View allAll Photos Tagged think
I think I found a solution to make the wings sturdy and nicely angled.I also realised that the hinged section fits perfectly to those 45 degree angled plates. The connection may be a bit forced, but there's no sign of bending. I'll upload some pics on the technique behind it soon.
(Concept art: www.flickr.com/photos/126096951@N03/14907640179/in/set-72...)
The Thinker (le penseur) by Auguste Rodin
Bronze
H. 180 cm ; W. 98 cm ; D. 145 cm
Cast made by Fonderie Alexis Rudier in 1904. Transfered to the musée Rodin in 1922.
When conceived in 1880 in its original size (approx. 70 cm) as the crowning element of The Gates of Hell, seated on the tympanum, The Thinker was entitled The Poet. He represented Dante, author of the Divine Comedy which had inspired The Gates, leaning forward to observe the circles of Hell, while meditating on his work.
The Thinker was therefore initially both a being with a tortured body, almost a damned soul, and a free-thinking man, determined to transcend his suffering through poetry. The pose of this figure owes much to Carpeaux’s Ugolino (1861) and to the seated portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici carved by Michelangelo (1526-31).
While remaining in place on the monumental Gates of Hell, The Thinker was exhibited individually in 1888 and thus became an independent work.
Enlarged in 1904, its colossal version proved even more popular: this image of a man lost in thought, but whose powerful body suggests a great capacity for action, has became one of the most celebrated sculptures ever known. Numerous casts exist worldwide, including the one now in the gardens of the Musée Rodin, a gift to the City of Paris installed outside the Panthéon in 1906, and another in the gardens of Rodin’s house in Meudon, on the tomb of the sculptor and his wife.
www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/thinker
The Musée Rodin in Paris, France, is a museum that was opened in 1919 in the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds. It displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
While living in the Villa des Brillants (in Meudon, suburb of Paris), Rodin used the Hôtel Biron as his workshop from 1908, and subsequently donated his entire collection of sculptures (along with paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that he had acquired) to the French State on the condition that they turn the building into a museum dedicated to his works.
The Musée Rodin contains most of Rodin's significant creations, including The Thinker, The Kiss, Monument to Victor Hugo, The Burghers of Calais, La Cathedrale, Monument to Balzac, Study for the Naked Muse, without Arms and The Gates of Hell. Many of his sculptures are displayed in the museum's extensive garden.
The museum is one of the most accessible museums in Paris. The gardens around the museum building contain many of the famous sculptures in natural settings.
Behind the museum building is a small lake and casual restaurant.
The Musée Rodin collections are very diverse, as Rodin used to collect besides being an artist, some paintings by Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh which were in Rodin's personal collections are also presented. The museum has also a room dedicated to works of Camille Claudel.
Wikipedia
I think it's a Deuce, but no guarantee! This cab is Model A but was used on trucks for several years after.
I like the red wire wheels, but the arrangement of spokes looks tenuous. You could wreck these with enough torque.
car show on the street on a summer Saturday in Elma, Washington.
It was great when it all began.....
I think it was September 2011 when I first visited St Olave. It was an Open House London weekend, and I had not been inside a City of London church before. I was soon to discover this was one of many.
I think since then I have photographed inside and/or inside, or the remains of some 48 City Churches, but this is still something special.
A Norfolk Village church in the City I have heard it described, it is certainly a box of delights, with a whole lot of interesting things, memorials and even a model of a lightship inside.
It nestles down a quiet street near to Fenchurch Street, and seems to be open whenever I walk by. This time I entered through the door on the street, much better to enter through the churchyard, through the macabre gate then down steps into the porch.
Once inside I saw someone asleep in the pews, surrounded by bags of her possessions. I tried not to wake her.
And yet, the church was filled with strong sunlight, tinted after passing through the stained glass.
------------------------------------------
St Olave’s survives as a rare example of the mediaeval churches that existed before the Great Fire of London in 1666. The flames came within 100 metres or so of the building but then the wind changed direction, saving a number of churches on the eastern side of the City.
The church was severely damaged in the bombing of World War II, but enough of the fabric and original masonry was spared to permit the building to be lovingly restored in the 1950s and to continue its life and work into the second half of the 20th century and now the 21st.
