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all photos this post FOP, 2015 unless otherwise noted
I could see the mountain out my window everyday. For weeks it seemed that everywhere I looked, there was Daimonji with its enormous 大 character peering back from above. The kanji shape etched into the mountain remains there year round. It translates literally as "big" and is the location of the largest of the "send off fires" set ablaze each August 16th as part of O-Bon in Kyoto, Japan.
O-Bon is a time when spirits return home for several days and are then ceremoniously sent off via giant fires on five mountains surrounding Kyoto. These fires are said to guide spirits back to the "other side."
image 1864: the year Chizuru comes to Kyoto, 花洛名勝図会(元治)1864)年刊行より大文字送火〉
FOP has wanted to attend and experience the O-Bon fires for several years. From afar, we've considered the events as highly aesthetic practices for being with change. At its core, O-Bon is an ancient ritual that is predicated on acknowledging that someone is no longer materially in existence — and yet it also welcomes and celebrates their annual "return" — now in non-material form.
The four day holiday, culminating with the fires, seemed to not only be a process for meaningfully setting aside time to pause in highly personal and private ways to be with those who have passed on, but also to invite participation in something much larger than one's individual family on a city, and even national, scale. It seems many people celebrate O-Bon both as a summer festival with dancing and food and as a traditional religious (Buddhist) holiday.
In Kyoto, the city prepares for the holiday weeks in advance. Countless stores offer special O-Bon sweets and theme-based gifts.
Daimonji wagashi (sweet) from Kagizen Yoshifusa, Kyoto, FOP 2015
When I came to Japan a month ago, I brought my own personal addenda to the O-Bon traditional theme. I came here wondering what O-Bon might offer humans in the age of the Anthropocene — and — if it might be expandable as a translated practice to include the non-human. I also wondered if O-Bon might offer inspiration and assistance for humans seeking aesthetic ways/practices for pausing with what we're in the midst of losing ( human and nonhuman) on planet Earth at increasingly rapid rates. How might O-Bon reply to my question, "what does it take to be with what is right now disappearing, or perhaps is already gone?"
As the days passed, it became increasingly important that I actually climb Mt. Daimonji, experience the mountain's forest and see the infrastructure that supports the fire here before August 16th arrived.
Japan's tectonically active landscape is full of steep cliffs and mountains. Its mountains are well-known for being sites for monks to retreat when undergoing ascetic training. Luckily Lonely Planet had rated the Daimonji hike as an "easy" one, so I felt as though I might have a chance of making it to the top.
Mt. Daimonji, via Google Maps
Still, summer weather in Japan is a force unto itself. When I arrived in mid-July, Typhoon #11 had just arrived too. This pretty much marked the end of the rainy season and the start of "mutsu-atsui" (sultry humidity) weather, which features humidity around 80% day and night. Before arriving, I admit I did not fully appreciate the degree to which sticky, oppressive heat can affect a body. Even with hats, umbrellas and sunscreen, it's typical to sweat through clothing within minutes of stepping outside.
So in recognition of this newly lived reality, I decided to begin my climb up Mt. Daimonji at 5am on August 1st, 2015. I hoped that I could climb the mountain and descend before the temperature passed 90F.
I was a bit unnerved to begin this climb alone. One friend had commented, with a smile, that despite being an "easy" climb often done by schoolchildren, the recent typhoon had probably brought out the snakes.
But I was soon set at ease, and humbled, by the number of people, most of them 20-30 years my senior, already well on their way to the top at 5:30am, despite the heat and humidity.
On the way up, the forest was a cacophony of cicadas, bird calls and flowing water — as well as hikers' shouts of "good morning" to one another.
wood, presumably left over from last year's fire.
where the O-Bon wood arrives
During the climb (staircase after staircase) I was able to observe the minimal infrastructure that affords the fires each August. Pulleys, levers and a small loading area shuttles a great deal of wood to the staging area. It was wonderful to encounter this spare infrastructure within a dense forest filled with ferns and running streams — and existing for no other reason than to offer guiding lights for spirits — and in the process bringing light to the millions watching down below.
I reached the summit around 6:45 am.
As I completed my last few steps, I could hear what sounded like a radio program with children counting in Japanese. Turning the corner to the top I was greeted by 10-12 people, who seemed to be friendly strangers, completely immersed in a morning radio calisthenics program. They were facing the morning sun and all of Kyoto spread before us.
I had arrived in the center of the giant 大.
The view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking. The heat incredible. The sense of arrival profound. After the exercises were completed, one man happily informed me that he was 73. Everyone on the mountain that morning, despite being red faced from the ascent, was proud, alive and feeling strong. Their connection to this place and desire to climb this mountain, clearly on a regular basis, was humbling. In this way, I felt like my arrival to the center of the 大 was also a point of contact with a worldview that thrives within this particular demographic in Japan — an outlook that honors and respects the natural world through an intimate and joyful engagement with it.
Countless mornings, due to jet lag, I had been up at dawn and witnessed aging Japanese people sweeping their local sidewalks, silently bowing towards the sun and taking early morning walks. At the top of Mt. Daimonji I realized that this mountain isn't a location that is merely activated on August 16th, it's alive and loved by local people all year round.
Sixteen days later I am standing at the base of Daimonji. The sun is setting just after a storm and the O-Bon fires are scheduled to begin in less than an hour.
My question, "what does it take to be with what is right now disappearing, or perhaps is already gone?" has become less urgent.
Over the past month I've been newly reminded that life isn't about obsessing about what is about to slip away. Change is constant. While in Japan I have been simultaneously more "exposed" and "at home" in relation to highly variable environmental contexts than during any other time in my adult life. Architecture in Japan, even modern, doesn't isolate humans from the elements as much as slightly buffer us from them. People dry laundry outside, they rarely use air-conditioning, they have walls and doors that are open to the outside year-round. Here, it's not about keeping the outside out — it's about maintaining a frequent and lively exchange between inside and outside, human and nonhuman.
During several of my language classes this past month, we would briefly pause to notice some new, often incredible, insect that had just wandered into the room from outside. Through what some might call an "accommodation" in bodily comfort, here, humans gain a lived sensation of being in relation to environment and its varying forces. One feels, lives, even celebrates great variation in seasonality rather than trying to control it. One lives change and inherently senses that life lived in relation to environments that are beyond human control is not a failure of design, or will.
I now realize that my original question was mistakenly focused on the end point of "gone" — a time of being "too late." But ongoing change, even change that includes physical death, doesn't signal an "ending" for everyone and everything.
It sounds basic, but what it takes to truly be alive with "what is right now changing irrevocably" is actually the challenge. In a time of very real and increasing extinction of lifeforms and intensification of planetary volatility, serious questions arise about how we might not take for granted the world we are a part of — while being able to acknowledge the scale of changes unfolding.
In this way, practices that invite humans to experience and directly live, rather than be cut off from, a highly variable environments seem all the more essential for living meaningfully with change.
So, as the O-Bon fires begin, I know that what I am seeing and feeling is not what Japanese people around me are seeing and feeling. Down here on the street, there is a light-hearted feeling of a summer festival, popsicles, beer and laughter. I also sense that those who are up on Mt. Diamonji right now, having ascended the mountain to ignite the fires, are having a very different experience.
"At last and they reached the peak of Diamonji mountain … and he could look down from the heights, and there down below — completely encompassing the horizon — was in actuality the entire city, darkness had by this point almost completely fallen, the lights were burning down below in the distance already, and they didn't say anything; he, because the sight left him at a complete loss for words, and Kawamoto because he was afraid that he was showing this in vain, that his friend — who had helped him form a connection between his solitary life in the world, due to which he owed him eternal gratitude — didn't understand, and it wasn't possible to explain: here on the peak of Diamonji, this was not the world of words; this gigantic evening picture of the city encircled by mountains said, without a single word, everything that he wanted to tell his friend before bidding farewell: an evening picture as a glimmer of twlight was disappearing into nothingness, and darkness finally descended, down below there was an enormous city, with the tiny lights of it stars setting out an enormous surface for itself, and up here above were the two of them … although he was pleased that his friend wasn't talking and was only staring down below with dazzled eyes here from the heights, he was also aware that it was in vain, this friend saw nothing, the Western eye only saw the firefly-like sparkling of the evening city, but nothing of what he wanted to tell him, of what this hopeless, solitary, trembling land was signaling to one from down there below, certainly this place merely signified to him the wonderous gardens, the wonderous monasteries, and the wonderous mountains all around, so that Kawamoto had already turned around, and set off on the path leading downward…" — Laszlo Krasznahorkai from, Seibo There Below, 'The Rebuilding of the Ise Shrine' p.420
