyres of desiccation

in March's autumn, filling the dry gutters,

everywhere in the country, La Feuillée, Monchy,

except for the wireless harp of the frangipani

that still makes its music out of extreme stillness.

In my own botanic origins, frangere panem

to break bread, flower-flour in its white lilies,

except that in rare blossom I now remember

the flower is pink. It doesn't matter.

Since whatever hue it is, its wafer it serves that need,

petal on the sky's open palate at early mass

every morning but here most on this Sunday

with its Lenten drought, the heart-coloured flowers then

the caterpillars determinedly devour,

on a Sunday when a sadness still eats at the parallel

petals of my beaten heart, and the white pews of the sea,

the waves coming in aisles, my longing

for the communion of breakfast, the leafless,

flower-less but crusted bark of the frangipani,

frangere panem, the pain that I break and eat

flower and flour, pain and pain,

bright Easter coming, like the seas white communion.

IV

In the country of the ochre afternoon

it is always still and hot, the dry leaves stirring

infrequently sometimes with the rattling pods

of what they call "women's tongues," in

the afternoon country the far hills are very quiet

and heat-hazed, but mostly in the middle

of the country of the afternoon I see the brown heat

of the skin of my first love, so still, so perfect,

so unaltered, and I see how she walked

with her sunburnt hands against the still sea-almonds,

to a remembered cove, where she stood on the small dock—

that was when I thought we were immortal

and that love would be folded doves and folded oars

and water lapping against eroding stone

in the ochre country of the afternoon.

Derek Walcott

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: Dr. Heather Grossman and Emily Blunt attend the 2022 Freeing Voices, Changing Lives Gala at Guastavino's on July 11, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for American Institute for Stuttering)

The Flamingo had his head in his hand as he said,

“Jason…I can’t believe you…” Jason’s eyes darted from Flamingo, to Scarlet, to Mason and Deb. Mason had a large rifle pointed at Jason’s forehead, making the latter stutter as he said,

“I didn’t do it. I swear.” This felt strange for Jason to say, but when he searched himself for a reason why he simply had to look to the woman holding the sniper in the windowsill. Swearing, Flamingo said,

“I’m sorry it’s come to this Jason but until we find out what’s going on you’re going to need to go back to the tower.” Jason was sweating as he thought of what to do next. Before he could make a decision however, a rock was thrown through the window. The rock broke the already decrepit window before hitting the ground. Jason looked at it for a note of some kind but quickly realized the rock being thrown through the window was a message in itself. Looking out the window, Jason, as well as Flamingo, Scarlet, Deb, and Mason, saw Roy Harper standing alone in the snow with his middle finger facing the group. He yelled up to them,

“You guys took my bow. I would like it back. Also, turn Jason Todd over to me NOW.” The Flamingo laughed as he turned in his bed to see the lone figure of Roy threatening the group. As he did, two henchmen (Jack and another that Jason did not recognize) advanced on Roy’s position. For a moment, Jason waited for the three to begin fighting, then realized that the one he did not recognize was walking towards another target. Looking around, the group saw that Roy was not alone, and had hidden the prisoners Nikki and Kyle nearby. Nikki screamed as the unknown henchman raised a hammer and a pistol. All this time, there seemed to be a winding noise building in Jason’s ears. A ringing that was driving him to do something insane. So then he did something insane: shoving Deb and Mason aside, Jason dove through the broken window. Turning his body in midair to collide with the ground on his back, he found that the snow was packed lightly and surprisingly soft. Feeling only minor scratches from catching on stray glass from the window, Jason quickly sprang into action and managed to knock the unknown goon down with a leg sweeping maneuver. Nikki and Kyle retreated from the hiding spot to a space behind where Roy had engaged Jack. Dodging the unknown goon’s hammer attacks, Jason managed to knock the weapon out of the man’s hand as all heard the Flamingo yell,

“SHOOT THEM! KILL THEM!” For a moment, Jason thought this referred to the unknown goon with the pistol or Jack (who was currently using Roy’s bow and arrow), however he looked up to see Scarlet aiming down at them. She trembled as she did, and Jason could see Flamingo grabbing her arm from his bed and shaking her around as he called up,

“Scarlet! Hold on!” In this moment of distraction, the unknown henchman managed to fire off several rounds that nearly connected with Jason’s ear. The sound made the ringing in his head even worse as Jason grabbed the man by the forehead and slammed his head into the snow below. The force of slamming the man into the snow knocked him clean out as Jason turned his attention to Roy. Jack was slicing at Roy with a small knife until the latter managed to kick the former in the hand with such force that the sound of the bones breaking were audible. Screaming for a moment, Jack stumbled, allowing Roy to grab his bow with his good hand. Placing the bow around Jack’s neck, Roy began to pull hard, using one foot to hold Jack in place while planting the other firmly in the snow. After a short period of Jack struggling, Roy moved the bow quickly, snapping the man’s neck. Jason winced at the sound, but walked over to Nikki and Kyle in order to check on them as Roy put on the quiver Jack had been wearing. Turning to Jason and the couple, Roy said,

“Nobody touches my bow.” The couple nodded furiously as there was the sound of struggling from above. They all looked up to see Mason knock the sniper rifle out of Scarlet’s hands before grabbing her around the neck and forcing his gun into her face. As he did this, more and more Flamingo henchmen began to walk out from various places around Park City. Roy turned to Jason and quickly said, “Jason we have to go now!” Jason looked from him to Scarlet and said,

“No…no no no no no we need to save Scarlet that’s the whole reason I’m here!” Roy sighed and looked around as more Flamingo henchmen began to close in on them. Thinking quickly he picked up the gun that the unknown henchman had dropped and tossed it to Kyle. Then he grabbed Jason around the stomach and began dragging him away. The group broke into a sprint all except for Jason who yelled, “NO! SCARLET! NO!” as his feet dragged through the nearly unbroken snow. Mason pulled Scarlet away from the window as the group made it a block away, but Jason continued to scream and squirm. Attempting to push Roy away and yelling insults such as ‘cripple’ at him did not help anything except to exhaust Jason who eventually passed out due to lack of oxygen. The last thing he heard was several gunshots fired off by Kyle, then Jason succumbed to his exhaustion and wounds from leaping out the window, fading into unconsciousness.

To my surprise, iPhone 4's new Facetime feature is good. REALLY good. No stuttering, no blockiness, no home shopping channel frame rates. Very impressive!

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From stuttering to therapy for stroke survivors, the WSU Speech and Language Clinics provide speech-language services for community members of all ages.

Learn more: www.clas.wayne.edu/CSD/Wayne-State-Speech-and-Language-Ce...

