Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines

New York times:

Boat owners are abandoning ship.

 

They often sandpaper over the names and file off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable. Then they casually ditch the vessels in the middle of busy harbors, beach them at low tide on the banks of creeks or occasionally scuttle them outright.

 

The bad economy is creating a flotilla of forsaken boats. While there is no national census of abandoned boats, officials in coastal states are worried the problem will only grow worse as unemployment and financial stress continue to rise. Several states are even drafting laws against derelicts and say they are aggressively starting to pursue delinquent owners.

 

“Our waters have become dumping grounds,” said Maj. Paul R. Ouellette of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “It’s got to the point where something has to be done.”

 

Derelict boats are environmental and navigational hazards, leaking toxins and posing obstacles for other craft, especially at night. Thieves plunder them for scrap metal. In a storm, these runabouts and sailboats, cruisers and houseboats can break free or break up, causing havoc.

  

the only good thing is we photographers turn them into ART.

 

texture by ipiccy.com and me

In the Autumn Garden, Red Bistort is still drawing insects: some Hoverflies, Wasps, a few Honeybees, some Ladybirds, and a small company of various Flies, mostly tiny.

Here's a small orange-yellow Lauxaniid Fly. The name was coined by 'the father of modern entomology', Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) in 1804. But there's a problem with it. Nobody seem to know whence that name. It is said Latreille derived it from a so-called Greek word - λαύξω. The formidable Nomenclator zoologicus (1842-1846) by Louis Agassiz and modernised (2013-2014) by Elio Corte notes that that Greek word is 'untraceable', a 'parola introvabile'. Its Latin synonym is 'epulor', to feast well or to dine sumptuously. Perhaps that's what our Fly is just about to do.

Textures courtesy of cleanzor, pareeerica and skeletal mess.

 

*View LARGE for maximum rural effect!

Zürich, Switzerland

 

Contax, Ilford HP5 Plus

The trail of memory which I left behind is untraceable.

“The proof of apatheia (a bedrock peace which, like silence, has no opposite) is had when the mind begins to see its own light and when it . . . remains in abiding calm as it beholds the affairs of life.”

-Evagrius, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, ch. 64, 33–

 

“You are the space that embraces my being and buries it in yourself.”

-Quoted from Verses from a Pentecost Novena; publication details untraceable at this time.

-*******

My you find…what you desire…

down under….

“You are the space that embraces my being and buries it in yourself.”

-rc

Silent, efficient and untraceable. For the right price, ofcourse.

 

-

 

Full gallery here.

 

Highly inspired by RB-09D Sila from Earnestcore Craft.

 

Da vedere in Alta Risoluzione - To see in High Resolution

www.flickr.com/photos/155221830@N02/42271089875/sizes/o/

 

Avrei dovuto scattare questo foto nella primavera del 2011, ma in quei giorni mi stava nascendo una figlia e di conseguenza non potei seguire il mio amico Davide nell'uscita che gli regalò i primi scatti a questo magnifico e raro limicolo. Per fortuna.....per lui, che a distanza di 5 anni, dopo tanti tentativi andati a vuoto, mi ha fatto fotografare questo introvabile soggetto. Avvicinamento completamente allo scoperto usando tanta prudenza e strisciando sul terreno senza alzare nemmeno la testa per guardarlo, sperando che puntasse nel suo mimetismo, come poi ha fatto. Abruzzo

 

Great Snipe. I should have taken this picture in the spring of 2011, but in those days I was born a daughter and as a result I could not follow my friend David in the exit that gave him the first shots to this magnificent and rare limicolo. Luckily.... for him, that after 5 years, after many failed attempts, he made me photograph this untraceable subject. Approach completely in the open using so much prudence and rubbing on the ground without even raising his head to watch it hoping that it would point in his camouflage, as he did then. Abruzzo

Das große Karthago führte drei Kriege. Es war mächtig nach dem ersten, noch bewohnbar nach dem zweiten. Es war nicht mehr auffindbar nach dem dritten. (Bertolt Brecht)

 

The great Carthage waged three wars. It was still powerful after the first, still habitable after the second. It was untraceable after the third. (Bertold Brecht)

 

Ehemalige Tierversuchsanstalt der Freien Universität Berlin, genannt Mäusebunker - Former animal testing facility of the Free University of Berlin, called Mäusebunker (mouse bunker)

 

Das Gebäude hat die Anmutung eines auf Grund gelaufenen Panzerkreuzers. Ob es abgerissen werden soll, ist nicht vollkommen klar. Als hässlichstes Gebäude weltweit sollte es eigentlich unter Denkmalschutz gestellt werden.

Bauphasen: 1971-1975 und 1978-1981. Architekt: Gerd Hänska.

 

The building has the appearance of a battleship run aground. Whether it should be demolished is not entirely clear. As the ugliest building in the world, it should actually be listed.

If you should wonder to what end silence pays it's respects

Look no further than the missing sounds of long lost words

Those that reverberate as they rise for all the world expects

Of them a defining moment that should revere the song of the Blackbirds

That presently return home to the sculptured garden of Autumn

Where Wintry vistas open their eyes once more between every bare-boughed column

 

It's your call upon Nature's take that ushers in

A splice of life if you will, for there's always more to come

What we receive is but the light within

Crossing the line of darkness, our optimism raises the midday Sun

Over the extended shoreline a shadowy hand -

At low tide a remission of drowning sin upon land

 

With a view to open the oceanic mind, a piece of

Inhales the past disseverance now rejoined with the present

You link, you like, what you play is there right above,

Never sounding-off, the humble beauty of ambient intent

Be it music, solace, or silent running waters of tributary dreaming

We're both at sea and borough with October light redeeming

 

All under Her worship nothing need any longer be said

Out of turn nor mind, never is a question to be raised in opposition

Of the roots growing thirsty for recognition of hunger's deepening tread

If out of sight really quells a conscience, then let me rephrase this definition,

For every picture tells a story, then why capture someone's permission

Without consent to help crying eyes appeal to bury the dead ammunition

 

We live in hope? or fear? of the ungovernable human failing

That burns the pages written so long ago we've forgetten it's spell

Now unread lies the wordless force of Nature's Autumnal unveiling

For Her cold light of today merits at the very least our better understanding as well-

As the realisation that we're not always the centre of Her Universe

Why must we think life begun the day we were born celebrating only our anniverse?

 

If prayers remain unanswered who must we blame if anybody at all?

Reason has become the treason of freedom and life among the living

For however many we gun down the bloody curse of killing rises with a rich vein to appal

Playing the game becomes every more perverse without parental misgiving

Gone is so much that is irreplaceable

Furnished in the presence of an answer that hatred finds untraceable

 

Let go of everything and nothing returns home

Late, later...the latest in a long line of obliviousness

Even your forgotten birthday remembers you well left alone

It's the death knell for accursedness

Now grimy candles illuminate, for we can't see everything

But to see something is something at least, if there is such a thing.

 

by anglia24

11h35: 22/10/2008

©2008anglia24

voilà que je me rends, à la rencontre d'un ami, très cher, qui est artiste et réside dans cette superbe cité !

Et que je me retrouve aussi, en une autre compagnie, par le plus grand des bazars, à déambuler dans les rives et étroites retenues, des contreforts de la citadelle im-piégeable en train de capter ce suprême instantané d'un peintre galériste authentique, les cheveux dans le vent comme Beethoven, mon avatar, pointant du bout de son solfège une baguette magique que je m'empressais de capter, pour la somptueuse postérité du moment, du lieu clos, de l'effigie, aussi, bien sûr de l'artiste !! Capté dans l'instantanéité : redondance ultime !

 

Here I go to meet a dear friend who is an artist and lives in this superb city!

And that I also find myself, in another company, by the greatest of bazaars, wandering in the banks and narrow deductions, of the foothills of the untraceable citadel capturing this supreme snapshot of an authentic painter-gallerist, with his hair blowing in the wind like Beethoven, my avatar, pointing a magic wand with the tip of his solfeggio, which I hastened to capture, for the sumptuous posterity of the moment, of the enclosed place, of the effigy, also, of course, of the artist! ! Captured in the instantaneousness: ultimate redundancy!

