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"I heard so much about the Roaring Twenties, I had to come to the city."
A series of AI-generated pictures of Little Red Riding Hood in different art styles.
To be continued.
Pictures made with Midjourney.
I'm always happy to accept invites to groups as long as I can see their content. If I see "this group is not available to you", my photos won't be made available to that group. Thanks for your understanding.
I know the feeling one gets when you find that place where rocks totally against all odds "click" together and defy our limited understanding of gravity/balance and the way of this world.......try it sometime. If not check out Bills stream and see what a master excels in with rocks and other interesting items, and is quite happy to show you how. Keep on ROCKIN'
My thanks to Bill Dan for permission to use his images for this mosaic.
1. video clip - bill dan balancing rocks - sausalito . . ., 2. Sweet Nature . . . ., 3. Balance - Mixed Doubles, 4. i told you dude . . . it is my turn now . . ., 5. The Bird landed on this . . ., 6. Wooooooowie . . ., 7. Packman . . . ., 8. FH000040, 9. WE the NATURE . . ., 10. Bill Dan Balancing Rocks . . ., 11. Bill Dan in Studio, 12. Smooth . . ., 13. Hey . . . We are Fits together . . ., 14. Between a Rock & a hard Place . . ., 15. dude . . . it is my turn now . . ., 16. rocks on again . . ., 17. i am the boss . . ., 18. on the chain . . ., 19. rocks on again . . ., 20. Double Up . . ., 21. Very Sweet Collaborations . . ., 22. New Visitor . . ., 23. Moonlight Serenade . . ., 24. Boulder Ballet . . ., 25. Hot Rocks . . ., 26. "Magically Eyed", 27. Couples . . . ., 28. The Sailing Rocks . . ., 29. Earth Face, 30. Absolutely Balancing Rocks . . ., 31. My Little Friend . . ., 32. balancing rocks again . . ., 33. don't touch me . . ., 34. blue moon . . ., 35. i am the real boss . . ., 36. friendly sky . . .
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
I have struggled with understanding, especially in the last couple years since I received my promotion. I struggle more so not in my understanding of things or of others, but in getting others to understand me and my world. It’s hard to explain why I work the hours I do and to get others to understand why yes, it is very difficult in my day to find time just to go to the bathroom or find a minute to eat something. One of my supervisors asked me the other day, “Do you eat? I never see you eat.” I just smiled on the outside and said “Of course I eat, can’t you tell??” but when the laugh faded, inside I was crumbling…
Sure, there’s the psychological side that says “Maybe that’s the way I want my life to be. I built my life to be this way on purpose for _______ reason….”, but I don’t quite buy that. No- correction: I don’t buy that whatsoever.
I wish I had a better means to bring understanding of my world and of my mind to those close to me: what I am going through, what my world is like, what millions of thoughts race through my mind. I wish I had the time to explain, be transparent, and be understood. But I have the feeling I will be chasing that elusive understanding for some time…
Theme: Musings And Ramblings
Year Six Of My 365 Project
Humanity's direction shall always be towards a more loving and peaceful life...for younger generations and future generations to be born...
© DM Parody 2017 (www.dotcom.gi/photos) These images are protected by copyright. You CANNOT copy or republish any of these photos without written consent of the photographer even if you retain the watermark (if present) and/or credit the photographer. You cannot use on any media including social media either. You CAN post a link to the page where the image appears without reference to the photographer only if not promoting a commercial product or service. Copyright infringements will be followed up, legally if necessary. Thank you for your understanding.
Portrait on London streets, a street worker looks back to me with understanding. This looks of human understanding remain so important for me.
I asked him, almost as I arrived in London, they were having a pause, "may I take a photo of you?" and he answered "Why? I am old" then I pointed to myself and said "And me? I am not still interesting, because of my age? I am older then you."
That is the look, telling me, "yes, take a photo"!
We were not so different after all and he felt also interesting.
I do remember, looking at these photos again, when Judy Carter told us "SEE the others" around you, tell them you see them.
Photo taken less then a month after my arrival in UK.
During my first photo stroll in London centre.
My set "no more a stranger" of photos of people I did not know
Old Vieux Öreg set
U.N.E.D. ESCUELAS PÍAS; Leica-M6 TTL 0,85 Elmarit-M 1:2.8/90 mm.
Nikon super Coolscan 5000ed.
Ilford Delta 100asa. Kodak developer HC 110 1+31 (B)
🔴Leica my point of view.
Wetzlar, Deutschland.
Leica-CL 1974 Rangefinder
Leica-M 6 TTL 0.72 1998 Rangefinder
Leica-M6 TTL 0.85 2001 Rangefinder
x
CINEMA DIGITAL
A Study of 4D Julia sets
Baraka / Baraka from DVD to 4K / Baraka with the monkey
Beatbox360
Enquanto a noite não chega (While we wait for the night â?" first Brazilian film in 4K)/(primeiro filme brasileiro em 4k)
Era la Notte
Flight to the Center of the Milky Way
Growth by aggregation 2
Jet Instabilities in a stratified fluid flow
Keio University Concert
Manny Farber (Tribute to)
Scalable City
The Nonlinear Evolution of the Universe
The Prague train
FILE INOVAÇÃO / FILE INNOVATION
Interface Cérebro-Computador – Eduardo Miranda
Sistema comercial de Reconhecimento Automático - Genius Instituto de Tecnologia
Robô de visão omnidirecional – Jun Okamoto
Loo Table: mesa interativa - André V. Perrotta, Erico Cheung e Luis Stateri dos Santos, da empresa Loodik
Simulador de Ondas e Simulador de Turbilhão - Steger produção de efeitos especiais ltda.
GAMES INSTALAÇÕES / INSTALLATIONS GAMES
Giles Askham – Aquaplayne
Jonah Warren & Steven Sanborn – Transpose
Jonah Warren & Steven Sanborn – Full Body Games
Fabiano Onça e Coméia – Tantalus Quest
Julian Oliver - levelHead
GAMES
Andreas Zecher – Understanding Games
Andrei R. Thomaz – Cubos de Cor
Arvi Teikari – Once In Space
Fabrício Fava – Futebolando
Golf Question Mark – Golf
Introversion.co.uk – Darwinia
Jens Andersson and Ida Rödén – Rorschach
Jonatan Söderström – CleanAsia!
Jonatan Söderström – AdNauseum2
Jorn Ebner – sans femme et sans avieteur
Josh Nimoy – BallDroppings
Josiah Pisciotta – Gish
Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg – Thinking Machine 7
Mariana Rillo – Desmanche
Mark Essen - Punishment: The punishing
Mark Essen - RANDY BALMA: MUNICIPAL ABORTIONIST
Playtime – SFZero
QUBO GAS: Jef Ablézot, Morgan Dimnet & Laura Henno - WATERCOULEUR PARK
QueasyGames - Jonathan Mak – Everyday Shooter
R-S-G: Radical Software Group - Kriegspiel - Guy Debord's Game of War
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – On a Rainy Day
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – Cytoplasm
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – Particle Rain
Tales of Tales: Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn - The Graveyard
Tanja Vujinovic – Osciloo
ThatGameCompany – Jenova Chen – Clouds
ThatGameCompany – Jenova Chen - flOw
JOGOS BR
JOGOS BR 1
Ayri - Uma Lenda Amazônica - Sylker Teles da Silva / Outline Interactive
Capoeira Experience - Andre Ivankio Hauer Ploszaj / Okio Serviços de Comunicação Multimídia Ltda.
Cim-itério - Wagner Gomes Carvalho / Green Land Studios
Incorporated (Emprego Maluco) - Tiago Pinheiro Teixeira / Interama Jogos Eletrônicos
Iracema Aventura – Odair Gaspar / Perceptum Software Ltda.
Nevrose: Sangue e Loucura Sob o Sol do Sertão - Rodrigo Queiroz de Oliveira
/ Gamion Realidade Virtual & Games
Raízes do Mal – Marcos Cruz Alves / Ignis Entretenimento e Informática Ltda.
JOGOS BR 2 – Jogos Completos
Cave Days - Winston George A. Petty / Insolita Studios
Peixis!
(JOGO EM DESENVOLVIMENTO) - Wallace Santos Lages / Ilusis Interactive Graphics
JOGOS BR 2 – Demos Jogáveis
Brasilia Tropicalis - Thiago Salgado Aiache de Moraes / Olympya Games
Conspiração Dumont - Guilherme Mattos Coutinho
Flora - Francisco Oliveira de Queiroz
Fórmula Galaxy – Artur Corrêa / Vencer Consultoria e Projetos Ltda.
Inferno - Alexandre Vrubel / Continuum Entertainment Ltda
Lex Venture - Tiago Pinheiro Teixeira / Interama Jogos Eletrônicos
Trem de Doido (DEMO EM DESENVOLVIMENTO) - Marcos André Penna Coutinho
Zumbi, o rei dos Palmeiras - Nicholas Lima de Souza
HIPERSÔNICA / HIPERSONICA
Hipersônica Performance
Andrei Thomaz, Francisco Serpa, Lílian Campesato e Vitor Kisil – Sonocromática
Bernhard Gal – Gal Live
+Zero: Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri, Jonattas Marcel Poltronieri, Raphael Dall'Anese - +Zero do Brasil
Luiz duVa - Concerto para duo de laptops
Henrique Roscoe (a.k.a. 1mpar) – HOL
Jose Ignacio Hinestrosa e Testsu Kondo – Fricciones
Alexandre Fenerich e Giuliano Obici – Nmenos1
Orqstra de Laptops de São Paulo - EvEnTo 3 Movimentos para Orquestra
Hipersônica Participantes
Agricola de Cologne - soundSTORY - sound as a tool for storytelling
Jen-Kuan Chang – Drishti II
Jen-Kuan Chang – Discordance
Jen-Kuan Chang – Nekkhamma
Jen-Kuan Chang - She, Flush, Vegetable, Lo Mein, and Intolerable Happiness
Jerome Soudan – Mimetic
Matt Lewis e Jeremy Keenan – Animate Objects
Robert Dow - Precipitation within sight
Tetsu Kondo – Dendraw
Tomas Phillips – Drink_Deep
INSTALAÇÕES / INSTALLATIONS
Anaisa Franco – Connected Memories
Andrei Thomaz & Sílvia Laurentiz – 1º Subsolo
Graffiti Research Lab – Various
Hisako K. Yamakawa – Kodama
r3nder.net+i2off.org – is.3s
Jarbas Jacome – Crepúsculo dos Ídolos
Julio Obelleiro & Alberto García – Magnéticos
Julio Obelleiro & Alberto García – The Magic Torch
Mariana Manhães – Liquescer (Jarrinho)
Mariana Manhães – Liquescer (Jarrinho Azul)
Rejane Cantoni e Leonardo Crescenti – PISO
Sheldon Brown – Scalable City
Soraya Braz e Fábio FON – Roaming
Takahiro Matsuo – Phantasm
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Outer Space IP
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Phantasma
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Binary Art Site
SYMPOSIUM
Agnus Valente
Anaisa Franco
Andre Thomaz e Silvia Laurentiz
Christin Bolewski
Giles Askham
Graffiti Research Lab: James Powderly
Hidenori Watanave
Ivan Ivanoff e Jose Jimenez
Jarbas Jácome
João Fernando Igansi Nunes
Marcos Moraes
Mediengruppe Bitnik; Carmen Weisskopf, Domagoj Smoljo, Silvan Leuthold, Sven König [SWI]
Mesa Redonda (LABO) - Cicero Silva, Lev Manovich (teleconferencia) e Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Mesa Redonda [BRA] – (Hipersônica) Renata La Rocca, Gabriela Pereira Carneiro, Ana Paula Nogueira de Carvalho, Clarissa Ribeiro Pereira de Almeida. Mediação: Vivian Caccuri
Mesa Redonda [BRA] - [Ministro da Cultura: Gilberto Gil | Secretário do Audiovisual do Ministério da Cultura: Sílvio Da-Rin | Secretário de Políticas Culturais do Ministério da Cultura: Alfredo Manevy ]
Mesa Redonda [BRA] - Inovação - Lala Deheinzelin, Gian Zelada, Alessandro Dalla, Ivandro Sanches, Eduardo Giacomazzi. Mediação: Joana Ferraz
Mesa Redonda 4k - Jane de Almeida, Sheldon Brownn, Mike Toillion, Todd Margolis, Peter Otto
Nardo Germano
Nori Suzuki
Sandra Albuquerque Reis Fachinello
Satoru Tokuhisa
Sheldon Brown
Soraya Braz e Fabio FON
Suzete Venturelli, Mario Maciel e bolsistas do CNPq/UnB (Johnny Souza, Breno Rocha, João Rosa e Samuel Castro [BRA]
Ursula Hentschlaeger
Valzeli Sampaio
Cinema Documenta FILE São Paulo 2008
Antonello Matarazzo – Interferenze – Itália / Italy
Bruno Natal - Dub Echoes – Brasil / Brazil
Carlo Sansolo - Panoramika Eletronika - Brasil / Brazil
Kevin Logan – Recitation – Londres / London
Kodiak Bachine e Apollo 9 – Nuncupate – Brasil / Brazil
Linda Hilfing Nielsen - Participation 0.0 – Dinamarca
Maren Sextro e Holger Wick - Slices, Pioneers of Electronic Music – Vol.1 – Richie Hawtin Documentary – Alemanha / Germany
Matthew Bate - What The Future Sounded Like – Austrália
Thomas Ziegler, Jason Gross e Russell Charmo - OHM+ the early gurus of electronic music – Eua / USA
Mídia Arte FILE São Paulo 2008
[ fladry + jones ] Robb Fladry and Barry Jones - The War is Over 2007 – EUA / USA
Agricola de Cologne - One Day on Mars – Alemanha / Germany
alan bigelow - "When I Was President" – EUA / USA
Alessandra Ribeiro Parente Paes
Daniel Fernandes Gamez
Glauber Kotaki Rodrigues
Igor Albuquerque Bertolino
Karina Yuko Haneda
Marcio Pedrosa Tirico da Silva Junior – Reativo – Brasil / Brazil
Alessandro Capozzo – Talea – Itália / Italy
Alex Hetherington - Untitled (sexyback, folly artist) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Alexandre Campos, Bruno Massara e Lucilene Soares Alves - Novos Olhares sobre a Mobilidade – Brasil / Brazil
Alexandre Cardoso Rodrigues Nunes
Bruno Coimbra Franco
Diego Filipe Braga R. Nascimento
Fábio Rinaldi Batistine
Yumi Dayane Shimada – Abra Sua Gaveta – Brasil / Brazil
ALL: ALCIONE DE GODOY, ADILSON NG, CAMILLO LOUVISE COQUEIRO, MARINA QUEIROZ MAIA, RODOLFO ROSSI JULIANI, VINÍCIUS NAKAMURA DE BRITO – Vita Ex Maxina – Brasil / Brazil
Andreas Zingerle - Extension of Human sight – Áustria
Andrei R. Thomaz - O Tabuleiro dos Jogos que se bifurcam - First Person Movements - Brasil / Brazil
Andrei R. Thomaz e Marina Camargo – Eclipses – Brasil / Brazil
Brit Bunkley – Spin – Spite – Nova Zelândia – New Zeland
calin man – appendXship / Romênia
Carlindo da Conceição Barbosa
Kauê de Oliveira Souza
Guilherme Tetsuo Takei
Renato Michalischen
Ricardo Rodrigues Martins
Tassia Deusdara Manso
Thalyta de Almeida Barbosa / Da Música ao Caos – Brasil / Brazil
Christoph Korn – waldstueck – Alemanha / Germany
Corpos Informáticos: Bia Medeiros, Carla Rocha, Diego Azambuja, Fernando Aquino, Kacau Rodrigues, Márcio Mota, Marta Mencarini, Wanderson França – UAI 69 – Brasil / Brazil
Duda. – do pixel ao pixel – Brasil / Brazil
Daniel Kobayashi
Felipe Crivelli Ayub
Fernando Boschetti
Luiz Felipe M. Coelho
Marcelo Knelsen
Mauro Falavigna
Rafael de A. Campos
Wellington K. Guimarães Bastos - A Casa Dentro da Porta – Brasil / Brazil
David Clark - 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein – Canadá
Thais Paola Galvez
Josias Silva
Diego Abrahão Modesto
Nilson Benis
Vinicius Augusto Naka de Vasconcelos
Wilson Ruano Junior
Marcela Moreira da Silva – Rogério caos – Brasil / Brazil
Diogo Fuhrmann Misiti, Guilherme Pilz, João Henrique - Caleidoscópio Felliniano: 8 ½ - Brasil / Brazil
Agence TOPO: Elene Tremblay, Marcio Lana-Lopez, Maryse Larivière, Marie-Josée Hardy, James Prior - Mes / My contacts – Canadá / Canada
Eliane Weizmann, Fernando Marinho e Leocádio Neto – Storry teller – Brasil / Brazil
Fabian Antunes - Pousada Recanto Abaetuba – Brasil / Brazil
Edgar Franco e Fabio FON - Freakpedia - A verdadeira enciclopédia livre – Brasil / Brazil
Fernando Aquino – UAI Justiça – Brasil / Brazil
Henry Gwiazda - claudia and Paul - a doll's house is...... - there's whispering...... – EUA / USA
Architecture in Metaverse: Hidenori Watanave - "Archidemo" - Architecture in Metaverse – Hapão / Japan
Yto Aranda – Cyber Birds Dance – Chile
Dana Sperry - Sketch for an Intermezzo for the Masses, no. 7 – EUA / USA
Jorn Ebner - (sans femme et sans aviateur) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Josephine Anstey, Dave Pape - Office Diva – EUA / USA
Josh Fishburn – Layers – Waiting – EUA / USA
Karla Brunet – Peculiaris – Brasil / Brazil
Kevin Evensen - Veils of Light – EUA / USA
lemeh42 (santini michele and paoloni lorenza) - Study on human form and humanity #01 – Itália / Italy
linda hilfling e erik borra - misspelling generator – Dinamarca / Denmark
Lisa Link - If I Worked for 493 years – EUA / USA
Marcelo Padre – Estro – Brasil / Brazil
Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel - Locative Painting - Brasil / Brazil
Martin John Callanan - I Wanted to See All of the News From Today – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Mateus Knelsen, Ana Clara, Felipe Vasconcelos, Rafael Jacobsen, Ronaldo Silva - A pós-modernidade em recortes: Tide Hellmeister e as relações Design e cultura – Brasil / Brazil
Mateus Knelsen, Felipe Szulc, Mileine Assai Ishii, Pamela Cardoso, Tânia Taura - Homo ex machina – Brasil / Brazil
Michael Takeo Magruder - Sequence-n (labyrinth) - Sequence-n (horizon) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Michael Takeo Magruder + Drew Baker + David Steele - The Vitruvian World - Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Nina Simões - Rehearsing Reality ( An interactive non-linear docufragmentary) - Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Nurit Bar-Shai - Nothing Happens – EUA / USA
projectsinge: Blanquet Jerome - Monkey_Party – França / France
QUBO GAS - WATERCOULEUR PARK – França / France
rachelmauricio castro – 360 - R.G.B. – tybushwacka – Brasil / Brazil
Rafael Rozendaal - future physics – Netherlands
Regina Célia Pinto - Ninhos & Magia – Brasil / Brazil
Roni Ribeiro – Bípedes – Brasil / Brazil
Rubens Pássaro - ISTO NÃO É PARANÓIA – Brasil / Brazil
Rui Filipe Antunes – xTNZ – Brasil / Brazil
Selcuk ARTUT & Cem OCALAN – NewsPaperBox – Brazil
Tanja Vujinovic - "Without Title" – Switzerland
Hipersônica Screening – FILE São Paulo 2008
1mpar – hol – Brasil / Brazil
Art Zoyd - EYECATCHER 1 - EYECATCHER 2, Man with a movie camera - Movie-Concert for The Fall of the Usher House – França / France
Audiobeamers (FroZenSP and Klinid) - Paesaggi Liquidi II – Alemanha / Germany
Bernhard Loibner – Meltdown – Áustria
Bjørn Erik Haugen – Regress - Norway
Celia Eid e Sébastien Béranger – Gymel – França / France
Studio Brutus/Citrullo International - H2O – Itália / Italy
Daniel Carvalho - OUT_FLOW PART I – Brasil / Brazil
David Muth - You Are The Sony Of My Life – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Dennis Summers - Phase Shift Vídeos – EUA / USA
Duprass - Liora Belford & Ido Govrin – Free Field – Pink / Noise – Israel
Fernando Velázquez – Nómada – Brasil / Brazil
Frames aka Flames - Performance audiovisual sincronizada: Sociedade pós-moderna, novas tecnologias e espaço urbano - Brasil / Brazil
Frederico Pessoa - butterbox – diving - Brasil / Brazil
Jay Needham - Narrative Half-life – EUA / USA
Soundsthatmatter – trotting – briji – Brasil / Brazil
x
In monotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith.[3] The concept of God as described by most theologians includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), divine simplicity, and as having an eternal and necessary existence. Many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent (perfectly good), and all loving.
