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Continuing the closet clean-out from the Men's forum, I have some lady's items to offer as well. 10% of all sales go to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. If there is a different charity to which you would like to donate that 10% then PM me before your purchase to make those arrangements. These items are listed on eBay where I am a Power Seller and am a Top-rated seller. All these items are a size medium or roughly a size medium in the case of the Kiton top. J. Crew Cashmere Blend, Empire Waist Dress Tag Size: Medium Condition: Excellent Colors: Charcoal Measurements (unstretched): Chest Width: 18"; Shoulder width: 14"; Sleeve: 17"; Sleeve end width: 5"; Waist: 16.25"; Length: 37" Materials: 55% Wool, 30% Nylon, 15% Cashmere Price is $84.99 >>> $69.99 shipped. J. Crew 100% Cashmere Cap Sleeve Butterfly Top Tag Size: Medium Condition: Excellent Colors: Orange w/ fuchsia butterfly Measurements: Chest Width: 18"; Shoulder width: 14"; Sleeve: 4.5"; Length: 22.25" Materials: 100% Cashmere w/ Shell buttons Price is $39.99 shipped. Kiton Gingham Blouse Tag Size: 42 EU (6 or 8 US) Condition: NWOT Colors: Gingham pattern with light blue, red, pink, brown, light brown Measurements: Neck: 14"; Chest Width: 18"; Shoulder width: 14.75"; Sleeve: 8.25"; Length: 24" Materials: 100% Cotton Price is $41.99 shipped. Thanks for your time!
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1/22/10 at 11:39am
Thread Starter


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We usually attend a parade in my hometown on the morning of the 4th of July and then have a cook out or picnic with family. In the evening we find somewhere to watch the fireworks. Sometimes we end up at a festival or the lake, but this year I think we'll watch our city's fireworks closer to home so that the kids can see their friends. I love the 4th! Can't wait!
Reactionswhat's yours?
What the other mommaloguers have to say
One Response to Love going to the parade!
can't wait to celebrate with you and the gang…will be a fun day!

subset: commoncrawl


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'Walking Dead' Teasers Promise The Arrival Of New 'Survivors'
FROM MTV GEEK: Something big is happening in the "Walking Dead" universe.
Over the weekend, Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment released two teaser images called "Survivors" and "Hilltop." What they mean, what they refer to, is anybody's guess. Are these posters for the AMC TV series? Are we about to see two new spinoff titles announced for the "Walking Dead" comic books? Who's to say — but judging by that familiar looking "skull and crossbones" in the "Survivors" image, fans could be in for a world of (even more) hurt.
More info will come out at Image Expo this week. Stay tuned as we learn more.


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In less than ten years, methamphetamine has grown from a problem limited to the Southwest and Pacific regions of the United States to Arkansas' primary drug of concern. The state is encountering locally produced methamphetamine as well as the importation of methamphetamine produced in Mexico.
Not only does the state's rural landscape provide an ideal setting for illicit manufacturing, but the wide availability of precursor chemicals also contributes to the ease of manufacturing methamphetamine.
Criminal groups are acquiring thousands of cases of pseudoephedrine via wholesalers and use sophisticated schemes to illegally ship, at a considerable profit, pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine producers.


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This is the sixth year for the Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation's annual fashion show, which raises money for the fight against pediatric cancer. For the first time, locally based stores are supplying the fashion for the night.
Blue Jackets hockey players will walk the runway with their significant others and 10 local cancer patients wearing clothing from Godfry's, Ladybird, Leal, Nicole's for Children, Milk Bar, Rowe, Thread on Grandview, DSW and Astor & Black. Wardrobe Therapy owner Elizabeth Bean Smith styled the looks.
"I'm most excited about seeing the smiles on the kids' faces," said Ryan Johansen, forward for the Blue Jackets.
Johansen and two of his teammates gave Alive a sneak peek of their runway looks (all clothes are from Godfry's at Polaris) and insight into where they like to shop in Columbus, what they would wear if they could only wear one thing for the rest of their lives, and which muscles make shopping difficult for hockey players.
Ryan Johansen
Age: 19
Neighborhood: New Albany
Hometown: Port Moody, Canada
Job: Forward for the Columbus Blue Jackets
Describe your style: "Comfortable"
If you could wear one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? "Sweat pants"
Where do you like shopping in Columbus? "Easton. I like getting frozen yogurt when I'm there."
Paisley shirt: By Etro
Flannel jacket: With vest, by Corneliani
Jeans: By Alberto
James Wisniewski
Age: 27
Neighborhood: Dublin
Hometown: Canton, Michigan
Job: Defense for the Columbus Blue Jackets
Describe your style: "Original and kind of flashy"
What do you think about when you're picking out what to wear? "I like to have fun. I like to dress nice. My motto is look good, feel good, play good."
What's the hardest thing to shop for? "Jeans. I like William Rast because they fit well. I don't have to get the waists taken in."
If you could wear one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? "Golf stuff because that means I'd be golfing."
Tuxedo: By Pal Zileri
Shirt: By Eton
Tie: By Bruno Piattelli
John Moore
Age: 21
Neighborhood: Arena District
Hometown: Winnetka, Illinois
Job: Defense for the Columbus Blue Jackets
Describe your style: "Simple and classy"
What's the hardest thing to shop for? "Jeans. It's a weird fit. [Hockey players'] butts are bigger."
Any style mentors in your life? "My sister works in the fashion industry. She's always grilling me, making sure I'm not making too many fashion faux pas … I'll try to push her buttons and wear something crazy just to see what she says."
Blazer: By Versace
Gray jeans: By Alberto
Shoes: By Nike


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General Discussion
Team/Clan Recruitment
Looking to find out more about the Crysis community and clans
Subject: Looking to find out more about the Crysis community and clans
I guess my biggest question would be if their is a competitive side of the Crysis community such as maybe top clans that are on the game, grass root tournaments, gamebattles, teams, etc.
If anybody can help me out that would be much appreciated.
- Thanks
you might want to get together with TG as we have a division for it currently. it's a fresh division with allot of great people in it.
here is our website
if you sign up be sure to addition me as a reference this will show them who sent you and make the odds of you getting through the first phase of your initiation. calling it an initiation for lack of a better word but you don't have to do anything other then take a little test to ensure maturity.


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The New Jersey Senate's Commerce Committee will hold a hearing this Thursday on legislation filed by the panel's chair to prohibit the use of credit-based insurance scoring through June 2011.
NAMIC will offer testimony in opposition to the bill, stressing to lawmakers the consumer benefits of insurers' use of insurance scoring, the continued validity of insurance scoring during the economic crisis, and the unfairness of depriving consumers the opportunity to benefit from continued use of insurance scoring.
The bill, SB-2766, contains a single, straightforward substantive provision, as follows:
"Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, an insurer shall not use insurance scoring in rate-making … for any personal lines insurance coverage delivered, issued, executed or renewed in this State, or approved for issuance or renewal in this State by the commissioner, on or after the first day of the third month next following the effective date of this section and until June 30, 2011. As used in this section, 'insurance scoring' means a number or rating that is derived from an algorithm, computer application, model, or other process that is based in whole or in part on credit information for the purpose of establishing the measure of exposure for insurance loss represented by an applicant or insured."
Presumably, given the temporary nature of the prohibition, the proposal is based on misconceptions regarding the effects of insurance scoring during the economic crisis. NAMIC will work with the Insurance Council of New Jersey and others to provide committee members with materials countering such misconceptions, including NAMIC's recently released Policy Briefing, "Credit-Based Insurance Scoring: Separating Facts From Fallacies."
Direct questions and comments to NAMIC State Affairs Manager Paul Tetrault.
Posted: Monday, May 04, 2009 12:00:00 AM. Modified: Monday, May 04, 2009 9:15:26 AM.
317.875.5250 - Indianapolis | 202.628.1558 - Washington, D.C.