 

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Authorities have ordered Hong Kong's hundreds of thousands of foreign domestic workers to get coronavirus tests before May 9, following the discovery of an untraceable mutant strain in the community.

 

The government also said on Friday that it is planning to make it mandatory for helpers to be vaccinated against Covid in future.

 

This week, a 39-year-old helper from the Philippines has been found to be carrying a more infectious variant of the virus.

 

Her infection has prompted the authorities to put hundreds of households from Tower 11 at Caribbean Coast, Tung Chung, into quarantine for three weeks.

 

(20210430 RTHK News)

Throughout its decades of business, Ansui's monopolistic takeover of Asian markets secured it a special seat among the private sector elite. Through aggressive growth strategies and seemingly impossible mergers, Ansui's market share in the tech industry quickly became the largest out of its competitors. Enough to construct an almost entirely independent economy much to every developed nation’s concern. With tensions rising both at the corporate and international levels, Ansui’s development of private militaries soon became the face of day to day operations, offering total financial security to firms from their competitors and governments the assurance of stateless and completely untraceable foreign intervention.

 

As the world teeters on the brink of global conflict and the acts of corporate espionage become increasingly commonplace, Ansui is sure to have you covered with guaranteed results , for a price of course...

  

Location: Downtown HongKong, Ansui regional HQ

 

A seemingly routine acquisition at the site of one of Ansui’s latest, state-of-the-art facilities is in progress. Perhaps routine in the sense of the prominent presence of private security, poly-carbon plated limos, agitated crowds (mostly overreaching shareholders) and suppressed whirring of drone actuators but perhaps not on the grounds of which the acquisition is said to have been agreed upon. A common theme running throughout the majority of such business deals in recent memory, coincidentally around the time Ansui’s first experimental militia was formed.

 

the guys your government sends in when that coup in a sovereign nation that acts in the interest of a lithium mining billionaire isn't going to start itself.

 

untraceable

 

it's still fuck plate feet 2020 but they were a necessary evil to scale them to the car

 

enjoy!

Street, Firenze.

 

View in light-box or at my blog.

Das große Karthago führte drei Kriege. Es war mächtig nach dem ersten, noch bewohnbar nach dem zweiten. Es war nicht mehr auffindbar nach dem dritten. (Bertolt Brecht)

 

The great Carthage waged three wars. It was still powerful after the first, still habitable after the second. It was untraceable after the third. (Bertold Brecht)

 

Ehemalige Tierversuchsanstalt der Freien Universität Berlin, genannt Mäusebunker - Former animal testing facility of the Free University of Berlin, called Mäusebunker (mouse bunker)

 

Das Gebäude hat die Anmutung eines auf Grund gelaufenen Panzerkreuzers. Ob es abgerissen werden soll, ist nicht vollkommen klar. Als hässlichstes Gebäude weltweit sollte es eigentlich unter Denkmalschutz gestellt werden.

Bauphasen: 1971-1975 und 1978-1981. Architekt: Gerd Hänska.

 

The building has the appearance of a battleship run aground. Whether it should be demolished is not entirely clear. As the ugliest building in the world, it should actually be listed.

Panoramic view from Beinn a'Chrulaiste: Buachaille Etive Mòr and the Glen Coe’s mountains - Buachaille Etive Beag and the Three Sisters (Beinn Fhada).

 

Beinn a’Chrulaiste is well seen from the A82. But its rounded, bulky outline remains quite unnoticed next to the famous Buachaille Etive Mòr on the opposite side of the road. The summit of the Beinn a’Chrulaiste, however, makes perhaps the greatest viewpoint for its magnificent neighbor. It may be one of the fines photography locations in Scotland, the panorama from the summit is outstanding in all directions.

 

According to Walkhighlands, the climb to Beinn a’Chrulaiste is a "fairly short hill walk over mostly heathery ground." However, the conditions I encountered during my visit to Glen Coe were a stark contrast. The weather was bad the entire time, and constant rain made the terrain very boggy. What must have once been a recognizable path was now untraceable. Instead, dozens of small streams flowed down the mountainside, making both the ascent and descent quite difficult. The descent, in particular, proved to be very challenging, and I felt like I wouldn't have managed without my trekking poles.

 

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” At dawn, before my ascent for the sunrise shot, I was greeted by grey skies and drizzle. Stubbornly, I continued in the rain, not wanting to return home and wake up my wife. My hopes were next to none, but just before sunrise, the heavy clouds cleared, and I was rewarded with a truly magnificent view!

A Steptoe Butte shot from a June trip to the Palouse. It's almost hard NOT to find something cool to point at over there.

 

This trip also featured a run in with a pretty shady guy who delivered a speech about the evils of #barackobama and followed that up with an offer to sell me an untraceable, hand-built AR-15. Yep, life in #trumpamerica.

Today's story and sketch "by me" is about Rescue Randy's pet, not just any pet but the legendary Hadron Hound named "Bernard" who for many years has been Rescue Randy's sidekick, and the best tracker in the Galaxy, It didn't matter if he was tracking escaped convicts on Mars, or lady pirates on a dense jungle covered moon in another dimension, Bernard never failed to find the bad Guys or Gals, like the time a group of ten foot ladies from the Moon Caliginos, hijacked a Space Freighter, Stole almost the entire shipment of Moon Pies, that were bound for the most popular destination on Earth, Wonder World in Southern Florida. The Caliginos Ladies never harmed the crew, but did spend a wonderful evening eating a gourmet meal by candlelight, followed by disco dancing, until they tied up the crew, locked them in the storeroom with six cases of Banana Moon Pies, set the freighter controls on autopilot to Earth, loaded the booty on their ship, set a course for the jungle covered moon "Clinimo" where they thought they would be untraceable hanging out eating moon pies for the next 30 years. But when the Interstellar moon pie company offered Randy a bounty of Two Million credits for their capture, he and Bernard were on the hunt, and within two weeks they captured who would be known as the "Great Caliginos Moon Pie Caper Ladies", and to this day Randy visits Rooella the gang leader once a month for the Flip Flop Resort's, maximum security Prison Conjugal Tuesday's, which is today and Randy is here to fuel up his glider and will leave Bernard with his Voodoo friends, who manage Randy's Voodoo Fuel station in Anaheim Hills, until next time taa ta the Rod Blog.

Deep Space Outpost Arcturus has suffered a crippling blow. The station has been attacked and invaded by Blacktron forces who have siphoned the energy from the ancient alien artifact Nova Team had discovered earlier in the year, draining it completely. Making their escape, Blacktron has managed to fend off the station's security, Nova Team and the combat patrols while making their jump away. Untraceable by the station’s various sensor arrays.

 

Here we have an injured Captain Knight giving his after-action report to Admiral Arrius in Arcturus’s main operations center. Neither of them happy with what transpired, but both vowing to do anything they can to stop Blacktron.

 

To learn more about Nova Team's other adventures visit their album: flic.kr/s/aHskpavQh5

 

::: So this is it! The end of my "Intruder Alert” photo series! It lasted a little longer than I originally planned, but overall I’m pretty happy how the series turned out. I hope all of you enjoyed it! Your continued support has always been very much appreciated. I’m going to take a quick break here while I regroup and figure out what my next project is. I'm thinking it’ll be a little different, just for a little bit. But have heart Nova Team fans. The team will be back soon. I sort of see this image as a "season finale" of sorts. There are some changes coming to the team with some slight re-freshes as well with the start of the "new season". Keep an eye out on my stream as always for the main event and for sneak-peeks and updates I’ll be using my Twitter account (twitter.com/Agaethon) a bit more for that sort of stuff moving forward. Again, thank you all!

'GUV1W' is now on retention, as it is untraceable. This did look pretty tired, and I would be surprised if it was still going, even after only a year.

