Monday - February 21, 2011
Czech It Out
I get all kinds of unusual emails here at BMEWS. A few weeks back I got a letter from this punk rock group in the Czech Republic. “We really like your graphic. Can we use it for our new album?” Sure, I replied, but most of the graphics at BMEWS are borrowed from somewhere else, so try and find the original owner and get their permission.
Today they write back again and send links, and point out that I got credit on the back of the CD cover. Awesome! BMEWS goes multinational! So I check out his link. And I find

This graphic started showing up about 3 years ago. But I didn’t draw it. The above punk band, Laxní Přístup ( which means LAX access ), does give credit on their album liner to “Angry Mobs”. So they’re trying. But the artist is actually one Peter Clarke, who also does photography. He has a page over at Deviant Art and drew “Angry Mob” almost 4 years ago to the day, as part of his collection of doodles called “Little People”.

I don’t have a clue what the guys in Laxní Přístup are singing about. They have a home page where you can download their album for free, including the graphics. Those are also up online, with the lyrics. So at least they aren’t making money off of Clarke’s creation ... though I have seen T-shirts for sale with variations of that image on them elsewhere. Their album, Kdo s Koho?, translates as Who was Who?. It’s pure punk, with a lean towards heavy metal. I like track 2 the best, Doba Temna, which translates as Time of Darkness. Several other songs show decent potential ... but I’m not really into post-millennial punk.
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Saturday - February 19, 2011
In which …. the wife and I visit a pub in Crawley, Hampshire, Eng. The Fox and Hounds
The day after Valentine’s day, the wife and I revisited a pub we hadn’t been to in a couple of years. Only approx. five miles away from us, I don’t know why we hadn’t made the effort to go back sooner. Could have been the prices which then were fairly high. It was a last minute thought to go out for lunch HERE.
I know I have too many photos here, and believe it or not, I did a lot of editing and culling before posting these to share with everyone. The village of Crawley is so darn pretty and so peaceful looking, it really was hard to resist not putting in everything. Even the bad pix.
There is more then one Crawley, England. This one is in the county of Hampshire, AND, it is recorded in The Doomsday Book. (The Domesday Book is a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in England at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. The information collected was recorded by hand in two huge books, in the space of around a year. William died before it was fully completed.) Crawley has one main street and one other side street. There are no convenience stores and the FOX and HOUNDS Pub is it for lunch and dinners. There is one ancient church, St. Mary’s Church.
To own a home in Crawley takes some doing. First of all, you won’t see many listings. There isn’t any new building going on and hopefully there won’t be but with the push for homes in the “affordable range,” who can predict the future?
Crawley is in what is called “The Stockbrokers Belt.” These are VERY costly homes.
In the spring, many of these houses open their gardens for public viewing with all proceeds going to various charities. Some of those gardens are nothing short of spectacular. And please note that in this flower and garden mad country, the gardens are NOT designed by professionals. Folks here take a great deal of pride in their home designed and worked gardens. A late friend of my wife’s mom with an eye for flowers and all things growing, worked her place even when she was using a walker. Up the road from us in a small area of a few houses, I once saw an old lady with oxygen working her patch. No kidding. These people are very serious on the subject.
Unfortunatley, some of my pix, in fact most, were not taken in the spring or summer. I took all these photos a few years ago when the wife took us (her mum was still living and able to get out with help, to lunch here.
I took a walk around the place and even went a bit outside the village itself to shoot a house we passed on the way into the village. It reminded me of a Shakespearian kind of house and frankly it even looked like it could be haunted. So after the wife found parking, I walked back to the place and up a hill to reach it. Wasn’t long before I was stopped by someone asking me why I was taking photos here.
I told em because there were no places like this in the California desert. That seemed to allay any fears I was casing the place. Which in any even looked then and still looks today, uninhabited.