God is most often held to be non-corporeal,[3] and to be without any human biological sex,[4][5] yet the concept of God actively creating the universe (as opposed to passively)[6] has caused many religions to describe God using masculine terminology, using such terms as "Him" or "Father". Furthermore, some religions (such as Judaism) attribute only a purely grammatical "gender" to God.[7]
In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, God is not believed to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[3] Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God.[8]
There are many names for God, and different names are attached to different cultural ideas about God's identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten,[9] premised on being the one "true" Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe.[10] In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, "He Who Is", "I Am that I Am", and the tetragrammaton YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה, which means: "I am who I am"; "He Who Exists") are used as names of God, while Yahweh and Jehovah are sometimes used in Christianity as vocalizations of YHWH. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, consubstantial in three persons, is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Judaism, it is common to refer to God by the titular names Elohim or Adonai, the latter of which is believed by some scholars to descend from the Egyptian Aten.[11][12][13][14][15] In Islam, the name Allah, "Al-El", or "Al-Elah" ("the God") is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a monistic deity.[16] Other religions have names for God, for instance, Baha in the Bahá'í Faith,[17] Waheguru in Sikhism,[18] and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism.[19]
The many different conceptions of God, and competing claims as to God's characteristics, aims, and actions, have led to the development of ideas of omnitheism, pandeism,[20][21] or a perennial philosophy, which postulates that there is one underlying theological truth, of which all religions express a partial understanding, and as to which "the devout in the various great world religions are in fact worshipping that one God, but through different, overlapping concepts or mental images of Him."[22]
Contents [hide]
1Etymology and usage
2General conceptions
2.1Oneness
2.2Theism, deism and pantheism
2.3Other concepts
3Non-theistic views
3.1Agnosticism and atheism
3.2Anthropomorphism
4Existence
5Specific attributes
5.1Names
5.2Gender
5.3Relationship with creation
6Depiction
6.1Zoroastrianism
6.2Islam
6.3Judaism
6.4Christianity
7Theological approaches
8Distribution of belief
9See also
9.1In specific religions
10References
11Further reading
12External links
Etymology and usage
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite God Yahweh.
Main article: God (word)
The earliest written form of the Germanic word God (always, in this usage, capitalized[23]) comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke".[24] The Germanic words for God were originally neuter—applying to both genders—but during the process of the Christianization of the Germanic peoples from their indigenous Germanic paganism, the words became a masculine syntactic form.[25]
The word 'Allah' in Arabic calligraphy
In the English language, the capitalized form of God continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic "God" and "gods" in polytheism.[26][27] The English word God and its counterparts in other languages are normally used for any and all conceptions and, in spite of significant differences between religions, the term remains an English translation common to all. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, in origin possibly the name of an Edomite or Midianite deity, Yahweh. In many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.[28]
Allāh (Arabic: الله) is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning "The God" (with a capital G), while "ʾilāh" (Arabic: إله) is the term used for a deity or a god in general.[29][30][31] God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari.[32]
Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. "Mazda", or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå, reflects Proto-Iranian *Mazdāh (female). It is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means "intelligence" or "wisdom". Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning "placing (dʰeh1) one's mind (*mn̩-s)", hence "wise".[33]
Waheguru (Punjabi: vāhigurū) is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God. It means "Wonderful Teacher" in the Punjabi language. Vāhi (a Middle Persian borrowing) means "wonderful" and guru (Sanskrit: guru) is a term denoting "teacher". Waheguru is also described by some as an experience of ecstasy which is beyond all descriptions. The most common usage of the word "Waheguru" is in the greeting Sikhs use with each other:
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh
Wonderful Lord's Khalsa, Victory is to the Wonderful Lord.
Baha, the "greatest" name for God in the Baha'i faith, is Arabic for "All-Glorious".
General conceptions
Main article: Conceptions of God
There is no clear consensus on the nature or even the existence of God.[34] The Abrahamic conceptions of God include the monotheistic definition of God in Judaism, the trinitarian view of Christians, and the Islamic concept of God. The dharmic religions differ in their view of the divine: views of God in Hinduism vary by region, sect, and caste, ranging from monotheistic to polytheistic. Divinity was recognized by the historical Buddha, particularly Śakra and Brahma. However, other sentient beings, including gods, can at best only play a supportive role in one's personal path to salvation. Conceptions of God in the latter developments of the Mahayana tradition give a more prominent place to notions of the divine.[citation needed]
Oneness
Main articles: Monotheism and Henotheism
The Trinity is the belief that God is composed of The Father, The Son (embodied metaphysically in the physical realm by Jesus), and The Holy Spirit.
Monotheists hold that there is only one god, and may claim that the one true god is worshiped in different religions under different names. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in Hinduism[35] and Sikhism.[36] In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity describes God as one God in three persons. The Trinity comprises The Father, The Son (embodied metaphysically by Jesus), and The Holy Spirit.[37] Islam's most fundamental concept is tawhid (meaning "oneness" or "uniqueness"). God is described in the Quran as: "Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him."[38][39] Muslims repudiate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, comparing it to polytheism. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, and are not expected to visualize God.[40]
Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities.[41]
Theism, deism and pantheism
Main articles: Theism, Deism, and Pantheism
Theism generally holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal; and that God is personal and interacting with the universe through, for example, religious experience and the prayers of humans.[42] Theism holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and in some way present in the affairs of the world.[43] Not all theists subscribe to all of these propositions, but each usually subscribes to some of them (see, by way of comparison, family resemblance).[42] Catholic theology holds that God is infinitely simple and is not involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence. Open Theism, by contrast, asserts that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future. Theism is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, i.e., monotheism or polytheism.[44][45]
"God blessing the seventh day", a watercolor painting depicting God, by William Blake (1757 – 1827)
Deism holds that God is wholly transcendent: God exists, but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it.[43] In this view, God is not anthropomorphic, and neither answers prayers nor produces miracles. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity. Pandeism and Panendeism, respectively, combine Deism with the Pantheistic or Panentheistic beliefs.[21][46][47] Pandeism is proposed to explain as to Deism why God would create a universe and then abandon it,[48] and as to Pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.[48][49]
Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God, whereas Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe.[50] It is also the view of the Liberal Catholic Church; Theosophy; some views of Hinduism except Vaishnavism, which believes in panentheism; Sikhism; some divisions of Neopaganism and Taoism, along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God—which has wide acceptance in Hasidic Judaism, particularly from their founder The Baal Shem Tov—but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.[citation needed]
Other concepts
Dystheism, which is related to theodicy, is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil. One such example comes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan Karamazov rejects God on the grounds that he allows children to suffer.[51]
In modern times, some more abstract concepts have been developed, such as process theology and open theism. The contemporaneous French philosopher Michel Henry has however proposed a phenomenological approach and definition of God as phenomenological essence of Life.[52]
God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[3] These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,[53] Augustine of Hippo,[53] and Al-Ghazali,[8] respectively.
Non-theistic views
See also: Evolutionary origin of religions and Evolutionary psychology of religion
Non-theist views about God also vary. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it is significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations. The nineteenth-century English atheist Charles Bradlaugh declared that he refused to say "There is no God", because "the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation";[54] he said more specifically that he disbelieved in the Christian god. Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.[55]
Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference."[56] Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could disprove the existence of a Creator (not necessarily a God) would be the discovery that the universe is infinitely old.[57]
Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book, The Grand Design, that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.[58] Neuroscientist Michael Nikoletseas has proposed that questions of the existence of God are no different from questions of natural sciences. Following a biological comparative approach, he concludes that it is highly probable that God exists, and, although not visible, it is possible that we know some of his attributes.[59]
Agnosticism and atheism
Agnosticism is the view that, the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[60][61][62]
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities, or a God.[63][64] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[65]
Anthropomorphism
Main article: Anthropomorphism
Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek mythology, which is, in his opinion, more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.[66] Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.[67] Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.[68]
Likewise, Émile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However, it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. Rossano indicates that by including ever-watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.[69]
Existence
Main article: Existence of God
St. Thomas Aquinas summed up five main arguments as proofs for God's existence.
Isaac Newton saw the existence of a Creator necessary in the movement of astronomical objects.
Arguments about the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Different views include that: "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist" (de facto atheism); "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism[70]);"God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (de facto theism); and that "God exists and this can be proven" (strong theism).[55]
Countless arguments have been proposed to prove the existence of God.[71] Some of the most notable arguments are the Five Ways of Aquinas, the Argument from Desire proposed by C.S. Lewis, and the Ontological Argument formulated both by St. Anselm and René Descartes.[72]
St. Anselm's approach was to define God as, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". Famed pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza would later carry this idea to its extreme: "By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence." For Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe is made of one substance, God, or its equivalent, Nature.[73] His proof for the existence of God was a variation of the Ontological argument.[74]
Scientist Isaac Newton saw God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation.[75] Nevertheless, he rejected polymath Leibniz' thesis that God would necessarily make a perfect world which requires no intervention from the creator. In Query 31 of the Opticks, Newton simultaneously made an argument from design and for the necessity of intervention:
For while comets move in very eccentric orbs in all manner of positions, blind fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric, some inconsiderable irregularities excepted which may have arisen from the mutual actions of comets and planets on one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this system wants a reformation.[76]
St. Thomas believed that the existence of God is self-evident in itself, but not to us. "Therefore I say that this proposition, "God exists", of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same as the subject.... Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature—namely, by effects."[77] St. Thomas believed that the existence of God can be demonstrated. Briefly in the Summa theologiae and more extensively in the Summa contra Gentiles, he considered in great detail five arguments for the existence of God, widely known as the quinque viae (Five Ways).
For the original text of the five proofs, see quinque viae
Motion: Some things undoubtedly move, though cannot cause their own motion. Since there can be no infinite chain of causes of motion, there must be a First Mover not moved by anything else, and this is what everyone understands by God.
Causation: As in the case of motion, nothing can cause itself, and an infinite chain of causation is impossible, so there must be a First Cause, called God.
Existence of necessary and the unnecessary: Our experience includes things certainly existing but apparently unnecessary. Not everything can be unnecessary, for then once there was nothing and there would still be nothing. Therefore, we are compelled to suppose something that exists necessarily, having this necessity only from itself; in fact itself the cause for other things to exist.
Gradation: If we can notice a gradation in things in the sense that some things are more hot, good, etc., there must be a superlative that is the truest and noblest thing, and so most fully existing. This then, we call God (Note: Thomas does not ascribe actual qualities to God Himself).
Ordered tendencies of nature: A direction of actions to an end is noticed in all bodies following natural laws. Anything without awareness tends to a goal under the guidance of one who is aware. This we call God (Note that even when we guide objects, in Thomas's view, the source of all our knowledge comes from God as well).[78]
Alister McGrath, a formerly atheistic scientist and theologian who has been highly critical of Richard Dawkins' version of atheism
Some theologians, such as the scientist and theologian A.E. McGrath, argue that the existence of God is not a question that can be answered using the scientific method.[79][80] Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argues that science and religion are not in conflict and do not overlap.[81]
Some findings in the fields of cosmology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience are interpreted by some atheists (including Lawrence M. Krauss and Sam Harris) as evidence that God is an imaginary entity only, with no basis in reality.[82][83][84] These atheists claim that a single, omniscient God who is imagined to have created the universe and is particularly attentive to the lives of humans has been imagined, embellished and promulgated in a trans-generational manner.[85] Richard Dawkins interprets such findings not only as a lack of evidence for the material existence of such a God, but as extensive evidence to the contrary.[55] However, his views are opposed by some theologians and scientists including Alister McGrath, who argues that existence of God is compatible with science.[86]
Neuroscientist Michael Nikoletseas has proposed that questions of the existence of God are no different from questions of natural sciences. Following a biological comparative approach, he concludes that it is highly probable that God exists, and, although not visible, it is possible that we know some of his attributes.[59]
Specific attributes
Different religious traditions assign differing (though often similar) attributes and characteristics to God, including expansive powers and abilities, psychological characteristics, gender characteristics, and preferred nomenclature. The assignment of these attributes often differs according to the conceptions of God in the culture from which they arise. For example, attributes of God in Christianity, attributes of God in Islam, and the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy in Judaism share certain similarities arising from their common roots.
Names
Main article: Names of God
99 names of Allah, in Chinese Sini (script)
The word God is "one of the most complex and difficult in the English language." In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood".[87]
Throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles there are many names for God. One of them is Elohim. Another one is El Shaddai, meaning "God Almighty".[88] A third notable name is El Elyon, which means "The Most High God".[89]
God is described and referred in the Quran and hadith by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahman, meaning "Most Compassionate" and Al-Rahim, meaning "Most Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).[90]
Supreme soul
The Brahma Kumaris use the term "Supreme Soul" to refer to God. They see God as incorporeal and eternal, and regard him as a point of living light like human souls, but without a physical body, as he does not enter the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. God is seen as the perfect and constant embodiment of all virtues, powers and values and that He is the unconditionally loving Father of all souls, irrespective of their religion, gender, or culture.[91]
Vaishnavism, a tradition in Hinduism, has list of titles and names of Krishna.
Gender
Main article: Gender of God
The gender of God may be viewed as either a literal or an allegorical aspect of a deity who, in classical western philosophy, transcends bodily form.[92][93] Polytheistic religions commonly attribute to each of the gods a gender, allowing each to interact with any of the others, and perhaps with humans, sexually. In most monotheistic religions, God has no counterpart with which to relate sexually. Thus, in classical western philosophy the gender of this one-and-only deity is most likely to be an analogical statement of how humans and God address, and relate to, each other. Namely, God is seen as begetter of the world and revelation which corresponds to the active (as opposed to the receptive) role in sexual intercourse.[6]
Biblical sources usually refer to God using male words, except Genesis 1:26-27,[94][95] Psalm 123:2-3, and Luke 15:8-10 (female); Hosea 11:3-4, Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 66:13, Isaiah 49:15, Isaiah 42:14, Psalm 131:2 (a mother); Deuteronomy 32:11-12 (a mother eagle); and Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 (a mother hen).
Relationship with creation
See also: Creator deity, Prayer, and Worship
And Elohim Created Adam by William Blake, c.1795
Prayer plays a significant role among many believers. Muslims believe that the purpose of existence is to worship God.[96][97] He is viewed as a personal God and there are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God. Prayer often also includes supplication and asking forgiveness. God is often believed to be forgiving. For example, a hadith states God would replace a sinless people with one who sinned but still asked repentance.[98] Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a "personal god" is integral to the Christian outlook, but that one has to understand it is an analogy. "To say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe."[99]
Adherents of different religions generally disagree as to how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind, if there is one. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example being universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religions. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.
Jews and Christians believe that humans are created in the likeness of God, and are the center, crown and key to God's creation, stewards for God, supreme over everything else God had made (Gen 1:26); for this reason, humans are in Christianity called the "Children of God".[100]
Depiction
God is defined as incorporeal,[3] and invisible from direct sight, and thus cannot be portrayed in a literal visual image.
The respective principles of religions may or may not permit them to use images (which are entirely symbolic) to represent God in art or in worship .
Zoroastrianism
Ahura Mazda (depiction is on the right, with high crown) presents Ardashir I (left) with the ring of kingship. (Relief at Naqsh-e Rustam, 3rd century CE)
During the early Parthian Empire, Ahura Mazda was visually represented for worship. This practice ended during the beginning of the Sassanid empire. Zoroastrian iconoclasm, which can be traced to the end of the Parthian period and the beginning of the Sassanid, eventually put an end to the use of all images of Ahura Mazda in worship. However, Ahura Mazda continued to be symbolized by a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback which is found in Sassanian investiture.[101]
Islam
Further information: God in Islam
Muslims believe that God (Allah) is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of His creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules, are not expected to visualize God.[40]
Judaism
At least some Jews do not use any image for God, since God is the unimageable Being who cannot be represented in material forms.[102] In some samples of Jewish Art, however, sometimes God, or at least His Intervention, is indicated by a Hand Of God symbol, which represents the bath Kol (literally "daughter of a voice") or Voice of God;[103] this use of the Hand Of God is carried over to Christian Art.
Christianity
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Early Christians believed that the words of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time" and numerous other statements were meant to apply not only to God, but to all attempts at the depiction of God.[104]
Use of the symbolic Hand of God in the Ascension from the Drogo Sacramentary, c. 850
However, later on the Hand of God symbol is found several times in the only ancient synagogue with a large surviving decorative scheme, the Dura Europos Synagogue of the mid-3rd century, and was probably adopted into Early Christian art from Jewish art. It was common in Late Antique art in both East and West, and remained the main way of symbolizing the actions or approval of God the Father in the West until about the end of the Romanesque period. It also represents the bath Kol (literally "daughter of a voice") or voice of God,[103] just like in Jewish Art.
In situations, such as the Baptism of Christ, where a specific representation of God the Father was indicated, the Hand of God was used, with increasing freedom from the Carolingian period until the end of the Romanesque. This motif now, since the discovery of the 3rd century Dura Europos synagogue, seems to have been borrowed from Jewish art, and is found in Christian art almost from its beginnings.