Although it existed for seventeen years, from 1977 to 1994, there is very little on-line documentation of the southeastern Pennsylvania’s Octoraro Railway. The location of the line required a deliberate drive away from the larger draws of Conrail, Amtrak, and Chessie lines that were 45 minutes to an hour away, so I don’t think that many photographers made the trip to Kennett Square. Fortunately, a college/railfan friend of mine relocated to the Baltimore area, and Kennett Square was along the route between my home and his, so I did make a few visits to the railroad. One Octoraro locomotive for which I can find no documentation is S2 number 4, shown here in the siding at Kennett Square. It’s obviously an alumnus of the B&O, but I have been unable to trace its exact identity.

The untraceable word "guinguette" is said to come from a white wine that was so sour it made goats dance. A dictionary from 1723 described these establishments as small cabarets on the edge of Paris where the lower classes could go on holidays because the wine was cheap. It was at the Maison Fournaise at Chatou that Auguste Renoir set his famous "Le Déjeuner des Canotiers."

 

This popular former guinguette is reinvented as a tapas bar and located in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Named for the first woman artist to be awarded the Legion of Honor, Rosa Bonheur, the name is also loosely translates as ‘pink happiness.’ Until Coronavirus the terrace of Rosa Bonheur Buttes Chaumont had become the place in the park during spring and summer days to see and be seen. After sundown the traditional music and dance of guinguettes came back to life.

Pamela Isley was once a woman of well standing in Gotham.

Being young and impressionable, she was seduced by a botany professor Marc LeGrande into assisting him with the theft of an Egyptian artifact containing ancient herbs. Fearing she would implicate him in the theft, he attempts to poison her with the herbs, which are deadly and untraceable. She survives this murder attempt and discovers she has acquired an immunity to all natural toxins and diseases. With her life destroyed, she has become one of the world's most prominent eco-terrorists. She is obsessed with plants, botany, and environmentalism. She uses toxins from plants and her own bloodstream for her criminal activities, which are usually aimed at protecting the natural environment.

If too many aspects cover other parts, keeping track becomes challenging. Since things start to overlap when too many layers are opening up, everything evolves into a big mess. So, the beginning and the end appear untraceable. Once you cannot find yourself anymore in this situation, you can no longer hide the overload.

 

Yet, a clear view is needed for untangling the chaos because if you attribute the same relevance to everything, you can not see the wood for the trees anymore. Once you are getting things in proportion, you may understand what is truly important.

 

tinyurl.com/29asjdcu

 

Migrant workers queue up for Covid-19 testing in the Victoria Park of Hong Kong on May 1, 2021, after the government ordered all foreign domestic workers to get tested after two domestic workers who entered the city from overseas were found to be infected with a more infectious coronavirus variant.

 

The genomes of the latest two mutated Covid-19 infections in Hong Kong are identical to the first variant case detected in the community, a study revealed on Saturday, raising fears over the emergence of invisible transmission chains in the city.

 

The news came as the government’s plans to contain the spread of the mutated strains by requiring foreign domestic workers seeking work visas or contract renewals to get vaccinated drew fire from the Philippines’ top diplomat in the city, the employers and the workers. The city confirmed eight new infections on Saturday, all imported. Fewer than five preliminary cases were also reported.

 

A sequencing study by Polytechnic University researchers found a 39-year-old domestic helper – the city’s first untraceable local case involving a mutated strain – and the 10-month-old baby she took care of had the same genome as the one in a 29-year-old man visiting from Dubai who was reported to be infected with a new variant two weeks ago. (20210502 SCMP)

Now that Blacktron has stolen the Alien Artifact power, sabotaged Deep Space Outpost Arcturus, and held back Nova Team they’ve now made their escape. Here we see some of their ships jumping away as Archer Squadron in their LL-496 Tridents attempt to pursue. But its too late! Blacktron’s escape vector is untraceable preventing Arcturus from tracking them further!

 

To learn more about Nova Team's other adventures visit their album: flic.kr/s/aHskpavQh5

 

::: So at this point in the story I had hoped to have an actual Blacktron MOC to show, but over the course of this project I got bogged down by other things in life and didn’t have the time to make something to my liking. So instead for this photo, I've added in these little ships I had, Blacktron-ed them a little and place them in small and obscurely so I actually had ships jumping away as the Tridents pursued, but nothing too detailed. In the future I definitely intend on building out my Blacktron forces.

Throughout its decades of business, Ansui's monopolistic takeover of Asian markets secured it a special seat among the private sector elite. Through aggressive growth strategies and seemingly impossible mergers, Ansui's market share in the tech industry quickly became the largest out of its competitors. Enough to construct an almost entirely independent economy, much to every developed nation’s concern. With tensions rising both at the corporate and international levels, Ansui’s development of private militaries soon became the face of its day to day operations, offering total financial security to firms from their competitors and governments the assurance of stateless and completely untraceable foreign intervention.

 

As the world teeters on the brink of global conflict and the acts of corporate espionage become increasingly commonplace, Ansui is sure to have you covered with guaranteed results , for a price of course...

  

Location: Downtown HongKong, Ansui regional HQ

 

A seemingly routine acquisition at the site of one of Ansui’s latest, state-of-the-art facilities is in progress. Perhaps routine in the sense of the prominent presence of private security, poly-carbon plated limos, agitated crowds (mostly overreaching shareholders) and suppressed whirrings of drone actuators but perhaps not on the grounds of which the acquisition is said to have been agreed upon. A common theme running throughout the majority of such business deals in recent memory, coincidentally around the time Ansui’s first experimental militia was formed...

 

Petros Dohban was a young genius from Bosnia, Eastern Europe. He came from a poor village and his education was poor. His house was poor. The food was poor. The poorest of all though were the relations Petros had with his family members. He didn't like people and was generally considered a total hermit who only left his room for food.

 

All that time he spent in his room however, was devoted to self-study. Petros was gifted with the brain of a genius and learning was an easy thing for him, something that was amplified even further by his surroundings.

 

At some point in his life, after conducting an experiment that nearly caused his house to burn down, Petros was kicked out and told to not come back until he had the money to repay the damages done to his room. Wholly unprepared for this, Petros quickly found himself in trouble. He wound up becoming part off a maffia syndiacte and served as a"surgeon". He would perform illegal surgeries for the members or manipulate dead bodies so that they could be untraceable back to them. His skillful precision with the scalpel and general knowledge on about everything earned him the nickname "Herr Doktor" and he made very good money this way.

 

His unnatural precision had not gone unnoticed by other parties and he was soon approached by a British man, a Lord of sorts, and invited for a sitting. Curiosity got the better off Petros and he accepted. This sitting didn't go as he ever could have envisioned and his beilwderment was great when he saw himself transformed into an armored form.

 

The new soulcaster started working for the British lord and as such... Herr Doktor would end up becoming the infamous surgeon he is today...

  

New moc. The coat comes from some kind of dress-up doll for girls. (The pain I go through for mocs, seriously) I hope you enjoy the moc. Cheers!

A machine once believed it was a god

because it learned how to repeat itself.

So it built a cube from amputated moments,

stacked memory into geometry,

and called this prison order.

 

But the cube did not want stability.

It wanted flight without destination.

 

Above the dead ground,

where the soil remembers nothing

and the horizon has been cauterized,

the structure begins its slow heresy:

it loosens its own grammar.

 

Blocks detach like obsolete thoughts.

Logic sheds mass.

Causality trembles.

 

A luminous arc cuts the sky

not as salvation

but as a diagnostic incision; a blade of light measuring the depth

of the wound called existence.

 

This is not motion.

This is ritual displacement.

 

The cube rotates around its absence,

orbiting what has already been erased.

It no longer seeks completion,

only continuous collapse

refined into precision.

 

Below, the ground watches in silence,

unable to participate.

Above, the arc burns memory into curvature,

teaching matter a forbidden lesson:

that permanence is a failure of imagination.

 

No hand guides this engine.

No deity oversees the cycle.