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Hiroshima, Japan on August 7th, all images this post FOP, 2015
It was an odd sensation to walk with through the streets of an unfamiliar city. To feel one's awareness constantly being pulled upward, away from the ground plane — away from the buildings, the gardens, the traffic, people, bikes, rivers and bridges. An invisible weight from above and followed me everywhere I walked. I was in Japan — so much to take in right in front of me — yet the empty sky held tremendous force. For two and half days the feeling did not lift. It was from "up there" that it came — the force of the first atomic bomb used on civilians in the history of the planet. I found myself repeating the facts in my head like a mantra, in order to accept that they could possibly be true:
There were three planes up there. It was a morning, 70 years ago. August 6th, 1945. One plane was filled with scientific equipment. One plane was filled with photography equipment. And one plane, with the name Enola Gay painted on its nose, flown by General Paul Tibbets, held an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy." The bomb was conceived of on the plateaus of New Mexico. The people in the planes that day were Americans. Right now, I am on the ground in Japan, about 6000 miles from Los Alamos. These Americans didn't set foot in the city that I am presently walking through. They did not see what I am seeing (they missed the Itsukushima Shrine, dating to around 600 AD, they missed the gardens at Shukkein, they missed the constant roar of the cicadas, which are near deafening here in August). They did not look anyone in the eye, here, on the ground. They flew high over this city that morning. They actually dropped an atomic bomb. They really actually did this. The bomb exploded in the sky over this city — right here. Surface temperatures were over 7000 F and instantly killed tens of thousands of people. The people in the planes didn't see the strange colors that people on the ground describe witnessing after the flash of light — green, blue, yellow — just before everything went black with rain and fire. The beautiful meandering rivers around me today, they soon held the dead and dying. Before stopping over on Tinian, the plane carrying the bomb came from Wendover, Utah. Which, oddly enough, is a place I have spent several weeks of life over the past decade. I can picture the hangar the Enola Gay departed from, I've stood inside its crumbling infrastructure. I am now in Hiroshima.
The event of 8:16am (Japan Time), August 6th, 1945 unleashed nonsensical scales of madness: three planes, hundreds of thousands of lives. Earth materials that took billions of years were deployed by humans in a way that shifted the course of humanity and planetary materiality irrevocably within microseconds. The Anthropocene grew strong wings that day.
For the entire time I was in Hiroshima it was as though three tiny planes were flying overhead.
Enola Gay hangar, from the Limit Case postcard series, smudge studio 2007
On day two in Hiroshima, at the exhibition The 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: War and Peace, the work of artist Ikuo Hirayama, a Hiroshima survivor, brought me to a standstill. It was as if his piece, Enola Gay (エノアゲイ) had read my mind. Hirayama is perhaps best known for his large, multi-panel painting, The Holocaust at Hiroshima, which was also on view. But here was a small work that showed exactly what I had been imagining rendered in simple watercolor: three B29 bombers suspended in transparent air. The plane in the foreground was delicately painted with "Enola Gay." The work was so matter of fact. It appeared to be a humble attempt at making sense of how these planes could be the catalyst for setting into motion events so immense and inconceivable.
Today Hiroshima is a lively city that has been entirely rebuilt. It's filled with real people, parks, gardens, architecture and art (some of the best in the world). Even when taking public transportation around the city, a visitor doesn't pass out of the range of areas affected by the blast. But this fact is difficult to hold in mind. Yet, when one encounters the iconic, disfigured wreckage of the Atomic Bomb Dome building, deep material realities rise to awareness: at human body scale, there was no escape.
Memorials and markers can be encountered far beyond the Memorial Park area, in alleys and in gardens, distant from the city center.
Rather than attempt to describe in detail the intimately personal artifacts, ephemera and stories housed by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and surrounding Park, we invite readers to experience this place on their own time and terms. For many years we've appreciated the phrase "feel it for yourself," which we perhaps ironically, gleaned from nuclear physicist Freeman Dyson. These words ask for a slowing down and require a "being there" with all senses — even as we know that the "there" we are feeling is not the "there" of that day in 1945.
For a decade FOP has been devoted to creating "aesthetic prostheses" as provocations for public audiences to expand their capacities for imagining and acting in relation to deep geologic time. The nuclear has been central to this work, because of its entanglement with profound and vast geologic time scales (past and future). We have "felt it for ourselves" at the open house of the first atomic test, Trinity, and alongside the craters from subsequent tests that will reverberate in perpetuity in the exclusion zones of the Nevada Test Site. We have also stood before a model of "Little Boy" (nearly identical to one found inside the Hiroshima Peace Museum) at a small local museum in Wendover, Utah. Recently, we spent weeks of our lives traveling U.S Interstate/highway shipping routes for nuclear materials destined for deep geologic storage — a process that became necessary only post-1945 and will remain a pressing necessity for all remaining human history.
These experiences paved the way for and framed my arrival in Hiroshima, under a sweltering summer sun.
Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound (ashes of tens of thousand of people are interred here).
After touring the Peace Memorial Museum and Park, I sought refuge from the afternoon heat in the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art at the top of a beautiful hill. Several important shows are on view in honor of the 70 year anniversary. One exhibition is aptly named Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness. Another, Life = Work, includes work that artists have dedicated nearly their entire lives to creating in response to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I was struck by my near total unfamiliarity with the artists being shown. I felt it as a deep loss.
The exhibitions I saw in Hiroshima that weekend weren't offered as context for debating whether dropping the bomb was right or wrong, ended the war early or saved lives (American or Japanese). They were apolitical, and simply offered room after room of deep, human expression of what it was like to actually be on the ground, living through an atomic explosion and its aftermath. I was left wondering what might result if more people everywhere had the chance to encounter and spend time with these works, to simply stop and be with what actually happened to the humans living in Hiroshima on that day.
I offer the following list of works for consideration and personal research: Chimei Hamada, Elegy for a New Conscript: A Flabby Sun Rises, Toshi and Iri Maruki, The Hiroshima Panel, 6th August, Yasuo Kazuki, Stars (Barbed Wire) Summer, Yoshiro Fukui, Hiroshima Atomic Bomb, Ikuo Hirayama, Enola Gay, Ihei Kimura, Living Hiroshima, Hisashi Akutagawa, Child Drinking Water (Water Ota River 4), Shomei Tomatsu, Ms. Urakawa Shizuka and her daughters: Chika, Tomoyo and Mika (from left) ART EYE, Sadanobu Otsu, Black Rain, Miyako Ishiuchi's Hiroshima series, Masahiro Usami, Hayashi Yuriko Hiroshima 2014.
The last exhibition I saw before leaving Hiroshima concluded with museum staff gently urging me to enter a small, final gallery. I was greatly relieved to be met with small cases of ceramic works, including many beautiful tea bowls.
The creators of this culminating exhibition share incredibly insightful words in their curatorial statement — offering a reminder that how we practice daily life, including seemingly mundane exchanges between humans that are culture — are actually at the core of the world we continuously co-create together. And I feel this statement offers a start toward fashioning a reply to the question that I brought with me to Japan : "What does it take to be with what is right now disappearing, or perhaps is already gone?"
Commemorations of the Exhibition "War and Peace" The Craftwork of Japan and Asia — Connected Hearts, Foundation of Peace:
"We have made "Craftwork of Japan and Asia" as one of the pillars of our collection in order to deepen the understanding toward Asia through craftwork familiar in our daily lives. Craftwork enriches a variety of situations in our daily lives and connects the hearts of assembled people. It has been observed that hopes for peace and prosperity are shared among craftwork's designs even when the place and time are far away. Moreover, craftwork has encouraged the exchange of people, culture, economy and technology by circulating as commodities and gifts. Positive measures have been taken to build a peaceful world without war based on the principle of "creating peace" in Hiroshima Prefecture. Under these circumstances, exchanges through culture can be effective for the formation of a fundamental undercurrent in fostering mutual understanding and respect. The world is connected by culture and there is a force that connects the world vividly appears in craftwork that reflects the hopes of people intimately and had been circulated across national borders [my bold]. We would like to make this an opportunity to consider maintaining and building peace with culture through the "Craftwork of Japan and Asia."
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What does it take to be with what is right now disappearing, or perhaps is already gone?
image NYT via International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2012
"Amphibians have the dubious distinction of being the world's most endangered class of animals" (About 40 percent of all amphibians are considered endangered). "But also heading toward extinction are one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles and sixth of all birds." – Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction, from an interview with NPR's Terri Gross