The use of religious images in general continued to increase up to the end of the 7th century, to the point that in 695, upon assuming the throne, Byzantine emperor Justinian II put an image of Christ on the obverse side of his gold coins, resulting in a rift which ended the use of Byzantine coin types in the Islamic world.[105] However, the increase in religious imagery did not include depictions of God the Father. For instance, while the eighty second canon of the Council of Trullo in 692 did not specifically condemn images of The Father, it suggested that icons of Christ were preferred over Old Testament shadows and figures.[106]
The beginning of the 8th century witnessed the suppression and destruction of religious icons as the period of Byzantine iconoclasm (literally image-breaking) started. Emperor Leo III (717–741), suppressed the use of icons by imperial edict of the Byzantine Empire, presumably due to a military loss which he attributed to the undue veneration of icons.[107] The edict (which was issued without consulting the Church) forbade the veneration of religious images but did not apply to other forms of art, including the image of the emperor, or religious symbols such as the cross.[108] Theological arguments against icons then began to appear with iconoclasts arguing that icons could not represent both the divine and the human natures of Jesus at the same time. In this atmosphere, no public depictions of God the Father were even attempted and such depictions only began to appear two centuries later.
The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 effectively ended the first period of Byzantine iconoclasm and restored the honouring of icons and holy images in general.[109] However, this did not immediately translate into large scale depictions of God the Father. Even supporters of the use of icons in the 8th century, such as Saint John of Damascus, drew a distinction between images of God the Father and those of Christ.
In his treatise On the Divine Images John of Damascus wrote: "In former times, God who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see".[110] The implication here is that insofar as God the Father or the Spirit did not become man, visible and tangible, images and portrait icons can not be depicted. So what was true for the whole Trinity before Christ remains true for the Father and the Spirit but not for the Word. John of Damascus wrote:[111]
"If we attempt to make an image of the invisible God, this would be sinful indeed. It is impossible to portray one who is without body:invisible, uncircumscribed and without form."
Around 790 Charlemagne ordered a set of four books that became known as the Libri Carolini (i.e. "Charles' books") to refute what his court mistakenly understood to be the iconoclast decrees of the Byzantine Second Council of Nicaea regarding sacred images. Although not well known during the Middle Ages, these books describe the key elements of the Catholic theological position on sacred images. To the Western Church, images were just objects made by craftsmen, to be utilized for stimulating the senses of the faithful, and to be respected for the sake of the subject represented, not in themselves. The Council of Constantinople (869) (considered ecumenical by the Western Church, but not the Eastern Church) reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea and helped stamp out any remaining coals of iconoclasm. Specifically, its third canon required the image of Christ to have veneration equal with that of a Gospel book:[112]
We decree that the sacred image of our Lord Jesus Christ, the liberator and Savior of all people, must be venerated with the same honor as is given the book of the holy Gospels. For as through the language of the words contained in this book all can reach salvation, so, due to the action which these images exercise by their colors, all wise and simple alike, can derive profit from them.
But images of God the Father were not directly addressed in Constantinople in 869. A list of permitted icons was enumerated at this Council, but symbols of God the Father were not among them.[113] However, the general acceptance of icons and holy images began to create an atmosphere in which God the Father could be symbolized.
Prior to the 10th century no attempt was made to use a human to symbolize God the Father in Western art.[104] Yet, Western art eventually required some way to illustrate the presence of the Father, so through successive representations a set of artistic styles for symbolizing the Father using a man gradually emerged around the 10th century AD. A rationale for the use of a human is the belief that God created the soul of Man in the image of His own (thus allowing Human to transcend the other animals).
It appears that when early artists designed to represent God the Father, fear and awe restrained them from a usage of the whole human figure. Typically only a small part would be used as the image, usually the hand, or sometimes the face, but rarely a whole human. In many images, the figure of the Son supplants the Father, so a smaller portion of the person of the Father is depicted.[114]
By the 12th century depictions of God the Father had started to appear in French illuminated manuscripts, which as a less public form could often be more adventurous in their iconography, and in stained glass church windows in England. Initially the head or bust was usually shown in some form of frame of clouds in the top of the picture space, where the Hand of God had formerly appeared; the Baptism of Christ on the famous baptismal font in Liège of Rainer of Huy is an example from 1118 (a Hand of God is used in another scene). Gradually the amount of the human symbol shown can increase to a half-length figure, then a full-length, usually enthroned, as in Giotto's fresco of c. 1305 in Padua.[115] In the 14th century the Naples Bible carried a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the early 15th century, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry has a considerable number of symbols, including an elderly but tall and elegant full-length figure walking in the Garden of Eden, which show a considerable diversity of apparent ages and dress. The "Gates of Paradise" of the Florence Baptistry by Lorenzo Ghiberti, begun in 1425 use a similar tall full-length symbol for the Father. The Rohan Book of Hours of about 1430 also included depictions of God the Father in half-length human form, which were now becoming standard, and the Hand of God becoming rarer. At the same period other works, like the large Genesis altarpiece by the Hamburg painter Meister Bertram, continued to use the old depiction of Christ as Logos in Genesis scenes. In the 15th century there was a brief fashion for depicting all three persons of the Trinity as similar or identical figures with the usual appearance of Christ.
In an early Venetian school Coronation of the Virgin by Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini, (c. 1443) The Father is depicted using the symbol consistently used by other artists later, namely a patriarch, with benign, yet powerful countenance and with long white hair and a beard, a depiction largely derived from, and justified by, the near-physical, but still figurative, description of the Ancient of Days.[116]
. ...the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)
Usage of two Hands of God"(relatively unusual) and the Holy Spirit as a dove in Baptism of Christ, by Verrocchio, 1472
In the Annunciation by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1470, God the Father is portrayed in the red robe and a hat that resembles that of a Cardinal. However, even in the later part of the 15th century, the symbolic representation of the Father and the Holy Spirit as "hands and dove" continued, e.g. in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ in 1472.[117]
God the Father with His Right Hand Raised in Blessing, with a triangular halo representing the Trinity, Girolamo dai Libri c. 1555
In Renaissance paintings of the adoration of the Trinity, God may be depicted in two ways, either with emphasis on The Father, or the three elements of the Trinity. The most usual depiction of the Trinity in Renaissance art depicts God the Father using an old man, usually with a long beard and patriarchal in appearance, sometimes with a triangular halo (as a reference to the Trinity), or with a papal crown, specially in Northern Renaissance painting. In these depictions The Father may hold a globe or book (to symbolize God's knowledge and as a reference to how knowledge is deemed divine). He is behind and above Christ on the Cross in the Throne of Mercy iconography. A dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit may hover above. Various people from different classes of society, e.g. kings, popes or martyrs may be present in the picture. In a Trinitarian Pietà, God the Father is often symbolized using a man wearing a papal dress and a papal crown, supporting the dead Christ in his arms. They are depicted as floating in heaven with angels who carry the instruments of the Passion.[118]
Representations of God the Father and the Trinity were attacked both by Protestants and within Catholicism, by the Jansenist and Baianist movements as well as more orthodox theologians. As with other attacks on Catholic imagery, this had the effect both of reducing Church support for the less central depictions, and strengthening it for the core ones. In the Western Church, the pressure to restrain religious imagery resulted in the highly influential decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563. The Council of Trent decrees confirmed the traditional Catholic doctrine that images only represented the person depicted, and that veneration to them was paid to the person, not the image.[119]
Artistic depictions of God the Father were uncontroversial in Catholic art thereafter, but less common depictions of the Trinity were condemned. In 1745 Pope Benedict XIV explicitly supported the Throne of Mercy depiction, referring to the "Ancient of Days", but in 1786 it was still necessary for Pope Pius VI to issue a papal bull condemning the decision of an Italian church council to remove all images of the Trinity from churches.[120]
The famous The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, c.1512
God the Father is symbolized in several Genesis scenes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, most famously The Creation of Adam (whose image of near touching hands of God and Adam is iconic of humanity, being a reminder that Man is created in the Image and Likeness of God (Gen 1:26)).God the Father is depicted as a powerful figure, floating in the clouds in Titian's Assumption of the Virgin in the Frari of Venice, long admired as a masterpiece of High Renaissance art.[121] The Church of the Gesù in Rome includes a number of 16th century depictions of God the Father. In some of these paintings the Trinity is still alluded to in terms of three angels, but Giovanni Battista Fiammeri also depicted God the Father as a man riding on a cloud, above the scenes.[122]
In both the Last Judgment and the Coronation of the Virgin paintings by Rubens he depicted God the Father using the image that by then had become widely accepted, a bearded patriarchal figure above the fray. In the 17th century, the two Spanish artists Velázquez (whose father-in-law Francisco Pacheco was in charge of the approval of new images for the Inquisition) and Murillo both depicted God the Father using a patriarchal figure with a white beard in a purple robe.
The Ancient of Days (1794) Watercolor etching by William Blake
While representations of God the Father were growing in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Low Countries, there was resistance elsewhere in Europe, even during the 17th century. In 1632 most members of the Star Chamber court in England (except the Archbishop of York) condemned the use of the images of the Trinity in church windows, and some considered them illegal.[123] Later in the 17th century Sir Thomas Browne wrote that he considered the representation of God the Father using an old man "a dangerous act" that might lead to Egyptian symbolism.[124] In 1847, Charles Winston was still critical of such images as a "Romish trend" (a term used to refer to Roman Catholics) that he considered best avoided in England.[125]
In 1667 the 43rd chapter of the Great Moscow Council specifically included a ban on a number of symbolic depictions of God the Father and the Holy Spirit, which then also resulted in a whole range of other icons being placed on the forbidden list,[126][127] mostly affecting Western-style depictions which had been gaining ground in Orthodox icons. The Council also declared that the person of the Trinity who was the "Ancient of Days" was Christ, as Logos, not God the Father. However some icons continued to be produced in Russia, as well as Greece, Romania, and other Orthodox countries.
Theological approaches
Theologians and philosophers have attributed to God such characteristics as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, perfect goodness, divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. God has been described as incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable being existent.[3] These attributes were all claimed to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars, including Maimonides,[53] St Augustine,[53] and Al-Ghazali.[128]
Many philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God,[8] while attempting to comprehend the precise implications of God's attributes. Reconciling some of those attributes generated important philosophical problems and debates. For example, God's omniscience may seem to imply that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, their ostensible free will might be illusory, or foreknowledge does not imply predestination, and if God does not know it, God may not be omniscient.[129]
However, if by its essential nature, free will is not predetermined, then the effect of its will can never be perfectly predicted by anyone, regardless of intelligence and knowledge. Although knowledge of the options presented to that will, combined with perfectly infinite intelligence, could be said to provide God with omniscience if omniscience is defined as knowledge or understanding of all that is.
The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Antony Flew, although Kant held that the argument from morality was valid. The theist response has been either to contend, as does Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "properly basic", or to take, as does Richard Swinburne, the evidentialist position.[130] Some theists agree that only some of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by Pascal as "the heart has reasons of which reason does not know."[131] A recent theory using concepts from physics and neurophysiology proposes that God can be conceptualized within the theory of integrative level.[132]
Many religious believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings such as angels, saints, jinn, demons, and devas.[133][134][135][136][137]
Dutch Landscapes - Brabant -
Gedurende de mobilisatie en de meidagen was het fort in functie als legeringslocatie. Tussen 10 en 13 mei werd het gebied geïnundeerd. Op 12 mei verliet een groot deel van de bezetting het fort. De achterblijvende troepen beschikten over slechts weinig munitie en onbruikbare handgranaten. Men breidde de bezetting uit met twee lichte mitrailleurgroepen en een nieuwe commandant nam het bevel over. Men nam in de middag van 14 mei 1940 waar hoe het flankerende fort De Hel werd aangevallen door Duitse pantserwagens. Dit waarnemende en beseffende dat zij geen wapens tegen pantserwagens bezaten, trok de bezetting weg via Dintelsas. Ze werden daar alsnog door de Duitsers gevangen genomen.
.....................................................................................................................
Dutch Landscapes - Brabant -
During the mobilization and the May days the fort was in office as alloy location. Between 10 and 13 May was inundated area. On May 12, leaving a large part of the occupation the fort. The remaining troops possessed little ammunition and unusable grenades. They expanded the occupation with two light machine gun groups and a new commander took command. They took in the afternoon of May 14, 1940 where the flanking Fort Hell was attacked by German armored cars. This perceiving and understanding that they had no weapons against armored vehicles, pulled the occupation road through Dintelsas. They were there still captured by the Germans.
Photo captured via Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm F/1.7 lens. In the city of Redmond. King County, Washington. Late October 2015.
Exposure Time: 1/200 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-800 * Aperture: F/2.8 * Bracketing: None
© Ben Heine || Facebook || Twitter || www.benheine.com
_______________________________________________
For more information about my art: info@benheine.com
_______________________________________________
If any sink, assure that this, now standing
A poem by Emily Dickinson
If any sink, assure that this, now standing—
Failed like Themselves—and conscious that it rose—
Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding
How Weakness passed—or Force—arose—
Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment—
Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball—
When the Ball enters, enters Silence—
Dying—annuls the power to kill.
----------------
The poem appeared on www.poeticpeople.com/
Facebook pages -- Understanding your Facebook page
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Facebook pages, built for businesses and mobile users
According to online resources, well over a billion people visit Facebook pages each and every month. And according to several articles online more and more individuals are visiting Facebook pages on their smartphones weather Android or Apple each and every day. For you to use your facebook it is never been more important to you or for your business, for it to be readily accessible on mobile devices.
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Martin Creed
Work No. 2630 UNDERSTANDING, 2016
Red Neon, Steel
Approx dims: 21 3/5 x 50 x 2 1/8 ft / 658.6 x 1524 x 66 cm. Base 25 x 25 feet at top / 33 x 33 feet at bottom
Presented by Public Art Fund, May 4 – October 23, 2016 at Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park
Courtesy the artist, Gavin Brown’s enterprise New York/Rome, and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY
© Martin Creed 2016
As a child I loved looking at the covers and the illustrations within my dad's old science magazines. I didn't actually read any, just looked at the pictures. It's still absolutely inspirational stuff.
Mons Belgique/Bergen België.
Leica-M6 TTL 0,85 Elmarit-M 1:2.8/90 mm
Nikon super Coolscan 5000ed.
Ilford Delta 100asa, developer Kodak HC 110 1+31 (B)
🔴Leica my point of view.
Wetzlar, Deutschland.
Leica-CL 1974 Rangefinder,Serial Number 1395533
Leica-M 6 TTL 0.72 1998 Rangefinder Serial Number 2466527
Leica-M6 TTL 0.85 2001 Rangefinder Serial Number 2755204.
Exploring mountains and wilderness provides me a liberating sense of freedom - midwest Norway mountains
INTECH Science Centre & Planetarium is an interactive centre administered by the educational charity, The Hampshire Technology Centre Trust Ltd, with the specific purpose of promoting the knowledge and understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The Trust was founded in 1985 by like-minded people in business, industry and higher education in response to the local shortage of scientists, engineers and technicians. From humble beginnings INTECH has grown into an important regional hub for informal science learning and a popular visitor attraction for schools and the general public.
INTECH is largely self-funded with more than 97% of its running costs being internally generated.
In 2002 INTECH was re-housed into this new 3,500 square metre purpose-built, award winning building at Morn Hill, near Winchester. The multi-million pound project was funded partly through the Millennium Commission, NTL, IBM, the DfES and DTI, SEEDA and HCC.
The exhibition inside consists of 100 hands-on exhibits, which communicate the fundamental principles of science and technology and their applications in industry and the home in a fun and interactive way. INTECH acts as an inspirational school visit destination and a unique and fun public visitor attraction.
Almost all of the exhibits are designed and built in-house utilising many years of experience to ensure that they are fun, educational and robust; the Workshop team also build exhibits for other science centres, museums and attractions.
The dome on the right is a planitarium which in 2008, with the support of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), converted the auditorium into the largest capacity planetarium in the UK employing state of the art digital projection equipment and software. The planetarium programme comprises a full range of presenter-led and pre-recorded shows for schools and the general public.
As well as thhis all-weather centre INTECH offers a variety of flexible facilities for corporate meetings, conferences, launches and hospitality. The air conditioned planetarium provides a setting for business presentations with its 176 tiered seats, state of the art lighting and 7.1 surround sound.
Planetarium technology has advanced beyond recognition in recent years. It's not just stars; now full-screen video can be shown using a digital projection system. The cinema-grade surround sound system adds to the feeling of total immersion.
INTECH’s system, designed and installed by Global Immersion, relies on a bank of seven computers running six projectors arranged around the audience (hidden behind holes). There is no central projector to disrupt the view. Each projector creates one part of the image. The projections fade out at the edges to blend into the neighbouring sections to give a 'seamless' appearance. The projectors are reguarly calibrated to ensure brightness/contrast/colour matching across the entire dome.
In addition to playing pre-rendered shows, UniViewTM software by SCISS allows presenters to fly visitors through a virtual universe based on actual scientific data. Each star and galaxy is accurately plotted and planets are 'wrapped' in real images from spacecraft wherever possible. Nothing is pre-recorded, everything is rendered in real-time, making each show unique.
The presenter can set time and date to show objects in the correct locations/orientations for the time of the show and then pilot a seamless flight from Earth around the solar system and out to the edge of the visible universe, bringing in labels or markers as required, or speeding up or slowing down time to demonstrate the movement of objects.
Intech is inside the South Downs National Park which is England's newest National Park, having become fully operational on 1 April 2011. The park, covering an area of 1,627 square kilometres (628 sq mi) in southern England, stretches for 140 kilometres (87 mi) from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex. The national park covers not only the chalk ridge of the South Downs, with its celebrated chalk downland landscape that culminates in the iconic chalky white cliffs of Beachy Head, but also a substantial part of a separate physiographic region, the western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and vales. The South Downs Way spans the entire length of the park and is the only National Trail that lies wholly within a national park.
The sky here has been tinted for effect.
Context gives new understanding to modern lingo…
Newell Harry
Untitled (THIS/DAM/MAD/SHIT), 2013
Tongan Ngatu (bark cloth), ink
279 x 118 cm
Newell Harry
Untitled (MILF/FILM/LAME/MALE), 2013
Tongan Ngatu (bark cloth), ink
279 x 118 cm
# Newell Harry
+ 1972: Born Sydney, Australian: South African/Mauritian ancestry
+ 1993-1995: Diploma of Fine Arts, The National Art School, East Sydney Technical College
+ 1997-2000: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons.1), College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney
+ 2001-2004: Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney
+ 2010-2013: Sessional Lecturer, COFA UNSW, Sydney
# Rosly Oxley9 Gallery
# SML Data
+ Date: 2013-05-23T16:45:18+0800
+ Dimensions: 4930 x 3286
+ Exposure: 1/30 sec at f/4.0
+ Focal Length: 32 mm
+ ISO: 100
+ Camera: Canon EOS 6D
+ Lens: Canon EF 17-40 f/4L USM
+ GPS: 22°16'59" N 114°10'22" E
+ Location: 香港會議展覽中心 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC)
+ Workflow: Lightroom 4
+ Serial: SML.20130523.6D.14009
+ Series: 新聞攝影 Photojournalism, SML Fine Art, Art Basel Hong Kong 2013
# Media Licensing
Creative Commons (CCBY) See-ming Lee 李思明 / SML Photography / SML Universe Limited
“Newell Harry (b.1972 Australia): Untitled (THIS/DAM/MAD/SHIT), 2013 + Untitled (MILF/FILM/LAME/MALE), 2013 (Tongan Ngatu (bark cloth), ink)” / Rosly Oxley9 Gallery / Art Basel Hong Kong 2013 / SML.20130523.6D.14009
/ #Photojournalism #CreativeCommons #CCBY #SMLPhotography #SMLUniverse #SMLFineArt #SMLProjects #SMLTypography #Crazyisgood
/ #中國 #中国 #China #香港 #HongKong #攝影 #摄影 #photography #Art #FineArt #ArtBasel #ABHK #NewellHarry #RoslyOxley9 #people #WTF #LOL #typography
Marziya Shakir my granddaughter bonded with beggars at a very young age ...