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Subterranean Press Magazine: Spring 2013
The Prayer of Ninety Cats by Caitlín R. Kiernan
In this darkened theatre, the screen shines like the moon. More like the moon than this simile might imply, as the moon makes no light of her own, but instead adamantly casts off whatever the sun sends her way. The silver screen reflects the light pouring from the projector booth. And this particular screen truly is a silver screen, the real deal, not some careless metonym lazily recalling more glamorous Hollywood movie-palace days. There's silver dust embedded in its tightly-woven silk matte, an apotropaic which might console any Slovak grandmothers in attendence, given the evening's bill of fare. But, then again, is it not also said that the silvered-glass of mirrors offends these hungry phantoms? And isn't the screen itself a mirror, not so very unlike the moon? The moon flashes back the sun, the screen flashes back the dazzling glow from the projector's Xenon arc lamp. Here, then, is an irony, of sorts, as it is sometimes claimed the moroaică, strigoi mort, vampir, and vrykolakas, are incapable of casting reflections—apparently consuming light much as the gravity well of a black hole does. In these flickering, moving pictures, there must surely be some incongruity or paradox, beginning with Murnau's Orlok, Browning's titular Dracula, and Carl Theodor Dreyer's sinister Marguerite Chopin.
Of course, pretend demons need no potent, tried-and-true charm to ward them off, no matter how much we may wish to fear them. Still, we go through the motions. We need to fear, and when summoning forth these simulacra, to convince ourselves of their authenticity, we must also have a means of dispelling them. We sit in darkness and watch the monsters, and smugly remind ourselves these are merely actors playing unsavory parts, reciting dialogue written to shock, scandalize, and unnerve. All shadows are carefully planned. That face is clever make up, and a man becoming a bat no more than a bit of trick photography accomplished with flash powder, splicing, and a lump of felt and rabbit fur dangled from piano wire. We sit in the darkness, safely reenacting and mocking and laughing at the silly, delicious fears of our ignorant forbearers. If all else fails, we leave our seats and escape to the lobby. We turn on the light. No need to invoke crucified messiahs and the Queen of Heaven, not when we have Saint Thomas Edison on our side. Though, still another irony arises (we are gathering a veritable platoon of ironies, certainly), as these same monsters were brought to you courtesy of Mr. Edison's tinkerings and profiteering. Any truly wily sorcerer, any witch worth her weight in mandrake and foxglove, knows how very little value there is in conjuring a fearful thing if it may not then be banished at will.
The theatre air is musty and has a sickly sweet sourness to it. It swims with the rancid ghosts of popcorn butter, spilled sodas, discarded chewing gum, and half a hundred varieties of candy lost beneath velvet seats and between the carpeted aisles. Let's say these are the top notes of our perfume. Beneath them lurk the much fainter heart notes of sweat, piss, vomit, cum, soiled diapers—all the pungent gases and fluids a human body may casually expel. Also, though smoking has been forbidden here for decades, the reek of stale cigarettes and cigars persists. Finally, now, the base notes, not to be recognized right away, but registering after half an hour or more has passed, settling in to bestow solidity and depth to this complex Eau de Parfum. In the main, it strikes the nostrils as dust, though more perceptive noses may discern dry rot, mold, and aging mortar. Considered thusly, the atmosphere of this theatre might, appropriately, echo that of a sepulcher, shut away and ripe from generations of use.
Crossing the street, you might have noticed a title and the names of the players splashed across the gaudy marquee. After purchasing your ticket from the young man with a death's head tattooed on the back of his left hand (he has a story, if you care to hear), you might have paused to view the relevant lobby cards or posters on display. You might have considered the concessions. These are the rituals before the rite. You might have wished you'd brought along an umbrella, because it's beginning to look like there might be rain later. You may even go to the payphone near the restrooms, but, these days, that happens less and less, and there's talk of having it removed.
Your ticket is torn in half, and you find a place to sit. The lights do not go down, because they were never up. You wait, gazing nowhere in particular, thinking no especial thoughts, until that immense moth-gnawed curtain the color of pomegranates opens wide to reveal the silver screen.
And so we come back to where we began.
With no fanfare or overture, the darkness is split apart as the antique projector sputters reluctantly to life. The auditorium is filled with the noisy, familiar cadence of wheels and sprockets, the pressure roller and the take-up reel, as the film speeds along at twenty-four frames per second and the shutter tricks the eyes and brain into perceiving continuous motion instead of a blurred procession of still photographs. By design, it is all a lie, start to finish. It is all an illusion.
There are no trailers for coming attractions. There might have been in the past, as there might have been cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, or newsreels extolling the evils of Communism and the virtues of soldiers who go away to die in foreign countries. Tonight, there's only the feature presentation, and it begins with jarring abruptness, without so much as a title sequence or the name of the director. Possibly, a few feet of the opening reel were destroyed by the projectionist at the last theatre that screen the film, a disagreeable, ham-fisted man who drinks on the job and has been known to nod off in the booth. We can blame him, if we like. But it may also be there never were such niceties, and that this 35mm strip of acetate, celluloid, and polyester was always meant to begin just so.
Likewise, the film's score—which has been compared favorably to Wojciech Kilar's score for Campion's Portrait of a Lady—seems to begin not at any proper beginning. As cellos and violins compete with kettledrums in a whirl of syncopated rhythms, there is the distinct impression of having stumbled upon a thing already in progress. This may well be the director's desired effect.
WOMAN'S VOICE (fearfully)
Katarína, is that you?
Katarína? If it is you, say so.
The camera lingers on this bleak spire of evergreens, brush, and sandstone, gray-white rock tinted pink as the sun sinks below the horizon and night claims the wild Hungarian countryside. There are sheer ravines, talus slopes, and wide ledges carpeted with mountain ash, fenugreek, tatra blush, orchids, and thick stands of feather reed grass. The music grows quieter now, drums diminishing, strings receding to a steady vibrato undercurrent as the score hushes itself, permitting the night to be heard. The soundtrack fills with the calls of nocturnal birds, chiefly tawny and long-eared owls, but also nightingales, swifts, and nightjars. From streams and hidden pools, there comes the chorus of frog song. Foxes cry out to one another. The scene is at once breathtaking and forbidding, and you lean forward in your seat, arrested by this austere beauty.
WOMAN'S VOICE (angry):
It is a poor jest, Katarína. It is a poor, poor jest, indeed, and I've no patience for your games tonight.
GIRL'S VOICE (soft, not unkind)
I'm not Katarína. Have you forgotten my name already?
The camera's eye doesn't waver, even at the risk of this shot becoming monotonous. And we see that atop the rocky prominence stands the tumbledown ruins of Čachtice Castle, Csejte vára in the mother tongue. Here it has stood since the 1200's, when Kazimir of Hunt-Poznan found himself in need of a sentry post on the troubled road to Moravia. And later, it was claimed by the Hungarian oligarch Máté Csák of Trencsén, the heroic Count Matthew. Then it went to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who spent much of his life in alchemical study, searching for the Philosopher's Stone. And, finally, in 1575, the castle was presented as a wedding gift from Lord Chief Justice Ferenc Nádasdy to his fifteen-year old bride, Báthory Erzsébet, or Alžbeta, the Countess Elizabeth Báthory. The name (one or another of the lot) will doubtless ring a bell, though infamy has seen she's better known to many as the Blood Countess.
The cinematographer works more sleight of hand, and the jagged lineament of the ruins is restored to that of Csejte as it would have stood when the Countess was alive. A grand patchwork of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, its formidable walls and towers loom high above the drowsy village of Vrbové. The castle rises—no, it sprouts —the castle sprouts from the bluff in such a way as to seem almost a natural, integral part of the local geography, something in situ, carved by wind and rain rather than by the labors of man.
The film jump cuts to an owl perched on a pine branch. The bird blinks—once, twice —spreads its wings, and takes to the air. The camera lets it go and doesn't follow, preferring to remain with the now-vacant branch. Several seconds pass before the high-pitched scream of a rabbit reveals the reason for the owl's departure.
Ever is it the small things that suffer. That's what they say, you know? The Tigress of Csejte, she will have them all, because there is no end to her hunger.
Another jump cut brings us to the castle gates, and the camera pans slowly across the masonry of curtain walls, parapets, and up the steep sides of a horseshoe-shaped watchtower. Jump cut again, and we are shown a room illuminated by the flickering light of candles. There is a noblewoman seated in an enormous and somewhat fanciful chair, upholstered with fine brocade, its oaken legs and arms ending with the paws of a lion, or a dragon.
Or possibly a tigress.
So, a woman seated in an enormous, bestial chair. She wears the "Spanish Farthingale" and stiffened undergarments fashionable during this century. Her dress is made of the finest Florentine silk. Her waist is tightly cinched, her ample breasts flattened by the stays. Were she standing, her dress might remind us of an hourglass. Her head is framed with a wide ruff of starched lace, and her arms held properly within trumpet sleeves, more lace at the cuffs to ring her delicate hands. There is a wolf pelt across her lap, and another covers her bare feet. The candlelight is gracious, and she might pass for a woman of forty, though she's more than a decade older. Her hair, which is the color of cracked acorn shells, has been meticulously braided and pulled back from her round face and high forehead. Her eyes seem dark as rubies.
COUNTESS (tersely):
Why are you awake at this hour, child? You should be sleeping. Haven't I given you a splendid bed?
GIRL (seen dimly, in silhouette):
I don't like being in that room alone. I don't like the shadows in that room. I try not to see them—
COUNTESS (close up, her eyes fixed on the child):
Oh, don't be silly. A shadow has not yet harmed anyone.
GIRL (almost whispering):
Begging your pardon, My Lady, but these shadows mean to do me mischief. I hear them whisper, and they do. They are shadows cast by wicked spirits. They do not speak to you?
COUNTESS (sighs, frowning):
I don't speak with shadows.
GIRL (coyly):
That isn't what they say in the village.
Do you truly know the Prayer of Ninety Cats?
By now, it is likely that the theatre, which only a short time ago so filled your thoughts, has receded, fading almost entirely from your conscious mind. This is usually the way of theatres, if the films they offer have any merit at all. The building is the spectacle which precedes the spectacle it has been built to contain, not so different from the relationship of colorful wrapping paper and elaborately tied bows to the gifts hidden within. You're greeted by a mock-grand façade and the blazing electric marquee, and are then admitted into the catchpenny splendor of the lobby. All these things make an impression, and set a mood, but all will fall by the wayside. Exiting the theatre after a film, you'll hardly note a single detail. Your mind will be elsewhere, processing, reflecting, critiquing, amazed, or disappointed.
Onscreen, the Countess' candlelit bedchamber has been replaced by the haggard faces of peasant women, mothers and grandmothers, gazing up at the terrible edifice of Csejte. Over the years, so many among them have sent their daughters away to the castle, hearing that servants are cared for and well compensated. Over the years, none have returned. There are rumors of black magic and butchery, and, from time to time, girls have simply vanished from Vrbové, and also from the nearby town of Čachtice, from whence the fortress took its name. The women cross themselves and look away.
Dissolve to scenes of the daughters of landed aristocracy and the lesser gentry preparing their beautiful daughters for the gynaeceum of ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet, where they will be schooled in all the social graces, that they might make more desirable brides and find the best marriages possible. Carriages rattle along the narrow, precipitous road leading up to the castle, wheels and hooves trailing wakes of dust. Oblivious lambs driven to the slaughter, freely delivered by ambitious and unwitting mothers.
Another dissolve, to winter in a soundstage forest, and the Countess walks between artificial sycamore maples, ash, linden, beech, and elderberry. The studio "greens men" have worked wonders, meticulously crafting this forest from plaster, burlap, epoxy, wire, styrofoam, from lumber armatures and the limbs and leaves of actual trees. The snow is as phony as the trees, but no less convincing, a combination of SnowCel, SnowEx foam, and Powderfrost, dry-foam plastic snow spewed from machines; biodegradable, nontoxic polymers to simulate a gentle snowfall after a January blizzard. But the mockery is perfection. The Countess stalks through drifts so convincing that they may as well be real. Her furs drag behind her, and her boots leave deep tracks. Two huge wolves follow close behind, and when she stops, they come to her and she scratches their shaggy heads and pats their lean flanks and plants kisses behind their ears. A trained crow perches on a limb overhead, cawing, cawing, cawing, but neither the woman nor the wolves pay it any heed. The Countess speaks, and her breath fogs.
COUNTESS (to wolves)
You are my true children. Not Ursula or Pál or Miklós. And you are also my true inamoratos, my most beloved, not Ferenc, who was only ever a husband.
If tabloid gossip and backlot hearsay is to be trusted, this scene has been considerably shortened and toned down from the original script. We do not see the Countess' sexual congress with the wolves. It is only implied by her affections, her words, and by the lewd canticle of a voyeur crow. The scene is both stark and magnificent. It is a final still point before the coming tempest, before the horrors, a moment imbued with grace and menacing tranquility. The camera cuts to Herr Kramer in its counterfeit tree, and you're watching its golden eyes watching the Countess and her wolves, and anything more is implied.
The Countess is seated before a looking glass held inside a carved wooden frame, motif of dryads and satyrs. We see the Countess as a reflection, and behind her, a servant girl. The servant is combing the Countess' brown hair with an ivory comb. The Countess is no longer a young woman. There are lines at the edges of her mouth and beneath her eyes.
COUNTESS (furrowing her brows)
You're pulling my hair again. How many times must I tell you to be careful. You're not deaf, are you?
SERVANT (almost whispering)
No, My Lady.
COUNTESS (icily)
Then when I speak to you, you hear me perfectly well.
Yes, My Lady.
The ivory comb snags in the Countess' hair, and she stands, spinning about to face the terrified servant girl. She snatches the comb from the girl's hand. Strands of Elizabeth's hair are caught between the teeth.
COUNTESS (tone of disbelief)
You wretched little beast. Look what you've done.
The Countess slaps the servant with enough force to split her lip. Blood spatters the Countess' hand as the servant falls to the floor. The Countess is entranced by the crimson beads speckling her pale skin.
COUNTESS (whisper)
The Countess stands in a dim pool of light, before a towering mirror, a grotesque nightmare version of the one on her dressing table. The nymphs, satyrs, and dryads are life-size, and move, engaged in various and sundry acts of sexual abandon. This dark place is filled with sounds of desire, orgasm, drunken debauchery. In the mirror is a far younger Elizabeth Báthory. But, as we watch, as the Countess watches, this young woman rapidly ages, rushing through her twenties, thirties, her forties. The Countess screams, commanding the mirror cease these awful visions. The writhing creatures that form the frame laugh and mock her screams.
The Countess stands naked in the falling snow, her feet buried up to the ankles. The snowflakes turn red. The red snow becomes a red rain, and she's drenched. The air is a red mist.
Nude and drenched in blood, the Countess gazes at her reflection, her face and body growing young before her eyes. The looking glass shatters.
The Hungary of the film has more in common with the landscape of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm than with any Hungary that exists now or ever has existed. It is an archetypal vista, as much a myth as Stoker's Transylvania and Sheridan Le Fanu's Styria. A real place that has, inconveniently, never existed. Little or nothing is said of the political and religious turmoil of Elizabeth's time, or of the war with the Ottoman Turks, aside from the death of the Countess' husband at the hands of General Giorgio Basta. If you're a stickler for accuracy, these omissions are unforgivable. But most of the men and women who sit in the theatre, entranced by the light flashed back from the screen, will never notice. People do not generally come to the movies hoping for recitations of dry history. Few will care that pivotal events in the film never occurred, because they are happening now, unfolding before the eyes of all who have paid the price of admission.
If you have been taught the prayer, say the words aloud.
How would you ever know such things, child?
GIRL (turning away)
We have had some of the same tutors, you and I.
The second reel begins with the arrival at Csejte of a woman named Anna Darvulia. In hushed tones, a servant (who dies an especially messy death farther along) refers to her as "the Witch of the Forest." She becomes Elizabeth's lover and teaches her sorcery and the Prayer of Ninety Cats to protect her from all harm. As Darvulia is depicted here, she may as well have inhabited a gingerbread cottage before she came to the Countess, a house of sugary confections where she regularly feasted on lost children. Indeed, shortly after her arrival, and following an admittedly gratuitous sex scene, the subject of cannibalism is introduced. A peasant girl named Júlia, stolen from her home, is brought to the Countess by two of her handmaids and partners in crime, Dorottya and Ilona. The girl is stripped naked and forced to kneel before Elizabeth while the handmaids burn the bare flesh of her back and shoulders with coins and needles that have been placed over an open flame. Darvulia watches on approvingly from the shadows.
COUNTESS (smiling):
You shouldn't fret so about your dear mother and father. I know they're poor, but I will see to it they're compensated for the loss of their only daughter.
JÚLIA (sobbing):
There is never enough wood in winter, and never enough food. We have no shoes and wear rags.
And haven't I liberated you from those rags?
They need me. Please, My Lady, send me home to them.
The Countess glances over her shoulder to Darvulia, as if seeking approval/instruction. Darvulia nods once, then the Countess turns back to the sobbing girl.
Very well. I'll make you a promise, Júlia. And I keep my promises. In the morning, I will send your mother and your father warm clothing and good shoes and enough firewood to see them through the snows. And, what's more, I will send you back to them, as well.
You would do that?
Certainly, I will. I'll not have any use for you after this evening, and I detest wastefulness.
This scene has been cut from most prints. If you have any familiarity with the trials and tribulations of the film's production, and with the censorship that followed, you'll be surprised, and possibly pleased, to find it has not been excised from this copy. It may also strike you as relatively tame, compared to many less controversial, but far more graphic, portions of the film.
When we are finished here…
When we're finished, and my hunger is satisfied, I will speak with my butcher—a skilled man with a knife and cleaver —and he will see to it that your corpse is dressed in such a way that it can never be mistaken for anything but that of a sow. I'll have the meat salted and smoked, then sent to them, as evidence of my generosity. They will have their daughter back, and, in the bargain, will go be hungry. Are they fond of sausage. Júlia? I'd think you would make a marvelous debreceni.
Critics and movie buffs who lament the severe treatment the film has suffered at the hands of nervous studio executives, skittish distributors, and the MPAA often point to Júlia's screams, following these lines, as an example of how great cinema may be lost to censorship. Sound editors and Foley artists are said to have crafted the unsettling and completely inhuman effect by mixing the cries of several species of birds, the squeal of a pig, and the steam whistle of a locomotive. The scream continues as this scene dissolves to a delirious montage of torture and murder. The Countess' notorious iron maiden makes an appearance. A servant is dragged out into a snowy courtyard, and once her dress and underclothes have been savagely ripped away, the woman is bound to a wooden stake. Elizabeth Báthory pours buckets of cold water over the servant's body until she freezes to death and her body glistens like an ice sculpture.
The theatre is so quiet that you begin to suspect everyone else has had enough and left before The End. But you don't dare look away long enough to see whether this is in fact the case.
The Countess sits in her enormous lion- (or dragon- or tigress-) footed chair, in that bedchamber lit only by candlelight. She strokes the wolf pelt on her lap as lovingly as she stroked the fur of those living wolves.
"We've had some of the same tutors, you and I," the strange brown girl says, the gypsy child who claims to be afraid of the shadows in the small room that has been provided for her.
"Anna's never mentioned you."
"She and I have had some of the same tutors," the child whispers. "Now, My Lady, please speak the words aloud and drive away the evil spirits."
"I have heard of no such prayer," the Countess tells the girl, but the actress' air and intonation make it's obvious she's lying. "I've received no such catechism."
"Then shall I teach it to you? For when they are done with me, the shadows might come looking after you, and if you don't know the prayer, how will you hope to defend yourself, My Lady?"
The Countess frowns and mutters, half to herself, half to the child, "I need no defense against shadows. Rather, let the shadows blanch and wilt at the thought of me."
"That same arrogance will be your undoing," the child replies. Then all the candles gutter and are extinguished, and the only light remaining is cold moonlight, getting in through the parted draperies. The child is gone. The Countess sits in her clawed chair and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. You may once have done very much the same thing, hearing some bump in the night. Fearing an open closet or the space beneath your bed, a window or a hallway. In this moment, Elizabeth Bathory von Ecsed, Alžbeta Bátoriová, the Bloody Lady of Čachtice, she seems no more fearsome for all her fearsome reputation than the child you once were. The boyish girl she herself was, forty-seven, forty-six, forty-eight years before this night. The girl given to tantrums and seizures and dressing up in boy's clothes. She cringes in this dark, moon-washed room, eyelids drawn against the night, and begins, haltingly, to recite the prayer Anna Darvulia has taught her.
"I am in peril, O cloud. Send, O send, you most powerful of Clouds, send ninety cats, for thou are the supreme Lord of Cats. I command you, King of the Cats, I pray you. May you gather them together, even if you are in the mountains, or on the waters, or on the roofs, or on the other side of the ocean…tell them to come to me."
Fade to black.
Fade up.
The bedchamber is filled with the feeble colors of a January morning. With the wan luminance of the winter sun in these mountains. The balcony doors have blown open in the night, and a drift of snow has crept into the room. Pressed into the snow there are the barefoot tracks of a child. The Countess opens her eyes. She looks her age, and then some.
Fade to black.
Fade up.
The Countess in her finest Farthingale and ruff stands before the altar of Csejte's austere chapel. She gazes upwards at a stained-glass narrative set into the frames of three very tall and very narrow lancet windows. Her expression is distant, detached, unreadable. Following an establishing shot, and then a brief close up of the Countess' face, the trio of stained-glass windows dominates the screen. The production designer had them manufactured in Prague, by an artisan who was provided detailed sketches mimicking the style of windows fashioned by Harry Clarke and the Irish cooperative An Túr Gloine. As with so many aspects of the film, this window has inspired heated debate, chiefly regarding its subject matter. The most popular interpretation favors one of the hagiographies from the Legenda sanctorum, the tale of St. George and the dragon of Silene.
The stillness of the chapel is shattered by squealing hinges and quick footsteps, as Anna Darvulia rushes in from the bailey. She approaches the Countess, who has turned to meet her.
DARVULIA (angry):
What you seek, Elizabeth, you'll not find it here.
COUNTESS (feigning dismay):
I only wanted an hour's solitude. It's quiet here.
DARVULIA (sneering):
Liar. You came seeking after a solace that shall forever be denied you, as it has always been denied me. We have no place here, Elizabeth. Let us leave together.
She came to me again last night. How can your prayer protect me from her, when she also knows it?
Anna Darvulia whispers something in the Countess' ear, then kisses her cheek and leads her from the chapel.
Two guards or soldiers thread heavy iron chain through the handles of the chapel doors, then slide the shackle of a large padlock through the links of chain and clamp the lock firmly shut.
Somewhere towards the back of the theatre, a man coughs loudly, and a woman laughs. The man coughs a second time, then mutters (presumably to the woman), and she laughs again. You're tempted to turn about in your seat and ask them to please hold it down, that there are people who came to see the movie. But you don't. You don't take your eyes off the screen, and, besides, you've never been much for confrontation. You also consider going out to the lobby and complaining to the management, but you won't do that, either. It sounds like the man is telling a dirty joke, and you do your best to ignore him.