Crawley today looks exactly as it did when I first saw the place about 25 years ago. But the Fox and Hounds has changed hands even since I have been here (2004), and I can’t say it’s as good as it was on the visit when these pix were shot a few years ago. Only two choices for salad dressing, and no menus in hard copy. Had to order from written posts on blackboard. You can see it at the link above. The waitress said their new menus were being printed. Used to be the things posted were items that weren’t all on the menu. Still, there is something I’m going back to try. But if disappointed again we won’t return. Frustrating however not to be able to have Blue Cheese Dressing. And their tarter sauce was not at all to our taste. It tasted like it had too much vinegar, and the wife’s scallops were she says, like something left too long in the freezer. It’s the second pub outing for us where the tarter was more like, like, ? I can’t even think of an example. I’m sure there are folks who like it, we didn’t. Next time I have a meal out where tarter is needed, instead I’ll ask for a side of Mayo and a Lemon. That works okay for me.
Having said all of that, I want to go back and try their Mushroom Stroganoff. But no salad. Even if it comes with it. Which I doubt. They still bring fresh hot bread to the table, with enough (real) butter to cover only half of what they bring to table. Wife says what with the big brother attitudes here on health, we we lucky to get any butter to begin with. And maybe that’s why there wasn’t any Blue Cheese.
OK, enough of that. Here are my photos and welcome all to Crawley, Hants. That’s the abbreviation for Hampshire.
It’s named The Pond House.
And for very inexplicable reasons, I don’t think I ever got more then this one shot in the summer. Or maybe one or two.
I hate the spring and summers for photos cos there’s always too damn many ppl around to spoil the scenery.
Here are a few of the homes to be seen in this village.
This ppl is a Victorian water tower. I guess they thought a water tank was unsightly and so this was their answer.
LINK, INFO ST. MARY’S CHURCH, CRAWLEY
a Shakespearian kind of house and frankly it even looks like it could be haunted. It’s about a quarter mile before coming to the Pond at the village start. I thought a half mile. Wife says quarter mile. Since I had to walk uphill, I originally thought it felt like a mile.
All houses shown here btw ... are on the main street of the village. There are other houses tucked away in places you can not go. The lady who helps my wife do things in our little patch that wife can’t do anymore, does some work in the summer evenings helping an owner who she says has a huge house here, not seen from any road and behind walls and gate. She describes it as massive.
I call it Crawley’s White House and in the summer, you can’t even see it when everything is in bloom in the front.
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Tuesday - February 01, 2011
a few more photos and good night all ….
Looking at the weather thingy and seeing 26 degrees for NJ, I decided to post s few spring shots I got close to home.
Sadly, the apple trees, all of them, were cut down when the barbaric new neighbors moved in and torn down the 20’s cottage next door. Every tree and all the fruit producing trees, gone. There was one tree I’d never seen or heard of before. It had something that looked like and was the size of a cherry. But not the dark red kind you think of when you see the word cherry. This was lighter in color, and didn’t taste anything like a cherry. It tasted like a ripe plum. But it wasn’t. A good portion of it overlapped on our side for years and years and years. And a beautiful mountain ash. Great shade tree. Gone.
Anyway, one day long before that house was even on the market, I was taken with the blossoms and thought it would make for a pleasing photo.
Here’s an example of what’s now gone forever. Vandals. Barbarians.
Drove to a village (Wherwell) a few miles from us. All of them old and a river runs right through it. Ancient village church that ppl still attend. Really nice place but very expensive. BTW ... you can be pretty sure that the upstairs floor in this place is no longer level. It would surprise me greatly if it was, because in visiting some other old places like this but from inside, when trying to walk across the floor upstairs, you were still climbing just going from one side of the room to the other.
Notice how small those windows are and how few. Most of the houses in the village are medieval. There are strict rules that apply as to what you may or may not do re. painting or alterations.
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Wednesday - January 26, 2011
some stupid stuff and a couple of nice photos and my usual anger.
One of those icy chill days, haven’t seen the sun in ... ? Which is ok cos I can see photos of it if need be.