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: (L-R) Mark O’Malia, Mark O’Malia, Kristel Kubart and Emily Blunt appear onstage at 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)

LIVING DIVINITY – AnanthaRaman’s Talk

Talk given by Prof Anantharaman in Swami's Presence on 19th October 2004

Respected elders, brothers and sisters and my young friends.

During a very significant speech in 1981, Swami spoke about the 'eight flowers of worship'. Out of these He said that Ahimsa, non-violence, is the most important. Swami's concept of Ahimsa is far beyond the connotations of not causing physical harm. His concept of Ahimsa is not causing harm in word, thought and deed!

I would like to commence today with an offering of such a flower at the Feet of our Lord.

Albert Einstein, the famous physicist, was once asked whether it is possible for him to explain Divinity in scientific terms. He said that it is conceivable but it would make no sense; it would be like explaining Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the form of an air pressure curve. We have the same kind of a problem in speaking about Bhagavan's Divinity. The Living Divinity cannot be explained in metaphors or examples; the limited cannot comprehend the unlimited; no form can contain it; the wayward cannot measure the stable; or the now measure the ever. We can only repeat the words of Sir Isaac Newton who said after enunciating the principle of gravity "I feel like a little boy playing with the pebbles on the seashore while the ocean of Truth lay all undiscovered before me".

Bhagavantham tells the story of how in the early years Swami once materialised a beautiful sapphire and stuck it on the statue of Shirdi Sai next to him. Bhagavantham was not only a staunch devotee but also a renowned scientist. The scientist in him wondered how the sapphire stood there without any ostensible means of support defying all laws of gravity. He started chuckling to himself, "Here I am accepting the principle miracle of the creation of a sapphire and I am questioning the secondary miracle of the sapphire defying the laws of gravity. Surely one who creates matter can also transcend the laws of matter."

A Malaysian devotee once told me the story of how 20 miles from Prashanti Nilayam his car stopped for want of gas. This was his first visit to Prashanti Nilayam and it was late evening. He was naturally concerned; he prayed to Swami, "Swami, make this car move forward to Prashanti Nilayam this evening." He prayed, asked the driver to start, and the engine stuttered and they started moving to Prashanti Nilayam. Next day the grateful devotee told Swami at Darshan time, "Swami thank you for the Grace of moving this car to Prashanti Nilayam without gas." Swami looked at him and said, "But that was not your only problem." Puzzled he went back, filled gas in the car, started the engine and turned the wheel. The wheel just locked and a mechanic was brought who found out that there was a broken tie-rod end. There was no way this car could have travelled 20 miles with or without gas. How many of us have travelled in cars with our broken tie-rod ends fixed unbeknown to us by this cosmic welder.

On this forum, several devotees in the last few days have shared their experiences of Swami. Each one of us have received this benediction from Swami if only we know where to look for it. Some of these we know; many like the Malaysian devotee we do not know at all. Howard Murphet, whose books have brought more foreign devotees to Swami than any other writer, calls all these 'parables in action'.

Whenever Swami materialises something, blows into something and creates something else or cures an affliction, He is in fact demonstrating these 'parables in action'. Their purpose is not to make us richer, or to cure an affliction but to demonstrate to us and instruct us in the science of being and in the art of living through the demonstration of His Omniwill.

I would like to share with you one such parable, one of many that I was privileged to have. I would like to share with you not the experience but the education behind the experience - it was like learning at the Feet of Divinity.

As an international corporate citizen, I had moved from country to country and finally moved from continent to continent. As the story I am about to tell has a lot of political implications, I seek your indulgence not to name the country where this took place as some of the people involved are still alive today. This country was a totalitarian military state and had had 3 major coups. There were 3 ethnic groups in the country - Muslims with political clout; Christians with economic strength; and tribal leaders who had their own axe to grind. Because of recent struggles there was a distrust of foreigners, particularly Asians. There was no constitution in this country and there was complete anarchy. I had heard of friends who had been taken away in the middle of the night and were never heard of since. There were summary executions - this was the order of the day. You could see bodies tied to automobile tyres and set fire to at the end of the streets; the stench of burning flesh and vulcanised rubber quite often rent the air. This was the background of the country where we wanted to introduce Swami's concept of Education in Human Values. We organised a conference of secondary school teachers and in order to give a big PR event to this incident, I was given the responsibility of inviting the wife of the president of this country to inaugurate the session and preside over the first day. I went and met the president's wife, she listened patiently and ultimately said that her office would get back to us as to whether she can preside or not.

A couple of days later, as I was driving to work I found that there was a big black limousine that was following me. I was concerned because this country had a fearsome secret service system. I made some enquiries with a contact that I had in the government and I learned that an enquiry had been ordered against me. As there was a lot of religious strife in the area in which we were living probably meeting the president's wife the previous week had triggered off a suspicion that our's is might be a religious institution and therefore needs to be followed. In the meantime the wife of the president had declined our invitation. My contact in the government confirmed my suspicion that I was in fact the target of an investigation and said that people were being taken away in the middle of the night never to come back; he strongly advised and cautioned me that I must quietly leave the country. The Indian Ambassador who I consulted one day before the event confirmed this and also strongly advised me to leave the country. I was very concerned and left for home a day before the function.

The day of the conference had come; in order to protect my identity they did not announce my name - they announced me as a spokesperson. My job was to talk about EHV and introduce the speaker of the day who was Victor Kanu. But in view of the religious sensitivity I was advised that I should make no mention of Sai or of the institutions which He heads. With great trepidation I climbed the stage; as I went up I found the same secret service agents who had followed me sitting in the first row - my steps faltered. I started with a silent prayer to Swami, but very soon I threw caution to the winds. Instead of talking about EHV, I spoke about the Author of EHV; I spoke about Swami; I spoke about SanathanaDharma; I spoke about Hinduism; I spoke about everything I was advised about not to speak. I had decided that if I was to go down I would go down with the Name of the Lord on my lips.

The talk was over and I went back home. Thoughts of being picked up and being incarcerated were very much in my mind. I was at home and the phone rang at 9.05 that night. I was certain that it was someone trying to tip me off to leave the country - but it was a friend of mine. He asked me whether I was watching the television. I said, "Why would I watch the television - I am waiting to be picked up!" The television in this country was totally controlled by the government. 9pm was prime time when every single set would be turned on. I turned on the television - I could not believe my eyes. There was full coverage of the morning's programme; my whole speech was telecast; my name and occupation were mentioned; my anonymity was over. Not only that but there was a full presentation of that morning's function; nothing about EHV, but all about Swami, His Teachings, and Hinduism. Swami was presented as an Eastern Messiah. All this happened in a country that was very much opposed to religious activities. It was mind-boggling. I did not know what was happening. The entire prime time news was only about this morning's presentation and covered all that I was advised not to speak about.

