New Years Eve

Boggle in Winthrop, just before midnight, Olivia, Shiah, Julia.

Mr. Big Shot Says: DANGER in the Sticks

What many people don’t understand about life in rural America is how dangerous it is for kid’s growing up. As a young teenager you are thrust into the working life of adults either because of the need for manpower or because you are available. There are many times when you are sent to work as a kid and the danger of that work has not been completely thought through. And then there are your relatives who are trying to make a man out of you. . . .

Fridamania’s Other Half Gets His Due

The New York Times says....Mexico City Celebrates Diego!

Tina

Tina --I'm sorry . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6msBslZHahc

Biography from YouTube posting (thanks!):

Tina Modotti (1896 -- 1942) was an Italian photographer, model, silent film actress, and leftist who once playfully described her profession as "men".She acted in several silent movies in the early 1920s and later became a model for prominent photographers and artists of the time.

By 1926, Modotti was an accomplished photographer in her own right, often publishing her work in left wing and Communist papers.Modotti immigrated to the United States in 1913. There she met the photographer Edward Weston and his assistant Margrethe Mather. By 1921, Modotti was Weston's favorite model and, by October of that year, his lover.

Modotti's husband seems to have responded to this by moving to Mexico in 1921. Following him to Mexico City, Modotti arrived two days after his. In 1923, Modotti returned to Mexico City with Weston and one of his four sons, leaving behind Weston's wife and remaining children.Modotti and Weston quickly gravitated toward the capital's bohemian scene, and used their connections to create an expanding portrait business.

It was also during this time that Modotti met several political radicals and Communists, including three Mexican Communist Party officials who would all eventually become romantically linked with Modotti.

Modotti is thought to have been introduced to photography as a young girl in Italy, where her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Years later in the U.S., her father opened a similar studio in San Francisco, where her interest undoubtedly developed further. However, it was her relationship with Edward Weston that was to allow her to gravitate upward to become a world class photographer.

Exiled from her adopted home in Mexico, Modotti moved around Europe for a while, finally settling in Moscow where, by most accounts, she joined a branch of the Soviet secret police. During the next few years she engaged in various secretive missions on behalf of the Russians (though probably for "World Revolution" in her mind) in France and Eastern Europe. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Vidali (then known as "Comandante Carlos") and Modotti (using the pseudonym "Maria") left Moscow for Spain, where they stayed and worked until 1939. In April 1939, following the collapse of the Republican movement in Spain, Modotti left Spain with Vidali and returned to Mexico under a pseudonym.

Modotti died in Mexico City in 1942 under what was viewed by some as suspicious circumstances.

Poet Pablo Neruda composed Tina Modotti's epitaph, part of which can also be found on her tombstone http://www.odebate.com.br/downloads/tina/Figuras/Ti_tumba.jpg

Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life, bees, shadows, fire, snow, silence and foam, combined with steel and wire and pollen to make up your firm and delicate being

In 1926 Diego Rivera's wife Lupe Marín asserted that her separation from her husband was caused by his affair with Tina, a byproduct of Tina's nude modeling for him for the murals as "the Abundant Earth" at the National Agricultural School in Chapingo, near Texcoco [1926-27]. Their affair lasted for about a year and he painted her five times in the Chapingo murals, including as "The Earth Enslaved", "Germination" and "Virgin Earth"• "In the Arsenal", Secretaría de Educación Pública Building, Mexico City, 1928This painting was part of the break between Modotti and Rivera caused by his expulsion from the Communist Party.

Slavko Says: Sun and Octopus

I remembered yesterday all of you sun worshipers, it was shining like in the best time of season.

Yawning with the cats against the Fjaka wall...

Just now I'm packing to go across channel (((for the holiday...eating octopus))), but before I go will be one last squid fishing with Zoran, it is a bit cold today, will need couple of layers of clothing.

More Light!

A poem which has haunted me for 30 years . . . .something to do with being human ...kinda like the shower scene from Psycho . . .read it at the risk of your sanity . . . More Light! More Light!