Also a pretty dull and boring day with lots I could post I guess. Another case of some slime ball rapist who managed the system so well he collected thousands for wrongful arrest after raping a woman. Then when he got into trouble again and was let loose guess what he did. Yeah. And his victim was a five year old girl. He also tried to kill her but failed and when found in a pool of her blood, he wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Hang on, I forgot, he got 12 years for the little girl rape, came out after serving 6, and did it again to another victim.
You can see why Peiper is perpetually pissed off. What has prison taught this low life EVIL SHIT! If you want to see the whole sorry mess that passes for a justice system. I don’t go out looking for those things. Not my idea of fun reading. But it’s pretty damn hard to ignore when it’s in your face. And it’s sickening.
Then there are stupidities like this article although not in the same league as the previous.
Apparently, millions upon millions of dollars, the paper says TENS of millions, have been spent on initiatives that are forcing organizations to PROVE that they are not discriminating against minorities. Imagine that. This falls under the new “equality legislation.”
Read this. Government accused of wasting millions on bizarre equality drives
I can’t imagine how the following might work. If you were your doctor’s only patient, perhaps between tea breaks it might work. So are you supposed to wait by your computer for a reply and how long? Take a look at this. A reminder that over here, a doctor’s surgery is an office. Not a place where surgery is performed.
Patients could be told to email their doctor after assessing their symptoms at home rather than visiting in person, under proposals to free up GP’s surgeries.
Wouldn’t that be dangerous? But on the bright side, the fall out may well keep lawyers in high cotton. Ya think?
A school in Exeter, Eng. has sent a 13 year old boy home informing him that his hair was cut too short. He would only be allowed back if he sat in an Exclusion Zone. Does that beat all? In another case at the same school, they made another boy wear a wig because his hairstyle was “unsuitable.”
It probably was seeing some of the ridiculous things some kids think are cool. But hair too short? Unfortunately, no photos provided by the paper so who knows? But how can hair be too short for school?
A mugger has demanded that prison authorities compensate him for a lost games console worth about $1500, because it was lost when they transfered him to solitary for bad behavior. They didn’t allow him to collect all his property before the transfer. He’s suing.
There is sooooooo much more I could add but will end this with news for the USA, for a change.
A very large company (SERCO) here in the UK, with interests in it seems, everything, and who btw collects our trash every week, runs trains and prisons and god only knows what else, is in a two billion dollar bid to run US security giant, SRA International.
I just thought it interesting.
Here are a couple of photos I shot in calm weather during summer. Sort of helps and I get to share scenes of the area we live in. This being only a few miles away. Six to be closer to the truth.
The photos were shot on Stockbridge Downs overlooking the village which you can’t see much of in these pix. Lilly Langtry visited the village spending some time with a married man who at the time just happened to be The King of England. Somewhere in my files I have the pix of their meeting place in Stockbridge. Very pretty.
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Thursday - January 20, 2011
The Death of Art
Or conversely, the art of death? Something like that. “performance art” reaches new lows in the UK, sensationalizing physical and moral putrescence. Peiper has noted this several times before. We have it here in the USA as well. Deranged members of the unwashed far left bring out pieces of “shock art” in attempts to hammer their way past the shield of inurement so many of us have developed in response to the overstimulation of the modern world. But it doesn’t seem to be done to remind us of our humanity. No, it is not done to refresh our awareness of pain, hurt, depravity, or the more rancid aspects of the natural world. Were that the reason, perhaps I could be more accepting. From everything that I can see, this crap is done just to glorify horror and evil, and to add darkness to our lives. Then they look down their noses at us plebes when we call a spade a spade and label their trash as the trash it is: no, it’s art, they say. You’re just so uncool and simple you can’t realize it. Balderdash!
Here are two examples. I am NOT running the pictures, they are at the links. Consider this an open thread and have your say: maybe Peiper and I are old sticks in the mud, and we can’t see past the poop to see the wonder within. Illuminate us with your erudite elucidations if that is how you see it; change us for the better if you can. But I promise that task won’t be easy. My definition of art is that which adds beauty/glory/perfection to the world; that which enhances the human experience and brings us one small step closer to the angels. You’ve got your work cut out for you if you feel you can argue me into accepting that toasting a loose bowel movement on a pink painted waffle iron is art enough of any kind to enhance anything other than my disgust. But have at it if you will.