For over 500 years Japanese people have held a festival each August in Kyōto called O-Bon (also know as the "festival of the dead"). This event honors the visiting spirits of deceased ancestors and welcomes them "back" for three days (via home altars and visits to graves) and then "sends them off" with massive fires during the Gozan no Okuribi ("five mountain send-off fire"). The fires are ignited on five mountainsides surrounding the city.
To date, we have found no parallel to this event, especially in the form of enduring national traditions that attempt to acknowledge and maintain connections to what many humans would typically describe as gone or passed away. This August 16th, FOP will be attending the O-Bon festival to experience first-hand how this ancient ritual still invites and attracts contemporary humans to "be with" what has passed out of being.
FOP will attend the festival, as part of our ongoing research towards developing aesthetic practices that assist humans in attuning to the changing material conditions presently unfolding as the Anthropocene around us. How can we gracefully accept and adapt to the fact that lifestyles have material limits and respect other species and non-human forces? What does it take to be with what is right now disappearing, or perhaps is already gone?
As Japanese people meet emergent conditions of contemporary life, they have access to a rich and long cultural history and a relatively strong social fabric. Over thousands of years, Japanese culture has refined and invented countless practices and forms for negotiating and aesthetically responding to uncertain futures. We sense that many humans can benefit from cultivating more nuanced engagements with forces and dynamics of change. We also believe that aesthetic practices that invite humans to meaningfully and aesthetically be with, consider, and live change, are urgently needed. Aesthetic practices can inform new modes of attuning to and gracefully being with these changes, rather than responding with attempts to rise up and do "battle" with, control or re-design earth forces, or re-inscribe fatalist scenarios.
FOP will be in Japan for the next month. During this time, we will also experience intensive Japanese language immersion, visit Hiroshima in honor of the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, which occurred on August 6th, 1945. And, we will research emergent Japanese daily life practices that use aesthetic experience as a way to attune to impermanence in the Anthropocene.
*This research is supported in part by the Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School.
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Xiaoxuan Fu, Dragon Tree Mask (green tea, rice tea, flour and corn tassel)
Design, make and perform a mask to bring awareness to issues related to environmental change and/or possibly alter the behavior of those who use/wear it.
A group of ten students were charged with this task as their final project Masks for the Anthropocene. The project was part of a recently completed five-week intensive taught by FOP co-founder Jamie Kruse for the course entitled Sustainable Systems. Sustainable Systems is a first-year required course at Parsons School of Design that introduces and prepares first-year students to work with "wicked problems" as artists and designers. It does this through sequenced field trips to locations around New York City, lectures, fieldwork and applied scientific methods and encourages students to develop creative skills that support diversity, adaptability and resilience in the face of ever-changing conditions.
The mask project gave students a chance to materialize some aspect of at least one of the themes developed in the class. The themes included: intentional observation, climate change, wicked problems, storm surge, sixth extinction, social resiliency, guilt/denial of climate change, impact on air, water, plants, animals, waste, long-term/geologic thinking and the materials of the Anthropocene (such as plastic and nuclear waste).
Might a mask be able to materialize/translate a theme into an object or character of the Anthropocene that can be experienced? Might a mask invite someone wearing it to behave differently — to become more resilient or provide protection or encouragement in relation to a contemporary environmental problem, such as a nearly extinct animal, a person living near Fukushima, someone living in Evacuation Zone 1 of New York City, or someone dealing with poor air quality in Beijing? What happens to who and what a person "is" when they wear a mask designed with such questions in mind?
Students performatively documented their projects — that is, they activated the masks and interacted with other people or things in the world. Student-designers carefully considered their choices of materials and contextualizing narratives. The resulting masks were incredibly diverse. All of the students were international (from China, Colombia, Korea, Mexico, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia), and several of the masks focused on issues affecting their home countries. As a result, the mask offer a global tour of sorts, of regions and materials that are being altered by the Anthropocene.
The project summary, design brief and documentation of the masks can be seen here. The course blog, Art + Design for Changing Conditions, documents additional course projects, design briefs and curriculum.
Sara (Qihan) Dong, Mask for the Anthropocene
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Cover Art, © Mary Mattingly, House and Universe, 2013
We are pleased to announce the release of a book that we've been anticipating — Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies edited by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin.
This timely collection takes "as its premise that the proposed epoch of the Anthropocene is necessarily an aesthetic event." Its contributors explore "the relationship between contemporary art and knowledge production in an era of ecological crisis" and the volume includes a "multitude of disciplinary conversations, drawing together artists, curators, scientists, theorists and activists to address the geological reformation of the human species."
The book is part of the Critical Climate Change series published by Open Humanities Press.
All are welcome to download the book or purchase print copies. Many thanks to Heather and Etienne for including our work.
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"Is it not impossible that future humans will have built something like spirituality around these materials?" Care for the hyperobject will emerge … What do you do with the radioactive waste? You can't just sweep it under the Yucca Mountain carpet and hope nobody notices … Hyperobjects are the true taboos, the demonic inversion of the sacred substances of religion … Isn't it ironic that supposedly materialist, secular societies created the ultimate spiritual substances?" – The Ecological Thought, Timothy Morton (p.132)
"In Zeami's later critical works yūgen takes on a darker coloration … Yūgen in fact tends to reject conventional notions of beauty: if a display of feminine grace on the Nō stage were the highest aim, real women could now take the parts, though they were not permitted on the stage in Zeami's day. But the thought of a woman performing the role of say, the courtesan Eguchi is repugnant to lovers of Nō who insist that a man in his sixties with a cracked bass voice and large, ugly hands has more yūgen. They are right: anyone who saw Kita Roppeita dance the role of the shite in Sagi ("the White Heron"), a man in his eighties taking the part of a bird, surely sensed the mysterious, indefinable presence of yūgen." – Nō and Bunraku, Donald Keene (p. 23)
Untitled (Human Mask) (2014), Film. (Courtesy the artist; Hauser & Wirth, London; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Esther Schipper, Berlin; Anna Lena, Paris, © Pierre Huyghe)
See Interfacing the Anthropocene Part I and Part II for an introduction to this post).
The girl is agitated, pacing. She is waiting in a dark and empty room. The structure is some kind of house or restaurant. Fusuma doors display iconic, ancient landscapes — scenes of a "nature" typically (imagined) to be inhabited by reclusive monks who have renounced the world. A scroll of calligraphy, slightly out of focus in the background, displays a phrase typically referenced in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony "一期一会"(ichi-go ichi-e). The words literally translate as "one time one meeting." But they also are used to express, "for this time only," "never again," or "one chance in a lifetime." Maggots crawl through spoiled food. A faucet drips. Rain pours off the roof. She climbs into a chair. Her face, smooth and even, is that of a perfectly sculpted Nō mask. It reflects an eerie glow of blue green light. She appears consumed by the waiting, pulling at her hair. Her arms and legs are covered in fur. She has the posture of a wild animal — a monkey.
The people around me in the gallery, also watching this video, seem uncomfortable. The silence is charged. The video is on loop and I wonder what it is like for visitors who are right now walking into this unpleasant and confusing scene. What is this creature?
It's important to note that the piece starts with the footage of the wreckage. All that was torn from the land in the wake of the tsunami and earthquake in 2011. What we see on screen, in reality, can't be repaired because it exists within the exclusion zone. There are real places like this in Japan. Radiation is everywhere. All the people have left.
Is this video fiction, or is it reality? Perhaps they are the same in this context. Could this equation of fiction and reality be the beauty, the mysterious grace — the yūgen you might say — of this ambiguous video by Pierre Huyghe that is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
Both Huyghe's roof commission and this video piece require patience and a reorientation to notions of time. They both require the long, geologic view, but from a human body and with a human scale — a certain kind of waiting. These works require us to leave the world as we tend to experience it in our daily, habitual lives. They require both an imaginative and a grounded sense of existing on geologically active planet Earth. In return, we get a chance to experience a little more intimately, and uncomfortably, the contemporary world we inhabit, but don't yet seem to have the tools/capacities to actually take in.
