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Nick on equal pay and the courts
Nick's Observer latest is a slight curiosity. It could be a big story, but it probably isn't. The story centres around a solicitor in the north-east who has upset the unions (specifically the GMB) by getting an industrial tribunal to rule against the union for agreeing a deal with Middlesbrough that awarded some workers less that their legal entitlements. Now a lot probably hangs on the details of the case. Did the union collude with the council? Were they negligent, etc.? We don't get any of this from Nick's article, merely the suggestion that should the case stand unions will be required by law to sue employers at every available opportunity (or risk being sued themselves). Breakfastime discussion in the Cabernet household suggests that the tribunal's decision will be rejected by the courts on appeal, as contrary to the public interest. Those qualified to offer a legal opinion are invited to do so in comments.
posted by Captain Cabernet at 6/18/2006 02:00:00 PM
The short piece at the end of his latest column is a prize exampel of Nick's failure to understand the world, and the faultiness of his new decent compass
"Muslims fail to play the game
Speaking of the honour's list, the Liberal Democrats were furious that Andy Hayman, the anti-terrorist officer in charge of the Forest Gate raid, had been given a CBE.
Nick Clegg, who is thought by many to be a future leader of that aimless party, admitted that Hayman was a brave man with a distinguished record. But he insisted that he should not have been honoured because the raid had brought 'enormous anger and anxiety' to Muslims.
But, interestingly, it hasn't. An anti-police demonstration was given huge advance publicity in the media, but in the event, only a hundred or so people turned up, many of whom were white Islamists from the Socialist Workers party. Since then, nothing.
I really feel the British Muslim community is letting everyone down. The papers, the broadcasters, the Liberal Democrats and the Trots are all desperate for a display of fury, but the stubborn Muslims refuse to oblige."
So Nick thinks nobody is cross about the Forest Gate raid. And manages to go into print saying that on a day when according to the Police, 2000 people, led by the brothers hwose house was raided, are marching
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5092452.stm
so roughly ten times as many people who turne dout for his Euston Manifesto launch are on the march, and dozy Nick thinks that nobody cares about the isse
Damn you brother anonymous. After listening to the news about the demo, I logged in to make exactly the same point, to find that you'd beaten me to it.
In any case, surely it's possible to feel 'enormous anger and anxiety' about something without actively demonstrating against it. For instance, Nick Cohen was angry about the Mohammed cartoon backlash, but by all accounts couldn't be arsed to turn up to the "Free Expression" march.
Drown, you fuckers! Islingtonians don't care
Aaronomics
The leftie that didn't cheer in the night
Airmiles Aaro?
Help! I'm a prisoner in an Evening Standard column...
Meow! Back in the knife box Miss Sharp!
A column so good, he sold it twice
So that's what it's for.
Christopher Hitchens Newsnight.30th May 2006
The Sun Shines Only Half The Day, But You, Comrade...
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More diligent research from Nick
What is it with Nick? Even when he's right about some issue, he can't help writing about it in a way that makes him wrong. On a first reading, it looks like the point of Nick's main rant is to express his disgust at the way the super-rich get credit for their charitable giving. But by the time I'd reached the end of that section, it was pretty clear that Nick was only writing in order to have a dig at Muslims (in the shape of Cat Stevens) and to push the Eustonite line that promoting human rights are the best way of reducing global poverty.
On the first, I'd say that there's more joy in heaven over a sinner that repenteth, etc. Perhaps I'm more forgiving than Nick, but I rather think that the fact that Stevens now condemns terrorism and works for peace, love, understanding, and all that kind of stuff is a bit of a plus point, and that we ought to forgive him some of the absurd ranting he engaged in when he was a new convert about twenty years ago.
On the second, Nick writes:
If you go to the www.fortuneforum.org website, you will notice that none of the admirable charities it supports is dedicated to fighting poverty by spreading human rights.
Well, as a diligent Aarowatch investigator, I thought it my duty to follow up on Nick's claim and visit that very website. Among the listed charities, I found the British Red Cross, using the search box on their website I used the term "human rights". Guess what? BRC think they're rather important. But maybe I'm not reading Nick carefully enough? Perhaps he intends the emphasis to be on the "by" in "fighting poverty by spreading human rights"? On this reading, people who actually work against poverty and who actually promote human rights can still be the subject of Eustonite anathema even if they do a whole lot more than sit in front of keyboards in Islington or Didsbury.
Evil BB will no doubt comment on the details of the Plymouth Brethren and pensions section of the latest Nick. I'll confine myself to noting that the view that the state only respects its citizens as equals when it mechanically applies the same law to all of them without taking religious and cultural differences into account, is just extraordinarily crude. Should Sikhs get an exemption from motorcycle helmet laws?
Nick writes that the state:
can't be allowed to get away with a law which discriminates by creed. If we are going to cope with the stresses of multiculturalism, the state has to be above sectarian conflict and treat all people as equal citizens.
It is less obvious to me than it is to Nick, that the stresses of multiculturalism would be better coped with by, for example, banning Jewish and Islamic methods of ritual slaughter through a straightforward application of the animal welfare laws.
(Oh, and Nick would like us to know that he's met Jeremy Clarkson and hates Piers Morgan.)
As a commenter on Nick's piece has already observed, and Tim Worstall, further down, has expanded upon - charitable giving is tax-deductible in the US. Are the US rich not miserly anyway? If the 400 richest Americans are billionaires, then they have a lot of money to potentially give away, which they've clearly kept. Giving to charity may be a good thing - but for you and me, it's largely anonymous. For those who get plaques bearing their names "in museums, churches, hospitals, art galleries and universities" it has to be at least partly monstrous ego. Part of the divide between here and the US is how we react to ego.
We also have the Rowntree Charitable Trust, and I remember Alan Sugar praised Great Ormond Street because it survives solely on donations, partly from backers like himself.
I agree that Nick seemingly "can't help writing about ... in a way that makes him wrong" even when he's right. The rich in the US do not "give their fortunes away". Andrew Carnegie did; Bill Gates will give most of his away ... and that's about it. If the Fortune Forum has any ambitions, it won't really ask the rich to empty their bank accounts. The old mafia way was to keep taking a little at a time, that way there's always more.
What does he mean "ferocious moral earnestness of New England Protestantism"? He's not thinking of the Kennedys is he?
No, the Rockefellers, presumably.
But maybe I'm not reading Nick carefully enough? Perhaps he intends the emphasis to be on the "by" in "fighting poverty by spreading human rights"?
I think the subtextual emphasis is on "fighting poverty by fighting wars".
He is indeed wrong on the subject of the Plymouth Brethren (like many other commentators, I think he has taken "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit" to be an accurate description of the whole Brethren, rather than the rather odd Taylor Exclusive sect that Jeanette Winterson's family belonged to). A brief email to the Observer Readers' Editor has been despatched accordingly.
btw, BD, I am 99% sure that GOSH is an NHS Trust; not to say that Alan Sugar doesn't think this, but he might be wrong.
Off topic I'm afraid, but did anybody see Aaro's reply on Five's Don't Get Me Started to last week's Ted Honderich special?
No, because it isn't broadcast until tonight (Tuesday).
Has anyone seen Nick's letter in teh Independent today? Talking about Johann Hari's "hurtful" article"?
Dave for Justice for Dave
The Global Dave For Darfur
Paul Wolfowitz
Oh no they didn't
Damn, I'm Old
Nearly missed this one ...
Dave's Lobes
dave comes out for one Milliband or other
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83. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)
March 30, 2011 Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies) 21 Comments
“Nothing in [critic’s] educations or experiences can have prepared them for The Holy Mountain. Here is a film completely outside the entire tradition of motion picture art, outside the tradition of modern theater, outside the tradition of criticism and review. Criticism is irrelevant.”–film critic Jules Siegel, a quote chosen for The Holy Mountain‘s trailer
DIRECTED BY: Alejandro Jodorowsky
FEATURING: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Horacio Salinas
PLOT: A thief, who looks like Jesus Christ, silently wanders through a bizarre and depraved city with an armless and legless midget companion, participating in a lizard circus where toads are dressed like conquistadors, bearing a crucifix through the streets and eating from Jesus’ body, and meeting a prostitute with a chimp. He comes to a giant tower in the middle of a busy highway and rides up a hook to the top, where a mystic with a menagerie introduces him to seven companions and purifies him by burning his feces and turning it into gold, among other rituals. After preparation the assembled nine set off the find the Holy Mountain where the immortals are said to live, so they can displace them and become like gods themselves.
In preparation for making the film Jodorowsky studied with both a Zen master and with a disciple of Gurdijeff. Part of his training involved sleep deprivation (he claims he went a week without sleep) and taking LSD for the first time.
During filming, the Catholic church in Mexico was not happy with The Holy Mountain because of its apparent blasphemy, and the President Luis Echeverría’s regime was angry with Jodorowsky because soldiers in Mexican uniforms were depicted massacring civilians. There were public marches protesting the filming. Per Jodorowsky’s DVD commentary, he left Mexico with the footage he had already shot to finish the movie in New York after receiving threats from government officials and paramilitary groups.
John Lennon partly financed the film. The budget was $750,000, a fairly extravagant sum for a film largely made in Mexico in 1973.
According to Jodoworowsky’s DVD commentary, George Harrison wanted to play the role of the thief, but balked at playing a nude scene where the character has his anus scrubbed. Sources at the time reported that it was Lennon who wanted the role and that he could not follow through due to scheduling conflicts.
Jodorowsky dubbed the voice of the thief.
Various “masters” the characters meet as they prepare for their ascent of the Holy Mountain were played by actual Mexican shamans and witch doctors.
Due to disagreements between Jodorowsky and producer Allen Klein, The Holy Mountain did not receive any sort of legitimate home video release until 2007. The same issues plagued Jodorowsky’s previous film, El Topo. According to Jodorowsky, Klein became angry and vindictive when, thinking it was too commercial, the director abandoned a project to adapt the erotic classic The Story of O with the producer and instead pursued an opportunity to make George Hebert’s cult science fiction novel Dune (a project Jodorowsky never completed—David Lynch was hired instead to film Dune, which ended up as a flop and an embarrassment).
INDELIBLE IMAGE: There are so many candidates—the apocalyptic toad and chameleon circus with amphibians dressed as conquistadors and missionaries, the giant mechanical vagina art installation stimulated by a nude woman with a probe, the hermaphrodite with leopard head breasts that squirt milk onto a proselyte—that choosing a single representative image seems like an almost arbitrary exercise. Still, there is one trick so stunningly beautiful and effective that Jodorowsky essentially uses it twice: the live birds that fly from out of the gaping wounds of corpses mowed down by fascist soldiers.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The Holy Mountain plays like a cut-up version of the world’s sacred texts. If you tore out pages from the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, The Golden Bough, and a dozen other esoteric works from the Kabbalah to Gurdijeff—throwing in a couple of sleazy pulp novels for good measure—and put them together in a giant cauldron, stirred them up and pulled out sheaves at random and asked a troupe of performance artists, carnival freaks, and hippies tripping on peyote to act them out, you might come up with a narrative something like The Holy Mountain. Here, the cauldron is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s skull, and the stirrer was LSD, and an ex-Beatle gave the director and master visual stylist a small fortune to bring any elaborate and depraved fantasy he could dream up to shocking life. The singularly bizarre results—the pure, undiluted essence of mad Jodorowsky—are unlike any film that has ever existed before, or ever shall be, world without end.
Short clip from the “Neptune” sequence of The Holy Mountain
COMMENTS: The first thirty or forty minutes of The Holy Mountain are as astounding, intense and hallucinatory an experience as anything any weird movie alchemist has ever conjured. It contains imagery so sacrilegious it would make Buñuel spontaneously give the sign of the cross, and so confusing it would make David Lynch throw up his hands in frustration. This extended opening segment may be as fine a work of surrealism as has ever been filmed; for pure passion, audacity and agonizing irrationality, the thief with Christ’s face’s journey through a depraved, nightmarish Mexican city is hard to beat.
Though many find The Holy Mountain‘s narrative weak (if not frustratingly obscure), the story does easily break into three acts: the Thief’s adventures in the city, his apprenticeship to the Alchemist inside the tower, and the trip to and ascent of the Holy Mountain itself. Each segment has its own aesthetic sensibility, while retaining their essentially demented Jodorowskyness, and together they form a loose allegory about the soul’s quest for enlightenment: from living in a corrupt world to the first stirrings of a spiritual sense to the actual climb towards enlightenment.
The film begins with a prologue featuring the Alchemist (played by Jodorowsky), his downturned face hidden by a ludicrously broad-brimmed sombrero, as he shaves the heads of two nude women. The episode has nothing to do with the main narrative but imparts a ritualistic air to what follows. The credits then roll, over a series of reverse zooms revealing flamboyant dioramas decked out with cryptic symbols—a blue eyeball surrounded by azure peacock feathers and shiny turquoise beetle shells—before the view shifts and the camera alights on the face of a bearded man covered in flies. A dwarf with stumps for arms and legs drags himself to the sleeping body and wakes him; after some adventures involving a mock crucifixion and stoning by a group of boys with green genitalia, the pair wander from the desert into a city. The metropolis is a riot of perversion and decadence: brown-skinned soldiers parade in the streets carrying crucified, gutted goat carcasses, and execute dozens of civilians in the city square while white faces laugh and take pictures from inside the air conditioned comfort of a tour bus. The Thief gets a job working in the “Great Toad and Chameleon Circus,” where costumed reptiles re-enact the conquest of Mexico in a bloody spectacle, and then serves as the model for a wax Christ made by four obese entrepreneurs, three of whom dress as Roman centurions and the fourth as the Virgin Mary (in drag). Angered by his experience, the Thief first eats the face off his likeness, which is filled with dough underneath the wax visage, then ties balloons to the statute’s legs and releases it to fly to the heavens. Uniformed prostitutes (including a child) prowl the streets and cathedrals; they follow the Thief, and the one who carries a pet chimpanzee with her is particularly attracted to him. He comes to a large red tower in the middle of a highway, before which peasants are holding a banquet; a large fishhhook descends from the tower. On the end of the hook is a bag full of gold, and the peasants place food on the hook. The Thief, spying the gold, throws the food off and climbs on the hook itself as it rises to a hole at the top of the tower. And those are just the main highlights of the tour; there are two or three stunning, never-before imagined scenes per minute during this astounding first half hour, whose never-ending stream of images assault the viewer like a swarm of surrealist bees.
There is an inconsequential amount of dialogue during this amazing, lysergic sequence, which makes the proceedings all the stranger. The soundtrack (by Jodorowsky and free-jazz legend Don Cherry) consists of Hindi drones and percussion, Tuvan throat singing, pan flutes, gongs, buzzing insects, classical dirges, a bit of melodious cornet improvisation by Cherry, a German march for the conquest of the chameleons, and a waltz with muted trumpet and xylophone to which the soldiers slow dance with each other. The vast, eclectic, exotic instrumentation changes form almost as often as Jodorowsky changes visions—we find ourselves bathing in a new and unique musical environment every minute or so—and the orchestration is always in perfect harmony with what’s going on onscreen. Like the imagery, this musical invention can’t quite sustain itself for the picture’s entire running time, but it’s a masterful achievement while it lasts and adds immensely to the sensory saturation.
The magic continues as the Thief enters the Alchemist’s abode: first, in a magnificent rainbow room where the master waits on his throne of goats with a camel and a naked Nubian woman tattooed with Hebrew characters and astrological symbols. The remaining sets in the sanctuary are equally opulent. The Alchemist’s marble pool comes complete with a bathing hippo. He has a hall of mirrors with an obelisk. Rooms are decorated with occult symbols on the floor, and they spin; everything is painted in vivid primary colors. One circular room is lined with Jodorowosky’s surreal interpretations of Tarot cards. In this section’s centerpiece scene, the Thief is encased in a glass bowl on top of a brick apparatus with braziers and copper tubing; the Alchemist burns his excrement, turning it into gold while the fecal smoke flows into the bulb and chokes the thief. Meanwhile, the nude woman plays a cello and a pelican strolls around the machine. More rituals ensue, as the Thief is further purified and absorbs obscure Zen lessons at the feet of the Master.
The tone abruptly changes from mystical to satirical/absurdist when the script introduces seven new characters, fellow seekers like the thief, each associated with a planet. The previous segment featured some incisive, blackly comic moments—as when a soldier begins to rape a tourist’s wife, and the enthralled man tries to capture the amusing native antics with his camera—but these were tiny pointed shards of ridicule poking out from an illogical, nightmare mass. The segments here are blades, forged for cutting. In voiceover, each of the initiates describes their backstory on their home planet: they are Important People. Mars is an arms dealer, Jupiter a millionaire, Neptune an enforcer, and so on. Jodorowsky uses these segments to take scattershot aim targets including militarism, consumerism, modern art, political propaganda, fascism, and even the modern art and architecture scenes. There are many memorable images in these mini-movies. Mars designs a line of munitions targeted at the various religions (Judaism gets a multi-barelled gun shaped like a menorah). Saturn is a toy designer who develops her product line with future wars in mind; her computers predict a conflict with Peru in the coming generation, so she designs a series of anti-Peruvian amusements for kiddies. The castrating chief of police for the autocratic Neptunian despotism gets perhaps the film’s best line: “Your sacrifice has completed my sanctuary of 1,000 testicles.” Weirdness continues to permeate these sequences, and the planetary excursions allow Jodorowsky to broaden his already wild palette. But the comic tone is a jarring change from the formerly mystical atmosphere and themes, and the constant narration is a significant stylistic departure from the near wordless silence that came before. Perhaps Jodorowsky meant these digressive excursions to provide a lighthearted breather from the intense surrealism that came before; it feels like, halfway through the film, he’s drifting off point.
One of the minor issues with The Holy Mountain is that each successive sequence becomes slightly less surreal and less intense than the one that came before it; which is not to say that the final act isn’t astoundingly weird, by ordinary cinematic standards, but just that what came before is so dreamlike that Jodorowsky faces an impossible task trying to top himself. After some more purification rituals, the group, under the direction of the Alchemist, leaves the tower and ventures out toward the Holy Mountain, where they intend to displace the Immortals. This journey is shot entirely out of doors, with the cast, now with shaved heads, dressed in dull brown robes or Olympic jogging suits (when they aren’t nude, that is). This new naturalistic style (Jodorowsky calls this portion a “documentary” of the group’s spiritual quest) robs the film of two of its greatest strengths: set design and costuming. Previously, whether we were in a depraved urban dystopia, an arcane alchemists lair, or an art exhibit on Jupiter, there was always some amazing detail to draw the eye, some Hermetic symbol or freak or weirdo wandering around the frame. Now, things are relatively restrained; Jodorowsky spends more time tossing out aphoristic bonbons drawn from Buddhism or rabbinical literature than he does conjuring menacing visions. There are only two sections that truly liven up the weirdness here. The first is the Pantheon Bar sequence, where the questers meet a drunken carnival of fellow seekers who began following the path of enlightenment but were distracted by a weakness of their own ego and stopped at the base of the mountain, abandoning their ascent. The most notable of the caricatures is a gentleman in a feathered hat with a stoned expression who informs them that “the cross was a mushroom–and the mushroom was also the tree of Good and Evil.” (Jodorowsky mocking acidheads seems to be the definition of biting the hand that feeds you). The second manic sequence occurs when each of the members of the team has a dream just before reaching the summit. The director goes all-out grotesque here: the visions include animal sex, hermaphrodism, castration, ejaculation, and lactation.