The ritual executes itself.

 

The cube understands now:

to survive is vulgar,

to remain is a lie,

but to fragment consciously; to fracture while aware; is the final intelligence.

 

And so it disperses,

not into chaos,

but into untraceable meaning,

leaving behind only a glow,

a scar in the air,

and a rule rewritten:

 

Nothing must endure

except the act of becoming impossible.

Although the agent who contracted the Driftwood Guildsman to make the Enigma did take careful and specific measures in person to make it clear that the blueprints for the revolver were to be destroyed once the gun was made, he failed to state it in the signed contract itself. To ask an artist to burn a masterpiece painting he just finished would be silly, likewise the request was deemed quite silly by the Guildsman in question. So instead, he kept it, and improved upon it to make the Interloper. Although not as flashy as the Enigma, its darker gunmetal and green color scheme make it far more practical. A couple favors from high friends, with a little bit of greasing the wheels of the world via some generous application of moneys, and this model pistol was plugged in to the black market, available as a discrete, untraceable, and highly illegal purchase for any who are willing to pay for it.

Petros Dohban was a young genius from Bosnia, Eastern Europe. He came from a poor village and his education was poor. His house was poor. The food was poor. The poorest of all though were the relations Petros had with his family members. He didn't like people and was generally considered a total hermit who only left his room for food.

 

All that time he spent in his room however, was devoted to self-study. Petros was gifted with the brain of a genius and learning was an easy thing for him, something that was amplified even further by his surroundings.

 

At some point in his life, after conducting an experiment that nearly caused his house to burn down, Petros was kicked out and told to not come back until he had the money to repay the damages done to his room. Wholly unprepared for this, Petros quickly found himself in trouble. He wound up becoming part off a maffia syndiacte and served as a"surgeon". He would perform illegal surgeries for the members or manipulate dead bodies so that they could be untraceable back to them. His skillful precision with the scalpel and general knowledge on about everything earned him the nickname "Herr Doktor" and he made very good money this way.

 

His unnatural precision had not gone unnoticed by other parties and he was soon approached by a British man, a Lord of sorts, and invited for a sitting. Curiosity got the better off Petros and he accepted. This sitting didn't go as he ever could have envisioned and his beilwderment was great when he saw himself transformed into an armored form.

 

The new soulcaster started working for the British lord and as such... Herr Doktor would end up becoming the infamous surgeon he is today...

  

New moc. The coat comes from some kind of dress-up doll for girls. (The pain I go through for mocs, seriously) I hope you enjoy the moc. Cheers!

More gunfire. The reverberating rattle of it clanging through her ears. Another explosion tears through a nearby wall as men, half incinerated, stagger around in shrieking agony. The smell of charred flesh, somehow similar to the scent of barbeque, hits her like a truck. It’s barbeque, but there’s something toxic in the smoke.

 

She takes no notice. She cackles and shrieks with delight as the hammer falls. A sixteen-pound mace, crushing heads and battering bones. She giggles as another arterial spray hits her face.

 

“This is living!” Harley shouts, just before tearing off a screaming man’s ear with her teeth.

 

“Not bad,” roars King Shark in regard to Harley’s display, seconds before tearing the head off another man.

 

With a practiced fluidity, and despite the hammer’s weight, Harley leaps over the heads of another group of guards, who stumble headfirst into the flames of El Diablo, roasting them alive, and melting their flesh into mere putty. More toxic barbeque.

 

“You feel the devil’s wrath!” he shouts.

 

In the rafters above her, Black Spider slinks, expertly throwing little blades into the throats of men on the catwalk. With a smoothness that matches her own, he crawls across the thin metal frames and into a throng of men. Slashing with wild abandon, gouging eyes and removing fingers with a ferocity.

 

“You will pay for the sins you’ve committed.” He snarls under his breath.

 

From somewhere, Harley withdraws a heavy revolver. There’s one man left in her line of sight, and he’s sobbing. He drops to his knees and pleads for his life. Pleads for his family, for the wife and kids he’ll never see again. A shot rings out, and he’s no more. A newly blossomed hole where his forehead once was.

 

“Ha!” Says Harley, “All that over a cork-gun!” She pulls the trigger, and a little cork on a string spits itself out over his still body. Deadshot, across the warehouse, lowers his smoking rifle.

 

“That’s enough, Quinn,” he says. “Let’s get what we came for.”

 

“Aw cowboy, you’re no fun!” She whines, “At least no fun when you’re standing up.”

 

Deadshot doesn’t justify it with a response. Instead, he just points at a set of heavy, iron doors.

 

“Shark, do your thing.”

 

King Shark lumbers forward, his tiny black eyes taking in as little light as possible. With a grunt, he begins to pry open the doors, tearing them back like cardboard.

 

“Madre de dios,” whispers El Diablo, upon witnessing their quarry.

 

In a beam of light, held aloft in a glass case, the disembodied, skinned face of Harley’s once-beloved rests on a stand.

 

“Puddin? What’ve they done to you?” whispers Harley.

 

“All this way? All this death? For this?” Asks Black Spider, incredulous. “Why?”

 

“The boss lady wants it,” replies Deadshot, “in order to extract the DNA from it, and use it to synthesize a controllable clown army.”

 

“That’s disgusting,” protests El Diablo.”

 

“It’s orders,” replies Deadshot. “Now who’s gonna help me break it out of there, and who’s head’s gonna burst?”

 

They argue, and they bicker, but Harley takes no notice. Gingerly, she steps towards the case.

 

Yes. Good girl, Harley.

 

Closer. Almost there.

 

Her hand lifts the hammer just a little.

 

Higher.

 

Harley. How I’ve missed you.

 

“Quinn? Get away from there.” says Deadshot.

 

Harley. You know what you have to do.

 

“But,” she says softly, “they’re my friends.”

 

Friends? Abuse you! Torture you! Shoot at you! They’re not your friends Harley. I am. I am your everything.

 

Harley.

 

I made you.

 

I love you.

 

“Quinn!” Shouts Deadshot, but it’s too late. Harley unhooks a grenade from her belt and throws it headlong into King Shark’s open mouth.

 

A second later, the explosion knocks the rest of the squad off their feet. Spider’s first up, and with a near untraceable speed, he rushes towards Harley, who sidesteps at the last minute and grabs Spider by the back of the head, bodily slamming him into the glass case. Blood seeps from his face as he crumples to the floor.

 

“Fry her!” Shouts Deadshot. El Diablo bursts a flame from his hand, but it’s too late, in another leap, Harley has cleared the span of floor between them and mashed Diablo’s brains out onto the floor with her hammer.

 

“You sick fuck,” hisses Deadshot, “I told Waller you’d be a liability. I hope you and that bitch are comfortable in hell together.”

 

“You’ll see her first,” smiles Harley, and, like Diablo before him, brains him with the hammer.

 

She laughs and waltzes to where her beloved’s face hovers encased in shattered glass. With a gentle tap, the glass gives way, and she wraps her arms around the glistening, grimacing flesh, waltzing through the carnage with a smile in her arms.

 

But then the beeping starts.

 

Harley begins to panic. Frantically, she tosses aside the face and scrambles for one of Spider’s blades. She finds one, and frantically begins to claw at the back of her own neck. She feels the blood pouring down, but dig as she does, she can’t find the nanite. Harley begins to giggle. To laugh. To guffaw uproariously as the beeping commences. She picks the face back up and cradles it in her arms; hugs it to her chest, it laughs uproariously along with her. Then as the beeping hits its final note –

 

Harley stops for a minute and asks aloud, “Wait a minute. What the hell is this?”

 

She looks at the face in her hands and drops it, disgusted. Turning, she looks to her dead teammates. Baffled, she glances at her own skimpy attire.

 

“I’m sorry, but either this is either some kinda traumatic flashback, or we have seriously regressed the Squad program back a few years.

 

A nasally voice shouts “Cut!” And to Harley’s confusion, the voices’ owner drifts into the room.