Next morning my contact in the government telephoned me. He said something strange is happening here. There was a handwritten ledger on the report that said I must be investigated and this ledger was serially numbered. When he went to that ledger that morning he found that the particular instruction that said I must be investigated was completely missing, but the ledger number continuity was maintained! There was no way that anyone could have torn the paper; only this particular instruction had completely vanished.

And there was more; within a week the Secretary of Education in the country called me and asked me whether I could give a write-up on EHV so that it could be introduced to the country's secondary schools.

More wonders; the Teachers Union, normally a very militant body, invited me to talk to them and they set up a conference which became the focus for introducing EHV at secondary school level in that country. This was the first country outside India to have formally accredited EHV in the secondary school system.

What was happening here? This was not mere materialisation or curing an affliction. This is something that broke barriers. This is something that completely changed the ethos. This is something that created a new order of things. What was Swami trying to convey here? He was only trying to convey that His work will always be done and that His Will will always be supreme. As He said three days ago

"Why does the sun rise; why do the stars hide their splendour in the day and show themselves in the night? Who ordered air to be around us all time; why do these streams roar and gurgle? I created the world with one word at My pleasure; I made mountains rise and with one word I placed knowledge upon mankind."

Sir Arthur Eddington the famous physicist said that the world is a wave of thought. Every law of nature, every action and reaction, every parable and happening that you hear in these forums is a witness to the vital vibration of His Divinity in the gross, subtle and causal cosmos. Swami once wrote,

"I move in the outer space. From those lofty heights I go to the devotee, first as thought, then as fragrance and then as light."

Sai experience is a combination of that light, of that thought and of that fragrance. You have seen here the world come to Swami - I have seen Swami go to the rest of the world. At a UN conference at Osaka , Japan two years ago, I saw 10,000 delegates give a standing ovation to a group of Japanese children performing a ballet on the values of Sathya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema. In probably the most popular square in Spain every Sunday devotees sing songs of peace and harmony watched by residents and visitors.

During a skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps my wife and I attended a Bhajan session at a little hamlet of 200 people, in the middle of nowhere where 20 Austrians who had never stepped out of Europe performed Bhajans and held a workshop. When out of deference to them my wife chose to sing a German song the leader said "No, in Sanskrit please". In the forests of West Africa , I have seen native tribes commence their daily meeting singing the song " Ore Baba, OseBaba".

And at a Sai retreat that I attended a few years ago in Argentina at the time of the Kosovo crisis one young adult asked a question, "If Sai Baba is raising human consciousness why are the children of Kosovo being murdered?" Pat came the answer from another young adult, "When Hitler's hordes roamed through Germany the world kept quiet; they did not even shed a silent tear. But when the children in Kosovo were being murdered the world roared back." That is how Sai Baba is elevating human consciousness - slowly and imperceptibly the world is turning into a golden age.

Swami told Howard Murphet that the golden age was coming. Howard Murphet then asked what work would Prema Sai do? Sai said "He will have plenty of work. Prema Sai will elevate human consciousness to Divine heights. Not only will there be a lot of work but He will also need a lot of help."

What kind of help, wondered Howard Murphet; then he remembered the story of how in a time of great flooding a man stood on top of his roof to escape the waters. When the water was rising higher the man prayed to God to save him. Soon a man came in a boat and asked him to get in. The man said "No, I have prayed to God and He will come and help me." Soon the waters rose nearly to his feet. Then another man came in a helicopter and dropped a rope. The man said "No, I will not come with you; I have prayed to God and He will help me." The laws of nature soon took their course and the man drowned. He went to heaven and asked God why He did not help him in his time of need. God said "I sent you a man with a boat and later, when you refused him another man with a helicopter…but you did not accept that help." The man understood; God is in everybody and He needs a million hands to help Him.

In establishing this, Swami has been saying that His Life is His message. He has been living that message particularly in the last 15 months. Ever since the drama of His fall He has been living one particular message - that He is not the body. Over 2000 years ago at another time and in another place in distant Jerusalem another cosmic being allowed Himself to bleed on the Cross in order to establish to the children of Israel one facet of reality. Everyday, Swami has been establishing with perfect equipoise the same facet of reality to all of us that 'I am not the body'. The reality that 'I am God'; the reality that Brahma Sathyam Jagat Mithya. It is for us to accept or reject this reality.

It's rather like the search for the Holy Grail. There is a lot of wealth and fame and pain in the so-called materialistic success story that I myself tried to follow 30 years ago. But in the evening of my life, like Percival (a Knight) I have come to the Fisher's King to ask Him; "Where does the Holy Grail lie?" The Grail serves the Grail King who lives in the innermost recesses of the castle. When Percival received this answer his search was over. The Grail King is a symbol of man's inner God.

Knowing this truth, it is glorious to be alive today - not only to be alive but to be aware that God is physically here is a privilege that millions never had! The only gratitude that we can offer for this privilege is to lay down our lives as flowers at His Lotus Feet. Sai Ram.

(Prof Anantharaman worked as the CEO of a Transnational Business conglomerate based in Switzerland, as an adjunct professor in several business schools including the Harvard Business School and is currently a faculty member in the School of Business Management at Puttaparthi)

________________________________________

Source: Radio Sai E-Magazine, June 2005

www.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_03/06JUN01/living_divinity.htm

I'm always in that sleepy middle, between escape and destination, lost in the transition. Words without translation, I speak those mumbled stutters, the muffled humming of a man who loves alone. I will tell you what it's like, but I won't get it across – the fiery things that bring me 1,700 miles from the land of kilometers. Somewhat more direct by air, hopping from Halifax to Montréal before falling from the sky in Chicago. Here I am halfway or so, daydreaming of destination in the sinking evening. How long has it been? Nearly two years past since I brought the ends together, found the means to match up Illinois and Nova Scotia. Sort of a sighing, sleepy drunk – you know it. When telephone time tires of stretching that tightrope wire, and it finally springs back into shape. I watch the map on the back of the seat in front of me, that tiny avatar airplane drifting westward to my other home. It's a hope I'm always healing from, or heading towards. Susy, my wife, and all the love I've known.

November 13, 2021

Montréal, Québec

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The last thing he wanted to do was to pull a shuggie, or to ash, like Angela, all over the place. But there was no getting away from it. He was just going to have to drink that fecking hemlock and see if he could survive it. It was the only possible way forward, and the thing he had been avoiding for most of his life.