PS - in both our countries a very large part of things like these are publicly funded. So it’s your tax money at work; art for our own good I guess, brought to us plebes by our betters.
Instance One:
New Production of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni features gang rapes done by actors wearing Christ T-shirts
A new version of Don Giovanni which includes a gang rape by a group of masked men wearing Jesus Christ t-shirts was today causing a storm in the West End. Critics accused producers of going ‘too far’ - and have been accused of trying to be sensationalist to attract a younger audience. The English National Opera (ENO) production which contains two rape scenes has been described by a reviewer as ‘brutal, ugly and crawl’. [typo for cruel?]
Lothario, played by Iain Paterson, is charactarised as a ‘seedy rapist’ in the production - rather than a selfish seducer of woman. But producers of the 18th century opera by Mozart said today they were ‘pushing the barriers of what opera can be’. The show which is courting controversy at London’s Coliseum is the first by Rufus Norris - a producer who has previously worked as a theatre director.
Oliver Condy, editor of BBC Music, today accused the ENO of using the rape scenes to boost audiences. ‘Don Giovanni is a shocking opera about a man who treats woman in a disgusting fashion. There is no point shying away from it and giving the audience a sanitised version,’ he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Comments by two normal patrons of the arts:
“Filth, sensationalism and being offensive is what these ‘sophisticated artistic’ types resort to to disguise their lack of talent and creativity.”
Instance Two:
The Damien Hirst exhibit where thousands of maggots mature into flies… and then feast on abandoned barbecue
His controversial art has included a pickled shark, a rotting cow and a human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds
But Damien Hirst’s latest installation, on display at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, may be his most skin-crawling to date.
Let’s Eat Outdoors Today features a perspex box in which thousands of flies plague an abandoned barbecue. ["perspex" is English for “plastic” or “Lucite™"] The piece is divided in two with one side featuring maggots lying in trays on a barbecue while they slowly develop in to flies. In the other side, linked to the first by a small hole, four perspex chairs sit around a table laid for a roast chicken meal complete with beer and wine.
Ominously for the thousands of inhabitants of the sculpture, there is also a large fly-zapping machine that electrocutes them if they make contact.
It is the controversial 45-year-old’s contribution to the Academy’s Modern British Sculpture Exhibition which opens this weekend. In an email exchange with the sculptor Keith Wilson, who has co-curated the Royal Academy exhibition, Hirst explained the thinking behind the exhibit, which he originally devised in 1990.
He said: ‘I was thinking about how we all avoid dirt, but we all ultimately go back into dirt. I was very interested in how we were trying to isolate the horror from our lives and remove it.”
Let’s Eat Outdoors Today follows on from Hirst’s previous work A Thousand Years. This featured maggots hatching into flies that feed on a severed cow’s head. The insects are then fried by another fly-killer.
Follow the link for other examples of Hirst’s bizarre fixation with death, including a whole zebra floating in formaldehyde, and a dead lamb encased in plexiglass.
Comments one True Believer:
To which I respond, “Crack is whack!”, as does this other fuddy-duddy:
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Friday - December 10, 2010
Flying Art
Not sure what art category to put this one in. Art Deco, Streamline Moderne? I don’t think Bauhaus or Craftsman fits, but the shape of this lovely creature is so 1930’s it has to be in one of them. Art history majors, here’s your chance to flex that 4.0 GPA.

Go back in time about 80 years. Give a boy who is nuts about “aeroplanes” a pencil and have him draw you a racing plane. After he zips out a picture of a stubby Gee Bee, specify non-radial engines and a stable fuselage. And within a minute or two, this is what you would get. Like the Supermarine Spitfire that was to come along a few years later, this is the shape that I think is genetically programmed into boy’s minds of what airplanes ought to look like. Fast. Sleek. Deadly. Possibly a bit phallic. But elegant, if not particularly practical.