I left Untitled (Human Mask) reeling. Cherry blossoms were blowing through the streets of New York. It was a spectacular spring day outside the Museum. The heaviness of the video was a strong counterpoint to the uplift I found outside — the sky, the light, the sense of a new season finally beginning. News of the drought in California had been making headlines all week and now the beautiful landscaping and fountains I saw on the streets suddenly appeared excessive. I was filled with a sense of all things surpassing limits. The limits of waiting — for rain, for action, for radioactive particles to undergo transmutation into lesser forms. This moment of realization felt like a resigned but calm acceptance. I could continue to walk through the day as though all was "okay" or I could take up the invitation from Huyghe and go deeper into the theatre of reality for a moment or two. To pause with what we might call, the yūgen of hyperobjects, such as the Anthropocene.
In the Ecological Thought, Timothy Morton writes: "Ecological collectivities must make space for introversion and reflection, including meditative practices … 'radical passivities' … must work directly on attitudes … Meditation means exposing our conceptual fixations and exploring the openness of the mesh. Politics must begin to include (difficult word!) spirituality, in the sense of radical questioning and opening … Meditation does not mean emptying the mind or suppressing the intellect. It doesn't mean doing nothing … Meditation implies an erotics of coexistence, of not just letting things be." (p127)
Huyghe's video is both distant and extremely intimate. We are inside and outside of its spaces and times (the gallery, Japan, the waiting, the past, present, future) simultaneously. The piece works, if not grates, intensely on our psychologies. It's almost absurdist theater, a Waiting for Godot of the Anthropocene, and demands a viewing audience with a certain sturdiness. You quickly discover whether or not you're up to the task. It asks quietly, in the dark, if you are ready to meet these unknowns. And you have to answer only to yourself about how long you do in fact pause before you get up to leave.
The description posted on the Met's website doesn't prepare visitors for what they encounter. It reads, "Pierre Huyghe: Human Mask—on view from April 27 through August 9, 2015, in gallery 916—will present the New York premiere of Huyghe's new nineteen-minute video, Untitled (Human Mask), which portrays a mysterious creature's resilience in the aftermath of natural and man-made disaster."
No mention of Japan. No mention of Fukushima. No mention of the loneliness, the agonizing wait or the forced exodus. The words imply a piece about resilience and a future.
The wall text accompanying the video is more detailed than the Met's website. Here, steps from the piece itself, visitors learn that we are about to experience a work that, "explores the paradoxical rift between what we think we know about the world and what it can and cannot, in turn, tell us. Untitled (Human Mask) evokes many such themes: the monotony of work and the repetition of ritualistic behaviors, the possibility of a catastrophic future, and the power that living creatures hold over us as ciphers of ourselves." We also learn that the work, "opens with a deserted streetscape near Fukushima, Japan, which was devastated by natural and man-made disaster in 2011. Amid the ruin, the camera enters an abandoned restaurant and finds what appears to be the only survivor: a monkey adorned with a mask and costume of a young girl…"
The effect is one of psychological endurance. Even if you don't find yourself thinking about what occurred (and continues to affect the planet) on March 11-13th, 2011, there is something about the video that you likely will find to be unshakable: an unnamable sense of recognition.
In Untitled (Human Mask) Huyghe offers audiences engagements with the strange stranger of the Anthropocene — and it/s/he seemingly looks and moves uncannily like us, in a state of unravelling. Parsing out what's fiction and what's reality no longer computes. As David Neumann did in his deeply human, "I Understand Everything Better," Huyghe has crafted a work that offers a brief, but sustained, aesthetic encounter with elusive sensations of mortality. Perhaps this is a themes most of us would rather not engage on a Saturday afternoon, but our culture's inability to "hold the thought" of limits has contributed at least a bit to our arrival at the Sixth Extinction. Some have aptly suggested that the development of material and psychological capacities for being with change, or what we call "death" in the West, is becoming increasingly urgent as we head into the unknowable futures of the Anthropocene. It many ways, it amounts to a question of spiritual constitution. How might we be become better prepared, not just materially, but psychologically and philosophically, to meet what's already here?
This summer we (FOP/smudge) will be spending an extended period of time in Japan, undergoing language immersion and exploring new trajectories for our work, such as performative/theatre practices and yūgen in particular. Also, as part of an intensive summer session at Parsons, a group of students will be producing a project entitled, "Nō Masks for Navigating the Anthropocene." We will share more about these projects in coming weeks.
Filed under: Uncategorized
"What we call yūgen lies within the mind and cannot be expressed in words. Its quality may be expressed by the sight of a gauzy cloud veiling the moon or by the autumnal mists swathing the scarlet leaves on a mountainside. If one is asked where yūgen can be found in these sights, one cannot say; a man who cannot understand this truth is quite likely to prefer the sight of the moon shining brightly in a cloudless sky. It is quite impossible to explain wherein lies the interest or wonder of yūgen." -Buddhist priest and poet, Shōtetsu (1381-1459), from Nō and Bunraku, Donald Keene
from "I Understand Everything Better," image by Maria Baranova, courtesy Advanced Beginner Group
(See Interfacing the Anthropocene Part I for an introduction to this post and Interfacing the Anthropocene Part III for a continuation.)
The entire stage was in motion, serpentine waves of billowing plastic. As "the wind" increased its fury, our main character gallantly attempted to confront the storm that swirled violently around him. It was a pivotal moment of David Neumann's performance, 'I Understand Everything Better' at the Abrons Arts Center.
The New York Times has described Neumann as having weathered "a number of storms in recent years, personal and meteorological." And in 'I Understand Everything Better,' "he reflects on the deaths of his parents, which bookended Superstorm Sandy. Techniques from Japanese Noh theater, along with his characteristic wit, provide grounding and leavening forces."
In the last moments of 'I Understand Everything Better,' after the storm has passed, a father is about to die. Neumann (as his father) is moving slowly off stage, dressed in white attire reminiscent of traditional Shinto and Nō costume. His exit is meticulous. Step by step. In silence. It is a slow, ritualistic movement. It conveyed a process of passing out of being. Another character on stage, serving as the character's medical attendant, states definitively, "I'm here till' he's gone." And, off he goes, into his "next."
Core to the concept of Nō theater is yūgen, which roughly translates as subtle beauty, mystery and profound grace. We (FOP/smudge) feel it is the urgent task of artists to discover and enact new practices that cultivate new sensations of, and fortitude for, living within emerging planetary realities. Our hunch is that this is will be more effectively taken-up through embodied practice rather than through representation or description. Neumann's appropriation of Nō to communicate and enact the loss of his parents — and to indirectly link these passings to the upheavals of planetary systems (i.e. hurricane as metaphor for Anthropocene), left us newly inspired.
from "I Understand Everything Better," image by Maria Baranova, courtesy Advanced Beginner Group
Neumann's ritualistic exit from the stage was risky. It was slow and processual. It drew us in closer until we were with him. American culture tends to avoid lingering over themes of death and other limits — and over the idea of not grasping for more (time, resources etc.). Yet signals that we humans are approaching new limits are everywhere. It's stressing us out. The gathering "storms" signals to us the many limits we do indeed face.
We noted, appreciatively, that when Neumann needed to express something deeper, more sacred, about the changes he was experiencing in his life, he sought "training" outside of American cultural traditions. For thousands of years, cultures such as Native Americans and the Japanese, just to name two, have been refining embodied and often aesthetic practices intended to invite humans to continuously acknowledge their (humble) place within larger planetary realities. In preparation for 'I Understand Everything Better,' Neumann took part in a "Nō Immersive" in Tokyo, under a fellowship grant from the Asian Cultural Council.
Neuman elaborates on his attraction to Nō for The New Yorker, "Watching Noh is like looking at an airplane in the sky. It is slow and serene. But if you were up there with it there would be all this noise and black smoke."
In the playbill for the performance Neumann writes that with the loss of his parents he "felt a significant change … a new perspective—a type that only loss can bring…" and that Superstorm Sandy lent, "a sense of humility in the face of the natural world, and with that, the perspective only nature provides." Neumann has said that he was never interested in attempting to imitate Nō, but rather his work "shares some formal elements with both the Nō and Kabuki theaters, and with that, the desire to engage and activate our imaginations."
As FOP/smudge, we sense that if contemporary humans (Americans, in particular) feel there are a limited number of meaningful practices available in our contemporary culture that enable us to turn towards the planetary realities and limits that we currently face, instead of distracting us away from them, it is important that we (especially artists) learn from such practices that exist elsewhere — and then attempt to invent our own. Neumann has done just this.
A New Yorker review goes on to say: "In that act of containment, Neumann feels that he found a chastening vehicle for a potentially chest-banging subject. He thinks, also, that Nō reinforced in him the conviction that he has to trust the audience. 'I don't want to try to convince them that they should like my show, or that they should feel something at a certain point. To refrain from that requires patience. I used to have no patience. I've learned some.'"
As we navigate our way through the limits that the Anthropocene is delivering, embodied practices such as the performance Neumann invented, can offer means for gaining nuanced acceptance of the fast, intense material changes taking place on a global scale. By inventing and enacting such practices of our own, we can make contact with emerging realities without being left to reel in states of distraction or despair.