People entering St Olave’s for the first time are frequently surprised to find the timeless atmosphere of a modest ancient parish church in the heart of the modern City and this surprise more often than not yields to increasing delight as they explore its interior. This truth about St Olave’s was well expressed by The Revd Augustus Powell Miller, the Rector who saw through the post-war restoration:
'Often we remind ourselves that we are the heirs of nine centuries of Christian worship on this hallowed site. For all those long years… the praises of God and the prayers of His people have been ascending to the Throne of grace from this place. The very mental and spiritual atmosphere which you breathe as you step out of Hart Street into this Sanctuary has been gradually created by the worshippers of the past. And many times in recent days when visitors have come in to see the restored church they have confessed to having paused; they entered to view what the craftsmen had wrought but had to own their consciousness of its hallowed atmosphere. "Other men have laboured" and we, in the mercy of God have been given the privilege of "entering into their labours." In the quiet and silence of this Sanctuary we can know that "we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses," and that the past mingles with the present and can inspire us for whatever tasks the future has in store for us.'
www.sanctuaryinthecity.net/history-architecture/4588220829
--------------------------------------------
St Olave Hart Street is a Church of England church in the City of London, located on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane near Fenchurch Street railway station.
John Betjeman described St Olave's as "a country church in the world of Seething Lane."[1] The church is one of the smallest in the City and is one of only a handful of medieval City churches that escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666.[2] In addition to being a local parish church, St Olave's is the Ward Church of the Tower Ward of the City of London.
The church is first recorded in the 13th century as St Olave-towards-the-Tower, a stone building replacing the earlier (presumably wooden) construction.[4] It is dedicated to the patron saint of Norway, King Olaf II of Norway, who fought alongside the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready against the Danes in the Battle of London Bridge in 1014. He was canonised after his death and the church of St Olave's was built apparently on the site of the battle.[2] The Norwegian connection was reinforced during the Second World War when King Haakon VII of Norway worshipped there while in exile.
Saint Olave's was rebuilt in the 13th century and then again in the 15th century. The present building dates from around 1450. According to John Stow's Survey of London (1603), a major benefactor of the church in the late 15th century was wool merchant Richard Cely Sr. (d. 1482), who held the advowson on the church (inherited by his son, Richard Cely, Jr.). On his death, Cely bequeathed money for making the steeple and an altar in the church. The merchant mark of the Cely family was carved in two of the corbels in the nave (and were extant until the bombing of World War II). No memorial to the Celys now remains in the church.[5]
Saint Olave's survived the Great Fire of London with the help of Sir William Penn, the father of the more famous William Penn who founded Pennsylvania, and his men from the nearby Naval yards. He had ordered the men to blow up the houses surrounding the church to create a fire break.[6][7] The flames came within 100 yards or so of the building, but then the wind changed direction, saving the church and a number of other churches on the eastern side of the City.[3]
The church was a favourite of the diarist Samuel Pepys, whose house and Royal Navy office were both on Seething Lane. A regular worshipper, he referred to St. Olave's in his diary affectionately as "our own church"[8] In 1660, he had a gallery built on the south wall of the church and added an outside stairway from the Royal Navy Offices so that he could go to church without getting soaked by the rain. The gallery is now gone but a memorial to Pepys marks the location of the stairway's door. In 1669, when his beloved wife Elisabeth died from fever,[9] Pepys had a marble bust of her made by John Bushnell and installed on the north wall of the sanctuary so that he would be able to see her from his pew at the services. In 1703, he was buried next to his wife in the nave.[2][10]
However, it was gutted by German bombs in 1941 during the London Blitz.[11] and was restored in 1954, with King Haakon VII of Norway returning to preside over the rededication ceremony, during which he laid a stone from Trondheim Cathedral in front of the sanctuary.
Between 1948 and 1954, when the restored St Olave's was reopened, a prefabricated church stood on the site of All Hallows Staining. This was known as St Olave Mark Lane. The tower of All Hallows Staining was used as the chancel of the temporary church.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[12] St Olave's has retained long and historic links with Trinity House and the Clothworkers' Company.
St Olave's has a modest exterior in the Perpendicular Gothic style.[1] with a somewhat squat square tower of stone and brick, the latter added in 1732. It is famous for the macabre 1658 entrance arch to the churchyard, which is decorated with grinning skulls.[13] The novelist Charles Dickens was so taken with this that he included the church in his Uncommercial Traveller, renaming it "St Ghastly Grim".[14]
The interior of St Olave's only partially survived the wartime bombing; much of it dates from the restoration of the 1950s. It is nearly square, with three bays separated by columns of Purbeck limestone supporting pointed arches. The roof is a simple oak structure with bosses. Most of the church fittings are modern, but there are some significant survivals, such as the monument to Elizabeth Pepys[15] and the pulpit, said to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. Following the destruction of the organ in the blitz, the John Compton Organ Company built a new instrument in the West Gallery, fronted by a large wooden grille; this organ, and the Rectory behind, is ingeniously structured between church and tower.