The film has returned to the snowy soundstage forest. Only now there are many more trees, spaced more closely together. Their trunks and branches are as dark as charcoal, as dark as the snow is light. Together these two elements—trees and snow, snow and trees —form a proper joyance for any chiaroscurist. In the foreground of this mise-en-scène, an assortment of taxidermied wildlife (two does, a rabbit, a badger, etc.) watches on with blind acrylic eyes as Anna Darvulia follows a path through the wood. She wears an enormous crimson cloak, the hood all but concealing her face. Her cloak completes the palette of the scene: the black trees, the white of the snow, this red slash of wool. There is a small falcon, a merlin, perched on the woman's left shoulder, and gripped in her left hand (she isn't wearing gloves) is a leather leash. As the music swells—strings, woodwinds, piano, the thunderous kettledrum —the camera pans slowly to the right, tracing the leash from Darvulia's hand to the heavy collar clasped about the Countess' pale throat. Elizabeth is entirely naked, scrambling through the snow on all fours. Her hair is a matted tangle of twigs and dead leaves. Briars have left bloody welts on her arms, legs, and buttocks. There are wolves following close behind her, famished wolves starving in the dead of this endless Carpathian winter. The pack is growing bold, and one of the animals rushes in close, pushing its muzzle between her exposed thighs, thrusting about with its wet nose, lapping obscenely at the Countess' ass and genitals. Elizabeth bares her sharp teeth and, wheeling around, straining against the leash, she snaps viciously at this churlish rake of a wolf. She growls as convincingly as any lunatic or lycanthrope might hope to growl.
All wolves are churlish. All wolves are rakes, especially in fairy tales, and especially this far from spring.
"Have you forgotten the prayer so soon?" Darvulia calls back, her voice cruel and mocking. Elizabeth doesn't answer, but the wolves yelp and retreat.
And as the witch and her pupil pick their way deeper into the forest, we see that the gypsy girl, dressed in a cloak almost identical to Darvulia's—wool died that same vivid red —stands among the wolves as they whine and mill about her legs.
Elizabeth awakens in her bed, screaming.
In a series of jump cuts, her screams echo through the empty corridors of Csejte.
(This scene is present in all prints, having somehow escaped the same fate as the unfilmed climax of the Countess' earlier trek through the forest—a testament to the fickle inconsistency of censors. In an interview she gave to the Croatian periodical Hrvatski filmski ljetopis [Autumn 2003], the actress who played Elizabeth reports that she actually did suffer a spate of terrible nightmares after making the film, and that most of them revolved around this particular scene. She says, "I have only been able to watch it [the scene] twice. Even now, it's hard to imagine myself having been on the set that day. I've always been afraid of dogs, and those were real wolves.")
In the fourth reel, you find you're slightly irritated when film briefly loses its otherwise superbly claustrophobic focus, during a Viennese interlude surely meant, instead, to build tension. The Countess' depravity is finally, inevitably brought to the attention of the Hungarian Parliament and King Matthias. The plaintiff is a woman named Imre Megyery, the Steward of Sávár, who became the guardian of the Countess' son, Pál Nádasdy, after the death of her husband. It doesn't help that the actor who plays György Thurzó, Matthias' palatine, is an Australian who seems almost incapable of getting the Hungarian accent right. Perhaps he needed a better dialect coach. Perhaps he was lazy. Possibly, he isn't a very good actor.
Elizabeth and Darvulia in the Countess' bed, after a vigorous bout of lovemaking. Lovemaking, sex, fucking, whatever. Both women are nude. The corpse of a third woman lies between them. There's no blood, so how she died is unclear.
Megyery the Red, she plots against you. She has gone to the King, and very, very soon Thurzó's notaries will arrive to poke and pry and be the King's eyes and ears.
But you will keep me safe, Anna. And there is the prayer…
DARVULIA (gravely):
These are men, with all the power of the King and the Church at their backs. You must take this matter seriously, Elizabeth. The dark gods will concern themselves only so far, and after that we are on our own. Again, I beg you to at least consider abandoning Csejte.
No. No, and don't ask again. It is my home. Let Thurzó's men come. I will show them nothing. I will let them see nothing.
It isn't so simple, my sweet Erzsébet. Ferenc is gone, and without a husband to protect you…you must consider the greed of relatives who covet your estates, and consider, also, debts owed to you by a king who has no intention of ever settling them. Many have much to gain from your fall.
COUNTESS (stubbornly):
There will be no fall.
You sit up straight in your reclining theatre seat. You've needed to urinate for the last half hour, but you're not about to miss however much of the film you'd miss during a quick trip to the restroom. You try not to think about it; you concentrate on the screen and not your aching bladder.
The Countess sits in her lion-footed chair, facing the open balcony doors. There are no candles burning, but we can see the silhouette of the gypsy girl outlined in the winter moonlight pouring into the room. She is all but naked. The wind blows loudly, howling about the walls of the castle.
COUNTESS (distressed):
No, you're not mine. I can't recall ever having seen you before. You are nothing of mine. You are some demon sent by the moon to harry me.
GIRL (calmly):
It is true I serve the moon, Mother, as do you. She is mistress to us both. We have both run naked while she watched on. We have both enjoyed her favors. We are each the moon's bitch.
COUNTESS (turning away):
Lies. Every word you say is a wicked lie. And I'll not hear any more of it. Begone, strigoi. Go back to whatever stinking hole was dug to cradle your filthy gypsy bones.
GIRL (suddenly near tears)
Please do no not say such things, Mother.
COUNTESS (through clenched teeth)
You are not my daughter! This is the price of my sins, to be visited by phantoms, to be haunted.
I only want to be held, Mother. I only want to be held, as any daughter would. I want to be kissed.
Slowly, the Countess looks back at the girl. Snow blows in through the draperies, swirling about the child. The girl's eyes flash red-gold. She takes a step nearer the Countess.
GIRL (contd.)
I can protect you, Mother.
From what? From whom?
You know from what, and you know from whom. You would know, even if Anna hadn't told you. You are not a stupid woman.
You do not come to protect me, but to damn me.
GIRL (kind):
I only want to be held, and sung to sleep.
COUNTESS (shuddering)
My damnation.
GIRL (smiling sadly):
No, Mother. You've tended well-enough to that on your own. You've no need of anyone to hurry you along to the pit.
The Countess' face is filled with a mixture of dread and defeat, exhaustion and horror. She shuts her eyes a moment, muttering silently, then opens them again.
COUNTESS (resigned)
Come, child.
The Countess sits in her chair, head bowed now, seemingly too exhausted to continue arguing with the girl. From the foreground, the gypsy girl approaches her. Strange shadows seem to loom behind the Countess' chair. The child begins to sing in a sweet, sad, lilting voice, a song that might be a hymn or a dirge.
This scene will stay with you. You will find yourself thinking, That's where it should have ended. That would have made a better ending. The child's song—only two lines of which are intelligible —will remain with you long after many of the grimmer, more graphic details are forgotten. Two eerie, poignant lines: Stay with me and together we will live forever./Death is the road to awe. Later, you'll come across an article in American Cinematographer (April 2006), and discover that the screenwriter originally intended this to be the final scene, but was overruled by the director, who insisted it was too anticlimactic.
Which isn't to imply that the remaining twenty minutes are without merit, but only that they steer the film in a different and less subtle, less dreamlike direction. Like so many of the films you most admire—Bergman's Det sjunde inseglet, Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, Herzog's Herz aus Glas, David Lynch's Lost Highway—this one is speaking to you in the language of dreams, and after the child's song, you have the distinct sense that the film has awakened, jolted from the subconscious to the conscious, the self aware. It's ironic, therefore, that the next scene is a dream sequence. And it is a dream sequence that has left critics divided over the movie's conclusion and what the director intended to convey. There is a disjointed, tumbling series of images, and it is usually assumed that this is simply a nightmare delivered to the Countess by the child. However, one critic, writing for Slovenska Kinoteka (June 2005), has proposed it represents a literal divergence of two timelines, dividing the historical Báthory's fate from that of the fictional Báthory portrayed in the film. She notes the obvious, that the dream closely parallels the events of December 29, 1610, the day of the Countess' arrest. A few have argued the series of scenes was never meant to be perceived as a dream (neither the director nor the screenwriter have revealed their intent). The sequence may be ordered as follows:
The Arrival: A retinue on horseback—Thurzó, Imre Megyery, the Countess' sons-in-law, Counts Drugeth de Homonnay and Zrínyi, together with an armed escort. The party reaches the Csejte, and the iron gates swing open to admit them.
The Descent: The Palatine's men following a narrow, spiraling stairwell into the depth of the castle. They cover their mouths and noses against some horrible stench.
The Discovery: A dungeon cell strewn with corpses, in various stages of dismemberment and decay. Two women, still living, though clearly mad, their bodies naked and beaten and streaked with filth, are manacled to the stone walls. They scream at the sight of the men.
The Trial: Theodosious Syrmiensis de Szulo of the Royal Supreme Court pronounces a sentence of perpetuis carceribus, sparing the Countess from execution, but condemning her to lifelong confinement at Csejte.
The Execution/Pardon of the Accomplices: Three women and one man. Two of the women, Jó Ilona and Dorottya Szentes, are found guilty, publicly tortured, and burned alive. The man, Ujváry János (portrayed as a deformed dwarf), is beheaded before being thrown onto the bonfire with Jó and Dorottya. The third woman, Katarína Beniezky, is spared (this is not explained, and none of the four are named in the film).
The Imprisonment: The Countess sits on her bed as stonemasons brick up the chamber's windows and the door leading out onto the balcony. Then the door is sealed. Close ups of trowels, mortar, callused hands, Elizabeth's eyes, a Bible in her lap. Last shot from Elizabeth's POV, her head turned away from the camera, as the final few bricks are set in place. She is alone. Fade to black.
Anna Darvulia, "the Witch of the Forest," appears nowhere in this sequence.
The Countess watches as Anna Darvulia climbs onto the back of a horse. Once in the saddle, her feet in the stirrups, she stares sorrowfully down at the Countess.
I beg you, Erzsébet. Come with me. We'll be safe in the forest. There are places where no man knows to look.
This is my home. Please, don't ask me again. I won't run from them. I won't.
DARVULIA (speaking French and Croatian):
Ma petite bête douce. Volim te, Erzsébet.
Ne m'oublie pas.
COUNTESS (slapping the horse's rump)
Go! Go now, love, before I lose my will.
Anna Darvulia racing away from the snowbound castle, while the Countess watches from her tower.
COUNTESS (off):
I command you, O King of the Cats, I pray you.
May you gather them together,
Give them thy orders and tell them,
Wherever they may be, to assemble together,
To come from the mountains,
From the waters, from the rivers,
From the rainwater on the roofs, and from the oceans.
Tell them to come to me.
The Countess in her enormous chair. The gypsy girl stands before her. As before, she is almost naked. There is candlelight and moonlight. Snow blows in from the open balcony doors.
She left you all alone.
No, child. I sent her away.
Back to the wood?
Back to the wood.
You sit in your seat and breathe the musty theatre smells, the smells which may as well be ghosts as they are surely remnants of long ago moments come and gone. Your full bladder has been all but forgotten. Likewise, the muttering, laughing man and woman seated somewhere behind you. There is room for nothing now but the illusion of moving pictures splashed across the screen. Your eyes and your ears translate the interplay of light and sound into story. The old theatre is a temple, holy in its way, and you've come to worship, to find epiphany in truths captured by a camera's lens. There's no need of plaster saints and liturgies. No need of the intermediary services of a priest. Your god—and the analogy has occurred to you on many occasions —is speaking to you directly, calling down from that wide silk-and-silver window and from Dolby speakers mounted high on the walls. Your god speaks in many voices, and its angels are an orchestra, and every frame is a page of scripture. This mass is rapidly winding down towards benediction.
May I sit at your feet, Mother?
Wouldn't you rather have my lap?
GIRL (smiling)
Yes, Mother. I would much rather have your lap.
The gypsy girl climbs into the Countess' lap, her small brown body nestling in the voluminous folds of Elizabeth's dress. The Countess puts her arms around the child, and holds her close. The girl rests her head on the Countess' breast.
GIRL (whisper):
They will come, you know? The men. The soldiers.
I know. But let's not think of that, not now. Let's not think on anything much at all.
But you recall the prayer, yes?
Yes, child. I recall the prayer. Anna taught me the prayer, just as you taught it to her.
You are so clever, Mother.
Close up.
The Countess' hand reaching into a fold of her dress, withdrawing a small silver dagger. The handle is black and polished wood, maybe jet or mahogany. There are occult symbols etched deeply into the metal, all down the length of the blade.
Will you say the prayer for me? No one ever prays for me.
I would rather hear you sing, dear. Please, sing for me.
The gypsy girl smiles and begins her song.
Stay with me, and together we will live forever.
Death is the road to awe—
The Countess clamps a hand over the girl's mouth, and plunges the silver dagger into her throat. The girl's eyes go very wide, as blood spurts from the wound. She falls backwards to the floor, and writhes there for a moment. The Countess gets to her feet, triumph in her eyes.
You think I didn't know you? You think I did not see?
The girl's eyes flash red-gold, and she hisses loudly, then begins to crawl across the floor towards the balcony. She pulls the knife from her throat and flings it away. It clatters loudly against the floor. The girl's teeth are stained with blood.
GIRL (hoarsely)
You deny me. You dare deny me.
You are none of mine.
You send me to face the cold alone? To face the moon alone?
The Countess doesn't reply, but begins to recite the Prayer of Ninety Cats. As she does, the girl stands, almost as if she hasn't been wounded. She backs away, stepping through the balcony doors, out into snow and brilliant moonlight. The child climbs onto the balustrade, and it seems for a moment she might grow wings and fly away into the Carpathian night.
May these ninety cats appear to tear and destroy
The hearts of kings and princes,
And in the same way the hearts of teachers and judges,
And all who mean me harm,
That they shall harm me not.
Holy Trinity, protect me.
And guard Erzsébet from all evil.
The girl turns her back on the Countess, gazing down at the snowy courtyard below.
I'm the one who guarded you, Mother. I'm the one who has kept you safe.
COUNTESS (raising her voice):
Tell them to come to me.
And to hasten them to bite the heart.
Let them rip to pieces and bite again and again…
There's no love in you anywhere. There never was.
Do not say that! Don't you dare say that! I have loved—
GIRL (sadly):
You have lusted and called it love. You tangle appetite and desire. Let me fall, and be done with you.
COUNTESS (suddenly confused)
No. No, child. Come back. No one falls this night.
As the Countess moves towards the balcony, the gypsy girl steps off the balustrade and tumbles to the courtyard below. The Countess cries out in horror and rushes out onto the balcony.
The broken body of the girl on the snow-covered flagstones of the courtyard. Blood still oozes from the wound in her throat, but also from her open mouth and her nostrils. Her eyes are open. Her blood steams in the cold air. A large crow lands near her body. The camera pans upwards, and we see the Countess gazing down in horror at the broken body of the dead girl. In the distance, wolves begin to howl.
The Countess is sitting now, her back pressed to the stone columns of the balustrade. She's sobbing, her hands tearing at her hair. She is the very portrait here of loss and madness.
COUNTESS (weeping):
I didn't know. God help me, I did not know.
A small cemetery near the castle's chapel. Heavy snow covers everything. The dwarf Ujváry János has managed to hack a shallow grave into the frozen earth. The Countess watches as the gypsy girl's small body, wrapped in a makeshift burial shroud, is lowered into the hole. The Countess turns and hurries away across the bailey, and János begins filling the grave in again. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt and frost and snow falls on the body, and slowly it disappears from view. Perched on a nearby headstone, an owl watches. It blinks, and rotates its head and neck 180 degrees, so it appears to be watching the burial upside down.
In a week, you'll write your review of the film, the review you're being paid to write, and you'll note that the genus and species of owl watching János as he buries the dead girl is Bubo virginianus, the Great Horned Owl. You'll also note the bird is native to North America, and not naturally found in Europe, but that to fret over these sorts of inaccuracies is, at best, pedantic. At worst, you'll write, it means that one has entirely missed the point and would have been better off staying at home and not wasting the price of a movie ticket.
This is not the life of Erzsébet Báthory.
No one has ever lived this exact life.
Beyond the establishing shot of the ruins at the beginning of the film, the castle is not Csejte. Likewise, the forest that surrounds it is the forest that this story requires it to be, and whether or not it's an accurate depiction of the forests of the Piešť any region of Slovakia is irrelevant.
The Countess may or may not have been Anna Darvulia's lover. Erzsébet Báthory may have been a lesbian. Or she may not. Anna Darvulia may or may not have existed.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Erzsébet was repeatedly visited in the dead of night by a strange gypsy child.
Or that the Countess' fixation with blood began when she struck a servant who'd accidentally pulled her hair.
Or that Erzsébet was ever led naked through those inaccurate forests while lustful wolves sniffed at her sex.
Pedantry and nitpicking is fatal to all fairy tales. You will write that there are people who would argue a wolf lacks the lung capacity to blow down a house of straw and that any beanstalk tall enough to reach the clouds would collapse under its own weight. They are, you'll say, the same lot who'd dismiss Shakespeare for mixing Greek and Celtic mythology, or on the grounds that there was never a prince of Verona named Escalus. "The facts are neither here nor there," you will write. "We have entered a realm where facts may not even exist." You'll be paid a pittance for the review, which virtually no one will read.
There will be one letter to the editor, complaining that your review was "too defensive" and that you are "an apologist for shoddy, prurient filmmaking." You'll remember this letter (though not the name of its author), many years after the paltry check has been spent.
The facts are neither here nor there.
Sitting in your theatre seat, these words have not yet happened, the words you'll write. At best, they're thoughts at the outermost edges of conception. Sitting here, there is nothing but the film, another's fever dreams you have been permitted to share. And you are keenly aware how little remains of the fifth reel, that the fever will break very soon.
Anna Darvulia sits before a small campfire, her horse's reins tied to a tree behind her. A hare is roasting on a spit above the fire. There's a sudden gust of wind, and, briefly, the flames burn a ghostly blue. She narrows her eyes, trying to see something beyond the firelight.
You think I don't see you? You think I can't smell you?
You've no right claim left on me. I've passed my debt to the Báthory woman. I've prepared her for you. Now, leave me be, spirit. Do not trouble me this night or any other.
The fire flares blue again, and Darvulia lowers her head, no longer gazing into the darkness.
The full moon shines down on Csejte. The castle is dark. There's no light in any of its windows.
The gypsy girl's unmarked grave. But much of the earth that filled the hole now lies heaped about the edges, as if someone has hastily exhumed the corpse. Or as if the dead girl might have dug her way out. The ground is white with snow and frost, and sparkles beneath the moon.
The owl that watched Ujváry János bury the girl is perched on the stone balustrade. The doors to the balcony have been left standing open. Draperies billow in the freezing wind.
Owl's round face. It blinks several times, and the bird's eyes flash an iridescent red-gold.
The Countess sits in her bedchamber, in that enormous chair with its six savage feet. A wolf pelt lies draped across her lap, emptied of its wolf. Like a dragon, the Countess breathes steam. She holds a wooden cross in her shaking hands.
"Tell the cats to come to me," she says, uttering the prayer hardly above a whisper. There is no need to raise her voice; all gods and angels must surely have good ears. "And hasten them," she continues, "to bite the hearts of my enemies and all who would do me harm. Let them rip to pieces and bite again and again the heart of my foes. And guard Erzsébet from all evil. O Quam Misericors est Deus, Pius et Justus. "
Elizabeth was raised a Calvinist, and her devout mother, Anna, saw that she attended a fine Protestant school in Erdöd. She was taught mathematics and learned to write and speak Greek, German, Slovak, and Latin. She learned Latin prayers against the demons and the night.
"O Quam Misericors est Deus. Justus et Paciens, " she whispers, though she's shivering so badly that her teeth have begun to chatter and the words no longer come easily. They fall from her lips like stones. Or rotten fruit. Or lies. She cringes in her chair, and gazes intently towards the billowing, diaphanous drapes and the night and balcony beyond them. A shadow slips into the room, moving across the floor like spilled oil. The drapes part as if they have a will all their own (they were pulled to the sides with hooks and nylon fishing line, you've read), and the gypsy girl steps into the room. She is entirely nude, and her tawny body and black hair are caked with the earth of her abandoned grave. There are feathers caught in her hair, and a few drift from her shoulders to lie on the floor at her feet. She is bathed in moonlight, as cliché as that may sound. She has the iridescent eyes of an owl. The girl's face is the very picture of sorrow.
"Why did you bury me, Mother?"
"You were dead…"
The girl takes a step nearer the Countess. "I was so cold down there. You cannot ever imagine anything even half so cold as the deadlands."
The Countess clutches her wood cross. She is shaking, near tears. "You cannot be here. I said the prayers Anna taught me."
The girl has moved very near the chair now. She is close enough that she could reach out and stroke Elizabeth's pale cheek, if she wished to do so.
"The cats aren't coming, Mother. Her prayer was no more than any other prayer. Just pretty words against that which has never had cause to fear pretty words."
"The cats aren't coming," the Countess whispers, and the cross slips from her fingers.
The gypsy child reaches out and strokes Elizabeth's pale cheek. The girl's short nails are broken and caked with dirt. "It doesn't matter, Mother, because I'm here. What need have you of cats, when your daughter has come to keep you safe?"
The Countess looks up at the girl, who seems to have grown four or five inches taller since entering the room. "You are my daughter?" Elizabeth asks, the question a mouthful of fog.
"I am," the girl replies, kneeling to gently kiss the Countess' right cheek. "I have many mothers, as I have many daughters of my own. I watch over them all. I hold them to me and keep them safe."
"I've lost my mind," the Countess whispers. "long, long ago, I lost my mind." She hesitantly raises her left hand, brushing back the girl's filthy, matted hair, dislodging another feather. The Countess looks like an old woman. All traces of the youth she clung to with such ferocity have left her face, and her eyes have grown cloudy. "I am a madwoman."
"It makes no difference," the gypsy girl replies.
"Anna lied to me."
"Let that go, Mother. Let it all go. There are things I would show you. Wondrous things."
"I thought she loved me."
"She is a sorceress, Mother, and an inconstant lover. But I am true. And you'll need no other's love but mine."
The movie's score has dwindled to a slow smattering of piano notes, a bow drawn slowly, nimbly across the string of a cello. A hint of flute.
The Countess whispers, "I called to the King of Cats."
The girl answers, "Cats rarely ever come when called. And certainly not ninety all at once."
And the brown girl leans forward, her lips pressed to the pale Countess' right ear. Whatever she says, it's nothing you can make out from your seat, from your side of the silver mirror. The gypsy girl kisses the Countess on the forehead.
"I'm so very tired."
"Shhhhh, Mother. I know. It's okay. You can rest now."
The Countess asks, "Who are you."
"I am the peace at the end of all things."
The body of Elizabeth Báthory lies shattered on the flagstones, her face and clothes a mask of frozen blood. Fresh snow is falling on her corpse. A number of noisy crows surround the body. No music now, only the wind and the birds.
As always, you don't leave your seat until the credits are finished and the curtain has swept shut again, hiding the screen from view. As always, you've made no notes, preferring to rely on your memories.
You follow the aisle to the auditorium doors and step out into the almost deserted lobby. The lights seem painfully bright. You hurry to the restroom. When you're finished, you wash your hands, dry them, then spend almost an entire minute staring at your face in the mirror above the sink.
Outside, it's started to rain, and you wish you'd brought an umbrella.