Jodorowsky’s finale is notoriously controversial, but ending this movie was an impossible task. If the Thief’s journey is an allegory for the soul’s journey towards Ultimate Reality, then how could the director film God? What could he do that would exceed the fractured visions that started the movie? Jodorowsky doesn’t even try; what he does, instead, is basically to topple his entire house of cards with a wave of his hand. The Thief discovers that he could have ended his quest an hour ago, when he met a nice girl. Everyone goes home. With this ending, Jodorowsky seems to be saying that the character’s search for metaphorical enlightenment was itself an illusion. Of course, all the blood, sweat and cerebral juices the cast and crew spent bringing this bewildering and extravagant spectacle to life belie that conclusion. But, unable to drop an enlightenment bombshell at the film’s climax, this was the best the director could do.
Is Jodorowsky a Surrealist? The tableaux he creates are shocking and appear irrational, but to him each image has a particular, specific symbolic meaning. The key part of that sentence, perhaps, is “to him,” because he rarely provides his audience the necessary clues to divine the meaning he’s propounding. Viewers pick up bits and pieces of his intended message; it’s easy to see, for example, that the transvestite Virgin Mary selling crosses to tourists represents the Catholic Church distorting the true meaning of Christ’s message. When the Thief goes on a rampage and wrecks the crucifixes, most will catch the reference to Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. But in a film where the director references nearly every mystical or occult tradition the world has ever produced, scrawling Taoist symbols on the hide of a passing elephant, how could he expect anyone to catch all the details and follow his overall argument—if, indeed, he has one? Listening to his commentary on the DVD helps explain what he had on his mind on a scene-by-scene basis, but his exegesis only confirms that he isn’t consistent with his symbolism. At one point he tells us that the Thief’s legless and armless friend represents his divine spark within (when he first awakens his body from its drunken coma). Later, we are informed that the very same character represents the monstrosities of the ego (when the Alchemist demands the Thief throw the freak over the side of a boat to cleanse his soul). How are we supposed to follow along if the author won’t even keep his own symbolism constant? A thirtieth degree Mason couldn’t decipher a third of the symbolism of The Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky’s method is to flit about from concept to concept as the mood strikes him, like a schizophrenic doctor of comparative religion, and he never paints a consistent portrait of the soul’s progress to enlightenment. The result is that, although it he intends each image to have a precise symbolic meaning, the key to unlocking their meaning is locked inside the author’s mind. The Holy Mountain is meant as a Symbolist work, not as unconscious nonsense; but the end user, unable to decipher the film, experiences it as Surrealism.
Is Jodorowsky a mystic? He tosses every esoteric reference he can think of into The Holy Mountain, and the breadth of his knowledge of cabalistic traditions of the world is truly impressive. But you can’t make a lush, sensual, psychedelic film and promote authentic mysticism at the same time. True mysticism, what Aldous Huxley called “the perennial philosophy,” involves asceticism, the denial of the body and even the imagination, an absolute abnegation of the ego and the senses. It seeks and longs for what appears to be nothingness. Along the journey Jodorowsky pays lip service to the necessity of dissolving the ego, but it would be hard for a novelist to conjure up a more narcissistic character than this director. After all, here he casts himself in the role of an ascended master and spiritual teacher (admittedly a step down from his role as a messiah and demigod in El Topo). The contemporary Jodorowsky reveals that his earlier self was convinced that this film would change cinema and change the world, hardly the position of an ego-less master who has transcended pride. Most of all, Jodorowosky is obviously intoxicated by his own superlative creativity and imagination—and rightfully so. But a true mystic views imagination as a relic of the ego and an enemy to enlightenment; imagination can only work on things brought to it through the senses, which obscure the Divine. Consider the words of another mystic who wrote about a spiritual journey up a metaphorical mountain, St. John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, who asserted that those who wished to ascend must rid themselves of imagination and visions:
All these imaginings must be cast out from the soul… Whether beginners or more advanced, all must learn to abide attentively and wait lovingly on God in a state of quiet, and to devote no attention either to imagination or its working… the soul must take care not to lean on visions that take place in the mind… they perturb it, and for this reason the soul must renounce them and strive not to have them… If the spiritual director has an inclination towards revelations of such a kind that they mean something to him, or satisfy a delight in his soul, it is impossible for him not to impress that delight and that aim on the spirit of his disciple… From his inclination toward such visions and the pleasure he takes in them, he develops a certain kind of esteem for them… In this lies a great delusion. Ascent of Mount Carmel, BOOK TWO, Chapters 9-13.
This warning from a certified mystic that imagination is a false path to enlightenment could have been specifically addressed to Jodorowsky, the great magician and alchemist of cinema who hopes to change the world through the elaborate symbolic visions he constructs for the masses. St. John of the Cross would likely see Jodorowsky as one of those stuck in the Pantheon Bar at the foot of the Holy Mountain, believing he has already reached the peak and found the answer when he has not even begun to ascend the slope yet. Perhaps it was his knowledge of texts like this that explain Jodorowsky’s apparent, sudden rejection of mysticism at the end of the film. If the mystics say that imagination can only take you so far, well, then, the creative soul can play the same game and turn it around; mysticism can only take the imagination so far, and then it must abandon it and follow creativity’s own path.
Jodorowsky uses the techniques of the Surrealists and the symbolism of the mystics, but he himself is neither a Surrealist nor a mystic. He’s more of a madman and a Fool, trusting and delighting in his own deranged visions. And cinema is enriched by his injection of his own singular brand of madness. No one else could have made the astounding, narcissistic, and utterly beautiful The Holy Mountain.
“All the classic surrealist techniques are called into play, like when a young woman is shot down by police, and doves fly out of the wound. But finally, ‘Holy Mountain’ is all surface and very little meaning.”–M. Goodwin, Take One (contemporaneous)
“…an extraordinary visual concoction, loaded with stunning primary colors, anti-religious caricatures drawn from Diego Rivera and a succession of dreamlike, grotesque vistas worthy of Dalí at his most deranged.”–Andrew O’Hehir, Salon (2007 rerelease)
“…suggests what might have resulted if Luis Buñuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, and George Romero had all dropped acid and made a movie together.”–Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. – Films – The Holy Mountain – the closest thing to an official site, this is the homepage for producer/distributor ABKCO. It contains a long synopsis of the film and a couple of stills, but there is also a five minute documentary featurette mixing scenes from Fando y Lis, El Topo and The Holy Mountain with an interview with Jodorowsky
IMDB LINK: The Holy Mountain (1973)
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
The Holy Mountain – The Holy Mountain page at “The Symbol Grows,” a Jodorowsky fan site, contains little specific to this film, but search the site for images of vintage posters and a relatively extensive Jodorowsky bibliography
The Holy Mountain (1973) at Mubi – the trailer, synopses, and links to forum discussions involving the movie
The Holy Mountain (Cultographies) – A full-length assessment from Wallflower Press’ “cultographies” seires
DVD INFO: The Anchor Bay DVD (buy ) features a typically fascinating (Spanish language, so be sure to turn on the subtitles) commentary by Jodorowsky, who at times seems affectionately bemused by the passion of his younger self. Other extras include deleted scenes, also with commentary, and a five minute feature where Jodorowsky explains the philosophy and symbolism of the Tarot, and the original trailer. Joe Byrne, who worked on restoring the film, gives a technical but nonetheless very interesting explanation of the restoration process; segments of the film are shown in split screen, with the original print shown on one side and the restored version on the other to dramatize the improvement. One final extra shows photographs of the working script, which is itself almost nonlinear; it’s full of markups, notes, crossouts, scrawled amendments and doodled alchemical symbols.
The Holy Mountain is also available (with all special features listed above) as a key component of Anchor Bay’s The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (buy ). Also included in this collection are Fando y Lis, El Topo, and the documentary The Jodorowsky Constellation. Soundtrack CDs for El Topo and The Holy Mountain round out this very cool collection.
Anchor Bay plans blu-ray releases of both The Holy Mountain (pre-order ) and El Topo on April 26, 2011.
(This movie was nominated for review by too many readers to list individually. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
1973Alejandro JodorowskyBreaking the fourth wallFreakMexicanMidnight movieMust seeMysticismOccultPsychedelicQuestRitualisticSatireSurrealismTarotWeirdest!
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21 thoughts on “83. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)”
Caleb Moss says:
The only thing I can say is Thank You. Thank you for covering this masterpiece, giving it the credit it deserves, and perhaps introducing new eyes to this visual wonder. This has to be one of my favorite films of all time. And the first thing that popped to mind when I first discovered this site. So, once again, with my deepest gratitude, I thank you, and this wonderful site committed to the strange, other-worldly, and dream-like beauty.
Steve Mobia says:
I know that it’s said that Surrealists such as Bunuel tried to avoid any conscious logical connections in their work, but it’s hard not to watch “Un Chien Andalou” and not see a clear Freudian allegory there. Certainly Dali’s work has strong symbolic content. The problem is that the word “surreal” has become synonymous with the word “weird” today. Andre Brenton is probably unknown to most who use the word. I do take issue with your denying Jodorowsky the mantle of “mystic” because he delights in imaginative images. If the imagery points to realms beyond the literal and sets up intuitive leaps of revelation –– I would call that a mystical endeavor. Many mystics (William Blake for one), do not deny the senses in the way the ascetics do.
G. Smalley (366weirdmovies) says:
Outside of isolated images, I disagree that it would be easy to make a Freudian allegory out of Un Chien Andalou. I think it would take a huge amount of work and you would come up with something that was not very convincing.
I agree that the meaning of the term Surrealism has become diluted. Even I am lazy when I use the term; most of time when I say surrealism, I mean “small-s” neo-surrealism (like Jodorowosky practices), not “big-S” Andre Breton-style 1930s Surrealism.
You are also correct that not all mysticism is ascetic; there is also ecstatic mysticism of the kind William Blake and Jodorowsky practice. Back when I wrote this I overplayed my hand because I was focused on the irony of Jodorowsky being inspired by “The Ascent of Mt. Carmel” while his methods directly contradicted those proposed by the book. I find the tension between the surrealist impulse to shock and the mystical impulse to harmonize in Jodorowsky interesting, but he clearly favors the former. Someday I will have time to return here and compose a new draft of this review that states the ideas with more precision, but I always prefer to press on to the next movie rather than looking backwards.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments and for keeping me honest.
I think you may have missed a lot with this movie. Yes, not every bit of symbolism will be understood by the audience, but the main message is clear to me after seeing it 5 times: whether it be christianity, hindu, buddhism, vodou, alchemy, the tarot, etc. all religions and paths to “enlightenment” are an utter waste of life. The afterlife is an illusion; there is NO Holy Mountain. This was made in a time where a lot of trendy American hippies were taking up “New Age” religions and mystic rituals in efforts to rebel. Jodorowsky, being the genius he is, uses his film to point out the similarities that lie between all of these “journeys,” and expose the western hippies for the fools they were. It was a time when many didn’t want to resort to the same prayers and churches of their parents, but instead of fully rejecting these concepts, they simply appropriated native/eastern religions and found a new “holy mountain.” You see, Jodorowsky does not WANT to be labeled a fucking mystic. He studies mysticism and religion only to understand it and transcend it further, not to feel “enlightened,”or anything of that nature. That should be pretty damn clear with this movie. He mocks mysticism, of course he is not of their breed. He pokes FUN at the process of spiritual cleansing, especially its use by the wealthy and privileged! Sadly, this is why the film has never taken off. Even those who truly love it have no idea what it’s about.
While I personally agree with your views on mysticism, wow, I don’t think Jodorowsky did. Everything I have ever read or heard from him leads me to believe he is quite sincere in his belief in the perennial philosophy, especially at that time (and even now). In this relatively recent interview he states that he put his Holy Mountain actors through “Arica training” with a “guru” and hoped they would find enlightenment while working on the movie and become monks. He even founded his own school of psychoanalysis called “psychomagic” which is based on the Tarot.
He does very clearly mock the hippies’ attempts to reach mystical enlightenment through psychedelic drugs in the movie, but I think this contrasts strongly with his poetic appreciation of other forms of occult knowledge.
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Thanks for such a narrative review of this intricate masterpiece. The fonts of starting and ending credits ( including the title ) is really intriguing. What type of language/art/typography/ or design used to make this font ? If you happened to gave me some information about this i would be greatly thankful.
Rocky.
I personally don’t know anything about the font. Anyone out there have a clue? (I assume this is the font Rocky’s asking about). I wouldn’t be shocked if Jodorowsky designed it himself, since he seems to have done almost everything else on the movie.
Rogerva says:
I think the font design is meant to recall Devanagari, which is not a language but a script used to write several languages, including Hindi, Marathi and even Sanskrit.
Vic snaggletooth says:
Yes, you got my mind !! that’s the fonts i’m talking about. Thanks for the reference. According to the credits Jodorowsky did almost all ( the fonts might be too) but do anyone know what’s the origin of this type font ? It’s definitely have some references, like from which text,art,typography or ancient language pattern’s favored him to draw this font pattern. I wish i could ask Mr. Jodorowsky directly but i don’t know any via to ask him about this.
To me, it just seems a generic reference to Indian scripts. There are quite a few faux Indian digital fonts for Western letters around that resemble it more or less.
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Iam Wrong says:
An excellent article, thank you. I’d like to share a different perspective than yours and prior commenters.
“The Holy Mountain is meant as a Symbolist work, not as unconscious nonsense; but the end user, unable to decipher the film, experiences it as Surrealism.” Well put.
Jodo was certainly attempting to be a Symbolist and Mystic. But I experienced it differently. His symbolism so resonated with me that I feel he succeeded at both. The Surrealism is a bonus that the viewer can experience if the meaning doesn’t resonate with them.
“Unable to drop an enlightenment bombshell at the film’s climax, this was the best the director could do”. This is the key difference in my experience. He delivered my kind of bombshell.
When the exquisite sets and costumes vanish from the film, and the ending simply breaks the 4th wall and deflates what was built, this is the Mystic in full force. This is the point where Jodo fully expresses the sentiment you quote from St. John of the Cross, “the soul must take care not to lean on visions that take place in the mind”. He departs from the visions. What visions remain, the surrealist dreams of the followers, are seen as distractions, and they are, for both the characters and the viewers.
“St. John of the Cross would likely see Jodorowsky as one of those stuck in the Pantheon Bar at the foot of the Holy Mountain.” I disagree. And I think it’s in part because you were expecting a different finale. “How could the director film God?” I wasn’t expecting Jodo’s depiction of God, so I wasn’t let down. He depicted exactly what I wanted. The characters eliminated their selves and awakened to “Real Life”. This is it.
The bombshell he drops at the end is the same unpalatable, mundane bombshell I’ve encountered over and over again in my mystical readings, in which I’ve sought to find sources that reject New Age promises and struggle to speak about the core commonalities of religions and mystic practices across the world, divorced from the mythology and magic.
The big gag (Jodorowsky’s and one often found in world mysticisms) is that you can reach the top of the mountain, achieve enlightenment, but you are still mortal (a rejection of the myth) you simply return to Real Life (mundane). The apex is a changed perspective on mundane mortal life. Consider that in Buddhist mythology Gods and Demons exist, but only mundane humans can become Buddhas. Immortality and mythic power, God, the Holy Mountain, the surrealist visions, the costumes, the sets, the magic … we must give it all up. “It was a loan.”
The journey, the symbols, the movie, they’re all a hoax, like a Zen koan. Enlightenment isn’t something contained within a Zen koan, external to mundane life. The Zen koan is a means by which one returns to life with an altered perspective.
There’s nothing at the top but of the Holy Mountain but a trickster and a better view. A perfect ending to me.
Jimsin Vogel says:
Thank you Iam Wrong for your post (above) – reading this article I was somewhat dismayed at the writer’s conclusion & felt that he really didn’t ‘get it’. Your interpretation is very close to my own, and for me also the ending could not have been more perfect.
I’ve only seen “Holy Mountain” once before about ten years ago, and while I could easily make sense of the plot to “Eraserhead” (1977) and “Beyond the Black Rainbow” (2010, also heavily influenced by “Holy Mountain”), this one entirely eluded me on a plot level, while I acknowledged its visual beauty and its immense mood-inducing emotional power. But plot-wise and in some of the camera work, it seemed like a remake of Tati’s entirely Dadaist “Play-Time” (1967) to me, only by a much greater visual artist than Tati, and it also reminded me of just-as-plotless-but-monumental “Koyaanisqatsi” (1983). I hardly remember anything of the many things your review recounts.
The film’s one indelible image for me is the long tracking shot upon the guru in the white clothes in the rainbow room, the end of which you have as a screenshot in the review. While not making sense to me cerebrarily, the entire image composition and its colors and shapes, also on the walls behind the guru and the space’s entire shape as some kind of tunnel, deeply spoke to me on an emotional level. I can’t explain it in words, other than that some of the colors and shapes reminded me of picture books I had when I was little, but I think that’s only part of the explanation. The wole 2D and 3D image composition of the shot draws the eye the very same direction as is then soooo slowly, hypnotically tracked by the camera, which adds immensely to my emotional reaction to the shot. It felt almost painful when that shot was over.
So, my memory of the film mainly consist of that one image, plus endless aimless but immensely aesthetic tracking and crane shots through a city that looked half-Mexican, half New York City, and your review dimly called the frugal outdoor quest at the end back into my mind.
Anyways, reading your review I don’t see how the dwarf can’t at the same time be the thief’s soul and his ego. Could be that Jodorowsky was not quite consistent in his vocabulary when he explained it decades later, but both explanations refer to some kind of inner spark of consciousness as opposed to the material physical world, even if said consciousness may be profoundly shaped by the outside world into an ego to overcome.
Just like steve above, I’m also not quite sure whether every mystic guru (while I don’t necessarily say that Jodorowsky is one) really has to ascetically overcome their ego and forsake the pleasures of this world, as there have been quite a few mystic cults in history who sought to reach the divine by means of intense orgiastic festivities of wine, women, and song, or look at those self-professing satanists today who publicly maintain that selfishness would be the ultimate goal in life. Not every mystic cult is necessarily as ascetic as Christianity or seeks to attain Nirvana like Hinduism and Buddhism do.
Incidentally, this line of thought now reminds me of Freud’s Nirvana drive introduced in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), in which he sought to find the shared origins of his life-affirming, libidinous Eros drive and his life-destroying, sado-masochistical Thanatos drive. Freud theorized that the shared quality of Eros and Thanatos is to overcome a tension due to a need or want and reach a balanced state-of-mind by feeding the need, and the tendency towards that relaxed balanced state would be the Nirvana drive underlying both Eros and Thanatos. Freud also goes on about how the balanced state-of-mind we seek would be an evolutionary remnant of how the first spark of life in the primordial soup struggled in order not to fall back to the state of inorganic dead matter, a thought which, curiously, Roger Ebert alludes to in his review of Ken Russell’s “Altered States” (1980), without mentioning Freud by name. Ultimately, it seems like some cults in their quest for the divine emphasize the feeding of the need, while others emphasize the Nirvana state entirely void of need.