The de Havilland DH.88 Comet was a twin-engined British aircraft that won the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race [England to Australia], a challenge for which it was specifically designed. It set many aviation records during the race and afterwards as a pioneer mail plane.
This Comet was one of those transition aircraft, built out of wood and covered in linen and varnish, yet equipped with powerful engines and modern flight equipment. And a gigantic gas tank: the Comet had a range of nearly 3000 miles. Sure, it only went 250mph, but it flew at that speed all day long on a tank of fuel.

The airframe consisted of a wooden skeleton clad with spruce plywood, with a final fabric covering on the wings. A long streamlined nose held the main fuel tanks, with the low set central two-seat cockpit forming an unbroken line to the tail. The engines were essentially the standard Gipsy Six used on the Express and Dragon Rapide passenger planes, tuned for best performance with a higher compression ratio. The propellers were two-position variable pitch, manually set to fine before takeoff and changed automatically to coarse by a pressure sensor. The main undercarriage retracted upwards and backwards into the engine nacelles. The DH.88 could maintain altitude up to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) on one engine.
Three Comets were built and entered in the MacRobertson race. After the Grosvenor House, the red craft shown above, won that race, two more were built. The de Havilland company tried to interest governments in the design as a fighter, but to no real avail. The airplanes were sold off and saw service as airmail carriers.
It’s a lovely plane, but the shortcomings are beyond obvious. The engines and the simple 2 angle, 2 bladed propellers are far too small. The pilot sits behind a gigantic gas tank. The nose is so long that forward visibility is just about non-existent; my guess is that flying along about 5 miles up, the pilot could only see the ground 25 miles in front of him. Takeoffs and landings would be totally blind.
But it’s gorgeous. And a few years later, when WWII broke out, the de Havilland company took that same design, stretched it out, blew out the engine nacelles and put some real horsepower in there, stuck on some proper multi-bladed variable pitch propellers, reversed the landing gear pivot, and put the pilot up in front where he ought to be. And created the Mossie, the Mosquito, one of the most effective, fast, and nimble fighter bombers of the whole war.

All these decades later, only a few of the DH88 Comets still exist. But the Grosvenor House was still airworthy as recently as May 1987
Height: 10ft Length: 29ft Wingspan: 44ft Engines: two 230hp DH Gipsy 6 R Max Speed: 237mph
The plane lives these days among many friends at Shuttleworth Aerodrome, 4 miles west of the town of Biggleswade, straight up the A1 north of London.
Most source info and pics from Wikipedia. More info here.
Posted by Drew458
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Thursday - November 18, 2010
ancient manuscript expected to fetch up to two million at auction
What greatly surprises me is the price. 14th century and the subject matter? If I had that kind of pocket money I’d bid till I owned it. Then give it to the British Museum, I swear I would. It belongs here, nowhere else. Gosh I would love to actually see this and maybe even hold it. Now this is treasure. See the link for more and bigger pix.
Amazing that they could put this together. No electricity, no computers, no photoshop.
The Holy Grail of manuscripts: 14th century King Arthur text to be auctioned at Sotheby’s
By Daily Mail Reporter
A 14th century manuscript containing what is believed to be the oldest surviving account of the legends of King Arthur is to be sold for up to £2 million, it was announced today.
The Rochefoucauld Grail, a colourful, illustrated account of the knights of the round table is said to be one of the finest medieval texts in private hands.
It is due to be sold by auction house Sotheby’s in London for a price estimated between £1.5 million and £2 million.
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Blood and guts: This picture from the manuscript shows King Arthur fighting the Saxons.
More than 200 cows would have been needed to produce the vellum sheets for the three hefty volumes of the manuscript, which contains 107 finely painted illustrations.
It was written in Flanders or Artois some time between 1315 and 1323 and probably produced for Guy VII, Baron de Rochefoucauld, head of one of the leading aristocratic families of medieval France.
The manuscript went on to be acquired by 19th century collector Sir Thomas Phillipps and has changed hands twice since.