In the tower, there is a memorial with an American connection. It honors Monkhouse Davison and Abraham Newman, the grocers of Fenchurch Street who shipped crates of tea to Boston in late 1773. These crates were seized and thrown into the waters during the Boston Tea Party, one of the causes of the American War of Independence.[10]
Perhaps the oddest "person" said to be buried here is the "Pantomime character" Mother Goose. Her burial was recorded by the parish registers on 14 September 1586.[16] A plaque on the outside commemorates this event. The churchyard is also said to contain the grave of one Mary Ramsay, popularly believed to be the woman who brought the Plague to London in 1665.[17] The parish registers have the record of her burial, which was on 24 July 1665. Thereafter, in the same year, the victims of the Great Plague were marked with a 'p' after their names in the registers.
On the east side of St Olave's, there is a stained glass window depicting Queen Elizabeth I standing with two tall bells at her feet. She held a thanksgiving service at St Olave's on Trinity Sunday, 15 May 1554, while she was still Princess Elizabeth, to celebrate her release from the Tower of London.[19] She had originally given bell-ropes of silk to the All Hallows Staining Church because its bells had rung the loudest of all London bells on the day of her freedom, but, when All Hallows Staining was merged with St. Olave's in 1870, the bell-ropes went with it.[20]
On 11 May 1941, an incendiary bomb was dropped by the Luftwaffe on the tower of the church. The tower, along with the baptistry and other buildings, was "burned out" and the furnishings and monuments destroyed. The heat was so great that even the peal of the eight bells were melted "back into bell metal". In the early 1950s, the bell metal was recast into new bells by the same foundry that created the original bells – the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, in 1662 and 1694.[21] The new bells were then hung in the rebuilt tower.
There are currently nine bells at St Olave's Hart Street consisting of one sanctus bell and eight bells hung for full circle ringing, with the tenor of the eight weighing 11-3-23.[22] The bells are usually rung for practices, which take place on Thursday evenings between 7:00pm and 8:30pm during term time, and for Sunday service between 10:15am and 11:00am on the 1st and 3rd Sundays in the month.[23] The bells are currently rung by the University of London Society of Change Ringers (ULSCR) who have a healthy band consisting of past and present members of London Universities.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Olave_Hart_Street
--------------------------------------------
A medieval church set in the surprisingly quiet and narrow streets near Fenchurch Street station. One of the most pleasing of the City of London churches, both in its setting and in its interior. It was far enough east to escape the ravages of the Great Fire, much to the relief of Samuel Pepys, whose parish church this was and who worked in the Navy Office next door. In the 1930s Betjeman described it as seeming like an East Anglian country parish church on holiday in the heart of the City. The church did not, alas, survive the Blitz similarly unscathed, but the exterior and setting today appear remarkably similar to postcards and photographs of the 1920s, set on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane with a polite little public garden behind. Don't miss the grinning skulls above the gateway.
Since the terrorist bombing of St Ethelburga in 1993, St Olave is the smallest surviving intact medieval church in the City. The interior has been carefully restored and perhaps retains something of its original atmosphere - indeed, the post-war restoration got rid of the worst of the middle-brow 19th Century restorations by Arthur Blomfield and Ewan Christian. Furnishings were brought out of store from All Hallows Staining and St Katherine Coleman, two churches in adjacent streets which had been demolished for building work in the 19th Century. The glass is now all post-war and by two artists whose reputations for fine work are firmly established, Arthur Buss and John Hayward.
I designed this for Santa Cruz Skateboards. I gave one to TC at the Boardroom on 41 st. This is a two sided plastic cut out 26" long came bagged with a string. Jeff Grosso I think can't even remember, early 80's.
. . . 10. 3. 2007 - this is the fourth day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week. Today we will see buffalo fighting, cock fighting, the killing of the buffalos, the horse and the deer. The photos of the killing might look strange to you, to the torajian they are common. The souls of the killed buffalos are the servants of the deads. The more buffalos are killed the better life for the dead.
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
_____________________________________
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Well I think it is done, but have now noticed her left cheek is looking a little orange, may need to change that. Also you might notice that her wings have flown away!