As for my personal understanding of surrealism, I must admit its core has become synonymous for me with a certain lighting style and coolish, usually blue-greenish colors. I think two examples would be at least one of the attempted suicide scenes in “Delicatessen” (1991), and the “Where is the fish?” scene from Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” (1983). Beyond that central definition, yes, the broader definition would be simply “weird”.
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Rob Liefeld worst Rob Liefeld Drawings By Rob Liefeld
The Metaphysician says:
I have just finished watching this film. I have yet to see another film (or read another book) that succeeds in assaulting the viewer in chaotic and radiant waves of occult-inspired, surrealistic imagination. The amphibian re-enactment of Mexico’s conquest was simultaneously terrible and amusing. However, whilst I did like parts of the film very much, such as the Alchemist’s Gnostic monologue concerning the purification of the soul, I felt that some of the imagery, such as the lactating hermaphrodite towards the end, simply repulsive. I think Jodorowsky’s previous film, EL TOPO, is superior to THE HOLY MOUNTAIN in terms of substance; that mystic deconstruction of the Western affected me more than MOUNTAIN, whose ending, though full of splendid scenery, simply blemishes the film given the wild and peerless Saturnalia that precedes it. Nonetheless, I still think the world will be all the poorer without it.
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Štic says:
This is my favorite movie i watched it over 20 times, and i could more, it is pleasure that it is here, also like “el topo” , “dance of reality” , “santa sangre” etc… beautifull and weird art movies…
Surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tells the story of himself as a young man becoming a poet in Chile, befriending other artists, and freeing himself from the limits of his youth.
By the way! The best essay writing service – [spam link removed]
And Happy New Year!
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What the Fuck Are Democrats Doing in Washington State This Year?
In Weathering with You, Boy Meets Girl, Girl Crashes the Weather System
by Suzette Smith?Wednesdayat 4:19 pm
Weathering with You, the new animated feature from Your Name director Makoto Shinkai, starts out with a story I’d like to see more often: 16-year-old Hodaka Morishima runs away from home and spends a period of time living in capsule hotels and paying for showers before eventually sleeping on the Tokyo streets.
His savings dwindle as he desperately searches for a job. Eventually and by happenstance, Hodoka is hired by a small, sketchy tabloid magazine editor who lets him live in a basement office and pays him for chasing stories of UFOs and other supernatural phenomena.
It all falls somewhere between scary and gritty (running away is something people actually do) and the typically rose-colored view of anime (Hodoka’s office is situated on a beautiful sloped street, and no one’s moped breaks down).
He Wanted Out So He Was an Asshole Until She Dumped Him—And Isn't That Better For Her?
by Dan Savage?Wednesdayat 3:58 pm
I did one of the things you always say is bad, immature and hurtful. I was a jerk to my girlfriend for weeks because I wanted her to break up with me. It wasn’t on purpose, it wasn’t a plan, I know it was cowardly. I think she is a great woman, I just wasn’t into it and I let it go longer than I should have. I felt terrible that she loved me and I didn’t love her back and didn’t want to hurt her. My question is, why do you think sabotaging a relationship is so bad? I'm glad she hates me now. She can feel anger instead of sadness. I didn't want to be a "great guy" that did the right thing when the relationship needed to end. I wanted her to think I’m awful so she can move on with her life.If I say all the right things, that makes me more attractive and a loss. I’ve had women do that to me—break up with me the "right" way—and all it made me do was respect them more and feel more in love with them and miss them more. I still think about them because they were so kind and respectful when they dumped me. I prefer the relationships I've had that ended with hatred because at least I knew we weren’t good for each other and the end was no skin off my back. Isn't it better this way?
I’ve got no sign-off that creates a clever acronym. Make one up if you want to publish it.
Annoying Shittiness Should Help Outraged Lovers Escape
Whim W'him presents XPRESS, January 17, 18, 24, 25
BE CURIOUS . . . don’t miss Whim W'him's XPRESS, featuring world-premieres from 3 seasoned & internationally celebrated contemporary dance makers- Sidra Bell (NYC), Ihsan Rustem (Switzerland) &Whim W’Him Artistic Director and Founder, Olivier Wevers. This program is tailored for the contemporary dance enthusiast who craves innovation & celebrates artistic exploration. Experience XPRESS January 17, 18, 24, 25 at Cornish Playhouse.
Get tickets HERE
Economy?Amazon
The Rash of Restaurant Closures Shows Seattle Has Reached the Second and Terminal Stage of Gentrification
by Charles Mudede?Wednesdayat 3:54 pm
Smoked alligator in the twilight of Central Smoke, a Central District bar and smokery that closed eight days after this image was taken.
Seattle Times' article, "Is Seattle’s booming restaurant scene showing signs of slowing?" examines a spike in restaurant closures in 2019. What can it mean? Is Seattle experiencing a restaurant glut? Too many of them opened too quickly? If so, this would mean the market is presently self-correcting for a bout of investment exuberance that became irrational. In 2015, Seattle did not have enough restaurants for its booming economy, lots of entrepreneurs rushed in to meet the demand, the market rapidly became saturated, and now it is returning to a kind of equilibrium, a kind of sanity. Something of this story can also be found in the Capitol Hill Blog post on the sudden closing of a really remarkable restaurant experiment called Central Smoke on Jefferson.
This reading presents the market as a domain ruled by the unforgiving law of the survival of the fittest. But Seattle Times' food critic Bethany Jean Clement points primarily to the ever-increasing costs of living in this city—rent and utility bills are breaking the backs of businesses and customers alike. However this answer, which contains a great deal of truth and so should not be dismissed, must ultimately connect those rising costs with the boom in the tech economy, which commands a large number of high-paying jobs. But that reading, in essence, returns us to the logic of supply and demand, the law of market Darwinism. It has this story to tell: many restaurants opened to draw customers with large incomes, and at some point the number of tables in these businesses surpassed the number people who can regularly spend lots of money on meals. Meaning, again, the rise in closures is merely a market correction.
At this point, I want to offer another way of reading and narrating the current "market trend." Seattle, like San Francisco and Vancouver BC, has entered a stage of luxury urbanism that the Stanford professor Adrian Daub calls "second-wave gentrification."
Cannabis Decreasing Alcohol Sales as Alcohol Deaths Rise
by Josh Jardine?Wednesdayat 3:15 pm
Erik Wieder / EyeEm
There’s been a recent flurry of news stories regarding how establishing a regulated cannabis program impacts the sale and use of alcohol. And there’s also a number of stories about how alcohol abuse is on the rise in some sectors, while on the decline in others.
Let’s start with a look at how having an entire country legalize cannabis impacts alcohol sales.
OH CANADA: Now that people can buy cannabis from sea to shining sea in Canada, alcohol sales are on the decline. Specifically, beer sales. Per Merry Jane, the sales of Strange Brew were on the decline between 2014 to 2018 by a barely noticeable .3 percent. But in the first full year of cannabis legalization, sales dropped a full 3 percent.
In Little Joe, a Flower Brings Human Happiness
Among the happiness flowers: Emily Beecham as scientist Alice Woodard. PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES
Little Joe is a science-fiction film that is not set in the future. It is set in a time that looks very much like the year we have just left, 2019, and the year we are now experiencing, 2020. The technologies and science in the film are all realistic, all believable. Its scientists are developing a flower that makes humans feel happier.
To make this possible, a virus is used as a vector (transporter) of genetic materials that manipulate the genetic structure of a specific target, a flowering plant. The more a human cares for this plant, the happier the plant makes its caretaker by way of a scent that connects the flower to the mammalian nose. If the scientists succeed, this flower will be sold in the marketplace and make the investors behind the research fantastically rich.
Food & Drink?Things To Do?EverOut
16 Places to Drink Mocktails and Non-Alcoholic Beverages in Seattle for Dry January 2020
by Stranger EverOut Staff?Wednesdayat 2:00 pm
This month, you can take advantage of non-alcoholic drinks at Cortina, created in collaboration with DRY Soda for Dry January. Ethan Stowell Restaurants via Instagram
Looking to decrease your alcohol consumption for January? We've compiled a handy list of places to find mocktails and non-alcoholic beverages around Seattle so you can quench your thirst. For more ideas, check out our list of food and drink specials to try in January and our full food and drink calendar.
Carlile Room
The "booze-free" menu at Tom Douglas's swanky lounge includes a house ginger ale, kombucha on tap, a "shrub du jour," the "party in pink mocktail," "fancy root beer," sodas, and sparkling or still water.
Music?Death
RIP, Steve Martin Caro, Singer for Baroque-Pop Geniuses the Left Banke
by Dave Segal?Wednesdayat 1:15 pm
Steve Martin Caro (second from left) was a master of wistfulness. YouTube screengrab
Steve Martin Caro—lead singer and a key songwriter for the Left Banke—passed away January 14 at age 71. (Known as Steve Martin during the Left Banke's '60s prime, the musician later added "Caro" to his name after comedian Steve Martin became famous.) Martin Caro's deeply expressive voice augmented the band's sublime pop, which inevitably has been described as "baroque" due to the presence of flute, oboe, harpsichord, French horn, and other typically non-rock instrumentation, and for its florid, ambitious melodies.
At their best, which was often over their first two albums—1967's Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina and 1968's The Left Banke Too—the Left Banke rivaled the Beatles and the Beach Boys for sheer hook-crafting brilliance and ingenious dynamics. Like the greatest bands of their ilk, the Left Banke made the most intimate feelings seem momentous. They deserve a prominent place in whatever musical pantheon any taste-makers want to construct.
News?Politics?2020
CNN Lost the Debate
by Rich Smith?Wednesdayat 12:35 pm
Biden had a good night, thanks to CNN anchors going after his rivals. Spencer Platt / GETTY IMAGES
Only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, CNN treated the good people of Des Moines (and anyone with a CNNgo account, or a Twitter feed) to a dull, disingenuous debate on several policy issues the Democratic candidates have more or less already discussed. Even the six candidates who made the cut—Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Tom Steyer—looked tired of saying the same shit over and over again. And that's a shame. Though viewership has steadily declined over the last million or so Democratic debates, these evenings don't have to be so bad. Given the toss-up status of the races in the early states, the country could have used a substantive, robust conversation that drew clear contrasts between the candidates.
But that didn't happen. And yet, the show went on! Some fun stuff was said, and some fun stuff was not said. Any of it consequential? Not likely! But it's worth a little walk through the highlights and lowlights of the worst debate yet.
Visual Art?Stickers
A Gaping Void
by Jasmyne Keimig?Wednesdayat 12:23 pm
Jess Stein
"Be The Void"
Fuck me up. Jasmyne Keimig
I'm pretty sure this sticker isn't referencing the Dr. Dog album, but I've been wrong before. I love a good void. Like when Mitski talks about looking like a pulsating void at her NPR Tiny Desk concert. Or this Audrey Wollen piece reminding us who owns the void. Please never fill me up.Continue reading »
Blabbermouth
Who Should It Be: Bernie, Biden, or Warren?
by The Stranger?Wednesdayat 11:39 am
Episode 229 talks Iowa, impeachment, and the Oscar nominations. Scott Olson / Getty Images
Subscribe to the podcast FOR FREE by clicking right here!
With a bunch of new impeachment news coming in, Dan Savage, Eli Sanders, and Rich Smith talk about how the looming Senate trial is going to look and what to expect from Chief Justice John Roberts, who’ll be presiding.
After that, what did we learn from this week's final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses? Anything? It seems like the race is coming down to Bernie, Biden, or Warren, so… who should it be?
Finally, Jasmyne Keimig and Chase Burns talk about the Oscar nominations and two movies worth seeing in theaters right now: 1917 and Uncut Gems. Plus...
This Pot Is Bananas
by Lester Black?Wednesdayat 11:00 am
There are 14 hidden bananas (or bunches of bananas) in this image. RACHELLE ABELLAR
A few weeks ago, I drove east toward the Cascade Mountains on damp roads shaded by evergreen trees and lined with decomposing leaves until I found a farm that smelled like bananas.
I went to Fall City and found the tropics. How on earth did I find bananas growing in January in the same place where Twin Peaks was filmed? Because I went to a pot farm. It turns out, cannabis can taste just like one of the world's most popular equatorial fruits.
Banana cannabis varietals—with names like Banana OG, Strawberry Banana, and Banana Kush—are being grown across the state, from Spokane to Seattle, and it might just be the best weedy way to get through the winter doldrums. Not only do these strains of weed smell and taste like you're on a sandy beach somewhere a thousand miles south of Seattle, but smoking them often creates a mildly relaxing high, just like you're sitting on said beach.
Food & Drink?EverOut
Five Events to Celebrate Robert Burns Night 2020 in Seattle
by Stranger EverOut Staff?Wednesdayat 10:19 am
Tuck into a hearty plate of haggis and sip some whisky in honor of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Shutterstock
Five years after the death of Scottish bard Robert Burns in 1796, a group of friends gathered on his birthday (January 25) to celebrate his life. Today, the tradition persists and often involves haggis, bagpipes, recitations of poetry, drinking songs, revelry, and, of course, copious Scotch whisky. If you'd like to witness the unusual ritual for yourself,?here are five events where you can participate in the commemoration of Burns' life. For more food and drink events, check out our full food and drink calendar.
Big Time Brewery
Raise a pint to the "Ploughman Poet" and sing along to rousing Scottish drinking songs performed by vocal group whateverandeveramen.
Film/TV?Music
The Score of Uncut Gems Should Have Been Nominated for an Oscar
by Jasmyne Keimig?Wednesdayat 9:15 am
Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) in the Safdie brother's Uncut Gems. Imagine a synth playing over this image. Julieta Cervantes/A24
The Josh and Benny Safdie-directed Uncut Gems revolves around Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a jeweler in New York City's Diamond District who is a compulsive gambler, cheater, and liar. He's also an asshole. When a valuable "uncut" black opal mined in Ethiopia comes into Howard's possession, he sets up a series of anxiety-inducing and self-destructive bets and lies that wobble uneasily before all falling down. The internal and external chaos of Howard is echoed in the film's excellent score, which seems to locate itself in outer space.
Composed by Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never), Uncut Gems' soundtrack is synth-heavy, cosmic, glittery. While it suggests an undercurrent of scuzz, the grandeur of the score's heights shimmers like the colors in the karmically-fucked black opal at the center of the film. It's a shame that Uncut Gems was not nominated for Best Score at the upcoming Oscars. Some have made the connection between this film's score and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's work on The Social Network, which was nominated for an Oscar and won.
In a recent "Behind the Soundtrack" documentary, Lopatin talks about the connections between his synthy, far-out score and the film's tumult. Let's hear and dissect a couple of the songs Lopatin talks about in the documentary:
The Top Nine Lunar New Year 2020 Events in Seattle
by Stranger EverOut Staff?Wednesdayat 8:45 am
Celebrate the Lunar New Year in Chinatown-International District with lion and dragon dances and other traditions from all over the world—plus the beloved $3 food walk. Cham Roeun Bunphoath
Lantern festivals in Nagasaki, T?t in Vietnam, and the exchange of lucky red envelopes in China are just a few traditions that go along with the Lunar New Year (Jan 25-Feb 8). In Seattle, ways to welcome the Year of the Rat are no less diverse, ranging from dragon and lion dances at the International District's annual Lunar New Year Celebration to a week of Chinese beer specials at Lucky Envelope Brewing. Plan ahead with our roundup of this year's biggest celebrations, and find even more events on our complete Lunar New Year calendar.
T?t in Seattle
Celebrate the Year of the Rat at this annual festival in anticipation of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year in early February. As always, there will be hands-on cultural activities, traditional food, crafts, martial arts performances, a market, and more.
News?Election!?Politics?Sports?The Weather?Slog AM/PM
Slog AM: Russia's Government Resigns, Impeachment Trial Managers Named, Ken Jennings Wins It All
by Nathalie Graham?Wednesdayat 8:00 am
This is the only picture of Ken we can afford!!!! Getty/Getty Images News
The Russian government just resigned: Russian prime minister Dmitri A. Medvedev suddenly resigned. As did Medvedev's entire cabinet. Is that… pretty much the whole Russian government? Yowza. Putin allegedly had recently introduced proposals for broad constitutional changes. These may have triggered the resignations. They also may have the ability to extend Putin's reign after his tenure as president is up in 2024. Putin's proposals would have greatly shifted power in the Russian Parliament and State Council.
Another error from Seattle Children's Hospital: The hospital, which has pretty much been mold-ridden since 2001, is under scrutiny for performing cardiac surgery on an infant without the correct filtration system in the operating room. That surgery without the high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter took place as recently as last October. The infant now has an Aspergillus infection, the same infection that has sickened multiple Seattle Children's patients and killed six of them.
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Essay: One size doesn’t fit all
A universal carrier is not the combat vehicle our ground forces need
In “A vehicle for modern times [December/January AFJ],” by retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, the call for a Ground Combat Vehicle universal carrier is buoyed by a presumed “convergence in how all ground components, the Army, Marine Corps, and special operations forces, fight at the tactical level.”
While I wholeheartedly agree with the urgent need to give our ground forces “the fighting system they deserve,” I disagree that a universal carrier design for the GCV is the answer. Specifically, I disagree that contemporary mission overlap for our ground forces equates to homogeneity at the tactical level. Further, I disagree that a universal carrier design, regardless of unity of needs, is feasibly supportable by all ground forces, given manning and maintenance constraints.
Admittedly, there has been a great deal of mission overlap for these ground forces. The Army has drifted toward more traditional special operations roles with foreign internal defense and counterinsurgency, while conventional combat-arms units prosecute time-sensitive targets routinely. The Marine Corps has drifted as well, serving courageously in an undesired role as the country’s second land army. Sharing but not owning the same battle space as these conventional Army and Marine Corps units, special operations forces have differentiated themselves by leveraging their unique combination of resources and reach to remain a valued strategic- and operational-level force. While this mission and battle space overlap has occurred in the contemporary wars, the organizational manning of these three ground forces remains very different.
Difficulty arises when proposed “general needs of all ground combat services” are overlaid upon organizations that are manned and resourced differently. I observed one example of the impact of manning on vehicle utilization when my mechanized infantry company conducted a relief in place of a light infantry company in Iskandiriyah, Iraq, in 2004. The first day, I joined my second platoon to conduct a joint patrol with the departing unit in order to familiarize ourselves with key areas within the area of operations. My second platoon, a mechanized infantry platoon, traveled in four M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, each equipped with a crew of three (driver, gunner and Bradley commander.) Across the four vehicles, three nine-man infantry squads traveled in the troop compartments. Upon tactical halt, the squads, configured as two fire teams each, could dismount and shoot, move and communicate, while the Bradleys could do the same, operating as two two-vehicle sections.
In contrast, the light infantry platoon of 35 to 40 soldiers was configured solely as dismounted maneuver elements, three rifle squads with attached machine-gun teams. When outfitted with eight up-armored Humvees, the platoon had to pull the vehicle crews out of hide. This meant that, when the vehicles came to a tactical halt, two out of the five passengers (driver and gunner) had to remain with the vehicle. In exchange for transport, protection and additional mounted firepower, the dismounted platoon was “losing” two out of every five men, or 40 percent, to vehicle support. Additionally, Scales’ accurately notes “the need for tactical units to approach insurgent positions undetected.” But even with an ideally “fast and quiet” vehicle, small units, when traveling in groups of eight, 10 or 20 vehicles, lose their ability to surprise a determined enemy.