He had just, more or less, learnt how to talk, or at least seemed to be at that point of overcoming his stutter. He had managed to whisper out that he would scream, it was late at night, and the next morning, his uncle, the abuser, moved out and on, no doubt in search of greener unploughed fields. Ruin was then, perhaps, 14. The ‘perhaps’ talks more about the inconsistencies of memory than anything else, that untrustworthiness. Either way, it had taken more than a year for him to find the courage, and strength, to whisper that threat, the one that chased his lecherous uncle away. It had to be a whisper, what with his two younger brothers in a second bed in that small damp room. He could go into heart-breaking details, the torn sheet (just one), the horsehair poking out of holes in the mattress, the fact that there was no heat at all, other than body warmth, and the coats piled up on the beds, but he won’t. He wouldn’t ‘Dickins’ the story either, even though he could. This wasn’t about victimhood and redemption; he was writing something else entirely. Masha, much later, asked him if was he trying to justify himself by what he was writing. “No” he answered, “that isn’t it at all. I have nothing to justify”. He could describe the abuse too, but he wouldn’t. If this story is about abuse, he thought, it will be saying that abuse is the most ferociously creative force in the universe, a life and planet-generating, gob-smacking, phenomenon. That’s the story he wanted, and needed, to somehow tell. He had made art about it for most of his life, and now he was going to write about it.

Talking of gob-smacking, this introduction is a preamble to the crux of the matter, and that day when, as a fourteen year old, he slapped his mother. He had never slapped anyone before, he was way too timid, and as far as he could remember he had never slapped anyone since. He had certainly, since, psychically abused those around him, friends or those that ended up having to look at his art in galleries or museums, but he had never taken to that helter-skelter of physical violence. At the same time, he enjoyed Patrick McCabe’s pig-boy running around the boreens of West Cork, in ‘The Butcher Boy’, brandishing an axe, killing willy-nilly. He understood that rage. He understood the draw of the chainsaw and flying body-parts. Luckily, he had art, a safe-ish place to slaughter the innocents. He knew in his heart of hearts that if he hadn’t become an artist, or if he wasn’t writing this, he could have as easily been an axe-murderer. This was not about choice at all. It was just sheer luck. The story of that other young man in Austria who couldn’t get into art school, ending up unleashing his rage on the 20th century, would be a case in point as to what might have happened otherwise. No choices were made, the world and nature intervened and fashioned that rage in accordance with its own needs, as it always does.

Of course, there was a time when he loved her entirely. She had been the chaotic centre of his small universe, a skirt hem to hang off of, a nicotined hand to sometimes hold. He remembered thinking she was beautiful, even. The abuse put paid to that. That he had spent the 40 years that followed thinking of her as his pimp aided and abetted that ‘running away’ pattern he honed to perfection in his ensuing life. The ‘Wild Geese’ became a motif he loved and felt a deep association with.

He was obviously an anxious child before, evince that stutter. When he was thirteen, his father had somehow procured for him a job in ‘The Laurels’, a bar, in Clondalkin, 4 or 5 nights a week, from 7pm until midnight. That football field of a bar is still there, though it now seems to have taken on a Swiss Chalet meets American Wild West sort of theme, broken up into smaller variations on those twinned, and oddly incongruous, genre design foibles. Then it was one huge, open, smokey place. His father, being both an alcoholic and a bar-man, had connections, so accommodations were made around the law that said you couldn’t work as a ‘lounge boy’ until you were fourteen.

From the age of 13 he began to pay his mother 4 Irish Pounds (Irish: Punt Éireannach) to sleep in his bed, to support the up-keep of her brood. He, erroneously, thought of it as 'her' brood, his father being absent, with that bottle of 'Uisce Beatha' he kept hidden in the toilet cistern. It wasn't long after this accommodation had been reached, when his mother realised that another 4 Punt Éireannach could be generated by his scooting over, and making room for her fully-matured, young, rutting-bull of a half -brother.

So begins the story of the slap, and the, trussed-up-like-a-goose, running away.

He never thought that he would get to the point of admitting to this, that slap. It was the single source of his greatest shame, and the relief of putting it down, at last, was profound.

The rest was icing.

Christopher Vestel bangs on the doors "Medical check-up, line up maggots!" snapping a glove on.

Bianca Bender sits up slowly....in no big hurry...she's been here long enough.....what's a few more minutes.....looks through the bars and shows a glimmer of recognition.

Christopher Vestel snaps his fingers at her "To the bars prisoner, if you want to be released in good health"

Bianca Bender raises an eyebrow and goes to stand....momentarily forgetting about her leg...and ends up half falling to her left side as the GSW on the back of her thigh causes her leg to give out.

Bianca Bender cringes but stands....leaning against the end of the bunk beds for support and takes a stuttering step almost falling against the bars in front of the solider.

Christopher Vestel looks at her "Prisoner, I am entering the cell, don't even get an idea your going to touch my piece" referring to pistol mostly

Bianca Bender curls her lip...and glares through the wire holding herself up while her leg gets some feeling back into it..

Christopher Vestel points to the ground "Sit prisoner..."

Bianca Bender growls...'"make up your fucking mind...." turns around and lets herself fall into a sit on the floor flinching and her face paling as the wound on her thigh screams in pain.

Christopher Vestel smirks, looking at her..."Best way to know how pain your in, is see you perform a simple act of movement, Bianca"

Christopher Vestel kneels down near her, removing a small supplies of gauze, medical tape, and septics, looking at her repeatedly, making sure she doesn't reach for the firearm....

Bianca Bender sneers..."Well pretty boy let me gash the back of your thigh a quarter inch deep and have you sit your handsome ass down here with me." growls low mumbling..."and I felt sorry for your damn offspring last night..."

Christopher Vestel looks to her, not liking that comment, he removes the stim injector from his belt "Do you want to go to sleep, or stay awake, cause this sedative will put your fuzzy ass out"

Bianca Bender rolls her eyes, "Pretty boy scared of some simple words...." curls her lip, "I've got a gash in the back of my thigh and a gash in my left arm as well....I think I'll just sit here and look pretty.....I want to go home."

Christopher Vestel nods, he takes some quick clot foam packets out "I don't have my big kit with me today, but I will patch the holes up until you get back to your Den.." he rips open a packet, dumping it into a gauze square.

Bianca Bender looks up and reaching for the sleeve of the crap shirt she's wearing easily tears the sleeve away revealing an angry looking gash on her L arm...smiles..."Tell me when you're ready and I'll stand up and you can get a good look at my ass....kiss it while your back there if you'd like...." bats her eyes up at him.

Christopher Vestel reaches over the neko, with the Quick clot in hand, he pushes it into the wound, about a whole inch deep into the wound, listening to her comments "I've seen your ass before, Neko"

Bianca Bender snorts but hisses in a breath when the quick clot hits the soar...she'd endure his shit long as he gets her out of here in relatively one piece....looks at him..."Oh really...do tell the moment you laid eyes on my fine piece of ass? I don't seem to remember that...you must not be worth remembering." attempts to stand from her seated position having to pull up on the grating of the cell door do to so faces the door and waits for the "order" from him.