Faith-filled learning environment leads to greater academic success, service to community, say supporters
By Ambria Hammel | Feb. 16, 2010 | The Catholic Sun
Catholic education doesn’t just help a student now. The full dividends play out over a lifetime.
That was the overarching theme students throughout the diocese celebratedduring Catholic Schools Week Jan. 31-Feb. 6. Students organized special activities, projects and dress-up days to honor the vital role a Catholic education plays.
“There’s more focus on God and religion, not just academics. I like that,” John Paul McCann, a fifth-grader at Blessed Pope John XXIII, said about his Catholic school experience. “I think it’d be good to have more people learn about God.”
Fr. Dan McBride, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Chandler and a St. Jerome School alumnus, concelebrated a special Mass at his alma mater Feb. 4. Six other priests, active and retired, joined him.
“When we celebrate Catholic Schools Week, we celebrate our identity not just as students in a private school. We celebrate our Catholic identity. We know that to learn and to grow in faith are part and parcel; they go together,” Fr. McBride said.
Fr. McBride recalled his daily outlook at St. Jerome: “I was going to learn something I didn’t know and I was expected to do things I didn’t know I could do.”
Other Catholic school alumni visited various campuses throughout the diocese touting the dividends Catholic school provided.
“Catholic education taught me that it’s OK to ask questions and open doors and explore options,” said Vickie Jennett, communications coordinator for St. Timothy Parish in Mesa. She shared her testimony with seventh- and eighth-graders at the parish school Feb. 2.
Jennett — who has worked for a university, several newspapers and now the Church — spent 15 years in Catholic school and still appreciates its focus on faith, the family and discipline.
“I cannot tell you how important my vocation of wife and mother is to me,” said Jennett, whose children are both in their mid-to-late 20s.
Deacons, priests and sisters at various campuses shared their vocation stories with students too. Deacon Dick Petersen also spoke at St. Timothy School.
The Catholic school alum has spent more than one-third of his life in Catholic education — including medical school. He told students that, among other benefits, the prayer life fostered at Catholic schools gives students an advantage in life.
Today’s Catholic high school students already appreciate the strict discipline. Bourgade senior Michael Weikamp is among them. He has grown up in Catholic education and is grateful for so many life lessons.
Weikamp already plans to finance a Catholic education for his future family.
Adelyne Gomez, a seventh-grader at St. Louis the King School in Glendale, also finds value in her Catholic education.
“I know what’s right and what’s not right. I know that if I’m ever in trouble, I can pray to God and He’ll help me,” she said.
Parents of the diocese’s youngest students don’t take that for granted either. They repeatedly named prayer and faith on their list of the top 10 reasons to choose a Catholic education at Our Lady of Joy in Carefree. They unveiled the top 10 list in the parish bulletin during Catholic Schools Week.
Some schools celebrated the week with breakfasts, lunches and spirit rallies saluting public servants and civic leaders.
Fr. Patrick Mowrer, pastor of San Francisco de Asís School in Flagstaff, blessed and recognized a 2005 alumnus during a student Mass Feb. 3. Vincent Johnson, who said his school experience gave him purpose, is joining the Navy next week.
Community service
Other students saw Catholic Schools Week as a chance to do a community service project of their own.
High school students made rosaries, collected toiletry items for André House and organized a blood drive. Students at Seton Catholic Preparatory High School in Chandler raised $5,000 for St. Vincent de Paul.
Elementary school students held benefit drives for Maggie’s Place, servicemen and women and the Department of Public Safety. Several collected food for neighborhood outreach ministries.
The St. Vincent de Paul chapter at St. Benedict Parish in Phoenix benefited from the “Cans Across Campus” project at St. John Bosco Interparish School. Students donated canned goods, toiletries and other non-perishables. Some 550 of them paraded items across campus to the parish food closet.
The student council also brought wagons heaped with donations for eighth-graders to sort and stock.
Students at Annunciation Catholic School in Cave Creek donated money to the Poor Clare Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Black Canyon City by paying to be “out of uniform” by sporting a hat.
Some of the sisters gave a vocations talk to the students Feb. 5. They gave a similar talk in several classrooms at Blessed Pope John XXIII School in Scottsdale earlier that week. They discussed their habits, hobbies and vows.
Priests throughout the diocese also shared their vocation stories with students at several campuses. A couple of priests said that simply praying, talking to priests and having good priest role models helped foster their vocations.