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Centre Lane Partners Acquires Focus Products Group
Posted on August 3, 2012 by
NEW YORK-Centre Lane Partners, a private investment firm, has swung a deal to acquire Focus Products Group from Sterling Partners.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Based in Lincolnshire, Ill., Focus Products supplies both consumer and commercial housewares, especially in the small-electrics segment, to customers in the retail, food-service and hospitality channels. Its brand portfolio includes West Bend, Chicago Metallic, Amco Houseworks, Swing-A-Way, Hookless, Focus Foodservice and Regal Ware Food Service, and its licenses include Jelly Belly and Star Wars.
Centre Lane specializes in investments in North American middle-market companies, with revenues ranging between $20 million and $500 million, in a variety of industries.
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Video: Color Comes on Strong at High Point Market


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We haven't yet known the joy of a 2013-14 regular-season game, but that's OK. We still have plenty of information on which to base the first edition of this year's NBA superstar rankings.
For now, we'll use a combination of factors to place the league's best 20 players in order. Last year's performance will be a huge determinant, but preseason play and a little bit of guesswork about the future will be factors as well.
A preliminary note: Injured players are ineligible for these rankings. Missing a game or two with a sprained ankle won't necessarily disqualify anyone, but a prolonged absence will. If a guy's not playing, it's hard to make any judgments on his game.
Also, art and science are going to collide here. Because the term "superstar" is inherently ambiguous, there's going to be some wiggle room in the rankings. Make no mistake, though; the numbers are going to matter in a major way.
Team context, recent performance and intangibles will also determine which superstar deserves recognition as the NBA's best and which ones fill in the spots behind him.
Enough with the rules. Let's rank!


