Fandom: Dark Matter (TV) Fanwork type: vid Pairings/Characters: Two (Portia) Rating and/or Content Warnings: n/a Links: Comme des Garçons (Like the Boys) by runawaynun Summary: I'm so confident.
Reccer's Notes: A wonderful celebration of badassery and sarcasm and I love the swagger in this vid.
When Henri Cartier-Bresson travelled to the Soviet Union in 1954, he was entering a world that most Western audiences knew almost entirely through propaganda, and Cold War paranoia.
In the years following the Second World War, with Joseph Stalin’s paranoia over the Western plots against him and his regime, Western journalists and visitors were not freely allowed in. After Stalin died in 1953, some of these restrictions were lifted, and Cartier-Bresson made the visit just weeks after Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s own high-profile journey.
While his agent had already arranged for his photos to be published in four leading picture weeklies of their respective countries — Paris-Match in France, Picture Post in the UK, LIFE in the US, Stern in Germany, and Epoca in Italy — Cartier-Bresson travelled on a tourist visa with his wife. It was thought that as a European and not an American, he had an advantage in covering Russia over American LIFE correspondents.
Cartier-Bresson’s agent also recommended the image that would grace both the covers of LIFE and Stern — an image where the magazine logos could fit well in the upper righthand corner. LIFE‘s headlines “A Penetrating Look at the People of Russia” and “Military Appraisal at Moscow Trolley Stop” give a subtext to the two officers in the background looking at the women simply waiting at a tram stop.
The editorial consensus was clear on what Cartier-Bresson had: he had captured something Western audiences rarely saw: ordinary Soviet life, unfiltered by official Soviet imagery. Across publications, headlines were almost identical: LIFE and Paris-Match spoke of “The People of Russia,” Stern of “Menschen in Moskau”, Epoca of “l’uomo sovietico”.
Cartier-Bresson’s images are not political exposés. They are moments of recognizably human behavior, although LIFE magazine was quick to point out why they were the case: “Cartier-Bresson took pictures only where he had permission to do so and with a frankly non-political camera. In 10 weeks, he says, he got only ‘a fragmentary image.’ But the image is a notable one. Cartier-Bresson richly fulfilled his mission, which was to show human beings in the streets, in shops, at work and at play, anywhere I could approach them without disturbing reality.”
Cartier-Bresson himself also took the editorial decisions to appear less political: although he took the photos of Ilya Ehrenburg – a Soviet journalist who escaped Stalin’s purges — those photos would not appear in the weeklies or his books (until in 1985).
The photos appeared in Paris-Match Issue 305 (Jan 29, 1955) and Issue 306 (Feb 5, 1955). The first issue introduced the photos which these words: “This is the first time that this people, burdened for 37 years by a heavy secret, and known to us only through propaganda images, appears unvarnished in their daily lives,” and contained thirty images (two of which are double-page spreads) on “Russian People” and life in Moscow. The following issue contained twenty-eight images and focused on Leningrad, the Baltic, the Caucasus, the Asian republics, and the Black Sea Riviera.
Paris-Match contained a spread which wasn’t reprinted in Cartier-Bresson’s later book: while visiting the Hotel Ukraine (one of the Stalinist skyscraper follies, then under construction), the photographer was surprised by the workers dancing to the sound of the accordion during a break at the club’s meeting place inside the unfinished building.
What is this that this thing is, when, okay, one is aware of all the woozing and grumbling about the various delivery services, but here is the ROYAL MAIL being pretty bad.
Yesterday I had an email saying they had delivered a parcel.
There was no parcel.
I looked at the proof of delivery and behold, that was Not Our Front Door they were sticking it through, it was the wrong colour and one could see the corner of a glass panel (ours is solid wood).
So I went on to their site to try and delve a bit further and, my dears, it is HORRENDOUS, one suspects it is designed to make people Just Give Up.
For example, the 'contact us' link, that actually goes to a 'Help and Support' page that lists a whole range of possible contingencies that one has to sort through to discover one that matches the occasion.
And once I had come across the Advice relating to item (presumably) misdelivered to wrong address, advice was, to contact the sender.
I have no bloody idea who the sender was being as how I was not even expecting a Royal Mail delivery, have been back over my emails and texts and no, I did not receive any previous message involving that particular tracking code.
There is a passing allusion to possible scanning errors.
The only means of contacting them is by phone, and when I tried, and had made my way through the menu options, the wait to speak to a person was 50 minutes.
I am leaving all this pro tem in case a) it was misdelivered and gets put back into the system b) it never actually existed in the first place.
But, really.
And in other, perhaps more minor (?) annoyances of Modern Life, what is this thing that this thing is of 'Cooking Instructions on Back of Label'? that you then have to detach, in the hope that it will actually come off in one piece that one can actually decipher....
Back in the early pandemic I acquired a whole bunch of books from friends who were cycling a lot of books very quickly, since, hey, why not, more options for things to read. In fact has become clear that I'm never going to read most of them since I would prefer to spend my reading time reading a) ebooks from b) my own to-read list. But I still struggle with the sense of lost opportunity in getting rid of them, so I keep culling them in small passes rather than one giant abandonment. Partial disadvent credit today because I picked out a bag of ten to donate to the library booksale or whatever, but haven't actually gotten them out of the house yet.
Some outsider artists (untrained artists sometimes known as folk or visionary artists) create in obscurity, only to have their work discovered late in life or following their death. This however was not true of Gregory Warmack (1948-2012), who called himself Mr. Imagination. Gallerist Jeanine Taylor recalls Warmack claiming he slept under the family’s kitchen table as a child because his bedroom was so full of art. (Another ‘memory wall’ is located outside of Taylor’s Florida gallery).