The organizational manning conflict extends into maintenance, recovery and home station. The unit must maintain the vehicles, which requires mechanics, parts flow and motor pool space. These are all lessons being learned about the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. As GCV design starts to include “overpowering, precise … and sustained killing power,” as Scales recommends, the home station requirements extend into unit gunnery and crew qualifications and all that is entailed in that training beast. The more systems, the more that unit front- and back-end requirements grow as a result.
A GCV design that reflects universality and convergence of general needs is problematic. I am reminded of the movie, “Pentagon Wars,” where the Bradley is called “a troop transport that can’t carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that’s too conspicuous to do reconnaissance, and a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snowblower but has enough ammo to take out half of D.C.” Having served in operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom on the Bradley, I believe it is a great vehicle. However, it is also a great example of how you just cannot have it all.
All of the design imperatives noted by Scales are valuable on the contemporary battlefield; however, not all of them can realistically coexist in one platform, nor do they need to. Despite an overlap of mission and battle space by our Army, Marine Corps and special operations forces, the design imperatives that are not just most valuable but also most supportable by each respective force are not identical, and therefore neither should their ideal fighting systems be identical.
MAJ. JOE EWERS is an Army infantry officer and a student at the Intermediate Level Education program at the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He commanded a mechanized infantry company in Iraq in 2003-2004. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army.
Clausewitz’s bad advice Why do nations go to war? Why do their people agree to...
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CARNITAS - THE VICTORIA' S SECRET PANTY POEM
#3 CARNITAS
3d draft & most likely final version of
a.k.a CARNITAS! –
still unsublimated, untransfigured, raw but more sensuous and carnal!
All versions @:
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2016/08/carnitas-victoria-s-secret-panty-poem.html
You may wonder with so much to wonder about on a rare 100 degree day in Seattle, why oh why Roloff what has gotten into you now… and I reply: it’s overdetermined like so much else.
Three days a week just about I take my laptop and work in the medium-sized restaurant part of the huge – 20,000 square foot - QFC in University Village,
https://uvillage.com/
Generally I get there around opening time, 5 am, because except for lunch it is a quiet large space, and I have a favorite corner & no one bothers me, and the barista Norman and I have hit it off
and from that corner I can see - one block away - the huge pink window of what is now one of two of the equally largest stores in this upscale shoppers haven:
https://www.victoriassecret.com/
which occupies the former three stories of the now deservedly demoted Eddie Bauer. Victoria until not that long ago had about 2,000 square feet, near the same-sized Apple Computer store. Now it is as large as the adjoining Bed Board and Fuck Your Heads Off that has taken over the three floors that used to hold Barnes & Nobel. The only bookstore in University villages – five streets by five avenue blocks square – one square mile - is the recently opened Amazon – actual books – Bookstore; better than nothing, but obviously nothing like the disparu Barnes & Nobel nearest of which can be found, however, at five miles north Northgate Mall.
In Fall, when the new set of Frosh hit the University you notice droves of Asian girls hitting Victoria’s secret and walking around campus with those little emphatic and de-emphatic pink shopping baglets that held or maybe still hold that pink panty now ready for its first college hoook-up, and I imagine you can imagine my regret at being the age I am and comparing the delights on offer with what life was like when I attended Haverford.
A further determination is that I am deeply into the Darlings & Monster’s Saga
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2016/08/darling-monsters-excerpt.html
which and not only in its downtown NY 70s 80s section - has carnality of all kinds and wonderfully lusty hussies!
Then there are those carnal dreams!
Memory of Handke’s grandfather Sivec who in his eighties kept sticking his hand up the squealing milkmaids’ skirts… The after-effect of having translated Handke’s carnal but Lawrentian The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez…
http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2015/03/aranjuez-comments-for-world-english.html
VICTORIA’S SECRET – Carnitas!
Nothing very secret any more about VICTORIA’S SECRET
Those snug and lacy pink panties
and their frisson
Victoria’s special want
“kiss me through”
and or from behind
and from the front
caress me with them if they are another girlfriend’s…
that really really turns her on
Victoria want
to sniff and rip and shred and devour
and buy another pair
to keep warm in my underwear
or pants pocket so that I will always think of her
whenever!
ultra delicious oh so lacy panties
snug and
tissue soft
that -
Victoria’s special want -
“fuck me through”
from behind and from in front
which is what really turns Victoria on
those delicious
bare handfulls
pink as the pink that inspires them
glittering with rhinestones she feels as slutty as a pink pig
and I turn male spit
those delicious, odiferous, sweet-smelling, perfumed glittering pink silky snug lacy panties that I sniff
my especial elixir
and that
when they are funky
give me a jump start
No big surprise then
at the dream
where I devour Victoria’s panties like carnitas
steak tatar
in one famished gulp
with no pits to be spat out
licking the plate for left over juices
At special times
Victoria wears the reddest of red velvet hearts
you know where
and then I show Victoria how much I really love her
and really devour her until she paroxysms and is briefly in Nirvana and thirst and hunger are slaked!
For a while.
2d draft of Victoria’s Secret
Ctd. Mostly unsublimated, untransfigured, raw.
those pink panties
that really turns her on
that Victoria wants me
to sniff and rip off and shred and devour
or pants pocket!
ultra delicious panties pink
glittering with rhinestones
I fuck through from behind and from in front
those delicious pink panties
glittering with rhinestones she feels slutty and I turn male slut
those delicious, odiferous glittering pink panties that I sniff as my elixir
when I’m down
when funky
No big surprise
for a hungry dream
where I devour Victoria’s panties
and her pink pussy in one famished gulp
Victoria wears the reddest of red hearts
and really slurp her up!
And Victoria paroxysms and is briefly in Nirvana.
# `1 VICTORIA’S SECRET
Nothing very secret any more about
those pink panties that
I kiss through
from behind and from the front
that Victoria wants me to sniff and rip off and shred and devour and buy another pair!
with glittering rhinestones
I fuck through from behind and from in front which is what really turns Victoria on
with glittering rhinestones when she feels slutty and I turn male slut
those delicious odiferous glittering pink panties that I sniff as my elexir
when I’m down and out
that, funky, give me a jump start
Sometimes Victoria just wears a red heart
and I show Victoria how much I love her
RE: UR FASCISM / UMBERTO ECO NYRB
ur-fascism/? UMBERTO ECO Umberto Eco’s recollection of his change of political allegiance at an early age brings to mind that of someone a few years his junior, that is, of a fortunate son - and I say “fortunate” with respect to that part of my parentage as compared to the unfortunate children fated to have Nazi criminals as progenitors. While writing Screen Memories, the psychoanalytically oriented memoir of my German-American childhood and youth, I discovered that at the latest by age six I was a fervent nationalist. When my parents – two of the earliest NAZI opponents participants in the 20th of July attempt to eliminate Hitler who only by a fluke survived execution and the April 1945 siege of Berlin – placed a Christmas call to me, from Istambul, in 1942, who was kept safe in the ancient monastery in Vornbach am Inn in southeastern Bavaria, I shocked them singing, proudly, the infamous German navy anthem “We lay off the coast of Madagascar, and had the plague on board,” https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wir_lagen_vor_Madagaskar
which song I think must have sunk into my self-pitying little boys being as it described the essence of my feeling outcast and lonely, imprisoned and threatened, marooned. The other song that sank into boy would be manhood is Uhland’s 1807 German army song Ich hatte einen Kameraden where the line “As though he were part of me” takes its psychosomatic bite of a boy’s soul [Als wär's ein Stück von mir.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_hatt%27_einen_Kameraden
Back at our place for Christmas 1944, now that the bombers had beome accurate, at the outskirts of Bremen, I made a serious sacrfice, I gifted my collection of lead soldiers to one of my grandmother’s sea-faring friends, a visiting U-Boat captain - this young armaments expert knew that U-Boats required heavy loads of lead during their diving operations; this, best to my recollection, my sole contribution to the war effort. I learned to read at age four on my mother’s Christmas gift, a magic writing tablet of the kind that elicited Freud’s A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis., but what I read, aside the usual children’s book and fairy tales, were the war time newspapers, which I picked up during extensive railway travels; and I listened to the radio; my near sole company was my hated governesses who, so a childhood friend my age informed me recently, was not a Nazi either. And I don't think it was sheer contrariness that made me into a childhood Nazi. Change in fealty in Spring 1945 was due to several factors. One fine morning in April the left-overs of a thoroughly beat-up batallion, the first soldiers I had seen from really close-up, and that had fought at Arnheim / Nijmegen during the Battle of the Bulge and had been marched hundreds of miles to participate in the defense of Bremen, were encamped around our pond – my girl cousin child bride Nona von Lehndorf [von Haeften], and I schlepped water 100 yards or so from our deep well to these soldiers, there already was no electriity for the pump, the pond was porofoundly brackish. Nona was not as fortunate as I, her father Heini, my mother’s favorite cousin, had been hung as the conspirator’s courier; the Wolf’s Lair moreover had been built on her parent’s property. Close calls all around. That afternoon she and I started hearing splashings in the pound, louder than that made by the carps and pikes, and then observed the soldiers picking up their assorted armaments, tossing them. There was not going to be a defense of Bremen, at least not for these fellows, while the elegant officers - I well recall the red piping on their trousers - continued with tea on our veranda and all the beautiful women and grandmothers. However, what sealed my disaffection was not only finding out what had transpired and what my parents had gone through but the reappearance of my beloved grandfather Werner von Alvensleben
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_von_Alvensleben
who had been at the head of the list of those who were to be killed on the Night of the Long Knives but who via several flukes had escaped that fate but to spend most of the years of the 12 year Reich in four different concentration camps, and that he had been tortured. The Bremen OSS contingent whose special favorites we and our party place became and the American soldiers and their plenty all struck me as immensely attractive and nice guys as did the music they broadcast from the American Forced Network.
So it is not that surprising that later in life I would do considerable research on the efforts of the opposition, and not so surprisingly have developed a life-long allergy also to any murmur of nationalism in my soul. Poor Guenter Grass who felt so ashamed of his adolescent SS membership that he did not reveal it until late in life. Poor Freedomfries consumers and the like who have never shown shame that I have noticed in the many years in the U.S.A. Perhaps children ought not to be “nationalized” as it were? Just told that they are a species of monkey?
DARLING & MONSTERS EXCERPT
TWO EXCERPTs
FROM THE FINALLY DEVELOPING
darlingS & monsters
Part of the Return Section,
the long long opening...
The opening of the CEECEE section.
(when done D & M will be app. 500,000 short! I have one fifth, it's a triple memorial, two rememberances converging on a present writing & incorporating a parallel memoir ALWAYS THE WRONG PEOPLE)
A hell of a lot of sex in the beginning, it is set in the Tribeca/ Soho of the 70s and 80s & makes contact with the then
HEART OF DARKNESS OF NEW YORK.
let me know what you think, on the comment section or via facebook or e-mail
mikerol[@]outlook.com
The cab stopped smartly at the front of my loft building in Tribeca, in downtown Manhattan, as I continued to chat with the driver, who was from Madras, and as I was tipping him, generously, as I did even when I was broke, which I was not then: I had a small stipend subsequent to the recent catastrophe that allowed me to analyze all that had gone wrong. The driver, Ahmed, who was from Madras, and I had had a lively chat about Mumbay which had been much safer, as had Karachi, when I had visited fifteen years earlier and where I had walked, in horror, through Falk/ Fuckland Road and its cages full of whores and admired the Zoroaster’s consign their dead to the tops of trees where vultures fed on the flesh, leaving nothing but skeletons. The vultures, so I had read, were in trouble, the eggshells were breaking too soon, fragile, DDT, or one or the other carcinogen, the flesh rotted and liquefied and dropped down on passersby on the bluffs. I had also been with a whore, which I did not mention to Ahmed, which whore and I had picked each other up along the fine Mumbay quay. However, I had gone completely cold in her barren but clean room and been unable to perform as I had had a powerful urge just a short while before. Nothing that the attractive girl did to revive the recent ardor had the least effect: the more she tried the colder I felt, an onslaught was impending, a major intestinal event of what in Mexico was called Moctezuma’s revenge, but for the sake of my presence in India I called “the Raj’s revenge.” I felt that I must have picked up the bug in Karachi, the Hellenic Splendor’s previous port of call, or shipboard; this was my first day in Mumbay and I hadn’t been with a woman since the day of the freighter’s departure months earlier in Brooklyn, specifically with a new young girlfriend. ...
It was early on a Sunday morning in June and it felt quite idyllic at the spot I stood on with the sun shooting through the streets and glistening all around and the early morning cool breeze from the Northwest, and so before entering my building I decided to take a look around, to take a deep breath, to re-orient myself in what had been my immediate visual sphere for so many years, and I put down my bag. The building opposite mine of course deserved the first look of recognition that, reassuringly, it still existed and not only in my imagination, that nothing appeared to have changed during my absence: its façade still a first rate example of turn of the 19th century American mercantile architecture with certain requisite doodads as it could and can still be found in nearly all American cities that had been a city of some kind during that time, and I continued to be proud that I was hip to the fact that the Ganymede - the building’s name stenciled in protruding sandstone lettering above the entrance - was a mere twenty feet deep, that it was mostly façade, that it was a three-quarters-of-a-block wide six-story tall lady that, as it were, had a substantial shelf but a very flat ass! And flat-assed Robin of the many years ago came to mind. And no eyes out back to the West, windowless! The other, fourth quarter of the block, its northern section, was now a parking lot – who knows what it might have been at some time was a thought that flitted through my mind at each of the many holes in the street scene downtown - whose attendant doubled as the Ganymede’s super, my friend Egbert Romain, a Trinidad-Tobagonian, evidently of both British and French slavery extraction with the physique of Sugar Ray Robinson, an idol of my American bantam weight youth when my stepfather, noting excess energies, had put some boxing stuff up in the garage and I had started to watch boxers on 50s television. There had been a time that I had planned for Egbert to be both body guard and chauffeur and conversationalist if the well-dreamed fantasies of grand success and buying the Ganymede and the printing shop on its third floor, had materialized, Egbert was a delight to talk to, his pidgin was sweet and if things had gone really well I or if the partnership had held – we had even planned to acquire the Elysian a few blocks north on Hudson, a chunky square Florentine four story job, painted battle-ship grey at present, with stairs leading up from left and right to a small balcony platform entrance perfect for holding forth and mounting the Blakean flag of the enterprise, at its center the swimmer who, however, reaches the water and does not drown as the enterprise did in a sea of debt and corruption and thievery and endless lawsuits - one of the great messes, one of those complete de-constructionist, insides turned out affairs that reveals everything, and what an everything it was. Just now there was no sign of Egbert or his relief man, a cousin of his, who always wore one of these knitted rainbow-colored Rasta caps no matter the heat and whose exotic ancient colonial British name eluded me at the moment - it was altogether still too early in the morning, though I would not have minded to hear the sweet laid-back reggae sound of Toots and the Maytals. And there, from the fourth floor fire escape railing, still dangled, in the breeze, the remnants of the South-American rope bridge that at one time, briefly, connected that fourth floor of the mercantile façade to the fourth floor roof of the so very obscure building opposite whose loft and roof was mine. That rope bridge had made for a fine and famous photo on the front page of the Post the day we strung it up and showed it to the world. How unfortunate that the city would prove humorless and made us cut it down in short order. Things hadn’t worked out as planned, as envisioned, as dreamed - and I punched “You can’t always get what you want” in the Juke Box in my mind and assured myself I wasn’t going to be grumpy, was I now, after all I had gotten what I really wanted, my kitbag of experience that I had lacked, a past a real past, and rather more of it than I could have dreamed and what an ”egg of experience” I now had to brood on and … wasn’t that one of our downtown space cadets floating high up in the breeze? a left-over from the Saturday night that had been. Magdalena? Was she, the so bereft after she and her boyfriend Zejlko had split up against all our odds that this couple would hold forever, still in space-cadet mode? No, on a closer look it was just a balloon, with furles; my fantasy was just a tad too vivid.
From my fourth-floor corner office in the Ganymede I had always looked forward to this first slither of the sun shooting in from the East as I got to work, after a swim in Mr. Woolworth’s marble swimming pool in basement of the eponymous Woolworth Tower, just a few blocks over, often taking my swim in company of the mayor of the city who dog-paddled and politicked, aquatically greeting fellow swimmers, body guards on either side, before dashing across City Hall Park to his office. Noticeably, the mayor, a man with a surprisingly small head for such a tall frame, never lost the makings, modest pregnancy of a pot belly, and I attributed this phenomenon to his needing to consume a lot of chicken during civic luncheons. Pregnant with chicken fat he was, looking a lot like Jack Perdue a purveyor of chicken on T.V. At about seven in the morning in summer the sun shone directly into the two east-facing windows of my office… I quote my analytic friend, Rose Reich-Habsburg's description: "Yugi sougt to get to his office early for all the obvious reasons, because the few hours before the office opened, and the hours after closing, after a late afternoon nap, was when "the real work," as he called it, “my work,” got done; so-called normal working hours consisted of fragments, interruptions, distractions that left him frazzled until he took his afternoon nap. It was a sunny morning and the sun glinting along and half through the edges of the louvres of the two large East-facing windows seemed to electrify the motes especially at that time of day, also in my head; but the sun, or rather the earth's incline to it, would soon be concealed, first by the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] cantilevering box diagonally opposite, severely, eliminating even sun aura; by the 70 story Woolworth Tower towering over the IRS and then by the huge slabs to the south. One wonderful Southwest shaft reappeared briefly late in the late afternoon through the south facing windows, a shaft that shot in between an ATT tower on Greenwich Street, to the west of the North Tower, on Greenwich Street, and yet another hulk, shooting in through the two south-facing windows of Yuri’s office and back out through the ones that faced East across the street, but to draw dim reflections from the unwashed windows on the loft opposite, on the other side of the streer. At those moments the light played quite enchantingly in Yuri’s big, square high-ceilinged room. I always looked forward to that last sudden slither of the sun. In winter the sun existed as an absence. But because the sun shone directly into the two east facing windows at this time, around 7 of the morning Yuri, and often I, who visited him in my capacity as his friend and shrink, could not make out what if anything might be transpiring at the top, equivalent fourth floor in the building opposite, and even if the sun had not blinded Yuri, me, us, its double-insulated windows unwashed outside since the day Lincoln had spent a night in the half of it that had been a hotel during the Civil War, all I might have been able to make out was whether, possibly, one or the other light had come on to dispel the there gloom. So I presumed that Yuri’s somnolent 'Roos, who were over-staying their welcome by a year, were, as was their custom, sleeping through the finest part of the day, to start hopping, tentatively, out from under their drugged states sometime around noon, readying themselves for another drug filled alcoholic nite, another romp with “Dancing Matilda.” “My 'Roos." Yuri said, " are a Maoist theater troupe, Night Shift, led by an actor who was great when he rode a horse called horse, and an Aussie Revo who cultivated the cultivation of marijuana plants under the influence of neon, in the crawl space, beneath the stairs that led to Yuri's small bedroom on top of the loft, sort of like a captain's bridge, anyway that's how I thought of it, or referred to it when describing its, Yuris sometimes nighttime location.