For Fr. Pat Robinson, that included a recap of his time at seminary. He addressed kindergarteners Feb. 2 at Blessed Pope John XXIII School. Wanting to expand their vocabulary, the teacher encouraged the boys and girls to put the word “vocations” in their head.
“I’m going to superglue it!” one young boy shouted.
--
Catherine E. Hanley in Flagstaff and Andrew Junker and J.D. Long-García in Phoenix contributed to this story.
More: www.catholicsun.org
ORDERING INFORMATION
Looking for a glossy/matte copy of this photo? Please call 602-354-2132 or send an e-mail for ordering information. Please note the photo's title when ordering. Download the order form here.
Copyright 2006-2010 The Catholic Sun. All rights reserved. This photo and all photos on this Web site credited to The Catholic Sun are provided for personal use only and may not be published, broadcasted, transmitted or sold without the expressed consent of The Catholic Sun.
Provocative title aside, the question, for me, would be Can Asians Think of Anything But Economic Growth? If I didn't have the example of the leader of Bhutan and his Gross National Happiness index and the King of Thailand and his Sufficiency Economy and Vandana Shiva and her Earth Democracy, I would say that this former diplomat from Singapore, turned professor of public policy, typifies the thinking of Asia.
Kishore Mahbubani is still intriguing to read because he challenges Western sacred cows i.e.: democracy and human rights policies. Not all nations are ready for democracy or a free press he argues and neither necessarily leads to good government. Instead nations should be judged on how effective a government is at governing and bringing economic prosperity to its people.
He thinks the West could do more good if it considered keeping diplomatic relationships open with countries rather than refusing to speak to them at all on moral grounds. It being better for the countries population than not to negotiate at all. Also trade embargoes hurt the people too and change nothing ie: Burma.
His first book Can Asians Think? is a collection of articles and speeches given separately to Asian audiences and Western audiences. He addresses each frankly and that makes it more fun to read as he reports on the reactions of each. So as not to insult anyone he uses his own picture on the cover. He argues both yes and no sides to his title. No because Asians allowed their minds to be colonized and thus could no longer think for themselves. And yes because when they did wake up (Japan first) they were very pragmatic in doing whatever it took to develop and modernize.
In his latest book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irrestistible Shift of Global Power To The East, Mahbubani describes how Asia bought the myth, that the US and EU have managed to propagate, that Western Civilization is the be and end all in civilizations. This due to its freedom, democracy, science, rational thought and belief in God. While in the eyes of the West all other nations were barbaric. Asians then proceeded to adopt a "March to Modernity" copying the West.
More telling is Mr. Mahbubani's own story about how the experience of growing up using an odiferous bucket toilet impressed upon him the notion that the lot of humanity would be vastly improved if everyone had a flush toilet. Thus, rather than improving the recycling of human waste as humanure, as our ancestors did, civilization is deemed to hinge on this vastly unsustainable "modernization". But Mahbubani never allows any thought that development has limits and is ultimately wrong headed.
He describes how Asia made the switch to modernizing following Western development by tossing idealogies aside and adopting, in pragmatic fashion, the best practices of the West. This meant the free market vs central planning; (localization not being an option mentioned). Asian countries encouraged students to study science & technology in the West to modernize the brain pool and adopted meritocracy to broaden the brain pool. That the formerly agrarian societies had tilled the land in peace and relative happiness for centuries does not count for much given the material wealth and opportunities displayed by the West. Jobs in Nike factories, he claims, liberated youth from drudgery in fields. The author claims that only by modernizing the world's poor would we have a Culture of Peace that abides by the Rule of Law, another Western principle.
And now that Asia is well on its way to doing that, it is gaining confidence to take leadership away from the US. This by talking among themselves and strengthening ties as trading partners. Thus China with Southeast Asia despite ideological differences in governments.
He then describes, in carefully diplomatic terms, how the West has lost credibility. Burdened with the baggage of ideology i.e.: freedom and social justice the West tries to influence policy of other nations, but it is clear to all that it only does so where it benefits itself. And while the Western dominance of the global economy gives it leverage especially in banking, Western incompetence with the Middle East and its refusal to maintain diplomatic relationships with Iran and other muslim nations is seriously undermining its leadership. And more confusing, when the West presents the issue of global warming it resists global cooperation on the issue. Likewise the nuclear armament issue.