Christopher Vestel waves for her to stand up "Turn around" he orders "The reason you couldn't remember me, was because I was on a roof, looking at your ass through my sniper scope"

Bianca Bender snorts..."So you're a pervy peeping tom? Don't they teach you how to shoot w/ that extension of your cock..." drops her pants as she says the last word....the gash on the back of her left leg has started to bleed again from sitting on the floor....the scab that was forming breaking open...she clenches her free hand around the bars as the rough cloth brushes against the wound...gritting her teeth..."Take a good look....next time will cost you." prays he hurries...she's on the edge...not sure how long she can keep up her facade.

Christopher Vestel takes a can from his pack, he puts a nozzle on it..."I was going to kill anyone of you, if you harmed my child" he injects the nozzle deep into her GSW, thinking of the killing spree he would go on if someone harmed his Jay Jay.

Bianca Bender hisses as the nozzle goes into her wound...."He's a brat....you let him run around like a damn ape...shit father..." had had no intention of harming the boy....he seemed a good kid...white knuckles both hands on the jail cell bars to keep from collapsing...fuck if she put people through half this pain when she worked on them.....bites her lip hard.

Christopher Vestel finishes, giving her ass a slap "Then you babysit him, cause he keeps sneaking out of the bunker" he packs up his medical gear. Standing up, obviously towering over Bianca.

Bianca Bender grips tighter with her right hand as the left is a little weak from the GSW and pulls the bottoms back up her head wanting to drop....but she straightens her spine a fracture more..."Maybe if his father wasn't a shit head...he'd stick around...or if his father's friends weren't a bunch of pedophiles...." turns and stares at the man if he looks close he can see the pain and the hope at having him be the one to show up finally but her body language is pure defiance..."Can I leave now that you're done lookin your fill and gettin your jollys off?"

Christopher Vestel says "A shit head huh? Hmmm, maybe I should leave you in here, when the morning crew comes in, ask Miss Kat about that"

Christopher Vestel grabs her cuffs, he lifts them up high enough for him to see the keyhole, he unlocks the, throwing them to the bed.

Bianca Bender almost collapses but locks her knees...and winces when it shoots up her thigh...taking a deep breath...not flinching back when he grabs the cuffs or back away from him when he comes close enough to unlock them but whispers softly...he may pick it up or not.."thank you."

Christopher Vestel sighs at her saying that, knowing helping her, can get him landed in this cell, again.

Christopher Vestel grabs her arm and tries to pull her out of the cell to the out processing door.

Lazarus Lowenstark walks away from the counter guffawing at some ignorant joke or another he was sharing with the guards. He struts down like he owns the place, and gets closer to Bianca's cell, "BEEEYANCA!" He shouts with a Brooklyn Drawl, "Get yer ASS up. Daddy had to Bail your ASS out and it cost me a pretty Frikkin' penny - and Guess who's ASS that's comin' out of?"

Black and white world

Speech Impediments in Rock, Exhibit A | bigger

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interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEaS-K3j3M8

::

Blogged at The Theory of Nevolution. Thanks!

Rack never blurted; she always controlled her output. The effect was precise and Protestant, ‘I found out I am HIV positive a few days ago’

‘Oh Christ’, Ruin blurted, Catholic to the hilt.

Ruin was always an outlet for Rack, almost like a delinquent spokesperson, the stuttering utterer of the unspeakable. He had the ability to take the private into the realm of the universally available with consummate ease. She didn’t. It was something she greatly feared and something she instinctively grasped that early summer morning in 1988, in the 'Moondance Diner', on 6th Avenue and Grand. She knew she was making the personal public. She was undoing herself.

He possessed that strange gift, the one imposed and imprinted, like the mark of Cain, on the sexually molested child, of having no facility to recognise boundaries, no ability to be able to tell the personal and private apart from what could be made generally available. She knew that he was her surrogate broadcaster and momentarily shuddered at the stranger, whom she had spontaneously trusted, sitting opposite her. This understanding hung between them as they ordered breakfast.

Their opening was torturous and drove them scurrying apart. It was more than either of them could handle, Rack racked with regret for exposing this opening wound and Ruin incapable of carrying the story alone. Their rehabilitation was slow and arduous. It was a time when to speak these words was a declaration of the almost immediate dissolution of self. It was a time before the hope generated by the misnomered cocktails and the political agitation, which was to burgeon out of despair and become Act- Up. It was a time before anything could be done except grasp at straws. So, both started grasping and would occasionally find themselves in the same room drawn to the same possible panacea. Rack’s volition was desperation. Ruin’s was guilt. They acknowledged each other with some embarrassment and growing affection and more often than not turned away from each other and left separately. Ruin knew he loved Rack. Rack was not at all sure.

Dear Rack,

Just sending you back some words you once sent to me:

“I have often thought that writers do not write; they read what is already written and transcribe. So perhaps they are not complaining about ill health, lack of money, and rejection, but about the bondage of a calling that keeps them laboriously transcribing cryptic messages in rapidly disappearing ink, like the traces of a dream, year after year...."

Thinking of how romantic you are.... even if it is all so appalling to live through.

We seem to endure, and hopefully will continue to do so for a little while longer.

Love,

Ruin

Meet Peter Joynt. Peter was performing at Hintonburg Happening on a Saturday evening. Hintonburg is a very cool community just west of Ottawa's downtown. When I arrived Peter was entertaining the audience with his rhyming, when Peter stopped performing and he spoke to the audience he had a pronounced stutter, in spite of this he was extremely confident and articulate. I took some random shots during Peter's performance but I was really hoping to get a moment with him to try and get his story.

Once Peter's set was over and he was packing away his gear I approached him. Peter was extremely polite and when I told him about the 100 Strangers Project he jumped at the chance to be included.

Peter is a graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, he graduated with an Arts Degree in Economics. He is employed in the IT industry. In his spare time Peter devotes his time to writing music and making videos, he has worked on projects for a number of organizations including the Ottawa Senators (NHL Hockey Team), local cable TV provider Rogers TV and Ottawa Tourism. As I mentioned earlier Peter is a stutterer when he talks but it disappears when he performs. This has become a distinguishing feature of his persona and the reason he became a motivational speaker. Peter speaks regularly at schools about rapping, stuttering and bullying.

On a lighter note in 2012 Peter won a Toyota Camry Hybrid in Tim Horton's "Roll Up The Rim To Win" Contest. FYI Tim Horton's is an iconic coffee chain in Canada and parts of the US. The odds of winning this top prize were 1 in 7.2 million. Go figure!!

Thank you Peter for agreeing to be a part of my 100 Strangers Project, meeting individuals such as you is what makes this so interesting. Your enthusiasm is infectious and I wish you all the very best. I'm sure our paths will cross in the future.