Understanding pain misery on this stage ..where man battled his fate in a cage ..
She learnt from this book of life every page ..her introduction to street photography..by a camera sage .
I made Marziya see observe the poor beggars and sooon she knew most of them on the way from her home to her playschool and back ..
She gave money to them that she saved specially for them.
The camera was her textbook of life ..
Today Marziya is 12 year old ..much wiser and more compassionate .
...to liberate the children of men
from the darkness of ignorance,
and guide them to the light
of true understanding.
Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 79
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in a memorandum of understanding signing ceremony with the Tent Partnership for Refugees, at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 2022. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
by Internet Archive Book Images
Business Management Degrees like MBA are among the most preferred of professional courses in India for those who have completed their graduation. Doing an MBA from India’s top management colleges is regarded as the surest way to ensure a long-term and rewarding c...
excited.g2a.website/understanding-popular-mba-degrees-in-...
The same sliced and chromed column in front of Pecci Museum, Prato.
This photo is an explanation for the other one (Pecci) as you can see the monument
from a clearer point of view.
=====================
La stessa colonna affettata e cromata di fronte al Museo Pecci di arte moderna a Prato.
Questo scatto è un po' una spiegazione dell'altro (Pecci, accanto) potendo vedere la colonna da un punto di vista + chiaro.
THE ALTAR OF INTERFERENCE
Rack: Ruin, Sorry to have been unresponsive. I fell off the digital planet upstate and found it delightful. Back in the city. All is well except for that gnawing post-holiday anxiety. Hope you're good and the writing goes along.
Ruin: I have been enjoying some crisis time here. Stuff to do with the sexual abuse, the neglect, and the, to be expected, self-loathing generated there. It happens every now and then, and it can be overpowering. The stuff we have been looking at, or at least that stuff I have been writing about, would more or less cause that to happen, I guess. Anyway, I have been taking a step back to look at it, the PTSD generated through abuse of all stripes. It’s sort of overarching. I want to look at it, and the idea of patterns, that ‘Wild Goose’ thing, of flight rather than fight, that permanent adrenaline rush of looking for a constant ‘elsewhere’, of heading out, or creating situations where one has to head out (like the silly 'London situation' that catapulted me to Amsterdam), that forcing oneself into constant panic-mode, left over from childhood survival tactics.
Then there is the generation of a cuckoo gene relative to all that too, that looking for parents, stealing them, even, nesting strategies that could be considered ‘shameful’, or at least might generate shame to add to the self-loathing, bolstering it up. Then there’s the slow suicide of looking for HIV, that cowardly way of doing oneself in. Anyway, these are a few of the things I am going to look at unflinchingly, going forward. I am in a sort of bracing mode, girding one’s overused, and sagging, loins for a full-frontal assault.
Once more unto that breach, and all that palaver, a cuckooed 'Wild Goose' negotiating a swansong, even.
It's difficult to write these things about oneself, and see them reflected back by you, your acknowledgment of them, suggesting that you have more than an 'understanding'. We are both aware of what we reflect back to each other, something we have done for 35 years now, that there is mutuality there. I know why you struggle with it, I do too. I suspect this might be what makes it worthwhile.
Rack: Ruin, I had a similar moment recently. It has taken this long for me to be able to recognize what is happening when I want to flee, when I feel that the sky falling on my head is imminent, when I just can't function. It is hard to acknowledge how many areas of life its tendrils have drilled their way into. I have read that Ketamine infusions can help, and I've been toying with the idea for a long time, though it is horribly expensive. Not drinking has been a huge help lately and I realize that booze just makes me more anxious, ultimately. It's alarming to think how one's life has been sculpted by such childhood events. I can't even identify what it is that happened. I can remember very little of childhood. I wonder was there additional abuse to the stuff I can remember. I suppose it's not that important to remember the details. That whole notion of healing and moving on seems like a daft impossibility to me. If anything, the symptoms of PTSD have become worse for me as I age, as if they will out, regardless. Sometimes I just feel like I'm not functioning. Anyway, I know where you are and it is a difficult and painful place to sit through. Maybe that's how you get past it. By looking it in the eye and not freezing. Maybe the writing of it will be a huge relief for you, not in the way of some perfect redemption, but a squaring of things. I am sending you much love.
Ruin: I don’t know if I scared myself to a stop or not, I don’t think I did, I think I am still writing. I am writing around it, around the theme. There were, of course, triggers. It’s difficult to get to that point of full exposure, but that’s where I think I have to go, and I have enough evidence of questionable behaviour generated in response, perhaps, both in my art and in what I have been writing all these years. Strangely, I realised that there were others in my family generating patterns, according to how they reacted to our negligent parents. The sister, Phil, who gloated over the tearing up, and burning, of that book (‘A Stone for Danny Fisher’) is the same sister who consigned my Doctoral work to the Dublin City dump. It was the same action, a refined echo, but 50 years later. I have been looking at, and thinking about, how we continue to unknowingly repeat these patterns. I assumed my victim role, and ran away, yet again. I would rather fly than fight, that classic ‘wild goose’ pattern. There is nothing there I want to fight for anyway, the place is even more sordid than I am, but I want to be aware of these patterns, and all of my siblings adapted a different variation, one that would make their lives livable. But my parents in their turn generated their patterns in reaction to their abandonment, so there’s no blame there at all. I guess the idea isn’t to blame, even not to blame my abusive uncle, I love the word ‘avuncular’, his was learnt behaviour. Of this I am sure, given that I know that at least two of his older brothers are child abusers (and priests).
So, the drive is not to ‘forgive’ and lovingly embrace family. It’s simply, through writing, to understand these patterns, and hopefully in doing so, to short-circuit the whole shebang. But I don’t want to write an abuse ‘memoir’. Anyway, there’s the challenge, and it’s still called ‘Rack and Ruin’.
Rack: Yes. I heartily agree. It’s “just” trying to understand and thereby to release oneself of ever re-enacting the same circular route. Maybe not possible. Maybe is.
Ruin: Well, I wouldn’t want to prefigure, or disallow for, any deathbed exegesis, that flash of realisation, that might, or might not, be on the cards. If it was all figured out before then it might make that climax anti-climactic. As for the rest, the writing, the art, the life, you get as far as you get, and then it all unravels anyway, and before you know it, you’re dust. There’s a cheerful morning thought. I suspect we both have them. Then there is that intervening time, and the filling of the same. Mine is very much about restoring self-worth, and I am actually glad that I am still at that. It would have been much easier just to give up and dissipate towards that void (Oh, the drama!). I wrote sissipate, accidentally. I like that, that rolling the ball endlessly up that hill, and finding it at the bottom of the hill in the morning. Just like this morning, and away we go again. Bless that dung beetle. I like that we, instinctively, continue to do this, each rolling (along the self-same route) being completely different from the one before. That release happens in its own time, or rather it’s happening constantly, until it’s spent. I like this, and have no interest in it other than the doing itself. I like putting words and images up on Flickr. I love that this represents a type of slightly cracked-open window, that one's experience, and understanding, is not completely shut off, even if there is no evidence of any response. It is enough in itself. It reminds me of that medieval Anchorite sitting by her window, carbuncled onto a remote church, entombed even. The goal is no longer to show, or publish, the goal is to make, with a small window left open, just in case. I love that 'Just in case'.
“Maybe not possible. Maybe is.” I love the ‘maybe’, like I love ‘perhaps’, ‘even’, ‘possibly’, and other words conveying lack of surety. That’s where I would love to be found sitting for whatever posterity there might be, or not. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I also love that idea of it not mattering. I saw it in a ketamine exegesis (that word again), and I know it to be true. I know, ‘dumb ass’, but I don’t care.
Rack: Yes to "restoring self-worth". Oh, that there were a short cut, but it seems there is not, probably not even Ketamine. Up and down that bloody hill, sissipating like the dung beetles that we are. We are, once again, at the juncture of ‘Labor Day’, that convenient long weekend that bookends the summer with its predecessor, ‘Memorial Day’. My panic continues as my partner sits reading with a small flashlight hanging out of his mouth, because he can no longer see without the additional light. Who does the panicking in your house? I feel like it is somebody's job in a household. A small engine of worry. Anyway, I am going to try and park it somewhere and enjoy the relatively empty city and the weather with the worst of the heat gone out of it. Could really do with a good long screaming walk with you.
Ruin: I am the worrier. I find myself wonderfully entombed with the buggering Buddha, as far as that is concerned. It’s a glorious place to be. Our Pyramid is wondrous. Time is at its undoing, and I love it all shoddying the edges. That doesn’t seem to staunch that flow of worrying, regardless. The insecurities, or the source, perhaps, of that deluge, is somewhat easily traced back.
The Mater had a type of mantra, it was in a way the pride of her arsenal, and I remember it being put to use on many an occasion. It went something like this: “You do know that you can never pay us back, don’t you? If you worked all your life and gave us every penny you ever earned, it wouldn’t even come near to what you owe us”. I have it in parentheses, but it is not really a quote. It wouldn’t have been proffered so lucidly, it would have been spat and mangled, screeched out, perhaps between thuds and flailing fists. It was harridan-like. The thuds and flailings would, more or less, always miss their marks and land on a battered table, or on the back of a broken chair. They weren’t the problem. All the chairs in the house were broken. I remember going back to help celebrate one Christmas, travelling from London, 40 years later, and sitting on a chair which immediately collapsed from under me. I roared at the power of the Mater’s mantra asserting itself, as I sat on the floor hysterically laughing whilst remembering.
So, it was set in stone. I would have to go working at the age of thirteen, in the aforementioned ‘The Laurels’ to “earn my keep” and pay into the coffers for the upkeep of the brood, all of whom had “no idea how much they owed”. At some point, during one of these incidents, I made the connection between sex and pleasure, probably around the concurrent abuse cycle with my uncle, and perhaps managed to scream out that they chose to have sex, that they shouldn’t have had children at all. My mother informed me that “sex is for men”, which only further confused me relative to her putting her brother in my bed.
Other than what my bull-uncle was teaching me, this was the only sex education that I had.
When we came to ‘Human reproduction’ in biology class, the ‘chaste’ Christian Brother announced, “We will skip this section for now, it won’t come up in exams anyway”. I was already, perhaps, a year into my anthropological avuncular education.
Avuncular
/əˈvʌŋkjʊlə/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
adjective: avuncular
1.
kind and friendly towards a younger or less experienced person.
"he was avuncular, reassuring, and trustworthy"
2.
ANTHROPOLOGY
relating to the relationship between men and the children of their siblings.
It was strangely confusing, this attention from my uncle. Nobody had paid any attention to me before.
[9:58 am, 02/09/2022] Ruin: A screaming walk would be wonderful. It would have to be a slow one though, and not too far, with rest stops along the way. The screaming wouldn't have to be slow, we could let that go from the get go. A relapse into hysteria with you would be wondrous indeed.
[9:58 am, 02/09/2022] Ruin: But we can also always do that here.
Let's sissipate side by side.
Rack: I don't think I've ever heard these stories, at least so graphically. You are approaching the very kernel here. Her fury is so furious and so energetic. I can almost relate. I can't help but think about her putting her brother in your bed, or you in his. It strikes me as some weird sacrifice she was making. Offering her brightest up to the altar of interference. Knowing and not knowing. And I suppose sex was for men. My paternal grandmother said the same thing. A thing to be endured. Your mother was going to make you endure it too. Somehow share in that forced ritual. Why did she choose you? Was it an age thing? It's horrifying and fascinating. Sending you love, as always.
Ruin: Yes, Rack, this is the crux, the kernel, that molten core. It might be other than what we expect, but this is it. It is also why I don’t want to write an abuse ‘memoir’. It’s not that. It’s not about struggle, triumph over adversity, forgiveness, and a sort of accompanying redemption. It is about ‘drivers’. It’s about innocence too, universal innocence, even. The mater’s innocence, the sibling’s innocence, the abuser’s innocence, and ultimately the self’s innocence. It encompasses the murderer’s, and mass-murderer’s, innocence. It would even include the innocence of those God botherers, those mass-manipulators who pushed their divisive theories of the divine on our susceptible forebears, those so-called priests and nuns. At a push, it might even include bank-managers and CEOs of Fortune-500 companies. Okay, I’ll go the whole hog, artists need to be forgiven too.
I would normally sit down, of a morning, and vomit out a spiel, and press the send button. I can’t do that this morning. I have to write this and be as clear as I can be, so there is no misunderstanding as to what I am trying to say.
I will just say, firstly, that my mother chose nothing. She was 100% reactive, desperately and fearfully reactive, even. She was, sadly, trapped in a pattern, rather like we all are, to a lesser or greater extent.
So, that’s where I am starting from. The rest is about getting as far as time permits.
I will answer those questions you brought up, as we go along.
Ruin: [10:44 am, 03/09/2022] It was never going to be easy, Crusty Lusty.
Rack (from sometime back in the mid-nineties, last century):
Funny you should mention staving off the SSRI pillies.†
Lately I have felt them to be an evil† necessity myself and frankly I am tired of them.†
I do need them ‘til I'm de-interfered with, but I think they† make one's character and brain sort of mushy until one reaches a state where you are oddly detached from your "self" and quite happy to be mired knee deep in your own raw sewage.†
It's not good.†
I feel impure in a way I can't quite explain, and I'm not prone to
feeling impure.†
Ultimately there is something terribly wrong about being incapable of living
without them.†
Why not just look for an honest distraction like alcoholism,
severe junkiedom, or whoredom?†
All this modern messing with chemistry.
Anyway, feeling like a reactionary regarding them and god bless you for going
cold turkey and long may it last.†
I'm sure one makes better work without them.
I'm† off to the scratcher with my oozing beaver:† ah the last gasps of estrogen as the old uterus pops an egg and screams for something to fill it up.†
Odd this biological baggage we women folk have; all this oozing and cycling and yet
no thought of acting on it.†
Modern, eh???
Much love,
Pox Bunny Beaver Rackety Crust
[10:49 am, 03/09/2022] Ruin: You were, and are, a wondrous poet.
I love your use of the crucifix. Strangely, the matrix put them there. Somewhere in the transferal from a Word document, or from an email, or whatever. They, the crucifixes just appeared. I like that their placing seems so random, though they do impose a sort of rhythm. This musky Matrix knows best, all praise our new Meta Gods on this soul-saving superhighway. I would not want to remove those religious signifiers put there by whoever is the powers that be.
The original ‘Castration Piece’ had a fourth panel. It read "I am Not an Open Beaver". I am putting the titles of art pieces in single parentheses, they refer to pieces made, and either shown at some point or other in Galleries and Museums, or on the WWW, on my only social media platform ‘Flickr’.
Rack: I always loved that piece.
Ruin: I liked placing it back at ‘The Mammy's Hearth’, that sacrosanct place of no safety.
Rack: And blurry you. How the hell do we ever individuate? I feel as if I’m still sissipating up that particular hill.
Ruin: We do it whilst sissipating, we are even doing it now. I love our new word.
Rack: Me too. Rhymes with dissipating, includes it, of course, but also suggests some progress, even if Sisyphean.
Ruin: I am still sitting with those last few questions you asked me, it's going to take time to answer them, but I will. I am worn out, off to the doctor to find out what is happening with my prostate, kidney pains, urinating every 15 minutes, exhaustion, sore groin lymph node (one sided).
Rack: Eugh, sounds nasty. No rush on answering those questions. I hope they weren’t “previous” of me to ask. But I am genuinely curious. It goes back to the innocence factor. Anyway, sorry your nether regions are bothering you. I hope it can be resolved in a simple way. All we can hope for our ailments now.
Ruin: No questions are "previous", ever. More like "about time", this doo-doo needs sorting out.
Rack: ♥️
Ruin: ♥️💩
As for the mater’s fury, he had some ideas relative to the source of that pain and anger. She was never overtly forthcoming with her sharing, regarding her ‘story’ that is, though she would on occasions over-share inappropriately. He recognized this tendency in himself, and in others he had known from the abused fraternity and sorority. This had a sort of uncontrollable Tourette’s-like quality, a certain convulsive vomiting, almost exorcism-like in its urgency to be expelled. He understood it now, but as a child this was confusing. She had been abused, she spoke a little of this later, another errant uncle working his avuncular magic, that undoing of innocence, that unwanted incursion. But she had been abandoned when she was six or seven years old, more or less left as the carer for her three younger siblings, after her mother had died, of TB, at a tender age, somewhere in her early thirties. Her father had left the four children, almost immediately, in the care of some older relatives, disappearing from their lives and remarrying a 17-year-old girl, with whom he had 13 more children. The mater did not see her father again until her own wedding day, when she was 23 years old. So, he surmised, we are talking about abandonment here, that form of neglect and abuse, before that other assault, referenced but never really spoken of. He remembered her cursing that uncle later on, but no details of what happened were ever shared. There was a gap there, another unfillable void.
Why the ‘his’? Why the ‘he’? It’s simple really, it gives a once remove, making it all a little easier. It might go back and forth, but who knows? There was also that once remove of the inadequacy of memory. Of course, he wasn’t even sure how much of this was true, even, what parts he remembered and what parts he had dreamed, or what part he had generated to find the wherewithal to forgive himself, and her. He was at a point where he couldn’t easily remember what day yesterday was, never mind familial gathering, sixty years ago, around that infinite family hole. His father’s crater was also there, inadequately filled with alcohol and anger, regrets, sadness, and neglect.
They sucked each other in, my parents, warring black holes in love, proffering impossible promises of security to each other, indifferent to everything else including their own children. Or so it seemed. But children can’t surmise all this, they can only pick up on the anger and disappointment, and the complete lack of any vestiges of stability. They each, both parents, made their oaths to be the other’s salvation, as they began quietly, at first, to fail. They stayed together for 60 years, so at least in some way they fulfilled their commitment to each other.
Meanwhile their children fell apart.
But this is not a story about aborted family dynasties, of triumph over adversity, or the opposite. It’s about another family of sorts, with nothing really to do with DNA extensions, and that striving to fit into some idea of continuity. It is about setting out, breaking away, the ‘Diaspora’, that homelessness, the ‘Wild Geese’, a certain ruthlessness, even. It is partially about recognizing the other as the same, or at least connecting with another where that sameness is sensed. It’s about the ‘Rack and Ruin’ of this fable, a chance encounter in the ‘New World’, and attempts at the rebuilding of ‘Trust’.
But the fury is somewhat easy to explain.
Downstairs was, a rented, one living room and a small kitchen behind a failing shop, the ‘Bon-Bon’ by name, another unfillable hole, as it would happen. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a box-room, shared by five children and two adults, with the addition of the new bull-interloper, a 20 or 21-year-old, testosterone-overflowing, encroacher.
Rack: Amazing stuff. Thank you for sending. I need to read again and assimilate before I respond more fully. So much here! Congratulations on facing it head on.
Ruin: I am feeling my way into it. This piece is the continuation of a conversation between you and I. Nothing is edited yet, I am not worrying about that for a while, or perhaps never, who knows? It's stuff I had written before, not in answer to your questions, but I do think it starts to address them. I will get there, though it does start to answer them, your questions I mean. I guess I am limbering up to answer, because yes, it is the kernel. But as I said, I don't want to write an abuse memoir. I want to write about 'drivers'.