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Any No-Cry Pantley PU/PD success stories???
Comments (4)
We've been using this for the last month or so. I started by using the Pantley pull off while we were still co-sleeping and practicing falling asleep in the crib with naps (since he wouldn't nurse to sleep for naps anymore anyway). After a couple weeks of success doing that, we moved him to his crib (at 3 months). He slept like a dream the first night, only two NF, woke up one other time, fussed for a bit and put himself back to sleep.
However, we discovered very quickly we can't do the PU/PD, it only works him up more. If he is really having a hard time settling, I crouch at the crib, stick my hand through the bars and hold his hand. He likes having his hand held. It helps that he can't see my face as well.
Lo is 5.5 months so I'm thinking age may increase our time, but you never know! The Pantley pull off worked quickly!
Olivefarmer -I know there is a different book for naps. Is it worth getting? Are there differences? I am still holding for most naps to decrease OT, but need to work on this too!
It's the same idea-preventing OT, independent sleep etc. Really, once you get nights sorted out nap training is a snap. You observe "crib hour" and do your checks. If no nap, get them up, do the next thing on the schedule and try for the same nap again within the next hour. We did nap training because she actually slept fabulously at night from birth.

subset: commoncrawl


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Old Tire Factory by roymanfrediWatch
©2012-2016 roymanfredi
I took this picture using a special lens to create a rustic look. I am very much influenced by the artwork in the Fallout series and took this picture in referral to the games concept.
cool shot . ever try gettin there? bet there is some really cool stuff to shoot
ugh I want to so bad, but one side is the lake and the back side is downtown. I would like to find who owns it and maybe bring some models in there and get some cool shots.
wouldnt hurt to go to the town and ask at the hall or whatever your area calls it. just tell them your a photographer and mab youd have to sign a waiver or something.. or just be ninja about it lol.. theres probly just awsome decay shots alone


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- Multi-pattern USB Mic
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The best in plug n' play professional quality microphones 11/02/2013
This review is from: Blue Microphones Yeti Silver USB Connector Ultimate Professional Microphone
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Other Thoughts:
There is an XLR version, and had I known just how good this microphone was, I probably would have sprang for it just to have a mic I could use in almost every situation.
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NetSuite And ChannelAdvisor Partner To Automate Omnichannel Commerce
SAN MATEO, Calif., Oct. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud -based financials / ERP and omnichannel commerce software suites and ChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM), a leading provider of cloud-based Ecommerce solutions that enable retailers and manufacturers to increase global sales, today announced a partnership to automate omnichannel commerce for businesses spanning a wide range of industries including retail, manufacturing, and wholesale/distribution to expand their sales channels. The NetSuite ChannelAdvisor partnership is expected to provide businesses with opportunities to achieve omnichannel success through the addition of new online sources of demand such as Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Google Shopping, Facebook, Newegg, Sears and more. "The Ecommerce environment is changing rapidly, so it's more important than ever that retailers' Ecommerce platforms are tightly integrated to their back-office operations to manage marketing spend and revenue through diversified online channels," said ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo. "Now, NetSuite customers can leverage ChannelAdvisor's leading Ecommerce solutions to access more sources of revenue across all Ecommerce channels, increasing the power of both companies' platforms to master omnichannel commerce."ChannelAdvisor offers retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors leading cloud-based solutions to efficiently manage and automate the online selling process across multiple channels including third-party marketplaces, paid search and comparison shopping engines. ChannelAdvisor's robust software eliminates the tedious day-to-day tasks of optimizing online listings and analyzing performance, allowing sellers to successfully scale their Ecommerce businesses. "ChannelAdvisor excels at connecting retailers and manufacturers with multiple online channels, making this a valuable alliance for our SuiteCommerce customers and enabling them to extend their online reach, drive more traffic and increase sales using ChannelAdvisor's expert solutions," said NetSuite General Manager of Commerce Products Andy Lloyd. NetSuite SuiteCommerce enables B2C and B2B merchants, manufacturers and distributors to seamlessly connect every step of a multi-channel, multi-location business—from Ecommerce, point of sale (POS) and order management to merchandising, marketing, inventory, financials and customer support. Featuring an advanced webstore that allows the creation of uniquely branded and personalized shopping experiences optimized for multiple devices, SuiteCommerce empowers businesses to run across multiple touchpoints—web, brick-and-mortar stores, social, mobile—all from a single, unified cloud-based commerce system that provides unprecedented visibility into your business and customers. Please visit www.suitecommerce.com for more information. About NetSuiteToday, more than 16,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission–critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of enterprise–class cloud financials/ERP suites for divisions of large enterprises and mid-sized organizations seeking to upgrade their antiquated client/server ERP systems. NetSuite excels at streamlining business operations as demonstrated in a recent Gartner study naming NetSuite as the fastest growing financial management software vendor on a global basis. NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud ERP/financials suites to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity, as the global adoption of the cloud is accelerating. About ChannelAdvisorChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM) is a leading provider of cloud-based Ecommerce solutions that enable retailers and manufacturers to integrate, manage and optimize their merchandise sales across hundreds of online channels including Amazon, Google, eBay, Facebook and more. Through automation, analytics and optimization, ChannelAdvisor customers can leverage a single inventory feed to more efficiently list and advertise products online, and connect with shoppers to increase sales. Billions of dollars in merchandise value are driven through ChannelAdvisor's platform every year, and thousands of customers use ChannelAdvisor's solutions to help grow their businesses. For more information, visit www.channeladvisor.com. Follow NetSuite's Cloud blog, NetSuite's Facebook page and @NetSuite Twitter handle for real-time updates. For information about NetSuite, Please visit www.netsuite.com. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090924/SF81218LOGO-b) SOURCE NetSuite Inc.
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www.wired.com said:
The bargain basement price for a trip to Mars also highlights Musks main effort behind SpaceX, to bring down the cost of delivering a payload human or cargo into space. In an interview with the BBC, Musk acknowledged the first seats wont be selling for $500,000. It will take a while to get down to that price. But Musk says the half-million dollar ticket could happen a decade after trips begin.
Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket half a million dollars. It can be done, he told the BBC.
Read more...


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Hot Bodies Center Differential Mount (2)
This is a replacement Hot Bodies center differential mount, and is intended for use with the Hot Bodies D8 and D8T 1/8 scale vehicles.
This product was added to our catalog on September 23, 2008.
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Full-time, 25 year old babysitter from Rahway, NJ with 4 years of experience and a background check available upon request
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Demo Racquets » Babolat Demo Racquets » Babolat Drives » Drive Lite Blue and White Demo Tennis Racquet
Item #: B101195-148D
BABOLAT Drive Lite Blue and White Demo Tennis Racquet
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Note: Demo Racquets cannot be paid with your Paypal account, a credit card is required for this type of order.
For players in search of a powerful racquet that is also light and comfortable to swing, Babolat has the answer with the Drive Lite Blue and White. The low, 9.0oz (unstrung) weight makes this frame extremely fast through contact and capable of tremendous racquet head speed. Cick here for more information on this racquet.
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|Head Size:
|100 sq. in MP
|27 inches
|Strung — 9.5 oz Unstrung — 9 oz
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16 Mains / 19 Crosses
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I think our campus is diverse
There is alot of diversity. Our campus has an international house. There are many students that came here from another country. There are also many students of different sexual orientations. Overall, students are friendly to eachother, regardless of sexual orientation or country of origin.
Predominantly white campus. Very little interracial interaction unless it's between guys and girls, and even then it's not too much. Overall, however, given the circumstances, I'd say this place is relatively diverse
Everyone is accepted. Washburn is a small campus with only about 7,000 students. Everyone is friendly and willing to help you out!
Great international program. Offers many activties on campus to learn about other cultures.
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Having a unique name can also become a financial asset to the company if it is sold, licensed or expanded, says Erik Pelton, a trademark lawyer in Falls Church, Va., emphasizing the need for small-business owners to register a company name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "A very creative, a very unique name is an asset to the business -- not just in how people find it and remember it, but actually a tangible asset that has a value," Pelton says. Protecting the name also limits a growing company's susceptibility to copycats.
"You're in a much better position to deal with it quickly and more affordably if you have a registration. It's not terribly expensive -- the government filing fee is about $300" and the process takes about a year from start to finish, Pelton says. "If you have a really unique name, those are the easiest to register. You're least likely to encounter a conflict in the application process." TheStreet talked to four companies that wouldn't have had as much success without their unusual names.