“Are you all right?” a voice interrupted me, my reverie. “Oh… ” I said to someone I instantly recognized as a commuter who must have just stepped out of the nearby Hudson Tubes. “You had your eyes closed and were just standing there, starting to sway.”
“You didn’t see a dog falling off the roof, did you?” I said to him, associating this Jersey commuter with one just like him who had been frightened out of his wits when one of my and Elle’s one-year-old German shepherd mix puppies had fallen off the balustrade of my loft roof and landed on the sidewalk, barely missing him.
“Dogs falling out of the sky in Manhattan, I’m going straight back to Jersey,” had been that commuter’s memorable words. That dog’s fall, that dog accident, that accident due to an impulsive leap, or to too fast running, to that slip, had been a sign, symbolic retrospectively, of Elle’s and my love for each other’s impending crash, doom, the first sign that I could put my finger on: I was over-extended. The dog had broken one leg and limped off, dragged himself to the landfill, to our beach, a hundred yards further West where, tracking his blood spoor, I found him and had carried him in my arms to the animal hospital where they were amazed that he had survived a four-floor fall and had only one broken leg to show for the experience. They said they would also check his internal organs, that there was no bleeding. It was pure chance that I had encountered that commuter these years ago. The dog had fallen off while I had been walking down the stairs, the commuter was standing right next to the blood-stained spot where Wolfie had landed.
This commuter now gave me a very strange, somewhat frightened look as he stepped back and said “have a good day” and hurried off. I now turned around and was glad to note that nothing seemed to have changed on “my” building. Its ground floor had a pizza joint, at the corner, and the pizza joit was still a pizza joint, opposite the modernistic maroon and greenish glass multi monstrosity the third generation modernistic IRS building on the side street corner. The pizza joint adjoined a now girlie lounge that occupied what had been the Boar Head, a restaurant, which had been frequented by the merchants that had once dominated the area and that I in my fantasy future had turned into the Central Europe that served Leber-knoedel Suppe, Goose; and other central European specialties and where chiefly writers and editors and artists hung out. In my fantasy I had even imported the chef and his family from Prague. Next to the Girlie Lounge entrance was the now metal door entrance to “my” building which was such an obscure dark grey lady she might actually - to a certain kind of observer - become noticeable for her very obscurity, certainly for no other reason, as though she were trying just a bit too hard to hide but going about it in too obvious a manner. What she is hiding is that she is bifurcated, that she is two buildings of very different kind that were joined at some point early in their unheralded past, that one of her shoulders is higher or lower than the other, that she is askew, and you used the staircase, the marbled stairs from the southern half or two thirds, that was once a hotel, that dated back to the civil war era, rumor fantasy had it that Lincoln slept here, perhaps even in the same perch that I now occupied. Marble, of course, is about the last component you expected as you looked at that considerable expanse of black and gray paint, those uninviting surfaces with placards that people kept pasting there.
I had seen the destruction of Lower Manhattan starting in the late 60s as Danny Lion photographed it and it was amazing that of all the buildings that had survived the wrecking ball was this gray corner once Civil War hotel with its barge of a roof and ships construction that swayed and creaked when the Arctic Northwest Express hit in Fall and Winter, and when it hit the Wall, the wall of downtown sky scrapers, it broadsided them, slammed into that Wall and the Wall turned the Express around, compressed it, from a Northwesterly into a South to North jet exhaust (like the Subway right below) that swirled garbage and garbage cans through the narrows of West Broad as high as the fourth floor of my office and the top floor of the loft on the way North uptown. Memorable, no? N’est pas?
I finally picked up my bag and felt hunger pangs and put my keys away and turned to the adjacent Greek Greasy Spoon, the buildings only other ground floor enterprise, a six-foot-wide sliver, twenty feet deep, too, its one big window steamed as it had been always all these years at this hour, a steam bath of a breakfast joint, just as always, who made excellent eggs and home-fries. I had been looking forward to having a few goodbye breakfasts there and decided, for old time’s sake, to have one of them right there and then. The aging Greek, all wattles, looked cooked blonde-white like his noodles when they came steaming out of his pressure cooker or steam-bath or whatever that enclosure was, offered a grunt of recognition for a greeting. No “long time no see” as I had expected. Time must pass differently for him I concluded and said “the usual” and he failed to ask what my “the usual” was – it had been a few years - but poured the usual tepid coffee and turned three eggs into the fluffiest of scrambles that I spread across my toast, and toasted the fries just right. It was then that I could feel it taking hold, the past, I was starting to enter it, I was eating it, I had entered the past, someone who had not had a past, who had written himself out of his European past in college, and who had written the childhood out of himself, now had his American past to step into, if only for a time, and not just any past, but a past that I was already writing about, a fairly recent past yet also one that I had felt I had put behind me. A past during which I felt I had done it all or at least a lot of it wrong – Always the Wrong People, the title of the memoir of my twenty five years in New York – and I well knew that the equation “wrongness” involved me, moi meme, that I was one side of it. Yet: “No over-berating yourself,” I told myself, “no satisfying whatever tad of disgusting heroic masochism might reside in you, a cool assessment is what is needed,” but enough wrong, just enough to make difficult success even more difficult. “Always the wrong people” it had been, wrong women too! And far too many! I had succumbed far too often! At least half the time, and that was bad enough. And not been discrete. Live and learn, never live long enough! – was another truism for which my internal jukebox lacked a melody. I recalled the wounded shepherd puppy dragging its broken leg to the landfill to nurse himself! Moi meme! But pretty well recovered now, just a tad of a limp! The dog that had slunk away to nurse its broken leg, just like myself when the Ganymede Elysian field dream had imploded. I had been a shmuck I concluded. My experience of the city that had glistened and still glistened so temptingly if seen from the distant cliffs, it had singed the wings of this moth while it itself had turned into a glittering pile of garbage. I pulled out my medium-sized three ring note book with the legend “Always the Wrong People” & the Roman numeral “I” neatly inscribed on a label pasted in the upper right hand corner of its plastic cover and started to read its opening and make emendations:
I grabbed the phone: it wasn’t Elle as I had feared Elle who for reasons that were entirely beyond me despite having been multiply unfaithful and leaving me and then having been kicked out of my life had decided - while trying to entrap her current boyfiend! - to pursue me after she and the Heartache Kid had been through a breakup that lasted seemngly forever until I told her I wanted her out of my life. „Kiss me through my panties!” „Spank me!” Whew!
No, it was not darling ballerina Elle but CeeCee the biggest heart-ache prior to Elle! Well... anyhoo. During my twenty five years in New York! There had been others in adolescence and shortly after, and even earlier, I wasn’t called, people didn’t call me the Heartache Kid for nothing! The then, now biggest previous Heartache the Heartach Kid reminded himself right there and then. It had taken that trip on the Hellenic Splendor halfway around the world, of which I had just the briefest of deja vues, to heal the scratches - “Catskills skilled cats cats kill” had been the dream shorthand for CeeCee and my affair in those anything but comical foothills – the scratches she had administered to my vulnerable stupid heart, a heart that actually ought to have become scar tissued as only a muliply injured heart can! A wonder I thought to myself, thinking back, that until I seemed finally – I prayed – made myself invulnerable by seceding from the scene, fleeing – that I and my heart had actually lasted as long as I did.
CeeCee had been the constant and I mean constant deja vue, as Elle’s previous edition, especially during the analytic sessions with Enigma, during Elle’s and my break-up. That break-up had been well examined, that had proved really interesting to do that, dream by dream and step by step, as compared to CeeCee’s and mine that had been suffered in the ignorance of oblivion in oblivious ignorance, in acting out. I now could pride myself that I knew where my fault (s) lay in the break-up, my contribution. CeeCee and I had never lived together, not as much had become involved. She had not suffered from sudden neglect after a torrid opening, she had not been yet another of the „most beautiful woman in the world” who turned into my „emasculating governess.” The „hunk,” the apparent „it boy” by the evidence of how the pretty one were seizing on me, had not turned into... what? A sudden monk? That was a part of the problem that I brought with me to the proceedings of our Elle’s and my near marriage, well yes, and if I didn’t have an invariable Albatross a beloved never hated Albatross around my neck the revolutionary enterprise or work of some kind, and never enough money to run away for a permanent Wild Palms, my work, invariably an Albatross of some kind about.
And I had even had the dream -referring to my neglect of Elle and its dreadful conseqeunce - that said „remember that and don’t forget it!” Talking about talking super-ego dreams where I address myself! And then starting to write the book that would make all the ladies happy: The Well Laid Woman!
CeeCee’s and my affair had been the rehearsal for the far more calamitous, the catastrophe of Elle’s and my breakup – a break-up under analysis no less, ah what you can learn what you experience when denial is thrown overboard and a thousand eyes cry their hearts out at what they now behold.
CeeCee felt she always knew where I was, that we were in constant contact and communication, which played into a fantasy relationship I had had with my mostly absent mother, my conscience, that she knew what I was doing, it was spooky to find out how often CeeCee had been right. The first time I had made love to her in a bed she had pretended and wanted me to pretend, and I had, that I was her father, and when I made calm gentle love to her, diddling her clit to make sure she would come, it had been perfect for her. “Perfect” she had said, and my cock had felt awfully snug inside her cunt, well and snugly held, a memorably unique sensation, though the breach of the Oedipal order, if only as pretense, introduced a troubling note – musically forewarning, like the repeated opening of Mozar’s Haffner
QUOTE NOTES
- into my sleep, once we did get to sleep that night. There also had been humor. I had heard of I.U.D.s but never encountered or seen one. When I started to fuck CeeCee, after petting that she loved as much as I did, something inside her womb started to tickle my cock and I told her „What’s that inside you that’s tickling my cock?”, and she said, „Oh, that’s my I.U.D.” And I said, „it’s tickling me!” and CeeCee said „You’re not the only one!” Twenty six lover had been there – no, she had not had the good sense to get an I.U.D. prior to losing her virginity nor after I forgot whether it was her first or second abortion. CeeCee at age twenty six still dressed mostly in some variation of schoolgirl uniform but had been virginal only until age sixteen and had been gyrating and hot to trot as soon as she heard Elvis Presley at fourteen.
And here I was back in the Big Dark City and its Heart of Darkness, three of whose ventricles I had come to know, two of them via CeeCee or because she and I had worked together. You needed to work all night to penetrate the heart of darkness and the spiders of the dark and to stay awake at those hours requires stronger meds and the trail of that medicine might could did also led to one of the entrances to the heart of darkness, and I had shied back, that was too black and dangerous, I lacked resolve, that domain was too deep and wide ranging for me. Inadvertencies. Who goes to the Big City and looks for its heart of Darkness? As a cab driver to take you!
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Home Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Aquaria KLCC
Nestled in the heart of the bustling “Golden Triangle” of Kuala Lumpur and within walking distance from the Petronas Twin Towers, Aquaria KLCC is a state-of-the-art oceanarium showcasing over 5,000 different exhibits of aquatic and land-bound creatures over a sprawling 60,000 square-foot space in the Concourse Level of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
Must do:
Marvel at the Arapaima, the world’s largest freshwater fish which can weigh up to 200kg
Walk through Aquaria’s 90-metre long tunnel to view sharks, stingrays and other marine life
Watch the Bumblebee Dart Frog, which is said to be one of the most toxic animals on earth
Observe the Sand Tiger Shark, one of the most aggressive sharks in the world
Watch the daily fish-feeding sessions
Angry Birds Baba Nyonya beaches Bird Park Birdwatching Brickfields canopy walk Caves Chinese Cuisine Culture diving Duty Free Firefly Hello Kitty Heritage Highlands Hornbills Island Johor Legoland Little India Local cuisine longhouse Marine Conservation Park Menara Kuala Lumpur MICE Mount Kinabalu Museum National Park Nature Observation Deck Orang Utan orchids Petronas Twin Tower Proboscis Monkey Seafood Sky Dining Taman Negara Theme Park Turtle UNESCO World Heritage City UNESCO World Heritage Site waterpark Western Cuisine Wildlife
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ANMLY
Anomaly, a journal of literature and the arts
Anomaly #31 :: Comics
Anomaly #31 :: Poetry
Anomaly #31 :: Fiction
Anomaly #31 :: Nonfiction
Anomaly #31 :: Translation
Anomaly #31 :: To Speak as a Flower: a Folio of Performance Writing
Anomaly #31 :: Citizenship and its Discontents
Anomaly #30
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS :: WRITING OURSELVES / MAD
Rana Soliman
The water hit the spoon’s surface and splashed all over her. Her blouse, pants and the floor got wet. Soraya blamed Umm-Kulthum’s beautiful voice for the distraction. She was keen on finishing the dishes while listening to the eight o’clock classical Arabic music radio program before the miss woke up.
The miss had commented before to her that those songs encouraged women to be obsessed about love. And then she rambled and said big words such as; independence, empowerment and the type of words you hear from politicians. Soraya found solace in Umm Kalthum’s songs, what mattered more than love anyway? If it wasn’t for Umm Kalthum’s voice, she wouldn’t have had a song that reminded her of her walks with her mother to the bakery for fresh bread straight out of the oven. They would then fill it with home made chips, shared a bottle of coke, sat on the street benches overlooking the Nile and devoured their feast. This must be her favorite memory of time spent with her mother. Neither would she have had a song that reminded her of the first time Mohsen held her hand when they were strolling in the Azhar park and he confessed his love to her. Those songs kept her company and at times her peace.
This was Soraya’s first job in the city. After her mother became sick, her family moved to the city in hopes of finding better medical treatments, and Soraya had begun to work to help her family out. Soon her mother died. And her father health conditions quickly deteriorated and could no longer go to work regularly. That is what happens to someone when love is gone, Soraya believed. She quickly found herself barely seventeen and the main source of income in the household. She had to drop out of her last year in school to accommodate the new working hours. Back then she made a vow to herself, that once things began to settle she would go back to school. Now it had been two years already and nothing changed.
When she had first arrived at Amal’s house she was wearing one of her favorite mother’s long sleeve dresses; Amal then gave her a long inquisitive look, left her for few minutes without explanation, came in, handed her a couple of old pants and blouses and asked her to wear them instead. She told her that she would not tolerate looking at those ugly dresses. They reminded her of the poor women who worked in the field. She meant the peasants of course. It was not absolutely horrible to work for this bachelorette; at least during day-time she had to clean after one person only.
“Important people visit me. So you should look presentable,” Amal would say every time she gave her clothes.
She was not used to wearing pants it made her feel conscious. Yet she politely accepted them from her and wrapped a jacket around her waist to cover her back. Her body looked slim in those tight clothes. She couldn’t begin to think what her mother would say had she seen her walk like this in the village. Maybe Mohsen would like it, or maybe not, she could not tell. But mother, she wouldn’t.
She sized the mess she had caused, and quickly searched for a piece of cloth to dry the sink and the wet floor.
“What was that?” Amal asked coming out of her room and yawning.
“Nothing,” Soraya replied as she dried the last wet spot on the floor, “Nothing to worry about Miss.” Amal came into the living room that was an extension to the open kitchen. She leaned on the kitchen’s counter for a minute. The next minute she stretched on the ground in awkward poses. She wore pink sweatpants and a white tank top. And her hair curled in rollers.
She looked past Soraya and gestured with her hands, pretending she had a cup she was about to sip from. Soraya’s stomach churned whenever Amal did that, why couldn’t she just ask.
“Right away,” she mumbled.
Soraya rushed to fix her some coffee. She could now finally perfect American coffee. Before Amal showed her how to, she could only make regular Turkish coffee.
Soraya memorized by heart how the scene played out every single day. It was a Friday morning, that meant that the miss woke up late and didn’t have to work. And like every weekend she woke up with what looked like a bad headache, and then asked for her coffee fix while staring at her cellphone. She’d then cover herself with the blanket she kept at the reception’s couch, cuddle her cat, Sonfera, and watch TV till noon.
By that time of the day; Soraya would have already finished cleaning the kitchen, swept the floors of the living room and the reception, and started off with the window cleaning.
During the week the miss worked in one of the prestigious companies. Soraya looked at her while waiting for the coffee to boil. She had the perfect teeth. The perfect skin. Silky hair that was now rolled, golden at the ends and brown at the roots. She looked like a goddess. Probably that’s what money does to people.
“Tell me Soraya, do you love this Mohsen of yours?”
Soraya bit her lower lips. She didn’t remember why she had ever mentioned Mohsen to her.
“When are you getting married then?”
“When God makes a way.”
“God? That must be a hard relationship.” Amal rolled her eyes and ate a piece of chocolate.
“Is he one of those traditional men who don’t allow their wives to work?”
Soraya sighed, “We haven’t talked about that yet.”
“Talked about it? This is not an option! Who will clean for me? You have to arrange for a substitute if that’ll be the case.”
“Miss, not to worry.”
“I worry Soraya. I worry a lot. I have so much on my plate and an unclean house is the last thing I need,” She said as she waved Sonfera away.
So many thoughts passed through Soraya’s mind, but nothing that she could say out loud.
“Tell me, is he good looking? Are you attracted to him?”
Soraya blushed for she was not accustomed to think in that way, let alone discuss such a private affair in an open manner.
“I’d like to think he is handsome.”
“Poor girl, your face is red!” Amal laughed. “Anyways, I’m travelling tonight for two weeks. I ‘ll leave you the keys; make sure you come at the end of the second week, right before I arrive, to dust off the house.”
At around four’ o’clock Soraya was done cleaning the house, and headed home.
On her way back she stopped by Marefa public school to pick up her brothers; Omar, Ahmed, Wafik, and Hussein. She was older than the eldest, Omar, by nine years. She glimpsed Hussein first, the youngest, running towards her. She hugged him, then held his hand and waited for the rest of the boys. And then they walked back together to their house, a small flat on top of the roof overlooking the busy streets of Shubra. When they arrived home she could see from the window that her father didn’t change his position since she left him in the morning. She could hardly recognize him these days with his frail figure and large dark circles under his eyes. When her mother was alive, he used to be different but the years seemed to have smoothed his rough edges and soothed her grudges. There he was slouched on the couch, surrounded by half empty cups of tea, watching an Egyptian soap opera episode.
“Hello father, how was your day?”
“Good Soso, this was once Egypt. I wanted to be part of those times,” he said referring to the soap opera he watched over ten times this past year, featuring Abd el Halim’s life.
“Its seems like it was a good era. Are you hungry?”
“Of course it was. Yes, and make something for the kids.”
She let out a long sigh and went to prepare dinner. The kitchenette was made up of a small fridge, one that the miss got rid of last year as she was refurbishing her kitchen and wanted a new one that would blend in with the new design, a vintage stove, and a sink. She fetched the peas she had shelled out the night before. And made a meal of rice and peas in red sauce and served the men. Finally, after a long day she went to her room. The only private room in the house, everything else they shared.
Other than Mondays she worked all week long, and on Mondays she helped her brothers in their school work. Back when she was at school, she spent her free time with one of her girlfriends or engulfed in a book of her choice. She could hardly grasp that the next day she had the whole day to herself.