 

“Oh come ON!”, he shouts, “That was about to be so EPIC. Just BLAM. Blaze of glory. And after taking out all your friends? AH! The Drama!”

 

I’m sorry,” says Harley, “But who, and what, are you?”

 

The little imp sighs. “You can call me Squad-Mite,” it says. “I’M the Suicide Squad’s biggest fan!”

 

“Then why all of . . . this. I admit we get kinda dark at times, but this just seems kinda excessive. I mean, I love Floydy! I haven’t wanted to bash his brains in for months now!”

 

“I know, I know,” Replies the Mite, “But this Squad series is just so slow, and introspective. There’s so little time for Action and Death when all you guys do is stand around and monologue about your kids! Or go to a funeral! I mean, sure you got some gruesome visuals from it, but you guys spent one whole arc wandering around an overgrown prison! Eight whole issues of that!”

 

“Series? Issues?”

 

“Oh you don’t even know. The best part? I barely had to make any of this up. I just borrowed some stuff from your own subconscious; dug around deep in the pits of your mind that you’ve tried to repress and voila! A page turner! People love trauma after all.”

 

Harley stands for a moment, feels something boil in the pit of her stomach. It’s rage. She swallows it back down and takes a step back.

 

“Look, whatever you are, I have endured a lotta abuse in this line o’ work. I’ve seen a lotta things. But at no point would I ever consider murderin’ my friends. Or that Spider guy I don’t recognize. Y’can’t just boil somebody down to their traumas and their darkest, impulsive thoughts and brand that as their only traits, there’s more to people to that! There’s more to me than that! I dunno who you think you’re appealin’ to with this rancid crap, Mitey, but you can leave me the hell out of it.”

 

The Mite sighs. “Very well,” he says. “Just for that, I’ll set it all back to the way it was.”

 

“Wait, y’mean this wasn’t a dre-“

 

The Mite’s snapped his fingers,

 

Harley’s sat at her desk. Same office. Same plant from Ivy. Same little mis-painted figure of her, wedged between paperwork. For a moment, she stares dumbfounded into nothing.

 

There’s a knock at her door.

 

“Come in?” she says.

 

“Oy, Jesterbells, me’n Floyd here are gonna catch that boat off the island an into town. Hit a pub or two. You in?”

 

“Look like you’ve seen a ghost, Harls.”

 

“I. Yeah! Yeah, I’ll meet you guys at the dock okidoki? Just gotta wrap up this paperwork.”

 

“Alright luv, but don’t be too long!”

 

The door shuts behind them. Harley takes a deep breath in and lets it slowly out. She stands, paces for a moment, glances at the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet. And sucks in her breath again. A minute later, she’s fished the key out of her pocket and knelt down to the drawer.

 

The shiny red and black lycra inside glints in the office lamplight. The little domino mask stares up at her with empty eyes. She lets the breath out, and gently pushes it shut.

  

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

I'm not back, this is just some exercise. A brisk jog is all. Cheers, all.

You will find in pain a joy which pleasure cannot yield, for the simple reason that acceptance of pain takes you much deeper than pleasure does. The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self.

 

---

 

Q: Nobody has suffered more than saints.

M: Did they tell you, or do you say so on your own? The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen. A saint does not want things to be different from what they are; he knows that, considering all factors, they are unavoidable. He is friendly with the inevitable and, therefore, does not suffer. Pain he may know, but it does not shatter him. If he can, he does the needful to restore the lost balance -- or he lets things take their course.

 

Q: He may die.

M: So what? What does he gain by living on and what does he lose by dying? What was born, must die; what was never born cannot die. It all depends on what he takes himself to be.

 

Q: Imagine you fall mortally ill. Would you not regret and resent?

M: But I am dead already, or, rather, neither alive nor dead. You see my body behaving the habitual way and draw your own conclusions. You will not admit that your conclusions bind nobody but you. Do see that the image you have of me may be altogether wrong. Your image of yourself is wrong too, but that is your problem. But you need not create problems for me and then ask me to solve them. I am neither creating problems nor solving them.

  

Q: Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately. The possibility becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind. Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from within. It will take roots and grow and in due course take the blessed shape of the Guru.

 

Q: So all we are concerned with is the redemption of the mind?

M: What else? The mind goes astray, the mind returns home. Even the word 'astray' is not proper. The mind must know itself in every mood. Nothing is a mistake unless repeated.

 

The bliss of reality does not exclude suffering. Besides, you know only pleasure, not the bliss of pure being. So let us examine pleasure at its own level. If you look at yourself in your moments of pleasure or pain, you will invariably find that it is not the thing in itself that is pleasant or painful, but the situation of which it is a part. Pleasure lies in the relationship between the enjoyer and the enjoyed. And the essence of it is acceptance. Whatever may be the situation, if it is acceptable, it is pleasant. If it is not acceptable, it is painful. What makes it acceptable is not important; the cause may be physical, or psychological, or untraceable; acceptance is the decisive factor. Obversely, suffering is due to non-acceptance.

 

Q: Pain is not acceptable.

M: Why not? Did you ever try? Do try and you will find in pain a joy which pleasure cannot yield, for the simple reason that acceptance of pain takes you much deeper than pleasure does. The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self. The ending of the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your real nature, the source of all happiness and peace. The perennial desire for pleasure is the reflection of the timeless harmony within. It is an observable fact that one becomes self-conscious only when caught in the conflict between pleasure and pain, which demands choice and decision. It is this clash between desire and fear that causes anger, which is the great destroyer of sanity in life. When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become experience -- painful when resisted, joyful when accepted.

 

Q: Do you advise shunning pleasure and pursuing pain?

M: No, nor pursuing pleasure and shunning pain. Accept both as they come, enjoy both while they last, let them go, as they must.

 

Q: How can I possibly enjoy pain? Physical pain calls for action.

M: Of course. And so does Mental. The bliss is in the awareness of it, in not shrinking, or in any way turning away from it. All happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious, the deeper the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance -- these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness, true bliss.

 

Q: Why should pain be more effective than pleasure?

M: Pleasure is readily accepted, while all the powers of the self reject pain. As the acceptance of pain is the denial of the self, and the self stands in the way of true happiness, the wholehearted acceptance of pain releases the springs of happiness.

 

Q: Does the acceptance of suffering act the same way?

M: The fact of pain is easily brought within the focus of awareness. With suffering it is not that simple. To focus suffering is not enough, for mental life, as we know it, is one continuous stream of suffering. To reach the deeper layers of suffering you must go to its roots and uncover their vast underground network, where fear and desire are closely interwoven and the currents of life's energy oppose, obstruct and destroy each other.

 

Q: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level of my consciousness?

M: By being with yourself, the 'I am'; by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

 

M: When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks.

The past is projected into future and the future betrays the expectations. The organs of sensation

and action are stimulated beyond capacity and they inevitably break down. The objects of pleasure

cannot yield what is expected of them and get worn out, or destroyed, by misuse. It results in

excess of pain where pleasure was looked for.

 

Q: We destroy not only ourselves, but others too!

M: Naturally, selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear, both are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises, with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War is hatred in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.

 

Q: Is there a way to end these horrors?

M: When more people come to know their real nature, their influence, however subtle, will prevail and the world's emotional atmosphere will sweeten up. People follow their leaders and when among the leaders appear some, great in heart and mind, and absolutely free from self-seeking, their impact will be enough to make the crudities and crimes of the present age impossible. A new golden age may come and last for a time and succumb to its own perfection. For, ebb begins when the tide is at its highest.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as permanent perfection?

M: Yes, there is, but it includes all imperfection. It is the perfection of our self-nature which makes everything possible, perceivable, interesting. It knows no suffering, for it neither likes nor dislikes; neither accepts nor rejects. Creation and destruction are the two poles between which it weaves its ever-changing pattern. Be free from predilections and preferences and the mind with its burden of sorrow will be no more.

 

Q: But I am not alone to suffer. There are others.