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Testbed and Methods
I tested the Zalman Reserator 1 system and the ZM-GWB1 water block on a testbed configured as follows:
- Intel Pentium 4 2400MHz CPU overclocked to 3600MHz (800MHz FSB overclocked to 1200MHz), Vcore was left standard;
- ASUS P4C800 Deluxe mainboard;
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card;
- 2x256MB Kingston HyperX PC3500 DDR SDRAM, CL 2.0.
The Pentium 4 overclocked to 3.6GHz generates quite an amount of heat even without a core voltage increase, while the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card consumes more power and dissipates more heat than the RADEON X800 Pro or GeForce 6800 GT, and slightly less than the RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition. Thus, I put the Zalman Reserator 1 system accompanied with the ZM-GWB1 block in a very harsh operating environment.
I performed my tests in the following manner: first, I started the system up and left it idle for 2.5 hours (the Windows XP Desktop was on the screen). Then I launched programs that loaded the CPU and the graphics card and watched the temperatures change for 2.5 hours more.
I used the latest version of the Motherboard Monitor to read the CPU temperature and RivaTuner to read the GPU temperature. The temperature of the water in the Reserator and of the room air was measured with a Fluke 54-II thermometer.
I used the CPU water block alone in my first test and loaded the CPU with two copies of the BurnP6 utility. The X-axis of the following graph contains the time passed since the launch of BurnP6 (in minutes); the Y-axis shows the temperature.
Well, 28°C in the Idle mode and 48°C in the Burn mode are good CPU temperatures. You may note that the temperatures of the water and the CPU were rising simultaneously; the difference between them was almost constant, about 8°C.
Note also the level of the water temperature in the system: it went up rather quickly, but the rate diminished as the temperature had become higher. This is explained by the fact that the difference in the temperatures of the room air and the surface of the Reserator becomes bigger as the water temperature increases, and this facilitates the transfer of heat to air. The water in the system heats up till the system becomes balanced at a given temperature – the amount of heat generated by the CPU equals the amount of heat given out to the outside air.
"Heating" the system up for 2.5 hours, I nearly reached the equilibrium – the water temperature had only increased by 0.3°C in the last half an hour. I say "nearly" because the system with its 6.5kg of aluminum and 2.5l of water has a tremendous thermal inertia. Evidently, the CPU load is going to be smaller in a majority of real-life applications than with special-purpose CPU-grilling programs, and the temperature of the processor is going to be lower, too. The same goes for a short-term peak load – the system won't heat up in so short a time, so the CPU temperature won't reach the values I got in my tests.
For my second test, I connected the GPU water block into the system and ran a bot-match in the onslaught mode on the Torlan level of Unreal Tournament 2004. This test is a good heater of both the CPU and the graphics card. I selected the maximum image quality settings in the game, 1600x1200 resolution, 4x full-screen antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering.
The rest of the test conditions were the same: 2.5 hours of idleness and then 2.5 hours of Unreal Tournament 2004. The results follow below:
The CPU was less hot than in the previous tests, and it is no surprise since the calculations of physics and game logics in Unreal Tournament 2004 are a smaller load on the CPU than a special-purpose maximum-load utility produces. However, the GPU and the CPU, working together, generate more heat than in the previous test: the temperature of the water after 2.5 hours of heat-up was higher than in the first test.
The GPU temperature measurements confirm my above-said suspicions: the GPU water block doesn't suit well for its job. Those 80-90°C of the GPU temperature are not satisfactory, to put it mildly.