Off to the doctor to have my prostate prodded. It's been about four years since there were any incursions in that region. I am not feeling great, but ho-hum, perhaps well enough to write some more. I wanted to sit still anyway.
Anyway, I am putting that text under the image of the cloud-filled sky from the window of an airplane, more or less adding to it daily. Nobody sees it, it's like a private space. It is further back in my photostream, on Flickr. Pundits tend to look at the newer images, so I can work there almost privately. I like to leave that window open a crack, as you know, just in case I am in the mood to hang my arse out of it. He said, nodding at mister Chaucer, was there no end to this man’s pretensions?
Rack: The only way to do it. Not that I would know. Hope the prostate thing is OK. It’s funny how the bits that allow us to reproduce cause the most illness: breasts, prostates, and maybe we can list the heart there too. Feeling quite peculiar, but not in an entirely bad way.
Ruin: Maybe indeed, the heart I mean, perhaps it should be even listed first. I suspect that when we get our hearts broken as children, there’s, more or less, no fixing them. I don’t like being around children at all, they feel so ferociously delicate. I never have, my whole life, I mean. This was fortuitous, in that I recognise my own capacity to brutalise, even unintentionally. I am pleased to have never found these small creatures attractive, I know that abuse can sometimes generate that reaction. Thankfully, I was one of the lucky ones, it drove me forward, instead, desperately searching for a father.
But back to the mater, back to that bed companion, back to a small room with two beds, shared by four people, 3 brothers and one uncle.
He didn’t remember much about the room other than it was small and usually cold. There was no central heating in the house, and no insulation to speak of.
Ruin: I am chasing that cuckoo theme or, at least, working my way towards it.
Rack: Worth chasing. I have lost my enthusiasm for a lot of things. But have also lost my taste for destroying myself. As if the shortening years are drumming sense into me at last.
Ruin: Queen Elizabeth is dead.
Rack: I actually have a tear in my eye.
Ruin: I understand that. It's a little unreal. She's always been there, I mean from the beginning of our lives.
Rack: My mother was enamored of her. They shared an age, both members of the forces during WWII.
Ruin: I think my mother was the same age too, at least she claimed to be. She liked her too, but it sort of went against her republicanism
Rack: I knew she was a goner when I saw her greeting Liz Truss. Looked feeble for the first time.
Ruin: Yes, her hands were all bruised. She had obviously been having transfusions.
Rack: Poor love. She really was remarkable.
Ruin: Yes, to your "As if the shortening years are drumming sense into me at last ". I am there too
Rack: It feels good (the at last). I feel as if I’m negotiating the supermarket aisles with little concern for my fellow shoppers.
Ruin: I have been writing to you, still working it out, will write it soon (as an email). I will send it soon rather, when I get a little further
Rack: I look forward. And backward.
Ruin: I appear to be writing about everything, and making images too
Rack: Happy that you are.
Ruin: anyway, I will write it out, you will see. Hey, guess what, you are writing it out here too, and I will use it all.
Rack: Hah! Work away. Might be the only way I can do it. Obliquely.
Ruin: I'll hand it over to you eventually, if you outlive me, as I said before.
Rack: One of us has to go first. YIKES.
Ruin: Yep, that's how it goes. Yikes, indeed! Unless, of course, we all go together, courtesy of Mr. Putin, or whatever. I am on a new drug for my prostate, apparently it was squeezing my urethra, making my piss flow very difficult, no pressure, slowed down, and it meant I had to pee every 15 mins. One of the side effects is possible priapism, a permanent erection, even. I can feel a series of photos coming on, that 'how to negotiate being a spent old tosser' series.
But back to that crowded bedroom, with ice on the inside of the windows and the horsehair overspilling from the mattress, that altar.
To the bloody Dickins with the whole shebang.
Rack: What a fate your mother had! No wonder she was angry. What a fate you suffered! It’s as if she had to make you endure something similar, that by effecting its repetition she was freeing herself, sacrificing you. Kill the thing you love. It is compelling to read Billy; onward! It never occurred to me that the abuse you endured happened in a crowded room. That your brothers were there. It must have added to everything.
I hope the prostate submits to the new drug and things get more comfortable.
There seems to be so much to this falling apart, and the attempts to stave it off with an array of pharmaceuticals. The latest one seems particularly unpleasant, and a balance might have to be found, some sort of compromise with the condition, where it is determined which is more livable with, the affliction or the ‘cure’. The pill-box is now full, or the complement of slots is full, those 4 notches for each day, spacing out the pills, that morning, midday, evening, and night array. This reminded Ruin of Rack’s “ramming 28 horse-pills down my throat every day”, of one of her first emails, some 25 years previously. This also reminded him that four pills a day was not that much of an infringement on his time and effort if he was going to get this ‘epic’ written. He guffawed inwardly at this notion of an epic, whilst recognizing the unwieldiness of it all, that sprawl. It could easily get out of hand, he knew this. Actually, it was already ‘out of hand’ more or less, but he felt that he just had to let this be what it was, for now.
Eventually decisions would have to be made. Again, this sounds suspiciously like ‘choices’ would be presenting themselves, but, in reality, there is no choice at all. It is simply about being able to continue, a survival strategy, an instinct. Ruin had been reduced before to a soporific state by ‘life-savers’. For five years he had been on a drug which more or less curtailed all creativity, writing, making art, or even reading. He was determined not to let this happen again. Unfortunately, the medical powers that be, the doctors he encountered, did not appear to be very good at listening, which led to five years of what felt like an anaethesised life, a time felt as though it was spent wading through a particularly dense fog, a treacle even. Eventually, after that unnecessarily extended sluggish exile, Ruin managed to convince the doctor to change the medications, and hey presto, as if by magic, the curtains rose. There’s a lesson to be learnt there, relative to doctors, drugs, and private interests in the Pharma industry, but allowing for the possible duration of a lifespan, one has to choose one’s battles. For this very reason, Ruin was thrilled to see the sterling work by Laura Poitras and Nan Goldin being acknowledged by the Venice Film Festival this week.
This is all normal stuff, we all face it at some point, it is part and parcel of growing older, and of particularly having the privilege to do that whilst enjoying last centuries, eclipsed, ‘maladie du jour’. It appears that this new century can, and will, generate its own, and it is somewhat wondrous to see, already, the machinations of science in its attempts to protect us.
Ruin believed in science; he did not believe in God. He had watched science work its preserving ‘magic’ both on Rack for 35 years, and on himself for 20 of those shared years. What was not to believe? If some billionaire or other had wanted to tag him with an electronic bugging device, he would have been well tagged already; he had given science total access years ago. He had read, digested, and discarded Duesberg's HIV conspiracy theories way back in the mid-eighties, propagated somewhat by ‘The Village Voice’, as he attempted to support Rack, and as they tried to help each other, through the early tsunamis generated by the same virus. Ruin had all he could stomach of anti-science conspiracy theories three decades before Covid eclipsed everything else in the collective imagination of the general public. Then in the eighties and nineties, Dr. Fauci was the enemy too, and we demonstrated against him and the tardiness of the CDC. We formed ‘Act Up’ and marched, demonstrated, and had ‘die-ins’ in Grand Central Station. Dr. Fauci listened, and eventually acted, proving to be a stalwart comrade in arms.
Recently Rack wrote to me (Enter those 1st person pronouns, both singular and plural):
Rack: I think we all have a lot of fear about how our behaviour is being policed. Are we racist? Are we transphobic? Are we elitist? Are we mansplaining? As you say, it’s not helpful and it doesn’t actually assist any of the issues it purports to protect. I fear we are in a very dark corner. Some days I find this very liberating. Not all days. Reading about the US government’s attitude to climate change is frightening. Also, Republican’s attitudes towards Anthony Fauci. Horrifying. He has just resigned. Bless.
Ruin: Yes, bless indeed, both Science and Doctor Fauci.
I am most pleased that we can still write to each other after 35 years of dealing with this disease. No, I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in miracles, and as far as I can see, most of those are, now, generated by Science.
A progenitorial alternative might be:
"Three drinks of water (holy) taken on three consecutive occasions from The Bishops Skull. This skull is believed to belong to one of three bishops who were murdered for their faith in Penal times. This particular skull is in a very extraordinary state of preservation and is kept at a house named Rielly (sic), near to the village of Mahera in Co. Cavan.
The skull is requisitioned from all parts of Ireland and the cure is well recognised."
The Schools Collection volume 0721 page 212.
www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009031/4979138
Rack: Not too much. I am always fascinated to read, but will admit that there is a part of me that wonders why I am so stuck while your gates are wide open and functioning with such wild and wonderful abandon. It is a form of jealousy, but not just that because I am truly happy you are doing it. So, keep sending and forgive me if my replies are a little constipated. Thinking about your latest missive, the medicated falling apart. Much love.
Ruin: I rewrote and added there a bit. I am just shit-scared of not having time left to finish what I have started, so pushing. You are very much there too.
As luck would have it, I don’t seem to be able to tolerate these prostate pills. They cause intense palpitations at the slightest exertion. So, I will just have to get on with it, the swollen prostate and all that. It’s not cancer, just swollen, but that causes enough problems anyway, which will just have to be embraced. Yes, to what you were saying about those parts of the body to do with pleasure causing the worst, or most common, problems. It does slightly put me in mind of that red ‘Castration Piece’ I made in the eighties, that fantasy I had, for years, about being neutered. That ‘I fantasized about castrating myself feeling this could free me from the guilt and shame (and pleasure)’. I could now, with those added 35 years on top, add ‘and doctor’s appointments’ to that title. But the response has to be, and is, Yes, a resounding ‘Yes’. Yes to growing older I mean. It remains the best, and the thing I am most grateful for. (Waving at Molly Bloom here, of course).
I have never had what are called ‘Panic attacks’ before, the first one I had was in my early sixties when I was on those terrible stultifying TAF including drugs for our shared lurgy. I then started to have them occasionally, plus a host of other exhausting complaints, and that aforementioned pea soup brain-fog. These, more or less, cleared up when I changed drugs. Now, with this new prostate pill they are back with a vengeance, two in three days. These are not panic attacks; they are drug induced palpitations. They are listed as possible side effects. We are, of course, guinea pigs for these wonderful HIV drugs, and I know we are both eternally grateful for that opportunity.
Let’s live somewhat longer, let’s describe it, let’s write.
But Ruin did have to get back to his mother, and that misunderstanding, that space where some ‘intent’ might be suggested. He needed to somehow exonerate her, to say that it wasn’t her fault, or rather to prove to himself that it wasn’t. He recognized this as being virtually impossible, given his history, their ‘story’, and the reverberations through six decades, but he was going to try anyway. Her history, back story even, can’t really be delved into. There is not enough evidence there, just those initial tales of abandonment, her father, early grieving, her mother, and abuse, her uncle. Ruin could hardly remember his own story, never mind attempting to reconstruct that of the mater, but the pattern was obvious, and the repeat motifs presented themselves unashamedly. Ruin was used to looking for patterns, probably generated by a lifetime making visual art. There were also patterns in the mater’s behaviors, mirrored in his own. These he could see and understand. These were the drivers he wanted to expose. He wanted to explain these to Rack. Rack had been, for over three decades, a type of ‘sounding board’ for him, utterly non-judgmental, hyper vigilant even, with an uncanny ability to proffer solace. He had the idea that this was also mirrored back. They were, somehow, equally scabrous, wanton, lewd, call it what you will, and could laugh uproariously at each other’s coping mechanisms. This was probably central to their ‘screaming walks’ through the canyons of Manhattan in those early days of their beloved plague. Rack was very much the ‘screamer’ then, and Ruin was in awe of her ability to let one rip on a crowded avenue or cross-street, whilst quietly hoping he might be mistaken for her companion-carer. He so loved that embarrassment. He also suspected that she loved watching him attempt to deal with it.
Those walks should become legend.
Yes, it all happened in a crowded room, a dark one to boot. There were two not quite double beds. Ruin didn’t know what size they were, they weren’t standard anything. He guessed they were more single size; two double beds would not have fit in that room. But this was years before he was aware of those designated sizes, queen, king, whatever. They were old metal frames, with exposed springs, on which the horsehair mattresses scrappily floated. His two younger brothers shared one, he had the other. It was their room, the boy’s room. His parents slept in the small box-room, so his sisters could share the other bedroom, furnished with two single beds. The youngest of the brothers, Johnny, was about 4 years old at the time. He was a troubled child, if his self-rocking was anything to go by. This self-soothing swaying back and forth relentlessly would infuriate his ten-year-old brother, Tony, until Johnny managed to soothe himself to sleep each night. Tony would then become comatose, at last, having endured that rocking until exhaustion intervened. Johnny also slept with his invisible friend ‘Ibi’, so their bed was somewhat overcrowded.
Ruin, the oldest, had a bed to himself, a sign of seniority, an acknowledgement of his waxing ‘teenhood’, until that interloper arrived.
Here, let me (that personal pronoun again) interject, by way of adding a warning. It’s simple really, and I am directing it towards all parents, of all persuasions and ilks, gender preferences, and identities. It’s blindingly elementary, an iteration I know. Please, never put a mature male in bed with an immature child, no matter how much you trust this male, no matter how close the family relationship might be. But I guess if I was being both fair and honest, I would have to extend this to include all maturated individuals regardless of gender or self-identification. My, perhaps unfair, focus on the male abuser here is because this was the case, both as far as my mother and myself were concerned, those wayward uncles. But then this isn’t about me, so I apologise for any presumptions made.
Ruin did not want to share his bed.
Yes, Ruin was doing okay. He knew it wasn’t Rack’s job to take the sadness away. How could it be? Anyway, he was doing exactly that himself, and it was about time, in every possible meaning of that phrase. It was about time itself, indeed, nothing more, nothing less. So not counting on any, a godly and honest state if ever there was one, he would get on with it until he no longer could. There’s a definition of fulfilment there, that recognition of oneself as that veritable elephant surfing on the fabled edge of that infinite black hole, and writing this out made him happy, elated even. For what it’s worth, it records itself anyway, endlessly, and anything the universal you or I might choose to add is simply non-essential extra, that ‘Froth on a Daydream’ which Boris Vian liked to write about. It is written for the self, a gift. He was looking at Vian again for a reason, or at least was planning to, it having once been important to him. A new copy sat on his emptying shelves, quietly reverberating. Hum diddley hum. This hum was once beautifully described as ‘the music of the spheres’.
There is there, there.
Anyway, back to those words of advice, my abridged handbook for would-be parents.
Do not circumvent the grooming, do not make it unnecessary by placing a potential predator and a victim in a dark, and silent, bed together. Whilst I am not going to dissect what happened on that mattress, I am going to look at why a child might have erroneously projected that grooming onto his mother for almost 60 years. There’s the crux, Rack, that mistake, that almost lifelong, retarding, projection that might have turned a 68-year-old child into a storyteller.
It was almost impossible for that son to describe that mother, to find the words, I mean. But he was going to try. There was no malice there, and she wasn’t stupid. Being stupid and ignorant are not the same thing. But then the whole story is also tinged with her innocence, something which can often be confused with ignorance, but here they were intertwined, and she had no way to pick them apart. These traits were very much part of her Gordian Knot, that imponderable she had inadvertently played forward.
To go further he knew he was going to have to do it alone. He was going to have to, temporarily hopefully, let Rack go as well. He knew that it was going too far, and could even be triggering, to use a woke expression, for her. It was almost going too far for himself, even. It felt like an essential step, so he would take it. This would constitute a huge, and frightening, departure, a rupturing, after 25 years of corresponding. He was going to go back alone. She knew where he was, he knew where she was, that would have to be enough for now.
There is always that cracked open window here, letting some air in, and stench out.
That will be enough in this interim, he guffawed quietly to himself, recklessly Rackless, perhaps, but enough for now.
Rack: Have been thinking. And just tell me to fuck off if you disagree or don’t care, but I feel you should be writing in the first person.
Ruin: I will work that out, now, or soon. I write in the third person when it becomes too difficult to write about, to get some distance. I now sort of know I can write it, so I better get on with it. The first person might be more immediate, I guess, but I was trying, to a degree, to avoid writing a straight-forward memoir. Anyway, this does need sorting out before I really sit down to it. I think I have the bare bones together now, and need to work on the form it's going to take. I am feeling like withdrawing more to do it, but that frightens me too.
Rack: I absolutely get that. And the fear of withdrawing to do it too. Onward. I get so stuck on the small stuff that I cannot proceed at all, so it would be safe to ignore me. Sending love.
Ruin: I am not at all sure yet which direction it is going in, in so much as I don't really want to write a 'novel' or a 'memoir'. I am thinking of it as more of connected 'essays', than anything else. Essays on a theme, personal essays, even, perhaps lyrical essays, I am not sure. For now it's just writing. It will include these, Immediate messages, emails, stories, confused memories, and ramblings about ideas, 'drivers', and whatever. There will even be images. The person they are written in can change. I realised that in the writing to you, it should always be in the first person, directly written to you, that personal. But in my enthusiasm found myself sending you some of the 'Ruin (he) had a good wank and fell asleep' stuff. I put all that on Flickr anyway, so you know where it is. I still revolve around images, so I will continue to work there. It is my way, as unorthodox as that might be, and it's more or less private there anyway. I like that promiscuousness, that slightly ajar window, so something can creep out or in, and catch me unawares. It is my only 'Meta' space.
I say you know where it is there, but it is now quite hidden. I am working under certain images, add text most days, but these are older images. Only newly added images get attention so these more or less go unseen, as the text develops. I leave little clues but one would have to be quite intrepid to find them.
The title, 'A Less Comforting Narrative', refers to the image, and not to the exchange under it.
Rack: It’s always an act of faith and you are writing, that’s what counts. The idea of writing essays might be very freeing.
But Rack, there is another crux there too, another layer I need to look at, and that is the idea of the self as a ‘groomer’. I am not at all sure why I attack these ideas head on, but it seems I do, or have to (am driven to), at least. OK, perhaps I make cack-handed efforts at this, perhaps there is delusion there, but this is something I have to do, if I am going to be as honest as I can be. This is grooming, this writing I mean, it is enticing, and almost demanding, responses. It appears I might feed off responses, and this is somewhat alarming. As usual, confrontation seems the only way forward, not just to recognize something but to actively attempt to disempower it. This might demand another step, a sort of extension of that quarantine which I have already noted as possibly a way forward. It feels like I should write to you, and not send what I write. In short, I don’t know my own motivations, let alone trust them. I don’t even know if they are mine. I recognize a group of possibly powerful drivers, besides the common or garden ones of background, abuse and general upbringing. All these are more or less universal, perhaps the abuse aspect was more extreme. Then there are the added influences of a sexually generated plague, this we share, and the drugs needed to control that scourge/gift. There is also residual anger, perhaps, at being a ‘failed’ artist, at the aborted attempts I made to try to communicate. This is also more often the case as not, considering the overabundance of ‘Artists’ floatingly enjoying poverty and rejection globally. To attempt to turn that into a ‘La Vie Bohème’, at the age of 68, would border on the farcical, though that in itself might be funny enough to create a page-turner.
In July, Thalia wrote to me:
“Yes, It's always interesting when communication happens, but it is also alright with me when it doesn't, for any reason. Nobody can be a perfect Victorian-style correspondent now, even I can't.”