Never once does he mention that the US is an empire that will flush down the metaphorical toilet in pursuit of resources. He gives the US a big benefit of the doubt and seems to act puzzled that it can't seem to get its act together to work towards the benefits of globalization. He is a big believer in the UN and thinks it is high time that Asian nations were given a seat with the big boys and not just let the G7 run everything. He also notes that nations so distrust the IMF now that they are resisting assistance from those loans weakening the IMF and thus globalization. Good for them I say.
I think it would be a good idea for Crawley Camera Club to meet informally on Bank Holidays. I came today – Spring Bank Holiday.
I think my pyrs are pretty smart creatures: They stayed inside for most of the day. (Only pertinent duties were performed. ) And I heartily agree with them. The snow is melting, it's raining and it's just horrible outside. No way we get our paws wet!
But I had to be out in the wet stuff. I had to clear snow and move vehicles for tomorrow's job. Left me with soaked boots and soggy socks.
From inside my babies were looking at me while I was laboring.
So I'm pretty wet and sore now but still managed to make fried chicken breast to top their kibble for the night.
Do you think they love me?
I would almost get jealous at Isaac. He had all kinds of TLC this morning, getting his hair and nails done :) Why didn't I get pampered like that today?
What is it that you THINK of?
I had a bit of a different idea, but I like this better than my original plan. I don't know what it is I THINK about, I always have like five things on my mind at once.
I had the word THINK written in a different place on my hand, and you can still kind of see it :P
You can also see the lovely red dots on my hand, three have been there forever, and the other is from falling into a fence.
Gaby Diaz Interviewed at So You Think You Can Dance #SYTYCD250 #SYTYCD #NextGeneration
Mingle Media TV and Red Carpet Report host Denise Salcedo were invited to cover FOX's SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE: THE NEXT GENERATION live show competition on Monday, August 22nd at CBS Television City. We spoke with several of the contestants and judges after the taping.
Watch So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation on Mondays at 8/7c on FOX
For video interviews and other Red Carpet Report coverage, please visit www.redcarpetreporttv.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook at:
• www.facebook.com/RedCarpetReportTV
• www.youtube.com/MingleMediaTVNetwork
About So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation
Host Cat Deeley and judges Nigel Lythgoe, Paula Abdul and Jason Derulo return for the next generation of the Emmy Award-winning dance competition series. This season features dancers ages 8-13. Their styles range from tap to hip-hop and ballroom to break dancing. During nationwide auditions, the contestants vie for a place at "The Academy," and the best dancers advance to the next round. The top 10 dancers partner with all-stars and move on to the SYTYCD studio. One contestant is eliminated each week until the winner is named during the season finale.
Follow on Twitter: bit.ly/Dance_Twitter
Watch Full-Episodes: bit.ly/WatchDance
Like on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SoYouThinkYouCanDance/
For more of Mingle Media TV’s Red Carpet Report coverage, please visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook here:
• www.facebook.com/minglemediatvnetwork
• www.flickr.com/MingleMediaTVNetwork
• www.twitter.com/minglemediatv
Follow our host Denise on Twitter at twitter.com/_DeniseSalcedo
...aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you.”
- Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael -
www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/curiosity
Illustrate the rule of thirds using a busy background. www.todaysposting.com/TPAssignment.php?TP=677
Now that the show is over, and we have jointly exercised our constitutional rights, we would like to leave you with one very important thought. Sometime in the future, you may have the opportunity to serve as a juror in a censorship case or a so-called obscenity case. It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from listening to Boards Of Canada may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you.
Note that on their album Bocmaxima, "listening to Boards of Canada" was originally "watching an adult film."
This original version was sampled from end credits on a pornographic film. But this warning on censorship applies to all mediums.
Photo of girl by Carolyn Tiry www.flickr.com/photos/40284811@N03/3992988737/in/photolis...
Click here youtu.be/sa6tQm5suf4 to hear full track
Click here for original version youtu.be/WhAOFIEJR0k
Click here songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858511725/ for full lyrics & meanings
My 365 art project, where I create a year’s worth [yep, 365] of digital collages, with indie songs as my subject.
National Gallery of Art , Washington DC, USA
The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, usually placed on a stone pedestal. The work shows a nude male figure of over life-size sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand as though deep in thought, and is often used as an image to represent philosophy. There are about 28 full size castings, in which the figure is about 186 centimetres (73 in) high, though not all were made during Rodin's lifetime and under his supervision, as well as various other versions, several in plaster, studies, and posthumous castings, in a range of sizes. Rodin first conceived the figure as part of another work in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings did not appear until 1904.
For my video: youtu.be/Z-iHAsZCO6w