She woke up as usual at five o’clock in the morning. She did not set up the alarm the night before. Her mother once explained to her, that our bodies have their own way of adapting to habits. It was one of those silly little things that people come to know alone, that her mother talked about the most. Her dad liked to tease her mother that if she had finished her education she would have had better things to talk about. But somehow those were the things she missed the most things like; “Don’t shower before you go to bed or you’ll catch a cold.” and “Eat some real food.”. Where would she have been if it weren’t for her? She missed her.
She kept trying to fall back to sleep but she couldn’t. She thought of the things she could do today for a change. She could prepare breakfast for her fiancé in the warehouse and spend time with him. Her stomach cramped. Perhaps she should rest for a while at home, but she wouldn’t really be alone. Her father would be there.
She decided that she would walk the boys to school first. So she left the bed and opened her cupboard, several beautiful dresses hanged next to each other. Today was a good day to wear one. But instead she grabbed one of the three outfits she had made out of the items Amal gave her. And headed to the bathroom. And mechanically undressed, took a shower and wore her uniform.
“Good morning boys, wake up! You are going to be late to school.”
Shortly after she dropped them, she took the microbus to downtown. She did not think too much about it, her feet seemed to take the lead. She arrived at building number nineteen like every morning at eight o’clock. Only this morning, she was not supposed to be there.
The apartment was one of the high ceilinged ones. Amal had explained to Soraya that unlike the new areas of Cairo, downtown buildings were built during the British occupation, and their architecture mimicked the European style. The apartment belonged to her grandfather, and now that her family lived in Dubai, it was hers.
She tried the keys to the apartment. It was as clean as she left it the day before. She was hesitant at first. But she entered anyway. A rush of excitement travelled all through her body. The house was empty. And she was alone.
She didn’t know what to do with herself so she moved to the kitchen and boiled water for coffee. She then went inside Amal’s room; and at the inviting sight of the king-size bed she threw her full weight onto it. She stayed silent for a while. A few minutes later, she went into the bathroom attached to the master bedroom. And undressed. Then she moved to the tub, and opened the tap. She started preparing a bubble bath the same way she did for the miss. Only she could not choose from the range of the liquid soap available. So she poured a bit of each flavor. It smelled like a garden of flowers she thought. Then she immersed in the water. It could have been an hour or more before she came out, she could not tell.
She enjoyed the warmth of the water and the smell of vanilla and peach that surrounded her. After the bath she felt a little bit more comfortable. This feels right she thought. She then chose one of the fur pink pajamas-she’d always wondered how they must feel on one’s skin. To be covered by something so soft. Then she lounged on the sofa and watched the television for hours while snacking on nuts.
She sort of forgot the day’s hour, who she was or where she had been. Only that she wanted to stay like this for a good while.
A door slammed.
She jerked from her seat.
She stood fixed in her place, with a startled look in her eyes. And before she could think, a man appeared. Tall, he occupied so much space. He was too big, and she was too small. He had dark brown hair and thick eyebrows. And hazel eyes that gazed at her.
She could not make her mouth move. She attempted to say something, but something similar to a squeak came out. It occurred to her that he too looked like he was out of words.
“Hey..I’m Mourad, Amal’s brother,” He said in a plain calm voice.
Something about his voice, calmed her down, more calming then vanilla and peach.
Still she did not know what to say. How would she explain why she was there? In his sister’s pajamas?
He interrupted the silence “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you. Amal said she was travelling and I could use the house during my visit.” “Sorry, I talk too fast! You must be Amal’s friend?” his voice cracked. Was that nervousness she heard in his voice? She suddenly realized he had no idea who she was. She breathed.
Soraya nodded, “Yes, but I was just about to leave.”
“No please you don’t have to.”
“No really, I was spending the night over and was going to leave anyway.”
“I hope I didn’t intrude, care for some coffee before you leave?”
She mechanically followed him to the kitchen.
The idea of being in a closed space with a man alone, was perhaps a normal idea in Amal’s world, and probably in her brother’s world too. But for Soraya it was the most foreign. She thought of the other night with Mohsen though. She tried to refocus on the enormity of her immediate situation instead. But the memory of Mohsen and the staircase came to her mind.
She reached for the coffee jar.
“Let me take care of that,” he said as he took the coffee jar from her. “What is your name?”
“Nesma.” She came up with that rather quickly, she thought.
It had been a long day for both of them. They had had a fight about postponing their wedding, because Mohsen was not financially ready for all the preparations. And it was late so he walked her home.
“Milk?” Amal’s brother asked with a charming smile.
“Yes, please,” She said shyly.
They had arrived and Soraya turned to tell him goodbye. But he insisted to walk her upstairs. She did not object.
“Sugar?” the brother’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
But her mind wondered again to that night. As she took the stairs she felt Mohsen’s breath at the back of her ears. He was close. And he came closer from behind and tenderly pulled her towards him by her waist. Her heart pace quickened. She lost her breath, and gulped back the tears. She wanted to let go and give in. She wanted to feel the heaviness of his body against hers. Allow herself to feel defeated, penetrated. And for once embrace her femininity without fighting back.
“Would you like sugar?” he repeated, “Are you okay?”
“No, I mean yes. I mean no about the sugar and yes I am okay.”
“I am a firm believer, that the best coffee is Turkish coffee,” He said with a smile.
“Me too,” she replied spontaneously.
And she had loved him for a long time hadn’t she. But despite herself her legs tightened next to each other. And as if possessed by a foreign force, she pushed him away. And started to weep.
“Are you always so brief in your replies or did I scare you?” he asked.
He was gorgeous just like his sister. Irresistible, she thought.
“No, not at all. I am just shy at first.”
He laughed, and swiped his dark hair backwards.
“Do you live nearby?” he asked so gently.
“Half an hour away,” she replied. She moved her long hair from one side to the other.
“I can give you a ride.”
“I prefer to walk.”
“Me too, it always helps me calm down especially after an exhausting day. Helps me breathe some fresh air, and sort out my messy thoughts. Plus, it’s a good exercise nowadays in a city like Cairo, we don’t get to walk that often,” He said, “I am rambling. Sorry.”
She laughed, “No you are okay, you speak your mind.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes. I enjoy walking too; I sometimes get myself lost on purpose to discover new places.”
“You are adventurous, I see.” He poured the coffee in a cup and handed it to her and said, “I do that in reading, I try to get lost in the books I read, and imagine what it would feel like to live in a different world-the story world.”
“One can only imagine such things,” she said.
“Would you like to go for a walk Nesma?” he asked.
“Yes. That would be lovely,” she answered.
Rana Soliman an Egyptian writer who believes in the power of words, and loves to experiment with different narrative modes. Being a hybrid of both the east and west, she writes stories from that culturally conflicted viewpoint. Rana is a financial analyst during the day and a part-time student in the Masters of Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh.
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Review: The Great Holiday Baking Show
Cory Anotado
My bottom is so soggy in delight right now.
It’s no secret that I love the Great British Bake-Off. Like, more than any one person really should, especially when said person can’t bake more than the Pillsbury tube of sugar cookies. When new episodes air on BBC One, this is my general reaction.
OH SHIT FUCK YEAH IT'S FUCKING GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF NIIIIIIGHT #gbbo
— Cory Anotado (@pacdude) September 9, 2015
There are so many different cues that the Great British Bake Off hits during its seasons that it’s developed a very unique fingerprint on reality competition television. For one thing, it’s so quaint it hurts. The tent in which the bakers compete is in a delightful British garden. Every part of the tent is decorated to feel comfortable, light, and airy, even if the situations the bakers are in isn’t. Speaking of the contestants, the casting department for GBBO deserves some kind of Nobel Prize for consistently finding contestants who are both good at baking and are seemingly genuinely nice and just happy to be challenged in the art of baking. No one’s ever (intentionally) nasty to anyone else, there’s never (as far as we can tell, Bingate withstanding) any malice or meanness to any other fellow bakers, and no earnest spite or animosity between any of the contestants. The enemy isn’t the opposing bakers. It’s the bakes.
Which is why CBS’s attempt to bring the show to America was so disappointing. The American Baking Competition (because apparently Pillsbury owns the phrase “Bake-Off” to describe a baking competition) starred Jeff Foxworthy as host, imported Paul Hollywood from GBBO, and amped up the competition to eleven. And it left a sour taste in my mouth because what it seemed like the producers of the show focused so hard on was the “American” part of the title.
So, it is with an immense amount of pleasure that I can tell you that the Great Holiday Baking Show, a truncated, four-episode mini-Bake Off premiering tonight on ABC at 10 PM after so many Peanuts specials, is a worthy import for fans of GBBO, or food in general. The things that make the Great British Bake-Off so great are here in troves: challenging competition, genuine feedback, bakers who are good at baking, and a distinct lack of manufactured, interpersonal drama.
For those who aren’t familiar, the Great Holiday Baking Show is a baking competition. 6 amateur bakers compete weekly in three themed challenges. For the first week, the bakers had three Christmas Cookie challenges. The first challenge is the Signature bake, where bakers are given a task and must make something that showcases their skills. It’s a good opportunity to show off what they’re really good at. The second challenge is a Technical challenge, where each baker is given the same ingredients and a vague recipe and must try to use their technical skills in order to meet the judges’ rigid standards. The final challenge is the Showstopper challenge, a larger-than-life task that pushes the limits of what the bakers can do with the medium. For tonight’s premiere, the Showstopper was to build elaborate gingerbread structures.
The show is filmed in the signature Bake-Off tent, and the show is judged by Mary Berry. The music cues, although jingle-fied for the holidays, remain recognizable as pure Bake-Off. Love Productions, who craft GBBO, are in charge of production and direction here as well. Even the “best-case-scenario-bake” drawings are still present. All the beats are there for fans of the Bake-Off to feel right at home. With that, however, means that for fans of the show, there’s nothing new being brought to the proceedings. Not that their needs to be.
The changes made to accommodate American audiences are few. Replacing comedy duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins as hosts are My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos and her husband, Cougar Town star Ian Gomez. (If you see his face, you’ll know who he is. He was on the Drew Carey Show too.) Replacing Paul Hollywood (probably because his wife wouldn’t want ANYTHING to do with Great American Baking anything at this point, but that’s snarky stipulation and not based in reality) is celebrity Pastry Chef and Beard Award Winner Johnny Iuzzini. Johnny brings his own personality to the judging proceedings, but still banters quite well against Mary Berry’s adorable expert-baking grandma persona. Nia and Ian (they’re anagrams of each other!) also are a great duo. Ian’s more of the straight man in the comedy duo, being very matter-of-factly in the proceedings, while Nia has not only the cadence and the tone of GBBO hosts, but also the hilarious habit of picking off and eating batter, sweets and other ingredients off the table. And just like Mel and Sue, Ian and Nia not only update the contestants, but provide moral support and encouragement during more stressful points of the show.
I fully expected the American contestants to be loud, annoying, in-your-face bald-eagle wave-the-flag AMERICA types, but casting has once again found a class of bakers who have a genuine personality and actual baking skill. The cross-section of America is present, but there’s here to make us some Christmas cookies, and not to pick a fight and promote their new single. It’s conscious casting choices like this that makes the GBBO so strong and so popular. Having nice people who are good at what they’re competing in is surprising in reality competitions, which is sad.
Whatever problems I find with the presentation are minimal, really. The proceedings seem a bit rushed to fit America’s ever-increasing amount of commercials, so the baking segments feel a little rushed. And the forced reference to a “soggy bottom” during the premiere episode was a little cringeworthy to me, as a fan of the show. And only four episodes? Wahhhh. Is this ABC dipping a toe in the water for a full Great American Bake-Off series? Only time will tell. But for fans of food competitions, Christmas sweets, or the Great British Bake-Off, this is a wonderful way to spend an hour.
ABC has another reality competition success on their hands with this well-produced import of one of the best reality competitions ever.
ABC great holiday baking show ian gomez mary berry nia vardalos
RIP Jim Perry
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Christian – Head Designer
Some say Chris doesn’t just design heads but he builds them as well.
All we know is he designs awesome kites! Chris loves to kite at the top level in the surf and on a twin tip and as he only rides his own designs, he wants to make sure they are the best! So Chis works tirelessly to refine his kite designs. It’s taken many years, but it’s all finally come together.
His very latest kites, the Buzz kites, are a work of art as you will experience when you ride them.
Cornè – W.A Distributor
Some say he used to wrestle with full grown lions and now that he’s older he’s semi-retired and moved on to tiger cubs. Some say he’s used the word “maaate” in every sentence in an attempt to disguise his South African accent. Some say he’s so addicted to kiting that he sold a kidney to fund his most recent kite trip. Some say his jokes are the Cornèist you will ever hear.
All we know is that he’s somehow managed to sneak into Australia and make the country a nicer place. Cornè is the type of guy who is very polite,
Tom – Head Instructor
Some say Tommygun got his nick name when he killed two birds with one stone. Some say he found a way to have his cake and eat it too. All we know is he has been involved in this from the start and is one of Australia’s top riders.
Tom is passionate about helping people learn to kite in the best way possible. As an IKO instructor, Tom will be leading the development of the Buzz Kites teaching methods to make sure it is as safe, effective, efficient and fun as possible.
He teaches people around the Central coast of NSW.
The Czech – Product testing, research and development
Some say, he has a 1000 year old rain forest growing in his armpits. Some say he’s got angel wings cleverly concealed under his wetsuit. Some say he needs his pilot’s license when kiting. All we know is he’s called the Czech.Few people can consistently pull off 10M plus jumps one after the other, but the Czech is always up there somewhere. If you have not seen him on the water, it’s simply because he hasn’t landed yet.
Andy – W.A Ambassador
Some say his real name is Jason Stratham. Some say his pommy accent is a put on to charm the girls. Some say he bought a Jeep. All we know is that his main claim to fame is that he lives across the road from “The Pond”.
His passion for kiting and energy to help others get involved is contagious so if you don’t want to catch the fever, make sure you get the no-kite vaccine before you go
Eve – Perth Buzz Instructor
Some say French Canada export only their best quality women.
Some say Eve has only two speeds – flat out and stop.
Some say Eve’s accent is almost impossible to comprehend and even if you do, she still makes no sense.
All we know is that she is fun to have around, can kite like a genius and after six years of kite instructing experience, she loves to kite on Buzz kite gear!
Jon – Buzz Kite School (Perth)
Some say he couldn’t decide between being a rock star and a kite school owner.
Some say he has a desire to stroke small rodents. Some say when he goes for a walk, it’s at least 50km long. Some say he’s equally at home on a snow board, surfboard, wakeboard or kite board.
All we know is he’s a great teacher and he’s ready to get you started in kiting or take you to the next level.
Lee – Chief Bottle Washer
Some say his lack of kiting skills is matched only by his lack of natural talent. Some say that his life long dream is to do a back roll. Some say he’s been using the wind to go places for free since he was 8.
All we know is that he had enough kiting passion to get this business started and help a whole lot of people get into some great kiting gear.
Justin – Melbourne Ambassador
Some say he’s loves to travel as much as he loves kittens.
Some say whenever he turns up at the beach with a surfboard the waves look forward to being shredded. Some say he can fly a drone better than he can fly a spaceship.
All we know is that he’s a top bloke and an awesome kiter ready to help you get familiar with the Buzz gear by helping you out with a test ride.
Brock – Sunshine Coast Distributor
Some say he can eat a whole 10KG watermelon in a single sitting and then polish off a bunch of kale for desert. Some say that he’s so cool that even ice baths are afraid of him. Some say he used to call Lee “Dad” until he became a Dad himself and realized that Lee had never changed his nappies.
All we know is that he’s one of the coolest dudes you’ll ever meet with a true caring/sharing attitude and the desire and ability to help others be their best.
Anton – South Africa Distributor
Anton, a.k.a. ‘The Sting’ not only rides the gear, but is also the official distributor for Buzz Kites in South Africa. Some say he has been stung by a 1000 bees, but is so thick skinned he will only show any swelling in 2075. Others say the secret to his eternal youthful looks is none other than Beetox, but others think it is merely that time stood still when he was missing inside the barrel of a 20 foot wave for longer than anyone thought possible. All we know, is that he loves riding waves on a kite board and the bigger the waves and the stronger the wind, the better.
Thomas – South Africa Ambassador
Some say he couldn’t spell ‘bored’ and from an early age insisted it had to be ‘board’. Legend has it he convinced Pac-Man to get off the pills and that he is on a first name basis with every single video game character in existence. Some say he single-handedly set up the internet one weekend 20 years ago and the retinas of his eyes are actually square to match his PC screen. All we know, is that he would much rather be outdoors kiting and that his kite is barely bigger than his friendly smile.
Ben – Product Testing and Refinement
Some say Ben is shrinking. Others say you wouldn’t want to get into a cage fight with him. All we know is that he’s over 90KGs and kites in the meanest waves. He’s been trying to break the Griffin kite gear and now the Buzz gear since Adam was a boy. If he ever succeeds, we make sure it won’t happen again.
He’s also a lovely guy with a huge smile, a gentle laugh and a willingness to help, and some cunning product development ideas that makes him a perfect fit for the Buzz team.
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NEEDED DONATION
COLLECTED DONATION
In Our Campaigns
By T
Kazakhstan and human rights.
Human Rights:
Kazakhstan has an appalling human rights record. As Reporters Without Borders reports the state has control over independent media, NGOs, civil society, and, most critically, independent trade unions effectively crushing dissent. The vast majority of the population lives in poverty and those who speak out against the state or organise mass resistance are harassed, jailed, or killed.
The human rights situation in Kazakhstan continues to deteriorate. Nazarbayev has cracked down on protestors and journalists and has limited worker’s rights. The World Democracy Audit ranks Kazakhstan 133 out of 154 countries in its Democracy Ranking and 110th in the Corruption rank, and 138th in Press Freedom.[1]
Despite this many Western governments support the Nazarbayev regime. They ignore ongoing serious human rights violations. Their main interest lies in business delas, especially for the extraction of oil, gas and precious minerals – this is their key priority. When it comes to a choice between business and human rights – multi-national companies turn a blind eye to state abuse and human rights violations. Despite strikes by oil workers – which exposed their porr treatment, poor pay, and the crushing of free and independent trade unions – Western governments supported by the billionaire class continue to invest in the oil sector and other industries in Kazakhstan.
Over the years various Western governments and NGO’s have tried to de-politicise human rights. Limiting human rights to issues about the right to a fair trial and the right to free speech. The West pays lip service even to these human rights, and in any case will not raise them when it comes to Kazakhstan.
Campaign Kazakhstan believes that civil and political rights – right to a fair trial, free speech and crucially the right to assembly – the forming of trade unions is crucial to the demands for human rights. However, we additionally believe that socio-political human rights are equally important – the right to a home, education, water and guaranteed living wage are also essential human rights.
Crucial to the demands for human rights – whether they come from socialists, trade unionists, housing activists – are for the defence of these human rights defenders.
What is a Human Rights Defender?
A Human Rights Defender (HRD) describes people who individually or as a collective act to promote and/or protect human rights. HRD’s is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act to promote and/or protect human rights.
The term ‘human rights defender’ has since the adoption of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998 been used increasingly – as a result it has unified and replaced such terms as ‘human rights activist’ or ‘human rights monitor’ for instance.