Thalia, by another name, is one of those 4 women you commented on, relative to this idea of re-building myself, those ‘good mothers’, those substitutes I have been busily generating all my life. I see that now as a type of grooming, not conscious in the doing of it, but decipherable in retrospect, that looking back I seem to be up to.
Of course, you sit there, the ‘Mother Superior’. Next question, are you getting anything out of this? If not, tell me. I will stop writing to you, in fact I won’t. I will write to you in private, but not send it, I mean. I would continue to post the writing where I habitually post it, my afore-mentioned public/private Meta space, that chink of an open-window. This would mean that if you were ever curious you could find it there.
I know how relentless I can be, and I also know how exhausting this can be. I am acknowledging this, at last. Let me know what you think so we can begin this next phase in a way that would ensure that there was no grooming in the doing of it.
Rack: I need to concentrate on my own work. As is my habit, I get too involved in other people’s stuff in order to avoid my own. It would be awful to never hear from you, maybe there is somewhere in between.
Ruin: Yes, I couldn't stand not being in contact. I just need to rein in, to control my need to share, to get approval, awful 'boy stuff'.
Rack: god we might be growing up!!!!
Ruin: you know I hang on your every word, and can generate 1,000 words from ten from you. But yes, I can do it alone. But it's better with you. But I want you to do your work, not hinder you.
It's time to grow fucking up, for me anyway, you decide when it's your time. 68, little boy lost hasn't got the same appeal. I can't help but think I can do this quicker; I have all the raw material.
‘Don't Confront Me With My Failures’.
I am so pleased to have gotten here, this plateau of seemingly controllable desire. This burgeoning hormonal hiatus, brought on by years, disease, and the medications for the same ‘affliction’. Even surviving thus far seems somewhat miraculous, from that point of childhood abuse to this unexpected seniority, an adulthood of sorts. It was almost arrived at through no obvious intervention of my own, but there may be some evidence there that could suggest differently. It would seem that all energies were set in self-destruct mode. There was so much luck involved in generating that continuance, but there were also interventions, practical ones, like the leaps and bounds made by science in this age we live in, but also the intervention of loved ones, not family, but those rather who recognized an aspect of 'self' in the 'other' along the way, and stopped long enough to develop mutual caring.
These writings are dedicated to two of these paragons. Rack, the titular, and ‘Hem Binnen’, the Dutch ‘Him Indoors’ who saved my life.
As to my failings, I know them intimately and will expose them in all their tawdriness as I continue.
"There was an old man named Michael Finnegan
He had whiskers on his chinnegan
The wind came along and blew them in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan"
Begin Again.
Fail again, Fail Better, as our fellow countryman, that other writer in Paris, would have it.
But then beginning again is just moving forward.
Ruin, Ruin, Ruin, what in god’s name were you up to? Neither of us believe in that geezer with the grey hair, on a cloud, but my exasperation needs letting out, so there he sits omnipotent. Just so you know, I was watching all those 68 years, and I can clearly see the stories you have been telling yourself. It’s almost as if I had nothing better to do than watch over you. But, I guess, someone had to, and that judgmental geezer with his tablet of ten regulations wasn’t really up to that job, now or then, was he? So, I hung around watching, and more or less saw it all, except for those times I might have been comatose in a Ketamine or alcohol haze, beside you. You may have gotten up to some shenanigans at those junctures when I wasn’t exactly compos mentis. My apologies if I missed out on any of your multitudinous ‘calls for help’. None of us are perfect, as you well know. Before we start, get going that is, I should also say that I intend hanging around, watching over you, until your sticky, or otherwise, end. I wouldn’t miss that unravelling for all the gilt bronzes in Tibet. I am in it for the long run, as they say, whoever 'they' might be. I know you are having those memory holes, those vast and growing ever-expanding black holes, but don’t worry there, Ruin. I think I can help out with this, even. You see, I kept a written record, I know, sneaky, but it’s the nature of the graphomaniacal beast, one of my own little foibles that might actually aid and abet your storytelling. I believe we might have shared that letter writing mania, that drive to communicate through correspondence, but we have never really written to each other, have we? I suspect that is about to change. I hope so anyway.
Rack, Sorcha and Thalia inspired you to write, I can see that, mostly by being able to tolerate you, it would appear. Perhaps you brought out a mothering aspect in their natures when they saw you in some considerable distress relative to that early abuse. Perhaps it was something else too, some mutual need. There were others too, mostly female others, those correspondents, with the exception of Jonathan, who would be deserving of a separate story, perhaps. Rack spoke of them as the ‘Good Mothers’, those interventional women, those lifesavers.
Which more or less takes us to the ‘invisible man’, that centre of those black, expanding, holes, those memory lapses, the ‘Good Father’, or any father at all for that matter. He was purportedly there, constantly in the background, and often used as a threat, but he was there. I seem to remember you even put some photographs of him up on your antiquated Meta site, Flickr. I do see that there might be an absence there, a vacuum, and I have seen all the extremes you have gone to fill that infinite hole. So here I am, a Nelson Eddy to your Jeanette MacDonald (I know, camp and hopelessly dated, I am sorry about that), a top to your bottom, as Jonathan would have it.
Write to me, I will write back. Just don’t call me ‘Daddy’, that’s just one step too far, and I know, and understand, your tendency to always overstep those boundaries. I am willing to play at being the ‘Good Father’, until you learn to do that for yourself. I really wouldn't do this for anyone else in this whole wide world, so hopefully this will help you begin to feel better about yourself.
Onwards and upwards as the aforementioned 'they' like to say, tomorrow being the first day of the rest of your life and all that cliched palaver. I will do my very best to rein all that corn in as we proceed, a struggle I know. I do believe we might have a job to do, and It's way beyond time to get on with it.
I've got your back, for what it's worth.
Best Regards,
Top
25 September 2022
Dearest Top,
Embracing the fear of possibly going full Ham, Shem and Japheth, I am going to have to name you. I can’t call you 'Top' for the duration of our correspondence, disregarding the reality that the Top/Bottom synergy thing doesn’t even hold anymore, now that one is post-gay, post-sex, and approaching post-everything, what with oblivion waving tantalisingly, as it is, from the border of that widening gyre (tips hat towards W.B.) of our beloved ‘event horizon’. I think I have even found a name for you. Its partially catholic, even, from that miasma of childhood memories, that “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church, and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom”.
Okay Rock, I am giving you the keys. You, for a while anyway, can be the designated driver, Petrus, that's you, that dependable rock, rock of the walk, even, rock of ages, my Tio Pepe port in a storm, my fellow geriatric mariner. Lash me to your, larger than average, mast, we're off.
Welcome to Rack & Ruin, and Rock! It does have a certain alliterative ring, n'est-ce pas? (TYFTC). Fasten your seatbelts, we might be in for somewhat of a bumpy ride.
Deliriously yours,
Queerqueg von Lederhosen
PS: Are you sure this device works for blocked sinuses?
PPS: Relative to the acronym used in this photoplay, please see photo below, entitled: L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.H.I.V+O.A.P
It ain’t heavy, it’s my acronym.
Dearest Wuufus Wainscotting,
Sorry to her about your troat. Don’t they be at the doing of the blessing of that same gorge anymore, at all, at all? Probably not, I would guess. Perhaps the only church what did it is now boarded up, or turned into a leisure centre where they give Irish dancing lessons to all those young, eager, coiled-springy girls, with the revolving legs and primary-colour gúnas (Gaelic for frocks), in plastic ringlets. You know the ones; they make those Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders girls look like vestal virgins, pushed on by their mammies, hello Bernadette Peters, to excel in all that leaping and jiggery-pokery, moving downstage like one of those roman phalanxses, putting the fear of God in every daecent catolick. Anyway, I diverge.
Talking of Catholics, no, you ain’t Rock. Rock’s his name, not Peter, or Petrus, or any of those Roman shenanigans, just clear old plain, and sturdy, ‘Rock’, as in that island lodged between the East River, and the Hudson (where I met my beloved Rack), if you get my drift, and the rock of me birth, that emerald-green one you are presently lodged up the backside of. I will admit he is partial to the odd glass of Theo Pepys, and has been known to take an occasional dash along the boreens of the Adirondacks brandishing that emblematic, blue-striped axe. That Daniel Dye Sluice could play him in a moving picture extravaganza, ‘The Last of the Tops’, or somesuch, Oscar fodder no doubt, probably to be found, eventually, in the ‘Science Fiction’ section of our favourite ‘Blokebuster’, down that windy old boreen of a bog road.
And what does every poor Irish boy need, dare I say, what does every boy need? I answer here and now, without much hesitation, other than the time it takes to take a gulp of coffee, with a slice of me iced-duck, so that I can take me slew of morning pilules; every boy needs a Rock. You can see that I am substituting, intermittently, the ‘me’ for ‘my’. I do believe I might be enjoying heading for a little regression, and sure why not, on this fine rainy Amsterdam morning? There’s neery a rock here, on this damp sponge of a low-lying place, so a lad would have to be going about inventing his own boulder to support him. And that is simply what I do be doing, as Frank S. used to like to sing.
Do be, do be, do, what were the chances?
But I regress. Where was I?
I remember. I was in Amsterdam about to take me ‘Daddy’s little helpers’, those much-loved lifesavers (said pilules). All praise science and all that palaver. I sit here pin-cushioned, enjoying the wonderful side-effects of the Monkeypox vaccine, and looking forward to when I can enjoy the same from the latest Covid update. Unfortunately, I have to wait a month for that second one, a recommended period of time between that first and second vaccine to ensure they don’t conjoin in some diabolical conspiracy to turn me into a 4G antenna, or something similar.
Pillar of salt, Lot’s wife’s lot, and how’s your mother?
I don’t think for a minute that that naughty Mr. Gates is out to chip me. As I said, pincushion here, and if he felt a yearning to chip yours truly, he could have had me eons ago. Have at it, Bill. Take me, I was, formerly, anybody’s anyway, writing bad cheques willy-nilly.
And breathe.
‘Comhbhrú na cruinne ina carraig, agus rolladh i dtreo ceist ró-mhór í’, (trans: Compress the universe into a rock and roll it towards a bloody huge question) as the plagarised ancient Irish bard might have warbled, and more than likely did.
No, it isn’t that Rack is non-responsive, it’s more that I am giving her a break from all my 'raiméis' (Gaelic for general doo-doo, shite for want of a better word). It's all been 'ri ra agus ruaile buaile', (gaelic for a gas craic) as far as I am concerned. We have chewed the cud now for 35 long, wonderful, and somewhat excruciating years. That’s not altogether true. We lived on that same rock of Manhattan for 11 years, then wrote to each other for 24 years after that. There are probably a million words lurking there. I think that you recognize that I love letter writing, or it’s modern equivalent anyway, the email. The problem is that the unwieldy words are there, and they are just a part of what lurks on my hard-drive, and I suspect it’s going to take my ‘Rock’ to sort them out. Rock has a pithy character, he takes no prisoners, that tough-love stuff, that ability to tell you when you are being an eejit. Ruin needs Rock more than I do, possibly (oops, reality check there). Anyway, Rack and Ruin could chew the cud relentlessly forever, they could easily become that universal methane generator, much feared of by the powers that do be sitting there Canute-like, holding the tide back, in Brussels.
Carraig is the Irish word for Rock, just so you know. Would that not be a great ‘secret’ name, one to make any mammy proud? “Come on over here, darling Carraig, and let me wipe your nose wit me sleeve, you’re snottin all over de kip”. It doesn’t get much better than that in my book. Did you know that kip is the Dutch for chicken?- just saying.
I used to love, back on that old Manhattan Rock, when Rack used to croon "It's not your frock my dear", then look at me as if wisdom had been imparted. Rack knew how to make Ruin laugh, it was sort of a mutual thing. It was some 'Hibernafold', sweep me into your fold my dear, understanding stranded between laughing and screaming, that wondrous type of hysteria, infectious, scary, and lovely (Oxford comma usage there, blimey). Pronouns be damned, we know who we are. A pox on all your pronouns, here's to universal interchangeability!
Mise Lemas,
Ruin O’ Carraig (Gaelic for Ruin, son of Rock)
It’s time to get back to that ‘crux’ as Rack called it. It will be slightly different this time, as I won’t be telling it to her, I will be telling it to myself, and to Rock, perhaps. Perhaps this part needs looking at, not only from Ruin’s viewpoint, but from that slightly cynical over-arching perspective that he might be able to bring to this dissection, this evisceration, this vomiting up. I guess it isn’t really about what happened anyway, I mean the details of what happened, these I won’t be telling, but rather the reactions to these stimuli on that rather delicate entity that the child, Ruin, was. He was a stammering wreck of a neglected child, and this was the first time anyone had ever paid any attention to him There was nothing in his arsenal to deal with the repercussions, and no one available who might proffer some help or even a suggestion of an explanation. It happened in cold darkness, and in silence. It happened in his gut.
It was most definitely where it happened, there, in the pit of his stomach. He still remembers that feeling, vividly. Yes, that’s present tense, remembers, not remembered. That stays forever, at least for the forever that describes the length of a life, but it can also be projected into a future, through these words, beyond that ‘life’s sentence’. Technically apparently, the hippocampus shrinks, and entombs the memory, creates an imprint that asserts itself for a life’s duration. That’s the sentence, that’s the imprisonment. And why would you want to project that into the future, that delicately butterflied stomach, the answer would be simply to give it a description, to, perhaps, proffer that absent help, or a suggestion of an explanation.
He/I/we/they needed Rock there to help explain it to him. He loved that grab-bag of pronouns, a new freedom generated by contemporary politics, which would allow him to seamlessly segue from one to another. Rock could provide the ‘You’, that objective overview, perhaps. He always loved that wonderfully funny narcissistic joke: I am getting sick and tired of relentlessly talking about myself, can you take over and talk about me for a while?
Okay Rock, do you want to take over, to give a kid a break?
Come on “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee”
1 Oct 2022, 3.08PM CEST
Thalia,
Strange this idea of letter-writing. I do see it has been excessive, something I have always done too much of, finding some validation there, I would guess. In a way, I want to turn that around. Perhaps I have been inflicting my ‘graphomania’ on others for two long now and it’s time to take responsibility for that myself. I know it’s too easy a diagnosis, one of those that was bandied about some years ago, another over-arching description that, perhaps, doesn’t mean much. That’s something I learnt from you, the need to circumvent easy characterisations.
Your: “Yes, It's always interesting when communication happens, but it is also alright with me when it doesn't, for any reason. Nobody can be a perfect Victorian-style correspondent now, even I can't.”
That was somewhat of a turning point for me in this, that note, it worked for me. It set me of on some realisation of what I might have been getting up to, over the last few years, and how this might have been somewhat unfair. You probably saw that acknowledged already under ‘A Less Comforting Narrative, (Turku, Finland)’, as I know what a sleuth you can be, acknowledging your “I saw!”. I must admit that I like that you saw.
Yes, I guess at some point there might be editing, heavy editing, I imagine, but I am not feeling at all, at the moment, that this is my job. I feel like I am still working through it and into it, getting the substance of it all together. I am currently at that ‘abuse phase’, I have been trying to explain to Rack that my mother is not to blame, and neither was my father, they were just carrying on what they knew, their abuse and abandonment. The more I move on the more I realise I have to talk about universal ‘innocence’, and when I say universal, I mean exactly that, a forgiveness that pardons Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler, even, those unspeakable outrages against decency and humanity. This ‘innocence’ doesn’t negate the need for absolute quarantine in cases such as these. For what it’s worth I hold no truck with death sentences, no matter how extreme the actions of the perpetrator of the outrage. It’s a strange journey, that getting around to forgiving everyone so you can forgive yourself, but that does seem to be what I am up to, so I will take it as far as I can. It feels like a good, a necessary, journey.
I have been spending the last week releasing Rack, letting go, trusting. Then lo and behold, along came Roc
Our text-book tackles the history, aesthetics, culture (and much more) of video games (now in stores)
photographer: xergs
location: malasag cdo,Philippines
Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art.
--Alan Dean Foster--
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CINEMA DIGITAL
A Study of 4D Julia sets
Baraka / Baraka from DVD to 4K / Baraka with the monkey
Beatbox360
Enquanto a noite não chega (While we wait for the night â?" first Brazilian film in 4K)/(primeiro filme brasileiro em 4k)
Era la Notte
Flight to the Center of the Milky Way
Growth by aggregation 2
Jet Instabilities in a stratified fluid flow
Keio University Concert
Manny Farber (Tribute to)
Scalable City
The Nonlinear Evolution of the Universe
The Prague train
FILE INOVAÇÃO / FILE INNOVATION
Interface Cérebro-Computador – Eduardo Miranda
Sistema comercial de Reconhecimento Automático - Genius Instituto de Tecnologia
Robô de visão omnidirecional – Jun Okamoto
Loo Table: mesa interativa - André V. Perrotta, Erico Cheung e Luis Stateri dos Santos, da empresa Loodik
Simulador de Ondas e Simulador de Turbilhão - Steger produção de efeitos especiais ltda.
GAMES INSTALAÇÕES / INSTALLATIONS GAMES
Giles Askham – Aquaplayne
Jonah Warren & Steven Sanborn – Transpose
Jonah Warren & Steven Sanborn – Full Body Games
Fabiano Onça e Coméia – Tantalus Quest
Julian Oliver - levelHead
GAMES
Andreas Zecher – Understanding Games
Andrei R. Thomaz – Cubos de Cor
Arvi Teikari – Once In Space
Fabrício Fava – Futebolando
Golf Question Mark – Golf
Introversion.co.uk – Darwinia
Jens Andersson and Ida Rödén – Rorschach
Jonatan Söderström – CleanAsia!
Jonatan Söderström – AdNauseum2
Jorn Ebner – sans femme et sans avieteur
Josh Nimoy – BallDroppings
Josiah Pisciotta – Gish
Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg – Thinking Machine 7
Mariana Rillo – Desmanche
Mark Essen - Punishment: The punishing
Mark Essen - RANDY BALMA: MUNICIPAL ABORTIONIST
Playtime – SFZero
QUBO GAS: Jef Ablézot, Morgan Dimnet & Laura Henno - WATERCOULEUR PARK
QueasyGames - Jonathan Mak – Everyday Shooter
R-S-G: Radical Software Group - Kriegspiel - Guy Debord's Game of War
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – On a Rainy Day
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – Cytoplasm
Shalin Shodhan (www.experimentalgameplay.com) – Particle Rain
Tales of Tales: Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn - The Graveyard
Tanja Vujinovic – Osciloo
ThatGameCompany – Jenova Chen – Clouds
ThatGameCompany – Jenova Chen - flOw
JOGOS BR
JOGOS BR 1
Ayri - Uma Lenda Amazônica - Sylker Teles da Silva / Outline Interactive
Capoeira Experience - Andre Ivankio Hauer Ploszaj / Okio Serviços de Comunicação Multimídia Ltda.
Cim-itério - Wagner Gomes Carvalho / Green Land Studios
Incorporated (Emprego Maluco) - Tiago Pinheiro Teixeira / Interama Jogos Eletrônicos
Iracema Aventura – Odair Gaspar / Perceptum Software Ltda.
Nevrose: Sangue e Loucura Sob o Sol do Sertão - Rodrigo Queiroz de Oliveira
/ Gamion Realidade Virtual & Games
Raízes do Mal – Marcos Cruz Alves / Ignis Entretenimento e Informática Ltda.