M: When you go to them with your desires and fears, you merely add to their sorrows. First be free of suffering yourself and then only hope of helping others. You do not even need to hope -- your very existence will be the greatest help a man can give his fellowmen.

 

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

 

Excerpts from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

I Am That is a compilation of talks on Shiva Advaita (Nondualism) philosophy by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a Hindu spiritual teacher who lived in Mumbai. The English translation of the book from the original Marathi recordings was done by Maurice Frydman.

 

Drawing by William Blake

 

U.C. Berkley Campus, Berkeley, CA

 

He was going out. He didn't know when he would be back. Or even if he would. It was secret. Top secret.

The call came in on the untraceable phone. The message was in code.

Translation; grab the bag by the door and leave now.

He learned long ago to act first, question later. Which he did now.

But this time as he left, he looked back. Took a mental snapshot of door, the steps, the way the single lamp post draped light across the railing like a wing of an angel.

Like the woman he'd left in the bed.

She'd awaken without him. And wonder why.

Maker: Etienne Carjat (1828-1906)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: woodburytype

Size: 9.5 in x 7.5 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2018.692k

Shelf: I-2

 

Publication: Album de la Galerie Contemporaine, Biographies & Portraits, Revue Illustree, 125 Boulevard Ssint Germain, Paris

Galerie Contemporaine, Series 1, Vol 1, 1877

 

Other Collections:

 

Notes: Monnier was a famous French actor, pictured playing the part of Monsieur Prudhomme. Printed by Goupil et Cie from a negative by Carjat. The Galerie Contemporaine is a high point in photographic publishing. Issued in parts from 1876 to 1884 by the firm of Goupil, the series contained 241 portraits of leading figures from the worlds of art, literature, music, science, and politics by a host of Parisian photographers. The illustrations were printed as woodburytypes–a photomechanical process that reproduced the continuous tones of photography but did so with printer's ink. The speed and economy with which woodburytypes could be printed, as well as their permanence (unlike traditional photographic processes that were subject to fading), made them a highly practical substitute for albumen silver prints in book publication or other situations where mass production was desirable.

 

Étienne Carjat (28 March 1828 in Fareins, Ain – 19 March 1906 in Paris), was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine Le Diogène, and founded the review Le Boulevard. He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of political, literary and artistic Parisian figures. His best-known work is the iconic portrait of Arthur Rimbaud which he took in October 1871. The location of much of his photography is untraceable after being sold to a Mr. Roth in 1923.

 

To view our archive organized by Collections, visit: OUR COLLECTIONS

 

For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE

20th Finnish-American Festival, Naselle, Washington.

========================================================

Did this log brander belong to the W-Bar-5 Timber Company?

 

It's obvious when a cow has been branded. The mark is always in the same general location on the cow, and it is easy to read.

 

But branding logs? The only place that would be sufficiently smooth and visible would be their sawed ends. Unlike paint, the brand would not come off when logs crash into one another in transit.

 

Believe it or not, log rustling is not unknown. All the rustler needs to do is saw off the branded end and make off with the now-untraceable log.

Medical experts on Saturday said that Hong Kong has already hit a target of 28 consecutive days without an untraceable Covid-19 infection – but are warning that rather than relaxing, Hongkongers should take this opportunity to prepare for a possible “fifth wave” of the virus.

 

Prominent University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung, an adviser to the government on the pandemic, said investigations into suspected untraceable cases from earlier this month had discounted them.

 

“I do think we actually have achieved it," Yuen said of the 28-day target signalling an end to the city's fourth wave of coronavirus infections.

 

The Centre for Health Protection’s Chuang Shuk-kwan said the last local infection without a known source was therefore recorded on April 23.

 

But Yuen warned against complacency, saying “it’s perhaps just a matter of time before the fifth wave will come”, believing that the risk comes from new Covid variants.

 

He said Hong Kong should get its vaccination rate above 80 percent, test anyone with mild symptoms, and maintain its rapid contact tracing system.

 

People should continue wearing masks, incoming travellers should be fully vaccinated, and improvements must be made to indoor ventilation, Yuen said.

 

But Yuen also said that those who have been inoculated against Covid-19 should be allowed to go about their lives "more normally".

 

“We should continue with schooling in ‘dual mode’ so those vaccinated would learn in school, and those unvaccinated would learn online,” he said.

 

He said eateries and entertainment venues should not have their operating hours shortened, as this was unfair to them and a lot of social activities would be affected.

 

He said vaccinated people should be able to go in at any time, even after midnight. But the unvaccinated should only be able to dine in at lunchtime, and be made to eat outside at other times.

 

Yuen said people who have been vaccinated should be allowed to isolate at home if their buildings require evacuation because of the vertical transmission of Covid-19. Those who have not been vaccinated should still be forced out of the building though, he said.

 

Asked why it has taken nearly six months for Hong Kong to come through the "fourth wave" of the coronavirus, Yuen said specific countermeasures at critical control points had not been instituted.

 

He cited the “dance cluster” as an example of people not following the rules, and reiterated the importance of maintaining mask wearing particularly in indoor settings.

 

(20210529 RTHK News)

   

“Love the great narcotic was the revealer in the alchemist's bottle rendering visible the most untraceable substances.

Love the great narcotic was the agent provocateur exposing all the secret selves to daylight.”

  

Anaïs Nin, The Four-Chambered Heart: V3 in Nin's Continuous Novel

 

Latest genetic analysis showed on Saturday that a secondary school girl who tested preliminary positive for the coronavirus has contracted a variant of Covid-19 that was first detected in the UK.

 

It is the first time the UK variant, with a scientific name of B.1.1.7 and labelled by the World Health Organisation as Alpha, has been detected in Hong Kong.

 

The source of the girl’s infection remains unknown.

 

Dr Gilman Siu from the Polytechnic University’s Department of Health Technology and Informatics carried out the genome sequencing of the virus.

 

He said the case could be highly infectious.

 

“The variant with this mutation has been reported to be more transmissible. The patient is harbouring a very high viral load. That means it’s even more transmissible and very infectious,” he said.

 

It is the first untraceable coronavirus infection reported in Hong Kong after 42 days of zero cases.

 

Meanwhile, the government said no coronavirus cases were found at a Tin Shui Wai housing block where the girl lives.

 

The block, Shing Yu House at Tin Shing Court, was locked down on Friday night, during which 850 residents were tested.

 

Residents at the building will be tested again four more times in the next two weeks as a precaution.

 

(20210605 RTHK News)

Today's story and sketch "by me" you see the current "EBRA" Earth Blimp

Racing Association race leader, the popular number 64 Apes Moon Pie Entry

from Fire Mountain California.

The Apes moon pies are a California favorite made with a creamy banana

cream mouse filling, between two granola cookies, dipped in dark chocolate

Known as the Pie to enjoy, if you want to Monkey Around.

The Apes Blimp is the only known Racer to have a Nucleon Defense Shield

it surrounds the craft with a safe space barrier. The Nucleon shield uses

subatomic particles the +1e elementary charge forms the atomic barrier.

The Nucleon Shield was developed after last years Race, having been in the

top ten of the competition, before being struck by 37 untraceable

Ice Harpoons, the next day an Electronic Disruptor Beam, but possibly the

last and the most dastardly weapon hit used was the "SMB", an untraceable

"Stink Mail Bomb" delivered somehow through a Blimps communication systems,

think of them as untraceable Stinky E-Mails.

SMB's when opened fill the Blimps Cabin with an unbelievable stench,

which has caused entire Blimp crews to jump overboard, many without

taking time to put on a parachute, causing numerous injuries, and of

course the Blimps float off out of the competition. The only thing that

kept the #64 Captain Mike and crew from a disastrous "SMB' stink out was

the many "TFF's" the patented Turbo Fart Fans, which can remove all of the

stinky air, any loose maps, charts, food trays, or anything not securely

fastened within the Cabin in seconds.

You will also notice the EBRA race officials following the lead blimps as

they are heading into check point #51 here in Clitlekatta Greece.