There is more information on Peter at www.thejoynt.ca

This is picture #45 of my 100 Strangers Project.

You can find other photographers' work on this project at:

www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers

Pokemon Sword Expansion Pass ROM for PC is here. Game runs perfect with stable 30fps and no stutters.

Pokemon SWSH XCI/NSP ROM: bit.ly/pokeswshyuzupc

Official Yuzu Emulator: yuzu-emu.org/

System Requirements:

CPU: Atleast 4 cores (Higher Core count = better performance)

GPU: atleast GTX 1060 or amd equivalent

RAM: 8GB RAM (16GB is recommended)

Storage: atleast 1TB since Switch games are large in file size

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What's the cause of the stutter? I'm holding a video camera on the monitor. The wiggliness of the handhold shows that the video has halted, then jumps to the current position, freezes again, and so on. How do I determine the cause?

Rocktaves 2013

When you forget to turn off long exposure noise reduction you get interesting things - as I posted in my last example. Get it right, and the trails can be continuous, provided you heed the 600 Rule or rather you'll see, it's not at all related to the 600 rule whether you get gaps. For some tips on creating a stacked star trail as you see here, please see the Stacker's Checklist"

This time I got it right except that I have not cleaned up a few artifacts of the stacking. Do you notice the red artifacts in the dock railing? That's glow from my intervalometer. There is also that strange orange cloud... I consider it character.

© Copyright 2012, Steven Christenson

StarCircleAcademy.com

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All rights reserved. Curious what "all rights reserved means?" it means that without written permission you may not: copy, transmit, modify, use, print or display this image in any context other than as it appears in Flickr.

Seaside Reverie

"Stuttering" Craig Skistimas of ScrewAttack. An updated version of the previous fig.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: Tina Brown and Emily Blunt speak onstage at 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)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFqehlgRAWA&list=UUGxOmjoIx5k...

Made this for Domo but you guys can all enjoy it!

I have the tendency to slightly stutter while speaking English, that's just muh nerves :3

“You know I like to use that time to prepare for my afternoon classes,” she protested.

“Make an exception, for me?” he wheedled, fastening the pasha’s diamond pendent around her throat so that the lovely jewel nestled just between her breasts.

Her breathing stuttered and the blood drained from her face at the sight of the gem.

“Where did you get this?” She had gone ashen-pale.

“In Armenia-”

“From my Uncle Krikor,” she whispered, fingertips hovering over just over the pendant. “His finest work.”

“He remembered you fondly, mogliettina,” he replied uncomfortably, cursing his stupidity for not realizing that she would recognize her uncle’s necklace.

But you knew she’d recognize it, didn’t you? You knew she would know how I got it and you wanted to make sure I couldn’t hide my sins from her. Clever old devil.

“He said he liked the idea of you wearing a necklace made for a pasha’s wife while you played on the floor with our children.”

A small, shaky laugh, pitched high and nervous, escaped her lips. “That sounds like Uncle Krikor.”

He smiled hesitantly, unsure how to gauge her response, and slid his hands over her upper arms to rub her shoulders. Her body was tense, but she permitted his touch. He pressed gentle kisses against the side of her neck, working his way up to her cheek. This wasn’t the reaction to the necklace he had expected. He thought she’d be delighted to receive such a beautiful and valuable gift, that his gesture would be rewarded with affection, praise, maybe even sex – if she liked it enough – that it would make her happy; he wasn’t prepared for her to react with thinly veiled shock and horror. He hoped he hadn’t made things worse.

“He’s dead then, isn’t he; him and all of my cousins. This wouldn’t have come to me otherwise,” she said softly, unflinchingly meeting his eyes in the mirror.

He looked away first.

- The Garden Season 2

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 963. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

British actor Henry Wilcoxon (1905-1984) was best known as a leading man in Cleopatra (1934) and many others of Cecil B. DeMille's films. He also served as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.

Harry Frederick Wilcoxon was born on 8 September 1905 in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies. His father was English-born Robert Stanley 'Tan' Wilcoxon, manager of the Colonial Bank in Jamaica and his mother, Lurline Mignonette Nunes, was a Jamaican amateur theatre actress, descendant of a wealthy Spanish merchant family. His older brother was Robert 'Owen' Wilcoxon. Henry had a difficult childhood. His mother disappeared suddenly and mysteriously when he was about a year old, and his father took him and Owen to England with the intention that his own mother Ann would take care of them. But, because his mother was too frail to care for the children, they were first sent to a foster home, where they became ill from malnutrition and neglect and they were moved on to an orphanage. There, Harry suffered from rickets, and Owen developed a stutter and had epileptic fits. They were rescued from the orphanage to a new foster home. After several years Harry's father 'Tan', with his new wife Rosamond took the children home with them to Bridgetown, Barbados, where they were educated. Harry and Owen became known as 'Biff' and 'Bang' due to their fighting skills gained in amateur boxing. After completing his education, Wilcoxon was employed by Joseph Rank, the father of J. Arthur Rank, before working for Bond Street tailors Pope and Bradshaw. While working for the tailors, Wilcoxon applied for a visa to work as a chauffeur in the United States, but upon seeing his application refused, turned to boxing and then to acting. His first stage performance was a supporting role in an adaptation of the novel The 100th Chance, by Ethel M. Dell, in 1927 at Blackpool. He joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre the next year and toured for several years. He found critical success playing Captain Cook in a production of Rudolph Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the London Queen's Theatre alongside Cedric Hardwicke. In 1932, He played at the Queen's Theatre in Sir Barry Jackson's production of Beverley Nichols' novel Evensong alongside Edith Evans.