JOGOS BR 2 – Jogos Completos
Cave Days - Winston George A. Petty / Insolita Studios
Peixis!
(JOGO EM DESENVOLVIMENTO) - Wallace Santos Lages / Ilusis Interactive Graphics
JOGOS BR 2 – Demos Jogáveis
Brasilia Tropicalis - Thiago Salgado Aiache de Moraes / Olympya Games
Conspiração Dumont - Guilherme Mattos Coutinho
Flora - Francisco Oliveira de Queiroz
Fórmula Galaxy – Artur Corrêa / Vencer Consultoria e Projetos Ltda.
Inferno - Alexandre Vrubel / Continuum Entertainment Ltda
Lex Venture - Tiago Pinheiro Teixeira / Interama Jogos Eletrônicos
Trem de Doido (DEMO EM DESENVOLVIMENTO) - Marcos André Penna Coutinho
Zumbi, o rei dos Palmeiras - Nicholas Lima de Souza
HIPERSÔNICA / HIPERSONICA
Hipersônica Performance
Andrei Thomaz, Francisco Serpa, Lílian Campesato e Vitor Kisil – Sonocromática
Bernhard Gal – Gal Live
+Zero: Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri, Jonattas Marcel Poltronieri, Raphael Dall'Anese - +Zero do Brasil
Luiz duVa - Concerto para duo de laptops
Henrique Roscoe (a.k.a. 1mpar) – HOL
Jose Ignacio Hinestrosa e Testsu Kondo – Fricciones
Alexandre Fenerich e Giuliano Obici – Nmenos1
Orqstra de Laptops de São Paulo - EvEnTo 3 Movimentos para Orquestra
Hipersônica Participantes
Agricola de Cologne - soundSTORY - sound as a tool for storytelling
Jen-Kuan Chang – Drishti II
Jen-Kuan Chang – Discordance
Jen-Kuan Chang – Nekkhamma
Jen-Kuan Chang - She, Flush, Vegetable, Lo Mein, and Intolerable Happiness
Jerome Soudan – Mimetic
Matt Lewis e Jeremy Keenan – Animate Objects
Robert Dow - Precipitation within sight
Tetsu Kondo – Dendraw
Tomas Phillips – Drink_Deep
INSTALAÇÕES / INSTALLATIONS
Anaisa Franco – Connected Memories
Andrei Thomaz & Sílvia Laurentiz – 1º Subsolo
Graffiti Research Lab – Various
Hisako K. Yamakawa – Kodama
r3nder.net+i2off.org – is.3s
Jarbas Jacome – Crepúsculo dos Ídolos
Julio Obelleiro & Alberto García – Magnéticos
Julio Obelleiro & Alberto García – The Magic Torch
Mariana Manhães – Liquescer (Jarrinho)
Mariana Manhães – Liquescer (Jarrinho Azul)
Rejane Cantoni e Leonardo Crescenti – PISO
Sheldon Brown – Scalable City
Soraya Braz e Fábio FON – Roaming
Takahiro Matsuo – Phantasm
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Outer Space IP
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Phantasma
Ursula Hentschlaeger – Binary Art Site
SYMPOSIUM
Agnus Valente
Anaisa Franco
Andre Thomaz e Silvia Laurentiz
Christin Bolewski
Giles Askham
Graffiti Research Lab: James Powderly
Hidenori Watanave
Ivan Ivanoff e Jose Jimenez
Jarbas Jácome
João Fernando Igansi Nunes
Marcos Moraes
Mediengruppe Bitnik; Carmen Weisskopf, Domagoj Smoljo, Silvan Leuthold, Sven König [SWI]
Mesa Redonda (LABO) - Cicero Silva, Lev Manovich (teleconferencia) e Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Mesa Redonda [BRA] – (Hipersônica) Renata La Rocca, Gabriela Pereira Carneiro, Ana Paula Nogueira de Carvalho, Clarissa Ribeiro Pereira de Almeida. Mediação: Vivian Caccuri
Mesa Redonda [BRA] - [Ministro da Cultura: Gilberto Gil | Secretário do Audiovisual do Ministério da Cultura: Sílvio Da-Rin | Secretário de Políticas Culturais do Ministério da Cultura: Alfredo Manevy ]
Mesa Redonda [BRA] - Inovação - Lala Deheinzelin, Gian Zelada, Alessandro Dalla, Ivandro Sanches, Eduardo Giacomazzi. Mediação: Joana Ferraz
Mesa Redonda 4k - Jane de Almeida, Sheldon Brownn, Mike Toillion, Todd Margolis, Peter Otto
Nardo Germano
Nori Suzuki
Sandra Albuquerque Reis Fachinello
Satoru Tokuhisa
Sheldon Brown
Soraya Braz e Fabio FON
Suzete Venturelli, Mario Maciel e bolsistas do CNPq/UnB (Johnny Souza, Breno Rocha, João Rosa e Samuel Castro [BRA]
Ursula Hentschlaeger
Valzeli Sampaio
Cinema Documenta FILE São Paulo 2008
Antonello Matarazzo – Interferenze – Itália / Italy
Bruno Natal - Dub Echoes – Brasil / Brazil
Carlo Sansolo - Panoramika Eletronika - Brasil / Brazil
Kevin Logan – Recitation – Londres / London
Kodiak Bachine e Apollo 9 – Nuncupate – Brasil / Brazil
Linda Hilfing Nielsen - Participation 0.0 – Dinamarca
Maren Sextro e Holger Wick - Slices, Pioneers of Electronic Music – Vol.1 – Richie Hawtin Documentary – Alemanha / Germany
Matthew Bate - What The Future Sounded Like – Austrália
Thomas Ziegler, Jason Gross e Russell Charmo - OHM+ the early gurus of electronic music – Eua / USA
Mídia Arte FILE São Paulo 2008
[ fladry + jones ] Robb Fladry and Barry Jones - The War is Over 2007 – EUA / USA
Agricola de Cologne - One Day on Mars – Alemanha / Germany
alan bigelow - "When I Was President" – EUA / USA
Alessandra Ribeiro Parente Paes
Daniel Fernandes Gamez
Glauber Kotaki Rodrigues
Igor Albuquerque Bertolino
Karina Yuko Haneda
Marcio Pedrosa Tirico da Silva Junior – Reativo – Brasil / Brazil
Alessandro Capozzo – Talea – Itália / Italy
Alex Hetherington - Untitled (sexyback, folly artist) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Alexandre Campos, Bruno Massara e Lucilene Soares Alves - Novos Olhares sobre a Mobilidade – Brasil / Brazil
Alexandre Cardoso Rodrigues Nunes
Bruno Coimbra Franco
Diego Filipe Braga R. Nascimento
Fábio Rinaldi Batistine
Yumi Dayane Shimada – Abra Sua Gaveta – Brasil / Brazil
ALL: ALCIONE DE GODOY, ADILSON NG, CAMILLO LOUVISE COQUEIRO, MARINA QUEIROZ MAIA, RODOLFO ROSSI JULIANI, VINÍCIUS NAKAMURA DE BRITO – Vita Ex Maxina – Brasil / Brazil
Andreas Zingerle - Extension of Human sight – Áustria
Andrei R. Thomaz - O Tabuleiro dos Jogos que se bifurcam - First Person Movements - Brasil / Brazil
Andrei R. Thomaz e Marina Camargo – Eclipses – Brasil / Brazil
Brit Bunkley – Spin – Spite – Nova Zelândia – New Zeland
calin man – appendXship / Romênia
Carlindo da Conceição Barbosa
Kauê de Oliveira Souza
Guilherme Tetsuo Takei
Renato Michalischen
Ricardo Rodrigues Martins
Tassia Deusdara Manso
Thalyta de Almeida Barbosa / Da Música ao Caos – Brasil / Brazil
Christoph Korn – waldstueck – Alemanha / Germany
Corpos Informáticos: Bia Medeiros, Carla Rocha, Diego Azambuja, Fernando Aquino, Kacau Rodrigues, Márcio Mota, Marta Mencarini, Wanderson França – UAI 69 – Brasil / Brazil
Duda. – do pixel ao pixel – Brasil / Brazil
Daniel Kobayashi
Felipe Crivelli Ayub
Fernando Boschetti
Luiz Felipe M. Coelho
Marcelo Knelsen
Mauro Falavigna
Rafael de A. Campos
Wellington K. Guimarães Bastos - A Casa Dentro da Porta – Brasil / Brazil
David Clark - 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein – Canadá
Thais Paola Galvez
Josias Silva
Diego Abrahão Modesto
Nilson Benis
Vinicius Augusto Naka de Vasconcelos
Wilson Ruano Junior
Marcela Moreira da Silva – Rogério caos – Brasil / Brazil
Diogo Fuhrmann Misiti, Guilherme Pilz, João Henrique - Caleidoscópio Felliniano: 8 ½ - Brasil / Brazil
Agence TOPO: Elene Tremblay, Marcio Lana-Lopez, Maryse Larivière, Marie-Josée Hardy, James Prior - Mes / My contacts – Canadá / Canada
Eliane Weizmann, Fernando Marinho e Leocádio Neto – Storry teller – Brasil / Brazil
Fabian Antunes - Pousada Recanto Abaetuba – Brasil / Brazil
Edgar Franco e Fabio FON - Freakpedia - A verdadeira enciclopédia livre – Brasil / Brazil
Fernando Aquino – UAI Justiça – Brasil / Brazil
Henry Gwiazda - claudia and Paul - a doll's house is...... - there's whispering...... – EUA / USA
Architecture in Metaverse: Hidenori Watanave - "Archidemo" - Architecture in Metaverse – Hapão / Japan
Yto Aranda – Cyber Birds Dance – Chile
Dana Sperry - Sketch for an Intermezzo for the Masses, no. 7 – EUA / USA
Jorn Ebner - (sans femme et sans aviateur) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Josephine Anstey, Dave Pape - Office Diva – EUA / USA
Josh Fishburn – Layers – Waiting – EUA / USA
Karla Brunet – Peculiaris – Brasil / Brazil
Kevin Evensen - Veils of Light – EUA / USA
lemeh42 (santini michele and paoloni lorenza) - Study on human form and humanity #01 – Itália / Italy
linda hilfling e erik borra - misspelling generator – Dinamarca / Denmark
Lisa Link - If I Worked for 493 years – EUA / USA
Marcelo Padre – Estro – Brasil / Brazil
Martha Carrer Cruz Gabriel - Locative Painting - Brasil / Brazil
Martin John Callanan - I Wanted to See All of the News From Today – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Mateus Knelsen, Ana Clara, Felipe Vasconcelos, Rafael Jacobsen, Ronaldo Silva - A pós-modernidade em recortes: Tide Hellmeister e as relações Design e cultura – Brasil / Brazil
Mateus Knelsen, Felipe Szulc, Mileine Assai Ishii, Pamela Cardoso, Tânia Taura - Homo ex machina – Brasil / Brazil
Michael Takeo Magruder - Sequence-n (labyrinth) - Sequence-n (horizon) – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Michael Takeo Magruder + Drew Baker + David Steele - The Vitruvian World - Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Nina Simões - Rehearsing Reality ( An interactive non-linear docufragmentary) - Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Nurit Bar-Shai - Nothing Happens – EUA / USA
projectsinge: Blanquet Jerome - Monkey_Party – França / France
QUBO GAS - WATERCOULEUR PARK – França / France
rachelmauricio castro – 360 - R.G.B. – tybushwacka – Brasil / Brazil
Rafael Rozendaal - future physics – Netherlands
Regina Célia Pinto - Ninhos & Magia – Brasil / Brazil
Roni Ribeiro – Bípedes – Brasil / Brazil
Rubens Pássaro - ISTO NÃO É PARANÓIA – Brasil / Brazil
Rui Filipe Antunes – xTNZ – Brasil / Brazil
Selcuk ARTUT & Cem OCALAN – NewsPaperBox – Brazil
Tanja Vujinovic - "Without Title" – Switzerland
Hipersônica Screening – FILE São Paulo 2008
1mpar – hol – Brasil / Brazil
Art Zoyd - EYECATCHER 1 - EYECATCHER 2, Man with a movie camera - Movie-Concert for The Fall of the Usher House – França / France
Audiobeamers (FroZenSP and Klinid) - Paesaggi Liquidi II – Alemanha / Germany
Bernhard Loibner – Meltdown – Áustria
Bjørn Erik Haugen – Regress - Norway
Celia Eid e Sébastien Béranger – Gymel – França / France
Studio Brutus/Citrullo International - H2O – Itália / Italy
Daniel Carvalho - OUT_FLOW PART I – Brasil / Brazil
David Muth - You Are The Sony Of My Life – Reino Unido / United Kingdon
Dennis Summers - Phase Shift Vídeos – EUA / USA
Duprass - Liora Belford & Ido Govrin – Free Field – Pink / Noise – Israel
Fernando Velázquez – Nómada – Brasil / Brazil
Frames aka Flames - Performance audiovisual sincronizada: Sociedade pós-moderna, novas tecnologias e espaço urbano - Brasil / Brazil
Frederico Pessoa - butterbox – diving - Brasil / Brazil
Jay Needham - Narrative Half-life – EUA / USA
Soundsthatmatter – trotting – briji – Brasil / Brazil
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And there it was, the moment of rapture and understanding, being one with the surroundings and seeing it how it really is
This morning, a gentle breeze stirred as intermittent sunlight pierced through the clouds, illuminating the landscape. Understanding the importance of sunlight in nature photography, I attached the NikonTC14EII Teleconverter to my Nikkor500mm lens, eager to capture close-up shots, particularly of the industrious robins as they hurriedly built their nests. With the impending responsibilities of egg guarding and shared nutrition looming, these days were crucial for the avian community amidst the ongoing climate crisis.
As I entered Bradgate Park, my attention was immediately drawn to a jackdaw meticulously collecting nest materials. Further along, although the green woodpecker pair remained distant, I seized the opportunity to capture a rare moment of them side by side. Beyond the breeding season, these woodpeckers are solitary feeders, making the encounter all the more special.
After a rewarding three-hour excursion, on my way back to the car, I chanced upon a little egret. Concealing myself, I observed as it skillfully hunted amidst the flowing waters of the River Lin. With deft movements, it startled small fish, seizing its prey with precision before swallowing.
However, my primary focus for the morning was the beloved robin. Patiently, I watched the pair as they foraged, allowing them to acclimate to my presence. Finally, capturing one of their favorite poses beneath a "KEEP CLEAR" sign, I immortalized the moment with three captivating photographs.
With that, I conclude my nearly four-hour journey, sharing with you the highlights of my photo tour.
The Pied Wagtail, scientifically known as Motacilla alba, is a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae. Here's some detailed information about this fascinating bird:
Physical Description:
The Pied Wagtail is a slender bird with a long, black-and-white tail that constantly wags up and down, hence its name.
It has a distinctive black and white plumage, with a black head, throat, and upperparts, and white underparts.
Its wings are dark with white wing bars, and it has a black bib or breastband, which contrasts sharply with its white throat and belly.
Both males and females look alike, although males might have slightly longer tails.
Habitat:
Pied Wagtails are highly adaptable birds and can be found in various habitats, including urban areas, parks, gardens, farmland, riversides, and wetlands.
They prefer open areas with short vegetation, such as grasslands, fields, and lawns, where they can forage for insects and other small invertebrates.
Behavior:
As their name suggests, Pied Wagtails are known for their distinctive wagging tail movements, which are believed to serve various purposes, including communication, balance, and flushing out insects.
They are active birds, constantly moving about as they search for food. They have a characteristic walking gait, often bobbing their heads as they walk.
Pied Wagtails are generally social birds and are often seen in small flocks, especially during the non-breeding season.
Diet:
These birds are primarily insectivorous, feeding on a variety of small invertebrates, including flies, beetles, caterpillars, spiders, and worms.
They often forage on the ground, picking insects from the grass or soil, but they also catch insects in mid-air during aerial pursuits.
Breeding:
Pied Wagtails typically breed from April to July. They construct cup-shaped nests made of grass, leaves, and moss, lined with softer materials such as feathers and hair.
Nests are usually built in a concealed location, such as in crevices, among rocks, or in vegetation close to water bodies.
The female usually lays a clutch of 4-6 eggs, which are pale grey or buff with darker speckles. Both parents share the responsibilities of incubating the eggs and feeding the chicks.
Conservation Status:
The Pied Wagtail is widespread and abundant throughout its range, and its population is considered stable.
However, like many other bird species, it faces threats such as habitat loss, pollution, and predation by domestic cats.
Overall, it is not considered globally threatened, and its conservation status is of least concern.
Cultural Significance:
In folklore, the wagtail's constant tail-wagging is sometimes seen as a symbol of restlessness or nervousness.
In some cultures, the wagtail is considered a harbinger of good luck or prosperity.
These birds are also popular subjects in literature, art, and poetry, often celebrated for their lively and distinctive behavior.
Overall, the Pied Wagtail is a charming and adaptable bird, known for its distinctive appearance and behavior. Its presence in various habitats makes it a familiar sight to many people, whether in urban or rural settings.
I hope you'll enjoy the my images as much as I enjoyed taking them.
Thank you so much for visiting my stream, whether you comments , favorites or just have a look.
I appreciate it very much, wishing the best of luck and good light.
© All rights reserved R.Ertug Please do not use this image without my explicit written permission. Contact me by Flickr mail if you want to buy or use Your comments and critiques are very well appreciated.
Lens - With Nikon TC 14E II - hand held or Monopod and definitely SPORT VR on. Aperture is f8 and full length. All my images have been converted from RAW to JPEG.
I started using Nikon Cross-Body Strap or Monopod on long walks. Here is my Carbon Monopod details : Gitzo GM2542 Series 2 4S Carbon Monopod - Really Right Stuff MH-01 Monopod Head with Standard Lever - Really Right Stuff LCF-11 Replacement Foot for Nikon AF-S 500mm /5.6E PF Lense -
Young Ten was at the guest house just after 7:30. He went across the street and got me the potato curry and naan for my breakfast. We left for the Shangri-la airport just after 8. It was about 15 minutes away. I had a connecting flight in Kunming, but Young Ten was able to check my bag all the way to Xishuangbanna. However my two bags now weighed too much to check both of them on a domestic flight. I had to carry one. The flight was less than an hour. I only had a short wait in Kunming.
Flying into Xishuangbanna was gorgeous. There are rows and rows of manicured rubber trees along the lush green hills. I found out later that these all used to be old growth forests and during the cultural revolution, the workers from the city (the ones needing re-education) had to clear the forests and plant the rubber trees. Now rubber is big business here. Tea and rice are secondary.
Xishuangbanna has a long history as the tea plant was discovered there sometime around 2700 BC. Originally tea was used for medicinal purposes, but Lu Yu (sometimes called the father of tea) popularized tea. He wrote about tea cultivation, the best ways to make and drink it, which utensils to use, and the best water sources for tea. Slowly by 1000 AD, tea had evolved from a medicinal beverage to more of a social custom and tradition for China's elite.
Tea used to grow on trees in old growth forests. In this part of China, there are still wild tea trees. Some being trees from cultivated plants that were let to grow wild due to lack of care. But there are other trees that grow wild in the forest. Many tea trees in this area are hundreds of years old.