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On the restart, Clauson cut under Schuerenberg through turns three and four, collecting the lead as they crossed the stripe with five to go. He was flawless up front in the final few circuits, winning by 1.853 seconds for the 29th victory of his career. He takes a ten-point Sprintweek point lead over Darland into the series finale at Tri-State Speedway on Saturday.
"Our car has been really strong, and we felt like we made gains the last time at Haubstadt, but you know you'll have to run your butt off to beat Dave Darland when something is on the line," Clauson said. "That felt like an old-man victory. I was trying to be patient, especially with other guys having trouble and the big picture still on my mind. I got to move around after I got to second and found a lane where I could gain on Hunter. The track moved around a lot tonight, so you had to be on your game. We made the right moves at the right time and were able to capitalize on that late restart."
Schuerenberg dropped down low to protect second, coming home with his best finish of the week in the Customized Service Trucks – Eddie Gilstrap Motors No. 20n Mach-1/Rider.
"I was gonna be ticked off if we didn't run good here, as good as we've been at Bloomington lately," Schuerenberg said. "This is the start to salvaging some good runs this week. I hated to see that last red come out. We lost a bit, I think, after that, and I had a wrong lane choice too. Once he beat me off turn-four, I knew it would be tough to get back by him. I never even saw him before that and wanted to keep doing what I was doing. It was another case of leading the race and the guy behind being able to search and figure something out."
Darland wound up third, taking the National point lead from Bacon in the Phillips Motorsports – Racer's Advantage Store No. 71p DRC/Foxco.
"We've got things figured out for tomorrow, so I'm ready. We got this. I led a few at the beginning and went from the top to the bottom after I saw a nose. I got a little too slow holding the bottom and Schuerenberg got rolling up the outside. Bryan got us after that, and we finally got going a bit better when it got tough to hit the marks at the end. We had a decent chance, but didn't quite get it done tonight," Darland said.
C.J. Leary and Chris Windom rounded out the top five.