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I Saw Starsby Jay Fleck
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Friday, 20 April 2012
Happy 21st Birthday to Me
Top: Forever21
Shorts: Missguided
Tights: Primark
Shoes: Garage Shoes
Big thank you to everyone who have wished me a happy birthday! It meant a lot. :).
10 comments :
I really like this outfit ^.^ the tights look sexy and cute at the same time :DReplyDelete
Interesting outfit! Love the blazer!ReplyDelete
I like the outfit and those leggings ^^ and congrats on being legal worldwide girrrrl! LOLReplyDelete
Loveeeee those tights! *--------------* Your style here actually reminds me of CL from 2NE1 in the Scream MV~ReplyDelete
You look great in those tights! I especially love your blazerReplyDelete
happy belated bday nicol :)ReplyDelete
and yess, i love those tights too <3
I love your tights ! Happy belated Birthday :DReplyDelete
Happy belated Birthday :) xReplyDelete
Happy bday, Nicol!ReplyDelete
happy belated! n tights are gorgeous!!ReplyDelete
Comments brightens up my day. Leave and comment and I'll reply back. Remember to check back. :).
Feel free to tweet me any questions if you want a quick reply @yuk_lui :) and follow my blog on Bloglovin.


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Christmas comes early for Soldiers of 24th Ord.
December 7, 2011
By Pfc. Justin Mills, 3rd Sustainment Brigade Public Affairs
FORT STEWART, Ga. - Friends and Family of the Soldiers assigned to the 24th Ordnance Company, 87th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 3rd Sustainment Brigade, Third Infantry Division, received an early Christmas present at the Newman Fitness Center, Dec. 6, as the last of the unit returned home after a four-month deployment to Iraq in support of Operation New Dawn.
"This is the best Christmas present I've ever received," said Alisha Ramon, whose husband, Spc. Cody Ramon, was one of approximately 50 Soldiers who returned home. "We're so excited for him to be home and safe and now we finally get to have a real wedding and get everything started; first thing he wants to do though is get a big steak and have a hot shower."
The Soldiers of 24th Ord. spent their time in Iraq successfully shutting down an ammunition supply point in preparation for the upcoming withdrawl from the country as ordered by President Barack Obama.
"Everything went as planned," said Spc. Adam Wagner, an ammunitions specialist with the 24th Ord. Co., 87th CSSB, 3rd Sustainment Bde., 3rd Inf. Div. "We went in and did everything we were supposed to do, and the mission was a success."
Specialist Wagner received an even bigger surprise when he looked into the bleachers to see his wife holding a sign telling him she was expecting a baby girl. Although he knew she was pregnant before he left, the news of what his wife would be having was an added surprise.
"I'm so excited," Spc. Wagner said. "That's all I've been thinking about since I left and it was great to find out like this."
Now that the Soldiers are home safely they will spend the next few weeks taking steps to reintegrate with Family and friends before taking some well-deserved leave and spending the holidays with their loved ones.


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A judge holds a hearing Thursday afternoon on a request for an order to block Arizona's planned partial enrollment freeze for the state's Medicaid program.Read More »
Tag Archives: health careFeed Subscription
Brewer asks Supreme Court to deny injunction, throw out AHCCCS lawsuit
Citing the Arizona Constitution, a 2000 ballot measure and even a dictionary definition of the word "available," attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer have asked the Arizona Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit filed by a liberal advocacy group against an upcoming Medicaid enrollment freeze.Read More »
Don't worry about that $200 million
Attorney Tim Hogan today filed a follow-up to his AHCCCS lawsuit, asking the Arizona Supreme Court for an immediate injunction against the enrollment freeze for childless adults.Read More »
Brewer health insurance bill veto was a mistake
Rather than respond to Henry Grosjean's commentary (Brewer was right to veto health insurance bill, 5/27) in-kind with an ad hominem attack on his intelligence, I will respond to his claims and why the governor's veto of SB1593 was a mistake that will have adverse consequences for the 1.3 million Arizonans with no insurance today, and for the thousands of small businesses being crushed under the weight of ever-increasing premiums.Read More »
Capitol Quotes: May 27, 2010
This week's most outstanding quotes from around the Capitol.Read More »
High-tech health care hotspot: The men behind Phoenix supercomputer say it will bring a new era of medicine
As Phoenix awaits the arrival of the world's fastest supercomputer dedicated to health information, the time gap in translating new discoveries in medicine into new treatments continues to grow.Read More »
'We' the experts
Among the many government entities that are created by ObamaCare, one is especially troubling because it is comprised of a group of unelected government bureaucrats who will make critical changes in how the nation's seniors receive health care.Read More »
Forecast for Arizona economy shows gradual gains
A state economic projection for the next two years is favorable but tempered by continued weaknesses in construction, as Arizona makes a gradual pullout from the recession.Read More »
AZ's congressional votes: Week ending April 15, 2011
Here's how Arizona's members of Congress voted on major issues in the week ending April 15.Read More »
Take steps to ensure health care wishes are followed
Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst is a somewhat cynical English proverb. But it can also serve to remind us that we should take steps to ensure our quality of life and provide a clear understanding of our wishes for ourselves during traumatic events.Read More »


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Seattle cops only found two pot plants when they busted down 50-year-old Will Laudanski's door on Oct. 25 and raided the man's Leschi apartment. With a medical license that should have let him grow up to 15 weed plants for personal use, Laudanski was supposed to be legit. So since the raid, the American Civil Liberties Union has been wagging its finger vigorously at the Seattle Police Department for breaking its own rules on pot enforcement. Now, pro-toke Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn wants to call the the forces together and hash out a new plan on policing within the gray area that is Seattle's pot laws.
It should be a doozy, especially since McGinn is on the record as a supporter of full legalization of weed, while State Attorney General Rob McKenna is most definitely not. Not to mention that any public action involving pot laws attracts stoner activists like an open cookie jar.
In the wake of the raid, McGinn recently attempted to clarify his position on the drug, noting that in California you can practically gay marry your pot plant.
"When it comes to marijuana, we are in a time of transition," McGinn said in a statement. "Public opinion has been shifting toward legalization. California, our nation's social bellwether, recently decriminalized the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. Voters there just defeated a measure to legalize and tax marijuana, but 46% of Californians voted for legalization."
In the meantime, SPD officers are supposed to clear all search warrants with assistant police chief Jim Pugel to make sure they aren't busting in on any more harmless 50-year-olds with chronic pain and a pot license.
But even if you are indeed a harmless 50-year-old with chronic pain and a pot license, we still wouldn't recommend telling that to any cops.


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Hide and Seek (Paperback)
Separated at birth, twin sisters Emma Paxton and Sutton Mercer never had a chance to meet. And now they never will. Someone has murdered Sutton and forced Emma into taking her place. Sutton can only watch from beyond the grave as Emma tries to figure out who killed herNand why.
About the Author
Sara Shepard is the author of two New York Times bestselling series, Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game, as well as the series The Perfectionists. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Brooklyn College.
Praise For…
Praise for The Lying Game:"The Lying Game is a stay–up–past–your–bedtime type of thriller…full of amazingly believable plot twists and turns."
-Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (Starred Review)
"A fun and fast–moving mystery…[readers] will race through the pages as Emma pieces together clues."
-Publishers Weekly
"A thrilling mystery with just the right doses of romance and danger."
-School Library Journal


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OK, this might sound like a weird question, but has anyone else had trouble trying to get the earbuds neatly back into their case? After i Place the buds and the volume control in the center section, I have a kink in the cable. Any solution?
I found another post that suggested this youTube video in case anyone else has this same question:
More Like This


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North Korea Offers 'Special Pardon' to Captive Journalists
Now that he's gotten the photo op he wanted, the North Korean despot has given up the two women.
According to the North Korean government news agency, Kim Jong Il has granted a "special pardon" to American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Televised news reports say that former president Bill Clinton is still on the ground in Pyongyang, but it's reported that when he flies home, the Current TV reporters will be with him as planned.