I knew the weather would be hot and tropical. But when I left Shangri-la in the morning, it was still cool. I was
definitely overdressed for Xishuangbanna. My guide Tony was there waiting for me. He was half Dai and half Han Chinese. At first I thought he was going to be a great guide. But found out later his understanding of English was not as good as I originally thought. I asked if he wanted to see my itinerary to be sure it was the same as his. He said no, it was fine. Instead he was trying to sell me tickets for some musical performance this evening at like 400 yuan ($60). I said that I was not interested. The guides are not supposed to do this and they know it. I was dropped off at the hotel and they would pick me up tomorrow at 8:30.
I wanted to make sure I had a good hotel here. Xishuangbanna is near the Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand borders. It's an earthquake prone zone. There were two relatively large quakes in the last six months so I had to have a sturdy building. I've heard some horrible stories about sub-par buildings in China. For Chinese standards my hotel was listed as 4 star, but for my own personal standards it was somewhere around 3. It was clean but well worn.
Anyway it had air conditioning. I needed to cool down and take a shower after all my traveling and climate changes. I showered and set out to explore Xishuangbanna or more properly the city of Jinghong.
So starting this morning my day changed from the beginning of spring at 3600 meters to a lush tropical rainforest with summer heat and humidity and at 600 meters. This was a weird and strange feeling all in one day. But I embraced where I was now. In the part of San Francisco where I live, it is rare to be outside in the afternoon and especially the evening this time of the year without a jacket (and sometimes even hat, scarf, and gloves).
So as it turned out, this was a very centrally located hotel to the restaurants and cafes. All I had to do was turn right and walk less than a quarter mile and all the western travelers and ex-pats were here, mixed in with some Chinese tourists and locals. I went to the first place that had wifi and an English and Chinese menu. I thought about tea for a second. Then ordered a beer. It was so hot just walking down the street such a short distance. I couldn't imagine drinking something warm.
I hadn't really eaten since my great breakfast, so I was hungry and ordered Yangshou fried rice. It went perfectly with the beer. When I finished eating and was still sipping the beer, Nicole sat down at a table near mine.
We started chatting immediately. She was from Australia (originally Cannes). She had just finished taking the test to teach English in China. She would hear the results in 14 days. I think she said she wanted to teach in Guilin or Yangshou? I can't seem to remember now. She had been traveling in Laos most recently and had only been here a day or two before I arrived. She ordered a beer too and then we continued to hang out and split another beer. I didn't want to drink all day since I just arrived and wanted to explore. And because of the hot weather it would have been easy. We exchanged email and hoped to meet up later or for dinner, etc.
I had purchased a map at the hotel. As soon as I went to use it, I realized it was mainly in Chinese. However, I got an idea of the city lay out, parks, etc.
I couldn't get over the people here. Looking at them, I really felt like I wasn't in China. The Dai people are the largest ethnic minority in this region. Many of the signs would give the Chinese, English, and this third language. I thought it might be Thai. Later I found out it was the Dai language. It is a cross between Thai and Laos. Although, speaking the language, Dai, Thai, and Laos are very similar.
I headed towards a mainly local neighborhood. There was a mini market on the streets and I saw all types of fruits and veggies as usual. This time, I saw some eel too. The temples here were different. We were back to more of the Indian influenced Buddhism versus Tibetan. Many women were dressed in what looked to me more like a traditional Thai dress or some sort of cross between Indian and Thai. Again really beautiful colors and patterns, but not as ornate as the saris.
Lots of buildings had elephants on them and there were many sculptures of elephants around too. I turned around and walked the other direction. Then I tried to find some places that were listed in the guidebook. There weren't very many recommendations in this city, so I figured I would check them all out.
The Wangtianshu Deli actually had a lot of western products, homemade breads, but the homemade sweet section had already been picked over. If I wanted to find something here, it would have to be early morning. I book marked it on my map just in case.
I was also keeping a watch for tea houses and some nice teaware. There were several tea shops but none that looked so inspiring.
I kept walking. It was still light out, but the night market was setting up. There was some interesting stuff. I'll probably walk by it again soon as it is close to the hotel. By now it was 8 or 9 and I was hungry again. I went to MeiMei Cafe. I could get local Dai noodles and a pot of puerh. There is seating indoors, outdoors, and a patio in the back. I hung out for a while and people watched as I drank my tea. I headed back to the hotel by 11.
The following day, I met my guide and we were heading to the elephant sanctuary and the Dai village. Just as we started driving he told me today we would be going to the Botanical Gardens first then the elephant sanctuary. I said there is a mistake. Can we please stop the car and straighten this out. I knew I should have discussed this with him yesterday. So he reviewed my itinerary, made some phone calls, and then we headed to the Dai village. I also made him read the rest of my itinerary too to make sure there were no more surprises.
We went to the village first and then the local market. There was a buddhist temple. Again, this was rebuilt after it had been destroyed during the cultural revolution. We walked by the local homes. Typically the homes are on two floors and built on stilts. The downstairs is where the animals live and is used for food storage. Then the bedrooms are on the second floor. Each family had such beautiful gardens. Tony knows a lot about the local plants. He showed me papayas, mangoes, plum trees, peach trees, black pepper plants, lemon grass, jack fruit, teak wood trees, and probably a few more. I was impressed. The Dai people mainly are farmers.
We got back in the car and drove a little way to see the local market. I walked for around 45 minutes. This market was huge. It was inside a large covered area. You could get any type of spice, fruit, noodles (either for take away or to cook at your home later) vegetables, chicken (dead or alive), meat, snakes, toys, fabrics, etc. The market is there and is this size every single day.
The drive there and back was along the Mekong River. There were hills rising up on both sides and the predominant thing growing was rubber trees.
This road was really bumpy. Apparently it was being re-surfaced. I noticed a chairlift going over the river and asked what it was. Right now it was closed down due to the road construction, but it goes to a monkey sanctuary.
So we were now on the way to the elephant sanctuary. In my mind, I had such a different thought of what this would be like. Instead of really being a sanctuary, it was more of a theme park. There were so many buses filled with tourists.
I specifically had written in my itinerary--no elephant show. Tony asked me if I wanted to watch the elephant show??? Then he said we should eat as it was noon. I told him I wasn't hungry. We both had eaten a huge buffet breakfast at my hotel at 8. I said maybe we should eat later. Everyone was watching the elephant show right now so it would be pretty quiet at the park. He said he wanted to eat. I asked him if this place right here was the only place in the entire park you could get something to eat. I asked him twice. He said yes. So he went to eat while I walked around.
I saw several other places to eat besides, where he went. I went to look at some of the snake and outdoor exhibits. I couldn't tell if Tony and I were having communication problems due to cultural differences or if he didn't really understand English that well.
We met a little later and went to see the butterfly area. This section was completely enclosed in a large dome shape. There were lots of plants inside that attracted butterflies.
Then we walked to get in line for the chairlift. The bird show just letting out and everyone was also running to get in line for the chairlift.
The line ended up taking about 20 minutes. The chairlift ride itself took about 30 minutes. It was beautiful. The lush tropical forests were below. There were mountains in the distance. Several times a car passed by in the opposite direction and someone was playing the wooden flute. We went uphill on the lift for a while then we would go back down and then back up again.
Finally we got off with everyone else. I waited a while to let the groups go through. I figured there would be absolutely no chance to see an elephant while hanging out with 50 people and a loudspeaker. I walked slowly and took a lot of pictures. Finally the big group got ahead of us. There was a walkway which was mostly elevated. There were also a lot of Eco-huts sprinkled around the beginning of the park. These were now closed. Apparently you used to be able to spend the night here. I don't know why they closed them. The accommodations were pretty basic, but it would have been cool to see the elephants beneath you.
I also found out that the park adds salt to the lake below to attract the elephants to the tourist path. We could see footprints here and there but I knew there would be no chance to see elephants. Tony told me that early in the morning and then after 4 in the afternoon are the best times to see the elephants. After walking about the first 10 minutes, I finally began to enjoy the park for what it was--just being out in nature. The cicadas were making such loud noises. We actually saw some on the tree branches. Apparently if locals find them, soon they will cooked up in hot oil and eaten.
From time to time, Tony would point out new and different plant species that we hadn't seen before. The total walk was about 40 minutes. I also asked him when was the last time he actually saw an elephant at this park. I was really skeptical that it ever happened. But he said it was less than a month ago. I was really surprised.
So when we got back to the car, I was trying to tell Tony that I really wanted to see the big tea trees. I asked him if it was possible when we met again in two days, if we could skip the Hani village and go to see the big tea trees. He said it would cost a lot of money. I said how could that be? I showed him where it was on the map and it was just before we would reach the tea plantation.
I told him that maybe I will take a bus on my own then. I asked him to write down for me the directions to get there or the names of the towns nearby in Chinese and he wouldn't.
I was very frustrated. I then asked him what the best hotel in the entire city was. I said if the president of China came here, where would he stay? He pointed to a place on the map, that was very close to my hotel. The reason I asked him this is that I wanted to try to find an English speaker to help me get to the big tea trees. Worst case scenario, they would have good teas in the hotel so I could drink tea.
I told him I will contact my travel coordinator in Shanghai. Maybe something could be done to change my schedule. We agreed to meet at 8:30 in two days.
I was hungry when we got back so I went out to eat. It was getting close to dinner time. I still didn't know what to do about the tea trees. I wanted to do that more than anything and had a free day tomorrow and again two days later.
I went to the Mekong Cafe. The menu was outside the cafe and the owner quickly came by to explain it to me. He was originally from France but married a local woman and has a 4 year old child.
Just as I was sitting down I saw Nicole. She asked me to join her. She was talking to a couple. He was from Melbourne. She was from China originally, but they met in Melbourne five years ago where she was studying English.
It sounded like he has several businesses in Australia, but he also opened up a guesthouse 5 kilometers from Lijiang. He said it's peaceful and quiet and there are great views. It sounded more like it was his holiday home and whenever was convenient for him, he would allow guests. At some point he would have a restaurant too. As he continued to talk, it sounded more like she was going to get stuck running it while he hung out and drank beers with his friends. He said there is a tight group of expats in Lijiang. There are about 40 of them running various businesses.
Nicole and I caught up briefly about what we had been up to and what we were doing later today. Also the owner dropped by and gave us each a good map in English! I told Nicole about my desire to see the big tea trees and that I didn't know how I was going to get there. She said that maybe I should ask the Chinese woman to translate a couple a words and then I would at least have a starting point tomorrow. She said I should hurry though because they are leaving soon, and then they are going back to Lijiang.
I went up to the woman and showed her in the lonely planet guide where it was marked "king of tea trees" on the map. She said she had never heard of it before. I said I thought there were some very old tea trees there. 300-500 years for sure but possibly older.
She looked at the book and the two maps I gave her. She wrote the English and Chinese words for me for king of tea trees, Nannoushan, and then ask how to get to Banpolaozhai.
Wow, this was at least a start. I didn't know if I would go tomorrow or wait and see if I can get the guide to take me.
I ordered food and Nicole was just finishing up. Then we split another beer. She was trying to get to the rice terraces in the east. She had heard that the bus left at 6:30 in the morning and there is only one bus per day. This bus wouldn't even get her all the way. She would have to stay overnight and transfer to another bus. Her second problem was that she had to get to a bank and convert her Thai money to Chinese before she could go. She didn't think she was going to get there tomorrow. Then she said maybe she would end up going to Kunming instead. She didn't want to miss the rice terraces, but couldn't afford to waste another day when her time was limited.
I told her I was going to head out and walk to this hotel my guide told me about. It was supposedly really nice. They would probably have good tea and maybe an English speaker.
So she said she wanted to come. I was glad to have someone with me. But I was so used to walking around by myself even at night. We both said that we felt very safe here.
We walked by the night market. They were just setting up. She showed me the teapot she had been eyeing. A Chinese man came up to us and started speaking English. She asked the merchant how much. After she said the price, the man told her the price she could really get it for if she was a good bargainer.
He had told us he just got done working on a co-sponsored project with the Chinese and Germans. It was a three year project on climate change. He said he had learned quite a bit himself just being a translator. He was a nice man and we chatted a little more with him. Then we headed for the hotel or tea or whatever. It looked like this hotel was in a park.
When we got there it looked large and beautiful from the outside. From the inside there was a huge lobby but not one person hanging out. We went to the front desk to see if the woman could be any help. She didn't speak English and there was no tea house. So we used the restrooms. There was no way this hotel was the best hotel in the city.
We turned around. We had passed a few tea houses on the way. Maybe we should go for tea anyway. There was one on my google map. We tried asking some people if they knew where it was. Nicole spoke a little Chinese.
We kept being sent to different places with no luck. Then we walked to the opposite side of the street where the park was. We found a family exiting a restaurant and they were helpful. What we think they said was turn left and when you come to an intersection turn left again and you will find a tea house. Nicole was a good sport. She hadn't been to any tea houses in China yet so she wanted to keep up the search. We finally found it. It was quite large and there were three older woman there drinking tea.
She tried asking in Chinese if we could taste tea. They didn't understand her so I just said "puerh cha". Then they motioned for us to sit down with them. They were drinking a shou cha which is a dark and fermented tea. I had no idea about how old it was. We couldn't tell. It was nice. I was trying to explain a few things to Nicole about tea. Every once in a while the woman would say something in English. Between the two of us, we would say a few Chinese words too.
The woman pouring the tea called her friend who spoke English. She handed the phone to me. We didn't know anything about her but on the phone she said she was having dinner right now. Maybe we could meet her in about 1/2 hour she would take us to a tea shop. She said we should meet her at MeiMei Cafe. She said the tea shop is very close by.
So Nicole was still with me. She enjoyed the chase. We thanked the women for the tea and said goodbye. We walked back. The night market was hopping now. She looked at the teapots again but couldn't get to the price she wanted. She saw some dolls in all sorts of Chinese ethnic minority costumes. She had two nieces in Australia to buy for. She found two she liked and got a great price. Then we walked the rest of the way to MeiMei Cafe.
The woman who spoke to me on the phone was there. She was originally from Hong Kong. She was living in Jinghong for 7 years now. We walked through the back door. She told us all these shops back here were tea shops. It's called tea alley. We walked a little way and into a tea shop. There was a young Russian guy in there drinking tea. We sat down. The woman poured us the two teas that he was already drinking. One was a shou cha--5 years old. It sounded like the leaves were from this county but we didn't get a specific region or mountain. The other was a 1 year old sheng cha (green tea that was unfermented) from Yi Wa. I enjoyed both.
Nicole was mesmerized by the whole process. Watching the woman wash the cups and the tea. Pouring the tea. Straining it into a glass pot. Using the tea utensils. She really enjoyed the shou cha.
It turned out the Russian guy, Nikita, spoke English well. He was most recently in Laos and Puerh City and just arrived today. In Moscow, he had a partner that was in the tea business. He said he helped him and was traveling around trying teas. And if he found a good connection, he would try to get samples for his partner or maybe buy teas.
He was very interesting. He had his own ceramic cup for drinking tea. And he had this plastic business sized card. He always placed his tea cup on it. He said his partner created the card. He said it changes the composition of the water in some way to make the tea taste better. He had no idea what compound or component made it work, but he said it made a difference in the way the tea tasted for him, so he used it all the time.
The next tea we tried was a 5 year old fermented tea stored in bamboo. I wasn't particularly interested in trying this one. But she was interested in telling us about it. She was actually a math teacher and this was her son's business. She enjoyed teaching people. She brewed the tea and made everyone try it. She wanted everyone's opinion. I didn't really get much flavor at all until the end. It was ok, but nothing special for me. But, I didn't want to offend her, so I just said I could only taste the flavor at the end.
Nikita said he liked it. After everyone tried it, she told us the tea was bad. She said see how your mouth feels. Maybe it's a little numb. This is not a good tea. She was exactly right. I did get that numbing sensation in my mouth and on my lips. I stopped drinking that tea.
She poured one more tea for us and it was another sheng cha from Yi Wa. I liked this one better. It was also from last year. We drank that for a while. In conversation it came up that maybe Nikita would be hiring the Hong Kong woman and her partner to go visit tea plantations. I told Nikita about the old tea trees. He was very interested. We said that maybe we could coordinate a trip together and use them as guides.
We kept drinking the tea. Nikita had the woman pouring tea for us try drinking two separate cups. One cup would have the plastic business card underneath and one without. She laughed and said she didn't notice any difference. She also let Nikita make tea for us and then gave him a few pointers. He was pouring the tea from too great a distance into the cup and also, he moved the lid of the gaiwan too often. She said the tea would be too harsh that way.
He said he was experimenting making it a few ways. He says he had a different set up at home and was getting used to hers. She also said he was too serious and he should loosen up. He said he felt very self conscious and wanted to make some good tea for everyone. Of course he was being serious!
Nicole was having a great time. I told her to just be careful drinking tea. It is possible to drink too much if you are not used to it.
Nicole kept lamenting that it didn't look like she was getting to the rice terraces this trip. The woman from Hong Kong asked her why. She said that the bus tomorrow was so early, plus she still needed to change money.
The woman from Hong Kong got on the phone and called someone. It turned out that there was a direct bus to the town. This bus would leave at 9:30 instead of 6:30. Nicole was thrilled she would possibly be able to make that one.
Then the Hong Kong woman and her partner started talking to Nikita and I about a trip tomorrow. She quoted him a price for one person with a driver, guide, and lunch for 650. For the two of us it would be 450 each. I thought that was a little rich. None of them had heard about the old tea trees until I mentioned it. So I wasn't even sure they would know how to find the place or identify the trees.
Then Nikita asked about the price for a half day trip for one person. They said 550. They said there were still some fixed costs so that was the lowest she would go.
Nikita and I briefly concurred that it was too much money. But we decided that we should meet tomorrow and try to go there on our own. I told him I had the Chinese and English names written down of how to get there. It would be a lot cheaper and it sounded like we could take a bus to Nannoushan and then ask for directions once we got there. We agreed to meet here at 8:30 and plan our course. He was staying across the street from the tea house so Nicole and I said goodbye to him. We walked towards her guest house. Mine was just a little bit further down the road.
What an interesting evening that turned out to be! I felt bad for the Hong Kong woman and her partner. They got nothing out of the evening but did a lot of translating. Their prices were simply too high and they didn't even want to bargain. Everyone else got information or connections we were looking for.
And be sure to check by my other acount: www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=&nsid=77145939%40..., to see what else I saw very recently!!
Yes I'm back again.
However due to my main computer on which I edit my work being struck down with a big bad virus, this picture and all the others I am uploading, were Unedited but have now been replaced with Edited versions. So enjoy and Thanks for your patience and understanding.
I do still hate everything about this shit that is new Flickr and always will, but an inability to find another outlet for my work that is as easy for me to use as the Old BETTER Flickr was, has forced me back to Flickr, even though it goes against everything I believe in.
I don't generally have an opinion on my own work, I prefer to leave that to other people and so based on the positive responses to my work from the various friends I had made on Flickr prior to the changes I have decided to upload some more of my work as an experiment and to see what happens.
So make the most of me before they delete my acount: www.flickr.com/photos/69558134@N05/?details=1, to stop me complaining!!
NASA Adminiistrator Charles F. Bolden, left, and Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), shake hands, Friday, Sept. 11, 2009, after signing a Space Transportation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)
Inspired by one of my favorite Flickr photographers: www.flickr.com/photos/je_est_un_autre/2519152913/in/set-7...