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I only run a handful of add-ons in WoW, and fully four of those were written by Gazmik Fizzwidget. So when he told me that he's working on a new version of Hunter's Helper for patch 2.4, I was really excited to try it out. And when he told me he could use some help beta testing it, I immediately volunteered my readers. *grin*
You can find all the details on the beta at WoWInterface — but I can tell you right now that the new features are really cool.
- A new UI, in which you can browse or search HH's extensive database of pets and their abilities.
- The new UI also functions as an improved replacement for the Beast Training window.
- An optional minimap button that notifies you when you're in an area that has beasts you can tame to learn new abilities.
- Configuration via the new Interface Options UI in WoW Patch 2.4.
And although this beta is intended for Patch 2.4, you can test out everything except the new Options UI on the live servers right now.
So if you're in the mood to beta test, check it out!


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Thames Water Property Searches
Get the whole picture from Thames Water Property Searches.
Buying a house is probably the biggest investment youll ever make, so it pays to look at the bigger picture to avoid any potential risks relating to water and sewerage services, which can sometimes have a direct impact on the value and maintenance costs of your property.
Residential properties
The residential drainage and water enquiry (CON29DW) can provide answers to the following types of questions:
- Is the property connected to a public sewer or is it served by a cesspit, that I will be responsible for?
- Where are the sewers and who is responsible for them? Will any plans to extend the property be affected by the route of a public water main or sewer?
- Has the property been affected by sewer flooding in the past?
- Does the property have a 'Building Over Agreement' for an extension that is built over a public sewer or manhole? If not, what are the implications?
- Does the property have low water pressure and could this affect the performance of a power shower or garden hose?
- Will the water company install a water meter at the property after I move in?
For absolute peace of mind, ask your solicitor to obtain a CON29DW drainage and water enquiry when carrying out the conveyancing on your new property.
Commercial properties
For commercial properties, our commercial drainage and water search includes everything that the residential CON29DW offers, such as whether the property is connected to water and sewerage services, the quality of the water, how the property is charged and the location of our water pipes and sewers.
In addition, the commercial CON29DW includes details of easements, wayleaves, trade effluent consents & invert/cover levels.
We now offer a choice of £2m, £5m and £10m capped liability in order to satisfy concerns raised by mortgage lenders.
Get in touch
To order our services online or to find out more about Thames Water Property Searches, visit www.thameswater-propertysearches.co.uk or call our customer service team on 0845 070 9148.
Our lines are open between 8.30am and 5pm, Monday to Friday and closed on weekends and bank holidays.


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|16.05.2013 - Transcending commodities and limited imaginations
|Im not a big fan of the word commodity. At least, not in how economists would define the term. Sure, it is a perfectly good word with a perfectly reasonable meaning a product or service that is in demand, but that is not qualitatively distinguishable in the marketplace. But it also is a word with a built in excuse, because if something is a commodity, that means it is difficult, maybe even impossible, to differentiate it in the marketplace. Not true. Not by a long shot...........................................Full Article: Source


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Just Look At One Fckin Stat
Plus Minus
Shumpert Is + 20
No Other Knicks Player Comes Even Fckin
fudge chandler melo and stat im getting his jersey he is our best player. He plays as if he doesn't this team LOL i can't believe I just that about rookie. If he doesn't get hurt ROY
Just Look At One Fckin Stat
Plus Minus
Shumpert Is + 20
No Other Knicks Player Comes Even Fckin
IMAX is truth!
@ClydeFacts "When one of his ladys asked clyde why he doesnt text he said if you dont get the message by now a phone aint gonna help." Except for Kate. Wobble Wobble!
Looked good tonight.Don't know about MVP, Melo is second in the league in scoring, but i feel ya, the rook is nice.
He's good, his shot selection is horrible, but 7 dishes and 5 steals off the bench looks pretty impressive!
plus minus
u like scoring I like defense i take shumpert all day over stat and Melo
I agree with this thread...hes already the best player on this team. Stat looks more like a rookie. I also agree with Shumpert being in the mvp race
Lebron is leading the league in scoring not Melo. He's also leading candidate for MVP.
29.9 ppg 7.7 rebs 7.4 as 2 stl 1 blk 59% shooting.


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O'Reilly Tags
We're experimenting with a folksonomy based on tag data provided by del.icio.us. Follow development in this blog post.
How to Create a REST Protocol (23 tags)
In his first installment of XML.com's new column, The Restful Web, Joe Gregorio, one of the people behind Atom, explains how to use REST to create an application protocol in four easy steps.
The Atom API (4 tags)
In his latest Dive into XML column Mark Pilgrim explains the basic operations of the Atom API, with special reference to the precedent APIs.
Mapping the 802.11 Protocol (3 tags)
A trip to London and a bit of unique inspiration gave Matthew Gast the ideas that would lead to the first draft of a visual map describing the relationship between the various components of the 802.11 standard and related security standards. Matthew details the road he took to the final version of his 802.11 protocol map. Matthew is the author of 802.11: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition.
RSDP: A Really Simple Proposal (3 tags)
Anybody who has written software knows that communicating with databases is a nettlesome task because of difficulties with installing and configuring them. Brian McConnell proposes a Really Simple Database Protocol (RSDP) that would provide developers with a way to prototype and build database-driven applications that are more independent of back-end systems. Weigh in with your thoughts on his proposal via the Talkback section at the end of the article.
Creating and Consuming Web Services With PHP (2 tags)
Find out how to create XML-RPC, SOAP and REST web services using PHP, the most popular scripting language for web applications.


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|advice... please
|Kelsey (Authenticated as --allison--)
|January 9, 2013 at 10:40:20 AM
So this morning I logged onto my computer and as soon as I did, this pop up popped up and at the top it said "United States Department of Justice" and it said that my computer had been blocked and that there were files on my computer that were in violation of 3 articles and they were child porn, coprighted files, and unlicensed software. It said that I had 48 hours to buy some kind of software thing from one of several places like Wal-Mart, CVS, Rite-Aid, etc, and pay a $300 fine or else "a criminal case against you will be executed automatically". And now I'm extremely creeped out. I have never looked at kiddie porn in my life. I mean sometimes when I google something and click a bad link, or mistype a URL sometimes porn does come up, but I always exit out of the tab. And I have no idea what copyrighted files or unlicensed software they could even be referring to. My dad says its just a scam, and my computer does get spyware all the time, and I've never been concerned before, but I'VE NEVER BEEN THREATENED WITH JAIL TIME BEFORE. I'm seriously freaking out. Part of me thinks it is a scam, because:
a.) They wouldn't "block" my computer, would they? It seems like they'd just show up at my house and break down my door or something.
b.) Doesn't the FBI usually deal with kiddie porn? and
c.) My mom's computer worked on the internet just fine, from the same IP address. Wouldn't they have blocked the whole IP address from accessing the internet if they thought I was into all that?
But then again a part of me is really creeped out because, what if it's serious? I haven't done anything wrong, but it's still really scary to have something like this even be a possibility. Guys please help me out here. I'm running my virus scanners to see if it will remove the pop up and if it does then I think its safe to say it was only spyware, but if it doesn't... I don't know... Please help me out. Do you think it's nothing? And yes I realize I'm freaking out....
|Because this message is archived you cannot respond to it.
|Messages in this thread:


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Police have not yet disclosed the name of a man who was shot and killed in a South Side neighborhood on Thursday night, the city's first homicide of the year. Two other people were shot and critically injured in the same incident.
The man was in a car in front of 299 Harland Dr. when he was shot around 6:30 p.m., Columbus police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Another man, who also has not yet been identified, and a 17-year-old girl, identified in a police report as Jaiscina V. Powell, were wounded and taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center. They were both said to be in critical condition on the night of the shooting.
Powell's condition was not available yesterday.
Detectives said the shooting appeared to be drug-related.
Several people called police after hearing gunshots. One witness said she saw the shooters run toward the car after firing.
"They opened it like they were searching for something," she said.
They then ran toward nearby Indian Mound Park.
The teen victim, the caller said, was crawling toward a house, seeking help.
"The girl's not moving," she said. "She's just laying there now."
Detectives could not be reached yesterday to comment on the shooting.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the police homicide squad at 614-645-4730.


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Every YMCA across the nation is volunteer founded, volunteer led and volunteer based. Collectively, YMCAs are the largest nonprofit organization in the nation and benefit from the leadership of more than 600,000 volunteers. The YMCA of Boulder Valley welcomes volunteers in all areas of our association. Duties range in responsibility from reading to our preschool students to coaching youth sports to greeting members at our front desk. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, we can work together to find a placement that fits your availability, personality and interests.
Volunteering at the YMCA of Boulder Valley can accomplish the following:
Volunteer Opportunities
Assist our staff in one of these areas or ask about developing an opportunity in an area where you see a need:
It is our corporate policy that all volunteers must pass a criminal background screening prior to placement.
Click here for current openings. Contact email@example.com or call 303-664-5455 x1130 for more information.
You can also support the Y by becoming involved in the Community Support Campaign, Capital Campaign or by making a gift to the YMCA Endowment Fund.
We met with a few our volunteers to discuss what volunteering at the Y means to them. Check out the video.