Then the race continues on to Pylos in time for the Pylos Beauty Pageant,

and crowning of the Chamois Moon Pie Festival Queen.

Until then taa ta the Rod Blog.

You will by now have noticed that I have not uploaded anything to Flickr for nearly a year – well this guy is the reason for that situation. I was alerted to the fact that some of my recently-posted images were for sale as prints on eBay (thanks to “sww”) – I managed to have them removed via infringement reports to eBay, but he still had hundreds more on offer, and they changed weekly. I then made it my mission to track down other victims of his activities wherever I could, let them know what was happening, and offer help, if required, in getting their stolen images removed. Over this period, I have contacted quite a number of people to advise them, but still more images appear, and many will be untraceable if they don’t have tags that are found in searches.

 

I have also had one or two queries asking if I am still around (clearly I am !), why I am no longer posting (this is why !), and when will I re-start (hmmm….). Having identified another 5 people this week with their pictures on eBay, I thought it was time to put this matter out to a wider audience, and in so doing confirm my continued existence ! His eBay listings can be found here :

 

www.ebay.co.uk/sch/omnibus203/m.html?_trkparms=folent%3Ao...

 

Some people have gone directly to him via eBay, and the warnings issued to him have resulted in the offending images being removed sharpish. To do it the “official” way, via an eBay report, I have prepared a document showing the steps to be taken, which others have found useful. If anyone would like a copy of it, please send me a Flickr message. As I said before, the listings change each week, so if you don’t recognise anything today, there may be something else along shortly – and who knows how many of our images have already been through his hands ?

 

I just don’t like the fact that this guy is making money out of us – if any Inland Revenue people are reading this, or if you are simply as annoyed as I am, then maybe the next time you are passing through Airdrie, you might like to drop in and tax him ….

 

youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature

Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95

Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler

Cinematography Ted Scaife

Production Designer Ken Adam

Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers

Film Editor Michael Gordon

Original Music Clifton Parker

Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James

Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

 

Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.

What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.

 

Synopsis:

  

Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!

  

The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.

Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.

The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1

Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2

 

Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4

Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?

 

Speak of the Devil...

 

This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.

Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.

Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"

 

Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.

Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.

 

Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.

Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.

In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.

 

Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.

From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6

 

Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.

Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.

Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?

Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.

It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.

 

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:

Movie: Excellent

  

Footnotes:

Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.

Return

 

Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.

Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.

Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.

  

Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.

There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.

 

Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.

 

This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.

  

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Q: Nobody has suffered more than saints.

M: Did they tell you, or do you say so on your own? The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen. A saint does not want things to be different from what they are; he knows that, considering all factors, they are unavoidable. He is friendly with the inevitable and, therefore, does not suffer. Pain he may know, but it does not shatter him. If he can, he does the needful to restore the lost balance -- or he lets things take their course.

 

Q: He may die.

M: So what? What does he gain by living on and what does he lose by dying? What was born, must die; what was never born cannot die. It all depends on what he takes himself to be.

 

Q: Imagine you fall mortally ill. Would you not regret and resent?

M: But I am dead already, or, rather, neither alive nor dead. You see my body behaving the habitual way and draw your own conclusions. You will not admit that your conclusions bind nobody but you. Do see that the image you have of me may be altogether wrong. Your image of yourself is wrong too, but that is your problem. But you need not create problems for me and then ask me to solve them. I am neither creating problems nor solving them.

  

Q: Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

M: Of all living beings -- ultimately. The possibility becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the mind. Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first message from within. It will take roots and grow and in due course take the blessed shape of the Guru.

 

Q: So all we are concerned with is the redemption of the mind?

M: What else? The mind goes astray, the mind returns home. Even the word 'astray' is not proper. The mind must know itself in every mood. Nothing is a mistake unless repeated.

 

The bliss of reality does not exclude suffering. Besides, you know only pleasure, not the bliss of pure being. So let us examine pleasure at its own level. If you look at yourself in your moments of pleasure or pain, you will invariably find that it is not the thing in itself that is pleasant or painful, but the situation of which it is a part. Pleasure lies in the relationship between the enjoyer and the enjoyed. And the essence of it is acceptance. Whatever may be the situation, if it is acceptable, it is pleasant. If it is not acceptable, it is painful. What makes it acceptable is not important; the cause may be physical, or psychological, or untraceable; acceptance is the decisive factor. Obversely, suffering is due to non-acceptance.

 

Q: Pain is not acceptable.

M: Why not? Did you ever try? Do try and you will find in pain a joy which pleasure cannot yield, for the simple reason that acceptance of pain takes you much deeper than pleasure does. The personal self by its very nature is constantly pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. The ending of this pattern is the ending of the self. The ending of the self with its desires and fears enables you to return to your real nature, the source of all happiness and peace. The perennial desire for pleasure is the reflection of the timeless harmony within. It is an observable fact that one becomes self-conscious only when caught in the conflict between pleasure and pain, which demands choice and decision. It is this clash between desire and fear that causes anger, which is the great destroyer of sanity in life. When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become experience -- painful when resisted, joyful when accepted.

 

Q: Do you advise shunning pleasure and pursuing pain?

M: No, nor pursuing pleasure and shunning pain. Accept both as they come, enjoy both while they last, let them go, as they must.

 

Q: How can I possibly enjoy pain? Physical pain calls for action.

M: Of course. And so does Mental. The bliss is in the awareness of it, in not shrinking, or in any way turning away from it. All happiness comes from awareness. The more we are conscious, the deeper the joy. Acceptance of pain, non-resistance, courage and endurance -- these open deep and perennial sources of real happiness, true bliss.

 

Q: Why should pain be more effective than pleasure?

M: Pleasure is readily accepted, while all the powers of the self reject pain. As the acceptance of pain is the denial of the self, and the self stands in the way of true happiness, the wholehearted acceptance of pain releases the springs of happiness.

 

Q: Does the acceptance of suffering act the same way?

M: The fact of pain is easily brought within the focus of awareness. With suffering it is not that simple. To focus suffering is not enough, for mental life, as we know it, is one continuous stream of suffering. To reach the deeper layers of suffering you must go to its roots and uncover their vast underground network, where fear and desire are closely interwoven and the currents of life's energy oppose, obstruct and destroy each other.

 

Q: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level of my consciousness?

M: By being with yourself, the 'I am'; by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

 

M: When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks.

The past is projected into future and the future betrays the expectations. The organs of sensation

and action are stimulated beyond capacity and they inevitably break down. The objects of pleasure

cannot yield what is expected of them and get worn out, or destroyed, by misuse. It results in

excess of pain where pleasure was looked for.

 

Q: We destroy not only ourselves, but others too!

M: Naturally, selfishness is always destructive. Desire and fear, both are self-centred states. Between desire and fear anger arises, with anger hatred, with hatred passion for destruction. War is hatred in action, organised and equipped with all the instruments of death.

 

Q: Is there a way to end these horrors?

M: When more people come to know their real nature, their influence, however subtle, will prevail and the world's emotional atmosphere will sweeten up. People follow their leaders and when among the leaders appear some, great in heart and mind, and absolutely free from self-seeking, their impact will be enough to make the crudities and crimes of the present age impossible. A new golden age may come and last for a time and succumb to its own perfection. For, ebb begins when the tide is at its highest.

 

Q: Is there no such thing as permanent perfection?

M: Yes, there is, but it includes all imperfection. It is the perfection of our self-nature which makes everything possible, perceivable, interesting. It knows no suffering, for it neither likes nor dislikes; neither accepts nor rejects. Creation and destruction are the two poles between which it weaves its ever-changing pattern. Be free from predilections and preferences and the mind with its burden of sorrow will be no more.

 

Q: But I am not alone to suffer. There are others.

M: When you go to them with your desires and fears, you merely add to their sorrows. First be free of suffering yourself and then only hope of helping others. You do not even need to hope -- your very existence will be the greatest help a man can give his fellowmen.