Campaign Kazakhstan believe that anyone regardless of their class, sex, job, age or race can be a HRD. It is our view that they are identified by what they do rather than by their profession. Some HRD’s can be professional human rights workers who may work for an NGO or a campaigning body, but most HRD’s are campaigners who work to ensure freedom of speech, to organise in trade unions, socialists or community activists involved in promoting human rights or exposing human rights abuses.
What do Human Rights Defenders do?
The rights defended by human rights defenders can include:
civil and political rights – these rights include issues such as the right to a fair trial, and the right to be free from torture.
economic and social rights – these rights include issues as diverse as the right to housing, education and water. It also will include campaigns against forced eviction.
cultural rights – these rights include campaigns for the rights of indigenous people to have control over their land, the right to free, prior and informed consent and control of the resources on them.
The work of HRD’s is diverse. It can include campaigns to against forced eviction or arbitrary arrest.
Subsequently HRD’s in Kazakhstan may organise demonstrations, pickets or lobbies to highlight where key political or judicial decisions have been made which fail to address or ignore human rights. Whilst this work maybe done through human rights organizations, it maybe completed by lawyers or journalists. As a campaign we hope that not only will this continue but that trade unions will become more involved in this.
Human Rights Defenders – internationally.
HRD’s work to promote, protect and realise the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Campaign Kazakhstan believe that human rights cannot be achieved under capitalism. We argue that human rights can only be achieved through democratic socialism – that is when ordinary people take control of the economy, industry, factories and civil society.
[1] http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm
Repression and concession in Kazakhstan
Oilworkers’ representatives imprisoned, fined and sacked
Repression in Kazakhstan continues – Clampdown on independent trade unions proceeds and big prison sentences for organisers of peaceful land protests
Kazakhstan: New regulations tightening control over people, while replenishing government coffers!
Remember Zhanaozen! End dictatorship now!
Send your protest now
Urgent action for Vadim Kuramshin
To President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev General Prosecutor of Kazakhstan, A. Daulbaev The Minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, K. Kasimov Committee for the Criminal Correction System (KUIS) of Kazakhstan, B. Berdalin International Human Rights organisations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Frontline Defenders, Freedom House, Special United Nations Rapporteur on torture and other, inhumane or humiliating treatment and punishment Yesterday, 3 June 2014, we received information from the lawyer of political prisoner Vadim Kuramshin, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and is currently held in the Prison Section EC 164/4, Gorny Posyelok (Zhaman sopka), Esilsky district, North Kazakhstan region. The information about the first day of Vadim Kuramshin’s hunger strike was published on the Internet, with his statement of protest against “illegal methods of mistreatment and intimidation” on the part of the administration of EC 164/4, pressurising him into denouncing the recent article written by his wife Ekaterina Kuramshin. The recent photograph of Vadim Kuramshin, which has also been published, shows his debilitated physical and psychological condition and signs of physical abuse. Before his arrest, Vadim Kuramshin severely criticised this particular Prison EC 164/4, and this, in our opinion, is the reason for the maltreatment, which puts his life and health in danger from the authorities of this prison. We demand an urgent intervention and an immediate end to the intimidation and torture of Vadim Kuramshin! We demand urgent medical attention and help to Vadim Kuramshin! We demand the transfer of Kuramshin from EC 164/4 to another prison that has no connection to Kuramshin’s work for the rights of prisoners, where he would receive an impartial treatment. We also demand prosecution of those guilty of abuse in the administration of EC 164/4. ----------------------------- Президенту Республики Казахстан г-ну Н.Назарбаеву Генеральную прокуратуру РК г-ну А.Даулбаеву Министерство внутренних дел РК г-ну К.Касымову КУИС РК г-ну Б.Бердалину ----------------------------- Международные правозащитные организации Амнистия Интернешнл, Хьюман Райс Вотч, Фронтлайн Дефендерс, Фридом Хаус, Специальному докладчику ООН по вопросу о пытках и других жестоких, бесчеловечных или унижающих достоинство видах обращения и наказания Вчера, 3 июня 2014 года, поступила информация от адвоката политзаключенного Вадима Курамшина, осужденного на 12 лет, и находящегося в Учреждении ЕС 164/4 посёлок Горный (Жаман сопка), Есильского района, Северо-Казахстанской области. В интернете опубликовано уведомление Вадима Курамшина о начатой им голодовке в знак протеста «от незаконных методов преследования, давления» со стороны администрации ЕС 164/4 с требованием написания опровержения ранее опубликованной статьи, его супруги Екатерины Курамшиной. Опубликована фотография Вадима Курамшина, где видно, что Вадим доведён до крайнего физического истощения, видны следы избиения и плохое психологическое состояние. Учреждение ЕС 164/4 ранее, до осуждения, неоднократно критиковалось В.Курамшиным, и поэтому мы считаем, что жизнь и здоровье Вадима находится в опасности. Просим, срочно вмешаться в ситуацию, прекратить физическое и психологическое давление на Вадима Курамшина! Срочно предоставить В.Курамшину медицинскую помощь! Перевести Вадима Курамшина из учреждения ЕС 164/4 в другое безопасное учреждение, которое не имеет конфликта с В.Курамшиным из-за критики условий содержания. Привлечь к ответственности виновных, в лице руководства ЕС
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Special Event ATM Machines
Start an ATM Business
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ATM Indusrty News
RBC unveils $3.2bn tech budget in digital push
June 14, 2018 ATM Indusrty Newsadmin
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is planning to spend $3.2bn on technology this year in a bid to attract new customers looking for more digital banking services.
The plan was revealed at an investor meeting in Toronto where chief executive David McKay set out a number of growth targets and an expanded technology budget.
The bank wants to use new technology such as artificial intelligence, digital services and social media to add 2.5 million new customers by 2023, a tyhreefold increase on its current rate of customer acquisition.
RBC currently has 6.5 million digital users, an 8% increase on the previous year, and has released a number of new digital services in the last year via its RBC Ventures division, including a financial advice app and a digital platform for small business owners.
McKay has stated his belief that banks must diversify their offerings beyond traditional financial services in order to remain relevant to customers and to see off the threat from big tech companies and e-commerce platforms.
The bank is also targetting more than $1bn in costs savings as a result of greater automation and system consolidation.
While RBC may be the bank with the biggest tech budget in Canada, it still falls well below the budget of other larger banks in the US and Europe. HSBC recently announced plans to spend $17bn on technology while JP Morgan has a budget in excess of $10bn, $7bn more than RBC.
The superior tech budgets and their importance were acknowledged by McKay in an interview with the Financial Times.
“The question every CEO should ask is, what’s [JP Morgan CEO] Jamie [Dimon] doing with the extra $7bn,” he said.
← Just a friendly reminder to make an ATM Pit Stop Today. As frictionless payments struggle for traction, consumers cling to cash →
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Coffeeshop Directory
Coffeeshop News
Medication Menus
Amsterdam Coffeeshop Menus
Potency Testing
Dutch Coffeeshops To Reopen Smoking Areas On 1 July
By Zoe
As of 1 July, the Netherland’s famous coffeeshops will reopen their seating areas to guests after several months of takeaway-only service. Last night’s Corona Press Conference called for the relaxation of measures which have been in effect since March of this year, with the exception of the 1.5 meter social distancing policy, which remains enforced.
Empty Coffeeshop Relax, Amsterdam
The changes in Corona Virus policy will effect many industries. Events can now take place under certain conditions. All seats are now open on public transit. Gyms are set to reopen and recreational and competitive sports may resume. Sex workers can now also return to work.
Prime Minister, Mark Rutte calls for residents and guests alike to practice “self discipline” to help the nation avoid further outbreaks of COVID-19. “If we relax in this or in checking basic rules, then there is a real chance that we will have to implement restrictions. We see many examples of this internationally,” Rutte urged those listening to his Wednesday evening address.
“As of 1 July, inside, reservations and a health check (if you have a cold or have a fever) are compulsory if there is room for more than 100 people per room (excluding staff).”
General Rules For Indoor Activities:
Keep 1.5 meters away from others.
Maximum 100 people per room with fixed seats (excluding staff).
No maximum number of people under the following conditions: fixed seats, reservation and health check in advance.
In shops, museums, libraries and other locations with flow of visitors, 1.5 meters away is the rule (locations themselves ensure compliance with this rule). There is no maximum number of people.
General Rules For Outdoor Activities:
Maximum 250 persons (excluding staff).
The catering industry always works with a fixed seat.
No maximum number of people under the following conditions: fixed seats, a reservation and a health check in advance.
In zoos, amusement parks and other outdoor locations with flow of visitors, 1.5 meters away is the rule (locations themselves ensure compliance with this rule). There is no maximum number of people.
Guests lined up at Amsterdam coffeeshops the night before they expected to close due to COVID-19.
On June 15, the Netherlands began to allow tourists from countries where the health risks surrounding COVID-19 are similar to or lower than that of the Netherlands back into the country.
Guests will soon be able to sit down and enjoy a smoke and cup of coffee at their favorite shop. Prior to July 1, guests at Dutch coffeeshops will need to wait in socially distanced lines and up until now have only been allowed in shops 2 to 3 people at a time. This was after after an initial panic that the shops would close altogether at the start of the outbreak.
A major aspect of these legendary coffeeshops is the culture surrounding them. The atmosphere compares to none and the shops are viewed by many as the place to go to meet some incredibly interesting and inspiring individuals. This is lost when guests may only enter quickly for takeaway purchases. We encourage everyone visiting the shops to follow safe practices, so that we can stay healthy and continue to enjoy our coffeeshops.
Zoe has integrated her background as social worker, event organizer, and scientist into the news and media lifestyle brand, Audio Kush, which she co-founded in 2018. An expat and travel enthusiast, she enjoys telling stories which explore society and delve into the mind. A major proponent of cannabis culture and the medicinal potential of marijuana, Zoe works to educate and normalize cannabis as a healing plant.
Amsterdam Mayor Plans To Ban Tourists From Coffeeshops
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Despite new measures being put in place starting t
BIG NEWS THIS WEEK: The U.N. will reclassify canna
Jack Herer Cup returns to Amsterdam on 12th of Dec
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SUV Performance!
BMW’s formidable line of SUVs is comprised of seven models sequentially named from X1 to X7. This German marque leaves no holes in its lineup, ensuring that there is a luxury utility vehicle for every shopper.
But BMW doesn’t stop there. Indeed, recognizing that many of its customers transitioned from coupes and sedans to SUVs and have also long placed a premium on speed, four models ranging from the X3 to X6 have “M” performance variants.
The largest of the four is known as the BMW X6 M and was a recent visitor to the Auto Trends test fleet. Specifically, an M6 Competition model with jaw-dropping output offered a week’s worth of on-road thrills.
2020 BMW X6 Review
The 2020 model year launches the X6’s fourth-generation (the third for the M line). This model continues to share the underpinnings of the X5 and offers a coupe-like design with a formidable expression. BMW offers this model in X6 sDrive40i ($64,300), X6 xDrive40i ($66,600), and X6 M50i ($85,650) configurations. Further, you’ll find a pair of “M” models known simply as the X6 M ($108,600) and the X6 M Competition ($117,600).
For the focus of this review, we’ll concentrate on the X6 M/Competition and its unique styling and performance characteristics. Likewise, any mention of the standard models is for comparison purposes only.
There is nothing subtle about the BMW X6 M. From its gangly shape to outrageous lines, this X6 is a beastly model.
The M lines simply magnify the look with its oversized twin-kidney grille leading the way. A broad lower intake and huge side cutouts along with LED signature lights add to the drama. Overall, it’s intimidating and overpowering – if you see one fast approaching in your rearview mirror, more than likely you’ll scoot over to allow it to pass.
Sculpted wheel arches, a high profile, and a sloping roof leading to a notched liftgate are among the other design features of note. From the rear, narrow wraparound lights and a diffuser highlight the look, but with far less drama and intimidation than the front.
You can fit five inside the X6 M, but it’s most comfortable for four. Access and egress to the rear seat is a bit challenging as you’ll have to bend your head to avoid making contact with the roof. Once inside, the rear seat is spacious, comfortable, and roomy.
The best seats, of course, are up front. Dual thrones with heating, cooling, and massaging features not only offer maximum support, but they’re thickly bolstered for spirited driving. Just make sure when you enter you clear the seat edges to avoid landing on one of the hard sides.
BMW interiors are among the best in the industry and the X6 lives up to that expectation. The interiors, particularly on the top trims, feature high-end leathers, aluminum edges, quilted inserts, and Alcantara headliners. Not a plastic surface anywhere. Ambient and nighttime lighting add to the mystique.
The tech goodies are apparent in the X6 M. BMW supplies this model with a 16-speaker Harman Kardon audio system with HD Radio, satellite radio, a CD player, connected services, and Apple CarPlay smartphone compatibility. Sorry, no Android Auto.
Other features include wireless charging, a Wi-Fi hotspot, and the usual USB inputs.
BMW supplies the X6 M with multiple driver-assist features, including active driving assistant. This suite includes frontal collision warning with city collision mitigation and lane departure warning.
Automatic high beams, active blind-spot detection, surround-view cameras, and active park distance control are also included.
By now, you’ve likely figured out that the X6 M is mostly about performance. Under the hood is BMW’s most powerful V8 engine, a twin-turbo beauty displacing 4.4-liters. This engine is found in a variety of applications and typically punctuates all things M.
In its normal mode, it makes 523 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque. That alone is laudable, enabling this strapping SUV to move from 0-60 mph in about 4 seconds. If you want to move just under that threshold, then choose either M model with special engine tuning. Here, you’ll find a whopping 600 or 617 horsepower at the ready. BMW routes power to all four wheels utilizing an 8-speed automatic transmission.
Doubtlessly, the X6 M is loud. And fast. Engage the ignition and the engine rumbles to life and sends out a boom throw the exhaust system. That system is adjustable, allowing for a louder cacophony as desired. Your neighbors, though, may appreciate a more silent approach, something you can supply by deactivating the soundtrack until you’re on the open road.
The X6 is heavy, with the fully loaded Competition weighing just over two-and-one-half tons. That’s a lot of weight to move, but the bigly V8 does so with ease. Step-off acceleration is amazing – the twin turbos conspire to develop power flawlessly and consistently. If you want to make the run up to 100 mph, this engine never flags in zeal.
Weighed steering, direct handling, and a wonderful connection to the road are among this SUV’s hallmarks. It doesn’t have quite the on-road chops of an M4, but it is close.
Despite its high profile, the X6 M stays the course, handling twisty roads with ease and pulling out of corners on point, thanks largely to its rear bias. Certainly, this SUV is a gamer and individuals with deep pockets are eager to buy in.
For everyone else, the standard twin-turbo V6 with 335 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque should do. We’ve driven other BMW models with this engine and have found it more than up to the task.
There are few direct competitors to the BMW X6 M. One of the most obvious is the Mercedes-AMG GLE 43/63. The Lamborghini Urus is another one. If you’re looking at the standard X6, the Lexus GX, Audi Q7, and Infiniti QX60 are worth considering.
Should you choose the X6 M or the X6 Competition? The difference between the two is $9,000, a price that includes some trim and interior upgrades, badging, and added performance.
There are two packages to consider — a Drivers Assistance Professional Package ($1,700 and includes adaptive cruise control which surprisingly isn’t included elsewhere) and an Executive Package ($3,600) with heated seats, heated and cooled front cup holders, ventilated front seats, soft-close front doors, rear manual side window shades, and adaptive headlights with laser light.
Other features offered separately include Night Vision With Pedestrian Detection ($2,300), a Bowers & Wilkins Diamond Surround Audio System ($3,400), Rear-Seat Entertainment Professional ($2,200), and an M Performance Package ($2,500). Fully built out and this model will set you back by more than $134,000.
When all is said and done, you’ll likely pay at least $120,000 for one of most powerful SUVs available.
2020 BMW X6 Specifications
Segment Midsize SUV
Price Range $64,300 to $117,600
Destination Charge $995
Engine No. 1 3.0-liter, Inline6
Horsepower 335 @ 5,500 – 6,500 RPMs
Torque (lb.-ft.) 330 @ 1,500 – 5,200 RPMs
Engine No. 2 4.4-liter, turbocharged V8
Horsepower 523/600/617 @ 5,500 – 6,000 RPMs
Curb Weight (pounds) 4,687 to 5,115
Height (inches) 66.3 to 66.8
Hip room (f,r…inches) NR
Gross vehicle weight (pounds) 6,063 to 6,658
Towing (pounds) 7,200
Payload (pounds) 893 to 937
Fuel Premium
EPA Fuel MPG (city/highway/combined) 20,21/26/22,23 (I6); 16/22/18 (V8)
Manufacturing Plant Greer, South Carolina
Data compiled by Tom Keegan. All rights reserved.
See Also — Go Big or Go Home: 2019 BMW X7 SUV
Photos copyright Auto Trends Magazine. All right reserved.
Filed Under: New Car Reviews Tagged With: 8-SPEED TRANSMISSION, all-wheel drive, BMW, BMW X6, M, SUV, TWIN TURBO, V8 engine
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Sky Jack Morgan
Food, beverage, poetry, literature, movies, music, culture...
I haven't looked at my counter for weeks, and it's liberating.
This is a song by Madeleine Peyroux.
I'm thinking about relocating.
SkyJack Morgan
Hello, dummy.
email me nice and mean things:
skyjack23@gmail.com
Jack Morgan's Facebook profile
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Blog Wreck
The Japanese Whisky Review
Skull-A-Day
The Good Greatsby
Sunday's Grocery | Your One Stop Shop for News and Booze
Harvest 1.1
Murdercycle Diaries
The Haunting of Ninjatown
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The Club@CSE
ABTP
The Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Center (ABTP)
The AB Targeting Performance Center is conveniently located at Yelahanka Taluk in the Padukone Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence (CSE). Known for providing the best sports performance training facilities and rehab therapy in India, our specialist trainers and doctors use intricate and intense exercises executed in a precise manner to attain the most accurate results. The AB Targeting Performance Centre offers comprehensive training and wellness solutions to athletes of all age groups and levels. International and national level athletes and young and aspiring sportsmen and women at the grass root level can train at the centre and elevate their performance and results.
Launched in December 2017 in association with Sports Authority of India (SAI), the centre is home to over 1000 athletes training in sports of cricket, football, squash, swimming, badminton, tennis, basketball, athletics and many athletes from other disciplines make it a venue for training camps.
I am delighted and excited to bring the Targeting Performance Centre to life at the Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence in Bengaluru. This Centre, along with those in Chandigarh and New Delhi, is the first hubs for sports facilities in India. I believe that making sports science easily accessible holds a key to our nation's sporting future and am delighted and grateful for the support of the Sports Authority of India in bringing this particular centre to life
-Abhinav Bindra
Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance centres have been set up throughout the country with a mission to enable Indian athletes of all age groups to monitor their progress in terms of training, peak performance, rehabilitation and injury prevention on best facilities and system of machines which are at par with the rest of the world. The road to greater glory at multi-sports world events such as the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games etc. begins here. By laying a strong foundation for our athletes at the grass root level we ensure their development from a very formative stage of their career something which is of the essence in today's global sports environment.