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How many miles? 73 Miles / 118 Km
How many times? 1 hour 20 mins
Distance from North Brunswick, NJ 08902 to Allentown, PA is 73Miles or 118 Km. You can get this distance about 1 hour 20 mins. If you want to planning travel with plane for 55 Miles or 88 Km, You can get this distance about 37 mins .
A car with an average MPG will needs 3.38 gallons of gas to get the route between these points.
The estimated cost of gas to get between North Brunswick, NJ 08902 and Allentown, PA is $7.67.
During the route, an average car will release 66.22 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere. Your carbon footprint is 0.91 pounds of CO2 per mile.
* Average US MPG used for calculations is 21.6 MPG.
* Average US gas price used for calculation is 2.27 per gallon.
* Coordinates of North Brunswick, NJ 08902 is 40.4525276, -74.4768333 and coordinates of Allentown, PA is 40.6080669, -75.49001
All Rights Reserved. © 2010 - 2016 Feedback


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Salmon's Statement on President's Changes to Signal Intelligence Activities
Washington—Today, Rep. Matt Salmon (AZ-05) released the following statement regarding the President's announced changes to the National Security Agency's (NSA) phone-data collection program:
"While I appreciate these steps, I remain concerned about the privacy rights of American citizens.
"I believe we must err on the side of freedom. The NSA's collection of domestic data on U.S. citizens must be limited in scope and related to a duly authorized investigation. This would allow our national security community the tools they need to fight the ever-changing battle against terrorism, while preserving our constitutional rights.
"I agree with the President that Congress does have a role. That is why I am a cosponsor of H.R. 3361, USA FREEDOM Act, that would reform and rewrite the Patriot Act. Protecting U.S. civil liberties and our constitutional right to due process is not up for debate. It is important to clarify our laws and ensure these protections for U.S. citizens are never infringed upon, while still meeting our national security needs.
"As we've seen this past year from multiple NSA leaks, the federal government collects phone records and intercepts electronic communications on a scale previously unknown to most Americans. The lesson is clear: we must remain vigilant to ensure that law abiding Americans' information isn't needlessly swept up into a government database and that Congress can fulfil its duty of oversight, enacting enact sound laws and fixing broken ones."
Privacy for American citizens remains a top priority of Rep. Salmon. He is a sponsor/cosponsor of the following legislation:
- Sponsor of H.R. 1847, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2013, a bill designed to increase protections for electronic communications, including personal emails, of U.S. citizens. His bill addresses the privacy concerns raised from the recent position by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the Fourth Amendment does not protect the privacy of personal emails because internet users do not "have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications." The Senate companion, S. 607, is sponsored by Senator Lee (R-UT) and Chairman Leahy (D-VT). More information about this bill can be found here.
- Cosponsor of H.R. 3361, The USA FREEDOM Act, which is legislation designed to rein in the dragnet collection of data by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies, increase transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), provide businesses the ability to release information regarding FISA requests, and create an independent constitutional advocate to argue cases before the FISC. Read more about this bill here.
- Cosponsor of the bipartisan bill, H.R. 2399, the Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act (LIBERT-E Act) that restricts the federal government's ability under the Patriot Act to collect information on Americans who are not connected to an ongoing investigation. The bill also requires that secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court opinions be made available to Congress and summaries of the opinions be made available to the public. Read more about this legislation here.
Rep. Matt Salmon (AZ-05) serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He is also a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.


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Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1921-1971
A Finding Aid to the Katherine Schmidt Papers,
circa 1921-1971, in the Archives of American Art, by Erin Corley
Download PDF Version of this page
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Table of Contents:
- Biographical Information
- Overview of the Collection
- How to Use the Collection
- Detailed Description and Container Inventory
Biographical Information
Katherine Schmidt (1898-1978) was born in Xenia, Ohio. She moved with her family to New York City, and around the age of 13 began attending Saturday classes at the Art Students League. She continued her art classes after high school and was taught by F. Luis Mora, Kenneth Miller, and John Sloan. While attending the Art Students League, Schmidt made many friends who would later become prominent members of the New York art community, including Peggy Bacon, Alexander Brook, Reginald Marsh, and Lloyd Goodrich. In 1919 she married fellow art student, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, in Ogunquit, Maine. They lived in Maine during the summers, but settled in Brooklyn, New York. Schmidt began working for Juliana Force at the Whitney Studio Club in 1923, where she also periodically exhibited her artwork. She taught sketching classes for the club and also did various other jobs for Force and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney until around 1930. Her work during this period consisted of drawings and paintings of landscapes, still lifes, and the homeless and unemployed.
In 1925 Schmidt and Kuniyoshi took their first trip to Europe, spending a year in Paris and Italy and visiting the studios of their American expatriate friends. After another brief trip to Europe in 1928, she and Kuniyoshi bought a house in Woodstock, New York, where they would spend several summers as part of a very active artists' community. In the late 1920s she exhibited and was represented by the Daniel Gallery in New York. In the early 1930s, she became affliated with Downtown Gallery where she became good friends with owner Edith Halpert. She and Kuniyoshi divorced in 1932 and a year later she married lawyer Irvine Shubert. In the 1930s Schmidt became dissatisfied with her artwork and had her last show at the Downtown Gallery in 1939, taking a hiatus from exhibiting for over twenty years.
During the 1930s and 1940s Schmidt became very active in promoting federal and state government support of the arts. She worked with Juliana Force and others on a New York State art bill in the early 1930s, and in 1941 testified for federal appropriations for the arts in Washington D. C. as part of the Citizens Committee for Government Arts Projects. She was also active in the Artists Equity Association.
Schmidt spent many years experimenting with different painting techniques and subjects, and in the late 1950s found a new motif that she pursued for the rest of her life: still lifes of discarded paper and dead leaves. Schmidt died in Sarasota, Florida in 1978 at the age of 79.
Overview of the Collection
Scope and Contents
The papers of painter and arts advocate Katherine Schmidt measure 0.2 linear feet and date from circa 1921 to 1971. Scattered correspondence, speeches, proposals, meeting minutes, and notes focus primarily on Schmidt's advocacy for federal and state government support of the arts. Printed materials includes exhibition catalogs, clippings, press releases documenting Schmidt's painting career and arts advocacy work. Photographs include portrait photos of Schmidt and photographs of Schmidt's drawings. There are two photographs taken by her first husband Yasuo Kuniyoshi of Schmidt with friends at a party. The papers contain little documentation of Kuniyoshi or their marriage.
Arrangement and Series Description
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
- Series 1: Correspondence, 1939-1951, 1961 (Box 1; 3 folders)
- Series 2: Business Records and Writings, 1940-1950 (Box 1; 7 folders)
- Series 3: Printed Material, 1925-1971 (Box 1; 4 folders)
- Series 4: Photographs, circa 1921-1930 (Box 1; 3 folders)
Subjects and Names
This collection is indexed under the following index terms in the online catalog of the Archives of American Art.
- Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- New York (State) -- New York
- Women painters -- New York (State) -- New York
- Art and state
Types of Materials:
- Photographs
The papers were donated in 1982 by Irvine J. Shubert, Schmidt's widower.
Separated and Related Materials
In 1971, Katherine Schmidt loaned papers for microfilming, including correspondence concerning exhibitions, a scrapbook containing clippings, and exhibition catalogs and announcements. The material was microfilmed on reel 89 and returned to Schmidt. The loaned material is available for viewing on microfilm reel 89, but is not included in the container listing in this finding aid.
Also found at the Archives of American Art is an Oral History Interview with Katherine Schmidt, December 8-15, 1969, by Paul Karlstrom which includes a transcript available via the Archives of American Art's website.
How the Collection was Processed
The the papers were processed to a preliminary level upon accession in 1982 and were microfilmed on reels 3940-3950. The papers were reprocessed by Erin Corley and digitized in 2007 as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Digitization Project.
How to Use the Collection
Restrictions on Use
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Ownership & Literary Rights
The Katherine Schmidt papers are owned by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Literary rights as possessed by the donor have been dedicated to public use for research, study, and scholarship. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Available Formats
The collection was digitized in 2007 and is available via the Archives of American Art's website.
How to Cite this Collection
Katherine Schmidt papers, circa 1922-1971. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Detailed Description and Container Inventory
Series 1:
Correspondence, 1939-1951, 1961
(Box 1; 3 folders)
Three folders of correspondence primarily document Katherine Schmidt's advocacy for federal and state government support of the arts. Included are letters from An American Group, Inc. and J. Frederick Dewhurst from the Twentieth Century Fund concerning a national survey of the cultural and economic status of the arts in the United States, and from Holger Cahill concerning a 1941 arts conference in Washington, D.C. Also found is correspondence regarding Schmidt and husband Irvine Shubert's participation in the creation of a post-war arts commission for New York state. There are letters from Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery and from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Correspondence from 1961 includes congratulations on her new exhibition of artwork. Items are arranged choronologically.
|Correspondence, 1939-1941
|Correspondence, 1944-1950
|Correspondence, 1951, 1961
Series 2:
Business Records and Writings, 1940-1950
(Box 1; 7 folders)
This series houses scattered documentation of activities in which Katherine Schmidt and her colleagues were involved for advocating government support of the arts. Included are several speeches by Schmidt concerning recent trends in the arts, a presentation by Elizabeth McCausland on art patronage, and proposals, reports, and essays written by others analyzing government support of the arts. Also found are meeting minutes taken by Schmidt as secretary of the Committee for New York State Art Legislation, and minutes she collected from other art committee meetings. This series also contains other notes by Schmidt, including a list of exhibits from 1923 to 1933.
Series 3:
Printed Material, 1925-1971
(Box 1; 4 folders)
This series contains exhibition catalogs and news clippings about Schmidt's artistic career, as well as printed materials about advocacy for government support of the arts, particularly for the Citizens Committee for Government Arts Projects. Items are arranged chronologically within each folder.
|Exhibition Catalogs, 1931, 1939, 1961, 1971
|News Clippings, 1925-1971
|Press Releases, 1941
Miscellaneous Printed Material, 1940-1950
(Not scanned)
Series 4:
Photographs, circa 1921-1930
(Box 1; 3 folders)
Photographs include three portraits of Katherine Schmidt and two photographs taken by Yasuo Kuniyoshi at a party that depict Betty Spencer, Alexander Brook, Isabella Howland, Peggy Bacon, Niles Spencer, Dorothy Varian, and Katherine Schmidt. Also found are three photographs of drawings by Schmidt.
|Portraits of Katherine Schmidt, circa 1922-1930
|Photographs of a Party (by Yasuo Kuniyoshi), circa 1923
Photographs of Drawings, circa 1930
(Not scanned)