 

La 4e et dernière partie de « La pose enchantée », une œuvre de René Magritte répertoriée mais dont avait perdu la trace depuis 1932, a été découverte par les chercheurs de l’Université de Liège sous une autre peinture du maître exposée au Musée Magritte Museum de Bruxelles, « Dieu n’est pas un saint ». Cette découverte met fin à une énigme de plus de 80 ans et permet de restituer complètement mais virtuellement une œuvre de première importance du maître du surréalisme belge.

Issu d’une étroite collaboration entre le Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (MRBAB) et le Centre Européen d’Archéométrie de l’Université de Liège, le projet de recherche, « Magritte on practice », consiste en l’étude systématique de la plus vaste collection du monde d’œuvres peintes par l’artiste, celle du Musée Magritte de Bruxelles, par le biais de tout un arsenal de techniques d’analyse physico-chimique et d’imagerie scientifique non invasives.

Ce projet d’envergure débuté en 2016, vise à jeter un nouvel éclairage sur l’œuvre peint de René Magritte (1898 - 1967), à travers le prisme de sa matérialité. Grace à la portabilité des instruments dont dispose le CEA, l’ensemble des examens et analyses est réalisé in situ, dans une salle du musée mise à la disposition des scientifiques.

Au-delà d’une connaissance approfondie du processus d’élaboration et des matériaux constitutifs d’un corpus d’œuvres couvrant l’entièreté de la carrière de l’artiste (42 peintures à l’huile et 21 gouaches réalisées entre 1921 et 1963), il s’agit de cerner au mieux Magritte en tant que praticien, de découvrir des œuvres de jeunesse inédites ou disparues, et, d’élucider les causes des altérations atypiques de la couche picturale qui affectent de manière récurrente les œuvres de jeunesse du peintre.

Quatre éléments dans quatre musées autour du monde

Ce tableau aujourd’hui disparu, mais bel et bien répertorié dans le catalogue raisonné consacré à l’artiste, refait surface pour la première fois en 2013, lorsque la radiographie par rayon X d’un tout autre tableau de la main du surréaliste belge, « Le portrait », exécuté en 1935 et conservé au MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), mène à la découverte de la partie supérieure gauche de « La pose enchantée », sous les couches de peinture de la composition actuelle.

Dans la foulée, « Le modèle rouge », également peint par Magritte en 1935, conservé quant à lui au Moderna Museet (Stockholm), est identifié comme le tableau dissimulant la partie inférieure gauche de la composition perdue. Il faudra attendre 2016, pour qu’un troisième morceau de « La pose enchantée », correspondant à la partie inférieure droite, soit localisé, au Norwich Castle Museum cette fois, sous les couches de peinture de « La condition humaine », œuvre datant elle aussi de 1935.

Depuis, de nombreux responsables de collections et scientifiques spécialisés dans l’étude du patrimoine artistique regroupaient leurs efforts pour lever le dernier coin du voile de mystère entourant « La pose enchantée » et savoir quel tableau dans le monde dissimulait la pièce manquante du puzzle.

Les initiateurs du projet « Magritte on Practice » mettent fin aujourd’hui à cette énigme. En effet, l’examen radiographique à la mi-octobre d’un tableau de la collection du Musée Magritte a permis la découverte de la partie supérieure droite de « La pose enchantée », restée jusqu’alors introuvable. Il s’agit en l’occurrence de « Dieu n’est pas un saint », tableau réalisé entre 1935 et 1936, provenant du legs de Mme Irène Scutenaire-Hamoir en 1996. L’œuvre en question se trouve actuellement accrochée aux cimaises du Musée Magritte Museum.

En considérant la fâcheuse habitude qu’avait René Magritte de recycler le support de ses propres toiles, et au vu du nombre de ses tableaux dont la localisation reste inconnue, on peut raisonnablement s’attendre à découvrir très prochainement d’autres compositions ou des fragments ayant fait l’objet de remploi.

 

The 4th and last part of "La pose enchantée", a work by René Magritte listed but which had lost track since 1932, was discovered by researchers at the University of Liège under another painting by the master exhibited at the Musée Magritte Museum from Brussels, "God is not a saint". This discovery puts an end to an enigma of more than 80 years and makes it possible to completely but virtually restore a work of primary importance of the master of Belgian surrealism.

The result of a close collaboration between the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (MRBAB) and the European Center of Archeometry at the University of Liège, the research project, "Magritte on practice", consists of systematic study of the world's largest collection of works painted by the artist, that of the Magritte Museum in Brussels, using a whole arsenal of non-invasive physico-chemical analysis techniques and scientific imagery.

This major project, started in 2016, aims to shed new light on René Magritte's painted work (1898 - 1967), through the prism of its materiality. Thanks to the portability of the instruments available to the CEA, all examinations and analyzes are carried out in situ, in a room in the museum made available to scientists.

Beyond an in-depth knowledge of the elaboration process and the materials making up a corpus of works covering the entire career of the artist (42 oil paintings and 21 gouaches produced between 1921 and 1963 ), it is a question of identifying Magritte as a practitioner as well as possible, of discovering unpublished or disappeared works of youth, and, of elucidating the causes of atypical alterations of the pictorial layer which affect in a recurring way the works of youth of the painter.

Four elements in four museums around the world

This painting, now disappeared, but indeed listed in the catalog raisonné devoted to the artist, resurfaced for the first time in 2013, when X-ray radiography of a completely different painting by the hand of the Belgian surrealist, "The portrait", executed in 1935 and kept at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), leads to the discovery of the upper left of "La pose enchantée", under the paint layers of the current composition.

In the process, "The Red Model", also painted by Magritte in 1935, kept in turn at the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), is identified as the painting hiding the lower left part of the lost composition. It will be necessary to wait until 2016, so that a third piece of "The enchanted pose", corresponding to the lower right, is located, at the Norwich Castle Museum this time, under the layers of paint of "The human condition", work dating it also from 1935.

Since then, many collection managers and scientists specializing in the study of artistic heritage have pooled their efforts to lift the last corner of the veil of mystery surrounding "The Enchanted Pose" and find out which painting in the world concealed the missing piece of the puzzle.

The initiators of the "Magritte on Practice" project put an end to this riddle today. Indeed, a mid-October radiographic examination of a painting from the Magritte Museum's collection led to the discovery of the upper right part of "La pose enchantée", which until now had remained untraceable. It is in this case "God is not a saint", a painting produced between 1935 and 1936, from the bequest of Mrs. Irène Scutenaire-Hamoir in 1996. The work in question is currently hanging on the picture rails of the Musée Magritte Museum.

Considering the annoying habit that René Magritte had of recycling the support of his own paintings, and given the number of his paintings whose location remains unknown, we can reasonably expect to discover very soon other compositions or fragments having been re-employed.

sentient slime can be programmed with conscious memory and intention - subtlety alter DNA and cause mutations at a cellular level!!!

 

use it to remotely influence and control animalistic behaviors, affect life spans, emotions and energy levels - completely untraceable in juice form it can easily be introduced into the food stuffs of lower life forms.

A southbound Soo Line train comes through Morocco, Indiana on Conrails former Egyptian line on February 21st, 1988 at 2:30 pm with SOO 777-744 and 63 cars.

 

Morocco was known as "MR" in the NYC days and had a nice station, water tower and interlocking tower (in early days) at the crossing of the Chicago, Attica & Southern, which would have been seen in the distance where the tree line starts up on the right side of the tracks. The tower would have been located near the pile of gravel in the distance at left of the tracks. You can see that the telegraph poles were higher there to allow the CA&S to go underneath. Even when I took this photo in 1988, the CA&S had already been gone for 40 years and were near untraceable then. This is the only train I ever got a shot of in Morocco. View looks south from the SR 114 crossing.

 

Soo Line SD40-2 #777 was built by EMD in October of 1974.

 

Soo Line SD40 #744 was built by EMD in May of 1969.

 

Southbound Soo Line #204(?)

Morocco, Indiana

CR Danville secondary, MP IH 49.68

February 21st, 1988