With advanced sports technology and our trained medical therapists and trainers, we aim at providing top sports training facilities through customized sport-specific programs for training and recovery for all our athletes. Our comprehensive full body approach believes in permanent correction by focusing on strength with control. Practicing quality over quantity with the help of biofeedback we are able to monitor even 1 degree of deviation in body movements. Listed below are some of the services we provide and much more.
Biomechanical Assessments (Postural & Functional)
Sports High-Performance Training
Prehabilitation
Advanced Rehabilitation
Center For Sports Excellence Private Limited
Survey No 336, Bettahalasura Jala Hobli, Yelanhanka Taluk, Bengaluru 562157
CSE in the Media
Now@CSE
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© 2019 - CSE. Design: Design Esthetics
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Tag: Col4a2
Background There is concern about the development of anemia-associated fetal hydrops
Background There is concern about the development of anemia-associated fetal hydrops associated with maternal parvovirus B19 infection. parvovirus B19 relating to polymerase chain reaction. Immunohistochemical analysis using caspase-related M30 CytoDEATH monoclonal antibody exposed M30 staining of the placental villous trophoblasts. Conversation and evaluation Placental trophoblasts and erythroid precursor cells have been reported to express globoside (P antigen), which is necessary for parvovirus B19 infectivity, and to display apoptotic activity as a result of illness. Placentas from three additional pregnancies with recorded abruption showed no M30 staining. Summary The present case strongly suggests an association between placental abruption and apoptosis resulting from parvovirus B19 illness. cesarean section, freezing embryo transfer, pregnancy-induced hypertension, umbilical artery pH, premature rupture of the membranes, spontaneous abortion aApgar scores at 1 and 5?min (1/5) In case 1, more than 105 copies of PB19-specific DNA were detected, while all three control instances were negative, suggesting that case 1 was not a false positive (data not shown). Immunostaining for apoptosis was positive in 34.2?% of the decidual cells and in 13.6?% of the chorionic cells. In contrast, instances 2, 3, and 4 showed positive immunostaining of small numbers of decidual cells (4.9, 0.5, and 3.6?% respectively), and no staining of chorionic cells (Fig.?2). For quantitative evaluation, five fields with apparent positive findings from each section of the placenta in all instances were extracted at 200-collapse magnification, and the percentages of stained cell nuclear were calculated. Indistinct or faintly-stained areas were excluded. Open in a separate windows Fig.?2 Immunohistochemical findings of all placentas using M30 CytoDEATH antibody. Immunostaining for apoptosis in case 1 a, b showed positive findings in the decidual and contiguous chorionic cells ( em arrows /em ), while the three control instances, including case 2 c, d, showed no staining of the chorionic cells. e Graph, showing the percentage of M30-positive decidual and chorionic cells in each case Individuals follow up Neonatal blood test showed a level of 16.9?g/dL of hemoglobin, 3.2?% of reticulocytes and bad PB19 IgM. The baby was diagnosed with severe neonatal asphyxia and underwent mind hypothermia therapy, but developed neither fetal hydrops nor fetal anemia. He didnt have PB19 illness. Both mother and baby experienced good program, and right now 3 years aged, the baby offers experienced no abnormality of growth or development. Conversation and evaluation Histlogical findings of placenta suggested A 83-01 novel inhibtior that PB19-specific DNA were present and apoptosis was almost exclusively observed to a greater degree in the chorionic and decidual cells. These findings were consistent with our hypothesis that placental abruption was caused by apoptosis of the chorion and decidua due to PB19 illness. In A 83-01 novel inhibtior pregnant women, placental illness with PB19 is considered problematic. Therefore, it has Col4a2 been recommended that PB19-infected pregnant women undergo serial ultrasound including fetal middle cerebral Doppler every 1C2?weeks to check for any abnormalities, such as fetal anemia and fetal hydrops (Crane et al. 2014; Minakami et al. 2014). Prevalence of PB19 immunoglobulin G is definitely 50C75?% in ladies of reproductive age in Europe and the USA (Crane et al. 2014), and slightly under 50?% in Japanese adults (unpublished data). PB19 illness is definitely hardly ever severe in adults, and many instances present with nonspecific symptoms, such as fever, arthralgia, or small exanthems, actually in an initial illness. Consequently, it is hard to diagnose and manage PB19 illness at an early stage unless the mother or child shows an abnormality. Fetal hydrops and cardiac enlargement are commonly recognized on ultrasonography. P antigen, which is considered to become the receptor for PB19, is found to be a globoside, a neutral glycolipid that accumulates in reddish blood cell membrane lipid rafts. When PB19 binds to P antigen, apoptosis is definitely induced. P antigen is definitely expressed in a variety of cells, including placental thromboblastin (Brown et al. 1993). Although case 1 was an adult with an initial PB19 illness, no fetal disorder was found; the mother exhibited severe anemia and slightly decreased blood platelets, but her anemia did not get worse after transfusion. She developed placental abruption during hospitalization, however, she experienced no risk factors for abruption (Cunningham et al. 2014; Oyelese and Ananth 2006). In A 83-01 novel inhibtior Japan, up to 60?% of placental abruption instances do not show known risk factors. However, it has been reported that chorioamnionitis and apoptosis are associated with preterm placental abruption. Apoptosis of the trophoblasts prospects to necrosis and/or angionecrosis of the chorion and amnion, and promotes production of prostaglandins; this enhances uterine contractions, resulting in placental abruption caused by the gap.
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Laubichler, Manfred D.. Doppelkompetenzen gefragt In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Frankfurt/Main, 2008.
Laubichler, M D.. "A semiotic perspective on biological objects and biological functions." SEMIOTICA (1999): 415-431.
Laubichler, M D.. "A Constrained View of Evo-Devo's Roots, Review of "The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought"." SCIENCE 309 (2005): 1020-1021.
Laubichler, M D.. "Review of "From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design"." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 46 (2003): 148-153.
Laubichler, M D.. D’Arcy Thompson—Biogramm In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon 3. vollständig neu bearbeitete Auflage, Edited by H L. Arnold. Suttgart: Metzler Verlag, 2009.
Laubichler, M D., and Jane Maienschein. "Evolution and Society." In The First Four Billion Years, edited by Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Laubichler, M D.. ""Seeing is Believing, but What do we See? Review of "The Birth of the Cell" by Henry Harris." SCIENCE 284 (1999): 58.
Laubichler, M D.. "Form and Function in Evo Devo: A Conceptual and Historical Analysis." In Form and Function in Developmental Evolution, edited by M D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein, 10-46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Laubichler, Manfred D., and Jürgen Renn. "Extended evolution: A conceptual framework for integrating regulatory networks and niche construction." Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 324 (2015): 565-577.
Laubichler, M D.. Dobzhansky/Genetics and the Origin of Species In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon 3. vollständig neu bearbeitete Auflage, Edited by H L. Arnold. Suttgart: Metzler Verlag, 2009.
Laubichler, M D., and G P. Wagner. "How molecular is molecular developmental biology? A reply to Alex Rosenberg's reductionism redux: Computing the embryo." Biology & Philosophy (2001): 53-68.
Laubichler, M D., and W Callebaut. "Editorial: Formalizing Biology." Biological Theory 3 (2008): 1-2.
Laubichler, M D.. "An egg is an egg is an egg [Essay Review]." Cell 111 (2002): 460-461.
Laubichler, Manfred D.. "Oskar and Cecile Vogt: From the Neo-Cortex to Bumble Bees: An Episode in the History of the Biological Character Concept." In The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology, edited by G P. Wagner, 37-56. San Diego: Academic Press, 2000.
Laubichler, M D.. "Review of "The man who invented the chromosome: A lfie of Cyril Darlington"." Journal of the History of medicine and Allied Sciences 60 (2005): 520-522.
Laubichler, Manfred D., and Jane Maienschein. "Ontogeny, Anatomy, and the Problem of Homology: Carl Gegenbaur and the American Tradition of Cell Lineage Studies." In Evolutionary Morphology: From Carl Gegenbaur to the Present, edited by Uwe Hoß feld, Lenart Olsson, Olaf Breidbach and George S. Levit, 132-142. St. Petersburg: Fineday Press, 2004.
Laubichler, M D., and Jane Maienschein. Form and Function in Developmental Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Laubichler, M D.. "Robert Lepage's Vision." In Jahrbuch 2009/10, 120-122. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2010.
Laubichler, M D., E H. Hagen, and P Hammerstein. "The strategy concept and John Maynard Smith's influence on theoretical biology." Biology & Philosophy 20 (2005): 1041-1050.
Laubichler, M D.. "Review of "Membranes: Metaphors of invasion in nineteenth-century literature, science, and politics"." Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2001): 287-288.
Laubichler, M D.. "Modellorganismen." In Evolution. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, edited by P Sarasin and M Sommer, 189-195. Metzler Verlag, 2010.
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i4 CORRESPONDENCE AND PUBLIC PAPERS.
able to judge, than can be prescribed now, how far you may
state the difficulty which may occur in restraining the
violence of some of our exasperated citizens.
If the British ministry should hint at any supposed predilection in the United States for the French nation, as
warranting the whole or any part of these instructions, you
will stop the progress of this subject, as being irrelative to
the question in hand. It is a circumstance which the
British nation have no right to object to us; because we
are free in our affections and independent in our government. But it may be safely answered, upon the authority
of the correspondence between the Secretary of State and
Mr. Hammond, that our neutrality has been scrupulously
observed.
II. A second cause of your mission, but not inferior in
dignity to the preceding, though subsequent in order, is to
draw to a conclusion all points of difference between the
United States and Great Britain, concerning the treaty
of peace.
You will therefore be furnished with copies of the negotiation upon the inexecution and infractions of that treaty
and will resume that business. Except in this negotiation,
you have been personally conversant with the whole of the
transactions connected with the treaty of peace. You were
a minister at its formation,-the Secretary of--Foreign Affairs
when the sentiments of the Congress, under the confederation, were announced through your office ; and as Chief
Justice you have been witness to what has passed in our
courts, and know the real state of our laws, with respect to
British debts. It will be superfluous, therefore, to add
more to you, than to express a wish that these debts, and
the interest claimed upon them, and all things relating to
them, be put outright in a diplomatic discussion, as being
certainly of a judicial nature, to be decided by our courts:
and if this cannot be accomplished, that you support the
Transcript i4 CORRESPONDENCE AND PUBLIC PAPERS. able to judge, than can be prescribed now, how far you may state the difficulty which may occur in restraining the violence of some of our exasperated citizens. If the British ministry should hint at any supposed predilection in the United States for the French nation, as warranting the whole or any part of these instructions, you will stop the progress of this subject, as being irrelative to the question in hand. It is a circumstance which the British nation have no right to object to us; because we are free in our affections and independent in our government. But it may be safely answered, upon the authority of the correspondence between the Secretary of State and Mr. Hammond, that our neutrality has been scrupulously observed. II. A second cause of your mission, but not inferior in dignity to the preceding, though subsequent in order, is to draw to a conclusion all points of difference between the United States and Great Britain, concerning the treaty of peace. You will therefore be furnished with copies of the negotiation upon the inexecution and infractions of that treaty and will resume that business. Except in this negotiation, you have been personally conversant with the whole of the transactions connected with the treaty of peace. You were a minister at its formation,-the Secretary of--Foreign Affairs when the sentiments of the Congress, under the confederation, were announced through your office ; and as Chief Justice you have been witness to what has passed in our courts, and know the real state of our laws, with respect to British debts. It will be superfluous, therefore, to add more to you, than to express a wish that these debts, and the interest claimed upon them, and all things relating to them, be put outright in a diplomatic discussion, as being certainly of a judicial nature, to be decided by our courts: and if this cannot be accomplished, that you support the
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History of Maryland - 2
IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGE CHASE. 613
determine Avhether there was not ground for an impeachment. On the 26th
of March, the committee reported six'articles of impeachment; though, in
order to find sufficient grounds, they had to go back to acts done nearly five
years before and during the Federal administration; his conduct in the cases
•of John Fries and James Thompson Callender, tried in 1800 under the odious
" Sedition Act," being selected by the committee as his most vulnerable point.
An impeachment was ordered by a vote of about two to one, notwithstanding
the earnest opposition of the federalists, Avho regarded the whole proceeding
as mere party spite and vengeance. The session closed on the 27th of March,
leaving the trial to the following session.
President Jefferson, the democratic candidate for re-election, received one
hundred and sixty-two of the one hundred and seventy-six electoral votes in
the election of 1805, and George Clinton was chosen Vice President by the
-same vote. The electors of Marylandx cast the eleven votes of the State, as
follows : nine each for Jefferson and Clinton, and two each for Pinckney and
King, the federal candidates.
On the 2d of January, 1805, Judge Chase appeared at the bar of the
Senate, and the 4th of February was assigned for his trial. On this occasion
the Senate chamber was fitted up in an appropriate manner, and writh places
for various official dignitaries. The accused appeared with Luther Martin,
like Chase himself, originally opposed to the constitution, but who had
"become long since a warm federalist. Charles Lee, late Attorney General of
the United States, Robert Goodloe Harper,2 the former distinguished federal
leader in the House, and Joseph Hopkinson, though then a young man,
acquired for himself an exalted reputation, as his counsel. " For these," says
Mr. Hildreth, " the ablest advocates in the union, to take no account of
Chase, who was a host in himself, the managers on the part of the House were
no match. Martin's massive logic, and Lee's and Harper's argumentative
■eloquence, directed ahvays to the point, stood in striking contrast to the tingling but desultory surface strokes of Randolph, upon Avhom the main burden
•of the prosecution fell."3 The managers on the part of the House, were
Messrs. Randolph, Rodney, Nicholson, Clarke, Campbell, Boyle and Early.
Aaron Burr, who had returned from his flight southward, for the killing of
1 They were: John Parnham, Tobias E. Stans- resumed the practice of the law in Baltimore,
bury, Joseph Wilkinson, John Gilpin, John where he soon became eminent in the profes-
Johnson, William Gleaves, Edward Johnson, sion. His defence of Judge Chase, when im-
Perry Spencer, John Tyler, Ephraim K. AVilson, peached by the House of Representatives, was
;and Frisby Tilghman. a masterpiece. He was subsequently elected by
2 Robert G oodloe Harper was born near Fred- the Legislature of Maryland to the United States
ericktown,Va., in 1765, and graduated at Prince- Senate in 1815-16,and was made a Major General
ton in 1785. While young his parents emigrated in the State militia. He took great interest in
to Greenville, N. C, and during Greene's cam- the colonization of the colored race and in the
paign in the South he acted as quartermaster. promotion of works of internal improvement.
He studied law at Charleston, S. C, and was A volume of his addresses and speeches was
elected to the Legislature, and in 1794-1801 was published in Baltimore in 1814. He also pub-
a member of Congress. He married Catharine, lished a number of pamphlets.
a daughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, 3 History of the United States, Second Series,
and at the'expiration of his term in Congress ii., p. 542.
Title History of Maryland - 2
Creator Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas)
Publisher J. B. Piet
Place of Publication Baltimore
Transcript IMPEACHMENT OF JUDGE CHASE. 613 determine Avhether there was not ground for an impeachment. On the 26th of March, the committee reported six'articles of impeachment; though, in order to find sufficient grounds, they had to go back to acts done nearly five years before and during the Federal administration; his conduct in the cases •of John Fries and James Thompson Callender, tried in 1800 under the odious " Sedition Act," being selected by the committee as his most vulnerable point. An impeachment was ordered by a vote of about two to one, notwithstanding the earnest opposition of the federalists, Avho regarded the whole proceeding as mere party spite and vengeance. The session closed on the 27th of March, leaving the trial to the following session. President Jefferson, the democratic candidate for re-election, received one hundred and sixty-two of the one hundred and seventy-six electoral votes in the election of 1805, and George Clinton was chosen Vice President by the -same vote. The electors of Marylandx cast the eleven votes of the State, as follows : nine each for Jefferson and Clinton, and two each for Pinckney and King, the federal candidates. On the 2d of January, 1805, Judge Chase appeared at the bar of the Senate, and the 4th of February was assigned for his trial. On this occasion the Senate chamber was fitted up in an appropriate manner, and writh places for various official dignitaries. The accused appeared with Luther Martin, like Chase himself, originally opposed to the constitution, but who had "become long since a warm federalist. Charles Lee, late Attorney General of the United States, Robert Goodloe Harper,2 the former distinguished federal leader in the House, and Joseph Hopkinson, though then a young man, acquired for himself an exalted reputation, as his counsel. " For these," says Mr. Hildreth, " the ablest advocates in the union, to take no account of Chase, who was a host in himself, the managers on the part of the House were no match. Martin's massive logic, and Lee's and Harper's argumentative ■eloquence, directed ahvays to the point, stood in striking contrast to the tingling but desultory surface strokes of Randolph, upon Avhom the main burden •of the prosecution fell."3 The managers on the part of the House, were Messrs. Randolph, Rodney, Nicholson, Clarke, Campbell, Boyle and Early. Aaron Burr, who had returned from his flight southward, for the killing of 1 They were: John Parnham, Tobias E. Stans- resumed the practice of the law in Baltimore, bury, Joseph Wilkinson, John Gilpin, John where he soon became eminent in the profes- Johnson, William Gleaves, Edward Johnson, sion. His defence of Judge Chase, when im- Perry Spencer, John Tyler, Ephraim K. AVilson, peached by the House of Representatives, was ;and Frisby Tilghman. a masterpiece. He was subsequently elected by 2 Robert G oodloe Harper was born near Fred- the Legislature of Maryland to the United States ericktown,Va., in 1765, and graduated at Prince- Senate in 1815-16,and was made a Major General ton in 1785. While young his parents emigrated in the State militia. He took great interest in to Greenville, N. C, and during Greene's cam- the colonization of the colored race and in the paign in the South he acted as quartermaster. promotion of works of internal improvement. He studied law at Charleston, S. C, and was A volume of his addresses and speeches was elected to the Legislature, and in 1794-1801 was published in Baltimore in 1814. He also pub- a member of Congress. He married Catharine, lished a number of pamphlets. a daughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, 3 History of the United States, Second Series, and at the'expiration of his term in Congress ii., p. 542.
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Shared from the 11/12/2017 The Providence Journal eEdition
TAG TALE
Not a boast, but a life’s work
The license plate belonging to Randy Blasing. [COURTESY OF RANDY BLASING]
Blasing
Randy Blasing, of Lincoln, writes:
Last winter, when my 15-year-old — a car guy almost from birth — told me “poet” was now available as a vanity plate, I asked him to sign me up for it on the website immediately, in case it was in demand! Then, when he read “Cars” (he’s a fan) was starting “Tag Tales,” he urged me to tell my poet’s story.
Robert Frost once called “poet” a word of praise, but someone else, he said, has to say it: you can’t declare yourself a poet without sounding boastful. The DMV, though, doesn’t award anybody the “poet” plate; you have to pay for it. After all, it’s not called a “vanity” plate for nothing.
Vanity aside, I got the plate to help put poets back on the map and remind people we’re still out here, all-but invisible as poetry is these days. Although I’m not a household name like Frost, I taught poetry at CCRI for nearly 50 years and, as a poet, can be Googled or found on Amazon and, thanks to my new plate, on the roads — less traveled or otherwise — of our home state.
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