For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt Composed in the Tower before his execution These moving verses, and being brought at that time Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus: "I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime." Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible, The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite. His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light. And that was but one, and by no means one of he worst; Permitted at least his pitiful dignity; And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ, That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility. We move now to outside a German wood. Three men are there commanded to dig a hole In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole. Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse. A Luger settled back deeply in its glove. He was ordered to change places with the Jews. Much casual death had drained away their souls. The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin. When only the head was exposed the order came To dig him out again and to get back in. No light, no light in the blue Polish eye. When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth. The Luger hovered lightly in its glove. He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death. No prayers or incense rose up in those hours Which grew to be years, and every day came mute Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air, And settled upon his eyes in a black soot. Anthony Hecht

Opportunity

This coming Sunday and Monday, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Mercury, the Sun and the Galactic Center will all be lined up! There will also be a full moon and an unusual Pluto-Sun conjunction on the Solstice.

(from geekdad)

Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status

Washington D.C. – Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday’s withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming. (Press release)

(((It's so great that these people from Wounded Knee 1973 are still in there kicking. Godspeed.)))

Solstice 2007

Grab the shotgun, Maw! the solstice is a' coming'!

Mr. Big Shot Remembers: "My Father's Son"

My Dad was loveable, tough, independent, no-nonsense and a very busy man. He graduated from High School in 1930 and everything he had learned about life was swept away by the overwhelming tide of the Depression. His plans for the future were now plans for survival. He and a brother traveled by riding the rails out to the Northwest from Iowa to find employment in a lumber mill working the night shift. He was about 20. Eventually his entire family made it to the mill town of Raymond, Washington but my grandfather whom both my father and I are named after was dieing. He was in so much pain he ground his teeth down the winter before he died. My father went on to marry my mother, another independent character, join the Army and find himself captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. He then spent six months in a prisoner of war camp with only rice water for food and the coldest winter in the 20th century . . . (c0ntinued)

Slavko Says: Snow!

Snow in the
moun-
tains of
Bosnia.

The bura
blows in
Milna.

B-r-r-r-r-

Evil Girl Lives

Love the work by Serbian artist Ana Nedeljkovic. Check it out. Spread the word: Evil Girl Lives.

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore!!!!

Tuff Luk Film Disaster

Check out the featured films and the critics reviews.....
Courtesy of Spencer.....
(Is there a little file corruption here, Spence?????)

My Lovely New Studio Doors

Well, you can't see much in this picture....but am I proud, or what? Just before hanging the Bull's Horns over the entry.

Oh, the Irony of it all!

So, I'm dreaming of being in the sun in L.A. and in L.A. they are dreaming of being up here:

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-methow9dec09?page=1

And what places do they recommend for your stay? You guessed it: http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-methowbox9dec09

Now if they just would have mentioned our cabin.....(Congrats Olivia!)

And what about this: Old Times

Pyramid

by HURD, JOHN
$12.00

• Bookseller: Jeff Maser - Bookseller, ABAA (US)
• Seller Inventory #: 11660
• Book condition: Near fine in wraps. 1/200 copies
• Binding: Paperback
• Publisher: Seattle, WA:Jawbone Press,
• Date published: 1977

Wait a minute! . . .International Casafundada

Found On http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/cats/periodical.htm

134463 PERIODICAL. LE JARDIN DU MONDE: The Journal of International Casafundada.
Seattle: Casafundada, 1977. 61 pages. Trade paperback. Illustrated. Very Good+. $14.95.
Casa fun dada indeed.

<<<Those were the days, my friends/ those were the days! !>>>

Mr. Big Shot Reflects on the Great American West

In the summer of 1972 I met Tammy and Carolyn while sunbathing on the campus of Western near the library. It was in college that I really began to belong to the cult of the sun worshipers. Throughout the ages civilized man has worshiped the sun as a god and sun bathers have gathered together in a communal oneness to celebrate our natural humanity. One of my great teachers in this endeavor was a fellow student in my Ancient Egyptian class who dropped out school and spent the next 3 months lying on the roof of his house in Bellingham during which time he turned a toasted brown. (continued)

Happy, happy Day

Birthdays and anniversaries

Slavko Says: The Prosek

Stopped by Zore and he said the prosek looks fine so far. It takes a few months for prošek to be ready.
. . . I've bought another piece of land in Solin right next to what I allready own in the mountains.
Leaving for Split tomorrow for a weekend, maybe go to Zagreb car market on Sunday with brother, he need some used car for work.

My Studio in the First Snow of Autumn