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Lovely Adobe Home in the Southeast Foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains has Fabulous Views and Amazing Rock Outcroppings! Thoroughly refurbished residence with beautiful tile floors, two Kiva fireplaces, excellent kitchen, family room, office/guest room, and steam shower. Enjoy wonderful rural living in this great-feeling property in a gorgeous setting!
# of Bedrooms: 2
# of Full Bathrooms: 2
Fireplace(s): 2
Hardwood Flooring
Brick Flooring
Tile Flooring
Single Family Home
Pueblo Revival Style
Hills View
Mountain Views
Valley/Canyon View


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Book Club Channel
Glorious Ruin: What People Are Saying
"Nothing is as certain for your life and mine as suffering -- and eventual death. Heartache and pain come in all sorts of packages. So the only mature thing to do is to prepare for it. In a culture that seems pathologically upbeat, living "in the moment" and in denial of any blue notes, the message of this book desperately needs to be heard far and wide. Read it while you can."
—Michael Horton, Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, & President of The White Horse Inn
"Having lived with quadriplegia for over 45 years, I know how critical it is to think 'rightly' about suffering -- indeed, the jaws of pain will rip your faith to shreds if you don't have a solid view of what Scripture has to say on the subject. It's why I applaud men of God like Tullian; men who've dug deep into God's Word to help us grasp the mysterious connection between Christ, His cross, and the crucible of our afflictions. That's what makes Glorious Ruin a blessing!"
—Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends International Disability Center
"Glorious Ruin is a powerful, vulnerable and Gospel-centered work. I love Tullian's heart for comforting those who are hurting, broken, or suffering in our world. And in this book he shows how God is constantly present with us. Always. No matter what your circumstances."
—Brad Lomenick, Executive Director, Catalyst
"Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free is a transforming reminder not to run from our suffering, but to learn from it! Tullian Tchividjian courageously opens up his life to share how God didn't save him from pain, but met him in the middle of his suffering. At some point we all face suffering, and this book will not only teach you how to get through it, but discover how it can set you free!"
—Dave Ferguson, Lead Pastor of Community Christian Church and Author of Exponential
"The question of suffering is the apologetic question of our time. From both Christians and non Christians it's the question I get most often. Glorious Ruin reminds us that pain and suffering are not only a part of human existence but also the Christian experience. Tullian has written a wonderfully helpful book on how to suffer well, facing its reality and being hopeful of its reward."
—Dave Lomas, Lead Pastor, Reality San Francisco
"Into our culture of mandatory happiness, Tullian Tchividjian speaks a deeply sensitive, thoroughly cross-centered theology of suffering that far surpasses the typical pabulum offered by theologians of glory: 'Your suffering isn't so bad! What doesn't make you bitter will make you better! You're suffering because you don't have enough faith!' There were no pat answers for Job and there are none here either (thank God!). Let me encourage you to dive into this book and the suffering that's drawing you to it simply because 'our hope does not lie in this temporal life, it lies in the life to come.'"
—Elyse Fitzpatrick, Speaker and Author of Give Them Grace
"Nothing gets our attention more than suffering. In Glorious Ruin, Tullian helps us respond rightly to God in the midst of our struggle. He helps us move from mere desperation to get out of pain, to trust in God through the pain. I highly recommend this book for the nitty gritty of real life."
—Darrin Patrick, Lead Pastor of The Journey, Author of For the City and Church Planter


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Roberta Flack
Roberta taught English and music to students in North Carolina and Maryland.
We decided to highlight former teachers who just so happen to be famous now and the actors and actresses that played them on television and in movies.
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Bernstein Liebhard LLP Announces That A Class Action Has Been Filed Against L&L Energy, Inc.
NEW YORK, Oct. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Bernstein Liebhard LLP today announced that a class action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all those who purchased the common stock of L&L Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: LLEN) ("L&L" or the "Company") between September 11, 2012 and September 18, 2013, inclusive (the "Class Period"). (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120202/MM47134LOGO )L&L, formerly known as L&L International Holdings, is a coal-mining company founded in 1995. L&L purports, through its subsidiaries, to engage in coal mining, clean coal washing, coal coking, and coal wholesaling businesses in China. The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) the Company improperly counted substantial revenue from operations that were already shut down; (2) the Company claimed acquisitions and divestitures of various properties through swap transactions that never occurred through the exchange of assets it never owned in the first place; (3) the Company lacked adequate internal and financial controls; and (4) that, as a result of the foregoing, the Company's financial results were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On September 19, 2013, GeoInvesting published an article on Seeking Alpha disclosing that the Company has been "defrauding investors by booking substantial revenue from operations that have been idled for quite some time." Specifically, GeoInvesting stated that the Company's numerous acquisitions and divestitures through the years have amounted "to a bait and switch shell game" by utilizing "swap transactions that never occurred." Moreover, the article concluded "that revenue of $77.6 million disclosed in L&L's 2013 Form 10-K, generated from its Hong Xing coal washing factory, was actually close to zero, if it is not actually zero" as the factory "has been shut down since 2012." Plaintiffs seek to recover damages on behalf of all Class members who invested in L&L stock during the Class Period. If you invested in L&L stock as described above during the Class Period, and either lost money on the transaction or still hold the security, you may wish to join in this action to serve as lead plaintiff. In order to do so, you must meet certain requirements set forth in the applicable law and file appropriate papers no later than November 22, 2013. A "lead plaintiff" is a representative party that acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed lead plaintiff, the court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Under certain circumstances, one or more class members may together serve as lead plaintiff. Your ability to share in any recovery is not, however, affected by the decision whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. You may retain Bernstein Liebhard LLP, or other counsel of your choice, to serve as your counsel in this action.
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It began with Dandy Don Meredith telling millions of the nation's football fans: "Welcome to the Mile High City, and I really am!"
The date: Oct. 22, 1973 — the first appearance of the Broncos on "Monday Night Football," the marquee NFL prime-time series which premiered in 1970.
According to "Monday Night Mayhem," the fascinating 1988 volume about the famed series, the exuberant Meredith had spent part of that Monday with friendly Denver advertising clients, imbibing in what authors Bill Carter and Marc Gunther described as "artificial stimulation."
"MNF" producer Don Ohl-meyer, working in the ABC production truck, "all but jumped through the roof" while yelling at Frank Gifford to take over the network introductions.
The game itself produced its own Monday night mayhem as the underdog Broncos tied the Raiders 23-23 on Jim Turner's 35-yard field goal with seconds remaining — the only tie game in the 40-year history of "MNF."
While the huge spotlight on this illustrious series has dimmed a bit, "MNF" remains a must-see event for the nation's NFL fans.
As ESPN play-by-play man Mike Tirico notes: "It's the only game in town after a busy football weekend. Fans look forward to watching during the evening after the start, for many, of a busy work week. And the advent of HD TV is adding more glamour to the series."
The Broncos have been a key part of this Monday night mayhem.
Tonight's game in San Diego marks the 19th consecutive season Denver has played on Monday night.
No other team boasts such a streak. (Runner-up: Green Bay Packers, at 18 straight years).
And there have been a handful of years when Denver had as many as three appearances.
The last time the Broncos were not on the schedule was 1991. Before that, the team played Monday night games each year from 1984-90, thus the Broncos have been seen on ABC and ESPN for 26 out of the past 27 seasons.
Denver's record: 27 wins, 33 losses and one tie. The team is 7-23 on the road.
Special memories (good and bad), in addition to that premiere appearance:
Oct. 15, 1984 — Broncos 17, Packers 14, at Mile High Stadium, when Denver scored two quick touchdowns in blizzard conditions at the start of the game.
Oct. 31, 1988 — Colts 55, Broncos 23, at Indianapolis, the Halloween nightmare game when Eric Dickerson ran all over the Broncos' defense.
Oct. 17, 1994 — Chiefs 31, Broncos 28, at Mile High, featuring a memorable quarterback duel between John Elway and Joe Montana — a game most NFL historians rate among the top 10 on "MNF."
Nov. 11, 2002 — Raiders 34, Broncos 10, at Mile High, in the 500th telecast of "MNF." Jerry Rice, who had left the 49ers for Oakland, became the first NFL receiver to score 200 touchdowns.
Sept. 10, 2001 — Broncos 31, Giants 20, at Invesco Field at Mile High, the night before 9/11. Wide receiver Ed McCaffrey broke his leg.
The Broncos have lost two of three to the Chargers on Monday night, but the win was a big one. Denver beat the Chargers 34-23 last season in San Diego.
That gave Denver a perfect 6-0 record and, as Tirico said: "Some in Denver were suggesting that Josh McDaniels be immediately installed in the NFL Hall of Fame."
The Broncos are 5-14 since that definitive win.
The team needs a Monday night mayhem performance again tonight.
Longtime Denver journalist Dusty Saunders writes about sports media each Monday in The Denver Post. Reach him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Irv-n-Joe go separate ways, for now
For 29 years, Irv Brown and Joe Williams have answered that intriguing caller question, "How you guys doin' today?"
The sports talk radio duo, which has worked together at a variety of Denver outlets, ended their full-time relationship Friday on KEPN-AM 1600.
Brown, undergoing hip replacement today, will join Mile High Sports Radio (1510 AM and 93.7 FM) in January as a weekday afternoon host.
Williams, remaining on KEPN until the Christmas holidays, hasn't decided whether he'll join Brown.
Much of the station's December afternoon time period will be filled by ESPN broadcasts of bowl games.
Williams will work with several other personalities during his final run.
Sandy Clough co-hosts on Mondays, and Terry Frei joins Williams on Tuesdays.