In 1931, Harry Wilcoxon made his screen debut as Larry Tindale in The Perfect Lady (Frederick J. Jackson, Milton Rosmer, 1931), followed by a role opposite Heather Angel in Self Made Lady (George King, 1932), alongside Louis Hayward. In 1932, he appeared in The Flying Squad (F.W. Kraemer, 1932), a sound remake of a 1929 silent film based on the novel by Edgar Wallace. Altogether he made eight films in Britain till 1934. In 1933, a talent scout for Paramount Pictures arranged a screen test which came to the attention of producer-director Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood. He cast Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934) opposite Claudette Colbert as the man-hungry Queen of Egypt. Harry was renamed by DeMille for the role and from then on he was Henry Wilcoxon. He was next given the lead role of Richard the Lionhearted in DeMille's big-budget spectacle The Crusades (Cecil B. De Mille, 1935) opposite Loretta Young. That film, however, was a financial failure, losing more than $700,000. After the lack of success of The Crusades, Wilcoxon's career stalled. He starred in a number of B-films, like The President's Mystery (Phil Rosen, 1936) and Prison Nurse (James Cruze, 1938) for Republic Pictures, and he portrayed the supporting role of Maj. Duncan Heyward in the commercially successful Last of the Mohicans (George B. Seitz, 1936) starring Randolph Scott. Wilcoxon himself called 'his worst acting job' Mysterious Mr. Moto (Norman Foster, 1938) featuring Peter Lorre. That year, he also played in If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Ronald Colman, and featured in Five of a Kind (Herbert I. Leeds, 1938) with the Dionne quintuplets. In Great Britain, Wilcoxon appeared as Captain Hardy in Lady Hamilton (Alexander Korda, 1941), alongside Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. When America entered the World War II in December 1941, Wilcoxon enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. He served with the Coast Guard until 1946, gaining the rank of Lieutenant. During his period of service, he had three films released in 1942, among them Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942), which received considerable public acclaim, as well as six Academy Awards. Wilcoxon, in his role as the vicar, re-wrote the key sermon with director Wyler. The speech made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder. Upon his return from war service, Wilcoxon picked up with Cecil B. DeMille with Unconquered (Cecil B. DeMille, 1947), starring Gary Cooper. After starring as Sir Lancelot in the musical version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Tay Garnett, 1949) with Bing Crosby in the title role, he featured in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949). Wilcoxon returned to England to feature in The Miniver Story (H.C. Potter, 1950), a sequel to the multi-Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) in which he reprised his role as the vicar opposite Greer Garson. In the late 1940s, young actors and actresses came to Wilcoxon and wife Joan Woodbury and asked them to form a play-reading group which in 1951 became the Wilcoxon Players.

Henry Wilcoxon played a small but important part as FBI Agent Gregory in DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952), on which he also served as Associate Producer. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1952. He also acted as associate producer on, and acted as Pentaur, the pharaoh's captain of the guards in DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). Wilcoxon was sole producer on The Buccaneer (Anthony Quinn, 1958), a remake of DeMille's 1938 effort, which DeMille only supervised due to his declining health while his then son-in-law Anthony Quinn directed. After DeMille died, Wilcoxon worked on a film based on the life of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, which DeMille had left unrealised, and was also ultimately abandoned. After a relatively inactive period, Wilcoxon appeared with Charlton Heston in The War Lord (Franklin Schaffner, 1965). He was co-producer on the TV tribute The World's Greatest Showman: The Legend of Cecil B. DeMille (1963). At the opening of the DeMille Theatre in New York, he produced another short film. In the last two decades of his life, he worked sporadically and accepted minor acting roles in TV shows including The Big Valley (1965), I Spy (1966), It Takes a Thief (1968), Gunsmoke (1970), Lassie (1973), Cagney & Lacey (1982), and Private Benjamin (1982). He also appeared in a few films films, including F.I.S.T (Norman Jewison, 1978), starring Sylvester Stallone. He also had a memorable turn as the golf-obsessed Bishop Pickering, struck by lightning, in the slapstick comedy Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980) with Bill Murray as his caddy. His final film was Sweet Sixteen - Blutiges Inferno (Jim Sotos, 1983). By loaning money from his early film acting, Wilcoxon assisted his brother Owen to establish himself in 1931 as a partner in the Vale Motor Company in London, and for a short time he showed a personal interest in the development of their sports car, the Vale Special. At that time his girlfriend was a London-based American stage actress Carol Goodner. Wilcoxon married 19-year-old actress Sheila Garrett in 1936, but they divorced a year later. In 1938 he married his second wife, 23-years-old actress Joan Woodbury. They had three daughters: Wendy Joan Robert Wilcoxon (born 1939), Heather Ann Wilcoxon (1947) and Cecilia Dawn 'CiCi' Wilcoxon (1950). The couple divorced in 1969. Henry Wilcoxon passed away in 1984 in Los Angeles. He was 78 years old and had been ill with cancer.

Sources: The New York Times, The Scott Rollins Film and TV Trivia Blog, Wikipedia and IMDb.

When you forget to turn off long exposure noise reduction you get interesting things. Or I should say maddening gaps in trails.

Apparently I didn't read my own "Stacker's Checklist"! In my defense, I've been shooting the Milky Way quite a bit and sometimes do use LENR for that task (see my previous post)

© Copyright 2012, Steven Christenson

StarCircleAcademy.com

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[18:32] Cephas Loire gurgles a wet cacophony of chuckles, this time actually standing his ground and allowing the bullets to enter his abdomen. A heavy metallic thud resonates as the rounds bounce off the lieanr frame beneath. "Going to take more then....", he stutters a moment, coughing up a little blood, "...then that, little kitty. Catwalkers don't understand warfare, trying to grasp straws, house of cards. Wait until shipment comes, going to blow your fucking house of cards down." He reaches up, drawing the machette, "Going to give you one more chance to go lay in corner like little kitty...", he inhales, stiffling another cough, "...little song...little dance...big knife jammed down yer pants."

[18:35] Bailey Dazy continues to stand her ground on the ramp of the den. She knows if she backs down now, the den and her own ego will be lost forever. She doesn't have much more protection. She realizes she doesn't have any more bullets in her pistol, not like they were doing much anyway. She holsters it and reverts to the lone weapon she has left.... her hand made metal claws. 8 inches in length and razor blade sharp... She crouches with her claws extended... she'd be ready to pounce directly on top of him. "You may get too much sexual enjoyment from that."

[18:38] Cephas Loire extends his tongue, still dripping with regurgitated blood and bile, "Rather like pussy pussy...", he hisses menacingly, "..count self lucky caught me on good day or would have rippe dyou apart already." He takes a step closer, tilting his head, twirling the machete playfully, "Random shit happens all the time, shiv? SOmetimes it finds you...", he takes another step, "Sometimes foolishly go out looking for it."

[18:44] Bailey Dazy focuses her eyes on the intruder, her mind turning feral, words are hard to come by at this point as all her brain can think is 'kill, kill, kill' "You.... you're foolish... you... you come here. YOU LEAVE!" She roars with the last statement, as she leaps downward aiming directly for his head, should she succeed she may dig deep in with her claws.

[18:44] Bailey Dazy has nothing but revenge on her mind right now

[18:50] Cephas Loire growls loudly, announcing his own intent. He veers back, the claws missing his head but imbeding themselves instead in his chest, stopping short when they riccochete off the frame beneath. He growls again, slamming his head into hers, apparently not at full force or it would've caved in her entire skull. The impact dislodges her claws, he in turn crouching slightly, taunting her to continue with a beckoning hand.

[18:53] Bailey Dazy feels her feral adrenline rushing but the blow to the head takes quite a bit out of her... She stumbles back, and away from the edge of the catwalk. She all but pins her back to the wall... she hears Shadows cheering but it echoes in her ears. She reaches forward with her paw making an attempt to slice her bladed claws across Cephas's face. It's not until she nearly slaps him that she realizes she's unarmed.