Warmack sold his art at street fairs in the 1970s and had his first solo gallery exhibition in 1983, in Chicago, where he grew up and lived until 2001. He worked in a variety of forms, influenced by African and Egyptian masks and dress, and using repurposed materials. His art was exhibited during his lifetime at prominent institutions throughout the United States, as well as in Venice and Paris. Commissions include the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and various locations of the House of Blues, the chain music venue. Several pieces are part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
It is therefore unsurprising that Mr. Imagination was invited in 1999 to be a teaching artist in residence at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), in Winston-Salem. (Warmack had previously taught at Lehigh University, which resulted in the Stolfo Sculpture Garden.)
As a remembrance of his time in the central North Carolina city, Mr. Imagination transformed a 55-foot wall next to the city’s transportation center into what he called the Memory Wall of Love and Peace. He asked local residents to donate whatever they chose to be embedded in the façade; hundreds of keepsakes, artifacts, miscellany. Warmack sculpted semi-abstract concrete birds and other figures for the top of the four-foot-high wall.
The assemblage deteriorated over the next two decades due to exposure to the weather and vandalism. In 2021, with funding from the city and SECCA, the Memory Wall was restored and made more sustainable by a team of artists. With photos from 1999 as a guide, damaged and missing sculptures were repaired or recreated, and the wall was repainted where necessary. Now restored, the Memory Wall of Love and Peace enshrines not just Warmack’s time in Winston-Salem, but also what the community chose to have forever fixed in place.
Murder By Memory, Olivia Waite, 2025 SF mystery novella. Fun, and a fast read, but I wanted to like this more than I actually did, alas. SPOILERS: ( Read more... )
I have watched the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry, and omg it is so much fun (and I find it better than the book tbh; the book sometimes felt awkwardly written and the show just smooths out and amplifies so many great moments). I haven't watched the third episode yet and am desperate to, but I also kind of want to reread Game Changer first, just slam through it this morning, so I can better recognize the ways it's been adapted. (And of course I want to reread the book of Heated Rivalry as well, just to see if my memory is betraying me!) And I just learned twenty minutes ago that a sequel series to Spartacus just dropped and I'm dying to check it out. And how did I miss that there was a third series of Leverage: Redemption? (And on top of all those things that are sitting on my hard drive absolutely alluring me, I'm watching The Pitt with a friend -- her first time through it; my second -- and watching the current series of Shetland both with Geoff and with another friend, and already counting the days until the Call the Midwife Christmas special drops -- and omg it's specials, plural, we get one on the 25th and a second one on the 26th and then the new series presumably sometime in the spring.)
I have to prep to help lead service at church tomorrow morning, and all I want to do today is read Rachel Reid and watch TV. Can't I just stay home and worship at the Church of Bubble Butts?
My boss gave me a Christmas present, which is very nice of her! It's... a coffee mug (I only drink cold water) with snowy London landmarks on it (why).
In other puzzling news, I haven't had to wade through two inches of water to get to the station since last spring! I was assuming it was just because we'd had such a dry summer, but there have been several downpours which 100% would have flooded the station entrance last year now. We had a whole thing where the back of our site kept flooding and our management company spent months arguing with the water company about whose fault it was, and eventually the water company admitted it was them and did a bunch of work on the main road to fix it; I'm thinking the flooding by the station must have been part of the same problem, since it's the parallel road downslope. Who knew it was actually fixable without completely reconstructing the whole rear station entrance area! My wet boots thank them from the bottom of their soles.
I've been experimenting again with the automation software at work; at this stage it's a process of continuous failure - you create a process, you run it, it falls over, you spend ten minutes working out why, you fix that, it falls over at the next step, you spend fifteen minutes and call a colleague to fix that, rinse and repeat. On the other hand, the buzz from getting anything to work (I would say "a process" but I haven't actually got a complete flow for anything yet!!) is pretty good. And if I can get the flow I was working on yesterday up and running, it'll save me a couple of hours of extremely tedious manual checks every fortnight, and I'm all in favour of that.
All the Stars We Steal From the Night Sky (1385 words) by anr Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Push (2009) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Underage Sex, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Nick Gant/Cassie Holmes Characters: Nick Gant, Cassie Holmes, Kira Hudson Additional Tags: Sex, Kissing, First Time, Touching, 5 Times, Dubious Consent, Someone Made Them Do It, Loss of Virginity, Older Man/Younger Woman, mental manipulation Summary: Her first time.
(aka, Five times Cassie loses her virginity with Nick for the first time.)
i was so ...sleepy
70% how you look, 20% how you sound ...McKenna Grace - Haunted House
Ninety years since his heyday, Jesse Owens is still regarded as one of the greatest track and field athletes to have ever lived. He is perhaps most well-known for winning an unprecedented four gold medals in track and field events at the 1936 Olympic Games. He accomplished even more as a college athlete, however, winning eight titles in just two years, a record unbroken to this day.
Probably the most eventful single day of his athletic career occurred here at the University of Michigan's Ferry Field. May 25, 1935 was the day of Big Ten Conference's athletics championships. Representing U of M's rival, Ohio State University, Owens won four events in just 45 minutes. He set 5 new world records in the long jump, 220-yard and 200-meter sprint, and 220-yard and 200-meter low hurdles. Additionally, he equalled a sixth world record in the 100-yard dash. Most impressively, he managed to accomplish it all with a lower back injury.
Today, two small plaques at Ferry Field commemorate Owens's accomplishment. One of these is a World Athletics Heritage Plaque, commemorating places important to athletics history around the world. Curiously missing is any mention of OSU, perhaps to avoid the ire of local college students and fans.
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