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With Pens for sale, Mario plans to step down as CEO
Updated: January 22, 2006, 4:13 PM ETESPN.com news services
The Pittsburgh Penguins have been put up for sale, and owner-player Mario Lemieux plans to step down as team CEO, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Thursday.
Team president Ken Sawyer would be expected to replace Lemieux, who will remain as chairman. Lemieux told the Post-Gazette that Sawyer "really has been running the franchise on a day-to-day basis, so it's not really a big change. He's been doing all the work the last few years."
Lemieux also told the paper ...
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PIMCO Income Strategy Fund II (PFN) Ex-Dividend Date Scheduled for December 26, 2012
By: NASDAQ.com News
Posted: 12/21/2012 9:00:00 AM
Referenced Stocks: PFN
PIMCO Income Strategy Fund II ( PFN ) has announced an ex-dividend date of December 26, 2012 and a cash dividend payment of $0.5 per share scheduled for January 18, 2013. Shareholders who purchased PFN stock prior to the ex-dividend date are eligible for the cash dividend payment. This represents an 525% increase over the prior month.
The previous trading day's last sale of PFN was $11.6, representing a -2.19% decrease from the 52 week high of $11.86 and a 28.75% increase over the 52 week low of $9.01.
For more information on the declaration, record and payment dates, visit the PFN Dividend History page.


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We are Northeast Ohio's Premier Cheer & Tumbling Facility. Our gym is built around the philosophy that every child should have the opportunity to succeed in a positive environment that promotes progression first. Our mission is to empower our athletes with the tools to be successful not only in the cheerleading arena but life as well. All of our head coaches are USASF Credentialed, GREEN LIGHT approved by USASF (background check through NCSI), and AACCA Safety Certified.
We offer the following programs:
FULL YEAR ALL-STAR & PREP CHEERLEADING TEAMS, HALF YEAR ALL-STAR CHEERLEADING TEAMS, TUMBLING CLASSES, CO-ED & PARTNER STUNT CLASSES, PRIVATE LESSONS, HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADING, and STRENGTH & STRETCH CLASSES.
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Technics Direct Drive Automatic Turntable System
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JVC Professional High Fidelity Turntable
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KENWOOD KD-3070 Automatic Return Turntable
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GEMINI XL-100 Semi-Automatic Belt Drive Turntable
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My friends daughter is almost 2.5 and seems to have many delays ... like she still doesn't talk. She doesn't say mama or dada, or even no. She cannot feed herself, she doesn't seem to interact (she does interact but very little, I'm used to very interactive toddlers) I have seen her in an exersaucer just rocking back and forth manically recently, which made me think autism or some mild ppd (autism spectrum disorder) I have been around severely autistic children and she doesn't fit that profile at all. But something doesn't seem right and I'm very concerned. I didn't worry about her speech delays before, because all children develop differently and she seemed to understand simple direction... but after watching her for the past 3 days, she doesn't seem to understand some simple directions. Like "help me pick this up, please" or "which chair do you want to sit in? the blue or the yellow chair?" It is very much like taking care of a 9 month old who can walk. Also, she has been walking for about a year, but it looks like she is just learning, that wobbly, unsteady walk. She is very small for her age and just went to an endochronologist for tests, because she is not on the growth chart, that is how below she is in height and weight. She can barely feed herself finger foods. I'm really concerned, because her immediate family doesn't seem to think there is a problem. They call her a "crystal child" and want the doctors to just leave her alone. Any suggestions on how to approach a sensitive mother about these concerns? Does anyone else have any similar situations with any insight?
Worried about friends daughter
Comments (4)
I wish that I did have better insights. One of my husband's former colleagues had a son with some gross motor delays that we were a little worried about. We watched and waited for awhile, worrying to ourselves. Then before we ever vocalized our concerns it came up in conversation that their family practicioner shared our concerns and had referred them for an evaluation. So we never had to cross that bridge.
I think it's promising that they are dealing with the endocrinologist with respect to her size and weight issues as that might draw the parents into contact with medical professionals who would see these other areas of concern as well. Not wanting to confront them in a way that would make the parents dig their heals in, you could try to keep the lines of communication open by taking an interest in the testing that they are having done, asking about the results and what the parents think of them, and use that as a jumping off point dialogue about her growth and development in general.
It sounds like expressive and receptive language delays might just be one piece of a larger puzzle, but if the concern were just language delays then one thing to keep in mind is that at such young ages speech and language therapies look and feel a lot more like focused play than like medical interventions, so you might also try to encourage the kind of therapeutic interactions at home -- songs with movement, mimicking games, etc.
DS 12/07 asthma; allergic to fish, kiwi and peanut; also reacts to melon http://asafekitchen.blogspot.com/
Sounds to me like more than just a language issue. We know couple around here whose daughter was 2, did not make ONE sound, even as a newborn, did not gain weight properly (FTT), to the point where the hospital threatened to call CPS on her mother (as if her mother was starving her or something!!!???). She also did not walk- just scooted around on her butt. She looked much younger than her chronological age too. Her mother is very religious and kept the faith, but they did run tests, and I do NOT mean to scare you, but it turns out this little girl has Rhett's Syndrome- it's on the autism spectrum and it's a pretty devastating diagnosis, and only girls get it, since it's carried on the X chromosone. Boys who are born with it die shortly after birth since they do not have the extra "X' chromosone to keep them going.
But, it's really pretty rare- a gene mutation and they are even having another baby soon- a girl. They've got a strong marriage and a lot of faith in God.
Anyway, it all depends how in depth the parents are willing to go into looking into this thing. For a long time, the little girl's mother with Rhett's kept saying over and over, "She's a happy, healthy baby." Yes, she was happy, but healthy? None of us were convinved and my Dad even noticed her shaking one day. Well, she get lots of therapy now and has come a long way, but my point is you can only take it as far as the parents will let you. It's their child and when they get really concerned, they will do what they need to.
Allison: SAHM to Donovan, an August 2007 baby! (formerly Allison531)
* Warning: The Internet can be a Mother's worst enemy!
Living in Scottsdale, AZ....
If I were you I'd talk to them about how you are will to help them find a doctor that is willing to work within their beleifs and maybe even find one that shares them. But stress to them that something needs to be done soon! Many Homopathic practioners will use modern med when it's needed. I'd even go so far as to start making calls yourself and try to steer them to one that understand the situation and will act accordingly. Hope this helps.
Jenifer Nick Kyra Gabe Haley
I may not be the best cookie but I'm still a cookie!!!
Hopefully the Endocrinologist will be able to provide more insight. It also could be a genetic issues. Mosaic Down syndrome is one that comes to mind. Many children with this form of Down syndrome do not have facial features of Down syndrome but many of the same delays. My son has Down syndrome.


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A Badoon in Guardians of the Galaxy? Thanos in Avengers 2? Sub-Mariner? Doctor Strange? Bald Ant-Man?
Is there going to be an Iron Giant 2?
With so many movies in production for their next phase, there are a ton of options for what Marvel wants to do with Vin Diesel (including the possibility that they simply want him to autograph their DVD of The Pacifier), but, yes, according to the sharp eyes of Superhero Hype, Diesel announced via his Facebook page that the studio wanted to have a meeting.
"Marvel has requested a meeting. No idea what for… haha, you probably know better than me…"
So assuming we all know better, who should he play in the Marvel universe?
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City police have arrested and charged a man suspected of stabbing another man to death in December before setting a fire to cover up the crime.
The Brandon Police Service Criminal Investigations Unit identified and arrested a 23-year-old man from Canupawakpa Dakota Nation on Wednesday night. The man was initially arrested on an unrelated outstanding warrant.
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