[19:03] Cephas Loire leans into the path of her attack, allowing her hand to make contact with his ice cold synth flesh. He chuckles in amusement as he lashes his hand out to grab her wrist in a vice like grip. “See darkness in your eyes…”, he snarls, his voice heavy with intent, malice, “The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do and devise reason later.”, he pulls her towards her, her body whipping at him like a ragdoll, “There is nothing else. Existence is random, has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long.”, he brings the machete up, relishing as she wriggles in his grasp, “No meaning save what we choose to impose.” At that he punctuates the remark by bring the blade swiftly down in a shallow arc, gleaming the flesh of her throat open, parting it in a smooth, glistening red line.

Washpool National Park, New South Wales.

For use of this photo please contact clancywildlife@gmail.com

so it's been a sl-sl-slow and st-st-stuttering start to the groupie culture again... for some reason it's been slightly intimidating this time around.

i mean it's not as simple as in the old days. back then you'd pour your heart out into an anonymous screen in some dingy net cafe in some dingy alleyway in old delhi or somewhere equally smelly, and press send. 3 days later someone would be guilted into writing back, even though they have 'nothing to say, home is home, same old same old.' these days you have to set up a travelblog, then you have to get everyone to bookmark it, and check it, and then leave comments so that you know you're not just writing to the cybergods who never listen anyway, and of course your parents, who don't really count (sorry folks). and to be honest, travelling with two people is, i suppose quite obviously, completely different to going it solo. i mean, someone already knows about the hell 17 hour ferry bus train trip you just did, so the imperitive to inflict, i mean share, the experience with others is just lacking.

but you know what? 3 days in bangkok in 40 degree heat is just the tonic for someone lacking the writing bug. (net cafes being airconditioned and all, and you might as well use one of the computers, as the proprietors tend to look at you funny if you just sit in the mercifully drycoldairflow, naked.)

so, after the somewhat waffly preamble, let's get started. oh, before i do, let me give you a quick "live" style rundown on what's hot and what's not in bangkok.

HOT: sausages on the charcoal braziers. it used to be squid, now they've got wieners. huh; thaksin sinawatra. that's right, the army's done such a bad job of managing the coup, the people want thaksin back to manage it for them; these weird jammalatra (sp?) amulets everyone is wearing. supposed to confer goodluck. at 2000B each and another 10000B upwards to get them blessed at a temple, thai time magazine is dubbing them the marketing miracle of the century. i think apple is releasing something called the "ipod" here soon. be interesting to see how it goes. this is one scam in thailand i'm glad i'm not in any danger of falling prey to!

NOT: thai people. its 40 freaking degrees and they're walking around in jeans and hiking boots. how do they stay so cool?; taksin. half the people love him as i said. the other half hate him. but it's more complicated than that. i can't keep up. the papers are no good either. the other thing about this preamble is that it reminded me of the new constitution the government is drawing up. the buddhist monks and some lay people (and foreigners!) are lobbying to have buddhism declared the state religion. the kingdom has always been a secular state, so it should be interesting watching the standoff...

ok so, what have jo and i actually been doing? good question, with a short answer - not a hell of a lot. leaving melbourne in ablaze of glory - thanks to all those who turned up to the golden monkey and kicked on into the wee hours - we alighted in singapore and crashed with my new boss-to-be. kicking in a couple of wines to his collection as rent for dumping some bags there (i think this could be a liquid appointment, judging by the stock already amassed), we winged it out for krabi the next day on tiger air. a lovely brandspanker of an A320, with about 30 people on board... for about 70 bucks. you people better pray they set up shop in melbourne, and give jetstar the spanking it deserves.

from krabi we hot ferried it to phi phi, and there the wheels started to fall off, to mix a metaphor 3 ways. some of you will know that i spent a lot of time on phi phi in '01,and to put it mildly, the place has changed. with the exception of a cleared piece of landin one corner of the village (which could be an ordinary construction site), some twisted and distorted building materials, and a heartbreaking baby's grave halfway up to the viewpoint, you'd never know there'd been a tsunami. until you speak to some of the locals, who talk about it quite freely - where they were and what they were doing... some of whom have missing or mangled limbs. so, that was different, but not markedly so. what struck me was the rampant development going on. phiphi was always"touristy". i knew that. but this is different. this is a 4 storey mall (!) being built where "charlie's" used to be. it's tour boats from phuket lanta and krabi converging on phi phi ley at 9.30 in the morning, disgorging orange lifejacketed snorkelling japanese tourists from the back of huge vessels, like they decided to return all the whalemeat in a "molecular food" form. we were lucky to get to phi ley bay by 8.30, and have 15 mins of uninterrupted bliss. but still, who wants to get up early on holidays just to enjoy an island cruise in peace??

so, instead of taking to the water, we took to the roads. hiking down to runtee bay, then over to ton ko bay (or trying to - we got lost and ended up on a new road above town, a massive swath cut into the hillside that bodes only ill for the coming years...). tiring of being tired, we alternated with some serious beach time, but really, unless you can escape the main village, the beaches at phi phi aren't all that crash hot.

so, we bailed to ko lanta, south of phi phi, which is only accessible in the dry season.

shown with 'failure to launch' - www.flickr.com/photos/ecbrown145flick/6829571876

there's a weight on my wrists

the gentle pricks of fingertips

the gravitational friction

feather boa constriction

stuttering tongues with strangulated diction

I'm learning a lot from what I don't do

call me a liar, but I've been believed

by more truthful men than you

I made it through on feelings and false starts

but in the process of climbing, I'm falling apart

shouting out encouraging words

that get pecked on the way

by noise-canceling birds

I'm running out of hate

I love before I land

I feel like a boy

my flight is unmanned

stretched beyond

all coming back

a lone wolf lonely

at the center of the pack

when I stretch my jaw to howl

I feel my spirit crack

I don't think that's a metaphor

but I can't say for sure anymore

I'm raging in this room

in the midnight of the moon

I've forgotten forever

what peace was for

I'm making my treaty with war

© Steve Skafte

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Long Time, No Sea and

Stray Cat in a Straitjacket

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Ex Hong Kong Leyland / Dennis Condor at Market and Stutter in San Francisco working for Big Bus Tours.

Glitch Panorama from the series Did I stutter?

Voigtlander Vito B : a great little camera from the 1950's , quite often the shutter 'stutters' on the slow speeds. Here's how to get to the shutter to service the mechanism and also clean up the optics. Start by setting focus to 'infinity' & taking out the set screws in the focussing ring (4 screws) using a 'jewellers' screwdriver..by the way ; this camera needs a film to be in place to charge the shutter via the movement of the film on a sprocket wheel.