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Lady in the lake: The image on the left depicts the lady with Sir Lancelot as a baby, while the image on the right shows the intricate details are not left just to the illustrations
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Friday - October 22, 2010
time and lifestyle and bad habits do tend to catch up with one. darn good to have pots of money then
Just to show ya how mean a newspaper can be. NOT for showing her as she really is. No. But for implying that this is her idea. How daft is that?
She is a famous and VERY wealthy model. She gets paid big bucks for this.
It’s the advertisers who want this look. And who can blame them? Think about it. While no fan of her previous lifestyle with drugs and drink and God knows what else, I think it’s okay that a career isn’t over at 35, especially if you look bad. Although of course that will raise the question then of, what chance do newcomers have.
My answer to that would be, every chance in the world if they have the looks and the talent. I guess with modeling though it’s more looks and discipline. And youth will always be in demand. I just wish the fashion industry would make better use of it with their creations.
Thank goodness for the world of tech and Photoshop and the airbrush.
Kate Moss turns back the clock with a little help from the airbrush in lingerie campaign
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:01 PM on 22nd October 2010At the age of 36, it is not uncommon for a few wrinkles to appear on your face.
But Kate Moss seemingly wants us to believe that she has managed to maintain the perfect complexion and flawless figure that made her famous as a teenager.
The supermodel appears in a new campaign for Brazilian lingerie label Valisere looking a good decade younger than her years.

I really don’t have the heart to post it on the facing page ....
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Thursday - October 14, 2010
17 YEARS TO BUILD A MODEL SHIP AND WORTH EVERY YEAR ….
Found this tonight and got caught up in it. Take a look at what this fellow did.
Took 17 years and he worked with very old wood indeed.
Around 1980 the wife and I had a private tour of this great ship. That was the thrill of a lifetime. One of a few I’ve had.
Sculptor completes a model of HMS Victory after 17 YEARS… using a piece of wood from Nelson’s flag ship
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 14th October 2010Dedicated sculptor Ian Brennan has spent 17 years carving a perfect replica of HMS Victory - out of a block of wood from the famous ship.
The artist has put in over 5,000 man-hours into creating an exact copy of Lord Nelson’s flagship that helped defeat the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805.
It contains 200 feet of tiny wooden rope, 104 guns, 37 wind-filled sails, and flags spelling out Nelson’s famous battle cry ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’
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Detail: The 1:66 scale ship is accurate right down to the 37 billowing sails and 200ft of rigging, giving a marvellous impression of the ship racing to TrafalgarMr Brennan, the official sculptor for the British Royal Household, had hoped to finish the model by 2005 - the bi-centenary of the battle.
But the oak wood from Victory’s lower gun deck was so hard it was like carving concrete and the labour of love took far longer than expected.
Having worked on Victory some years ago Mr Brennan was given a beam from above a cannon - it even had the hook in it from where the mess table hung.
Within the 400-year-old oak the 60-year-old found enough good timber to create the 47 inch ship - a 1:66 scale model.
It weighs 44lbs and during its creation Mr Brennan has worn out four sets of overalls and cut himself numerous times.
READ MORE AND SEE LOTS MORE PHOTOS HERE
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Saturday - October 09, 2010
Confusing Art News
A 12-year battle over the possession of a painting that was stolen from a Jewish Austrian by the Nazis came to a close today when the work by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele was displayed at a Vienna museum.
The oil painting was returned over the weekend after the Leopold Museum agreed to pay $19 million (15 million euros) as part of the settlement to the estate of art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray, the original owner.
US authorities had refused to return the painting to the Leopold Museum after it was exhibited in 1998 at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) because of a claim by her descendants.
Bondi Jaray was forced to sell the painting, “Portrait of Wally,” at an unrealistically low price in the prelude to World War II as part of a widespread Nazi campaign that stripped Jews in Austria, Germany and later other European countries of their possessions.
So the painting was sold at a loss, under duress? That isn’t exactly stolen, is it? But maybe it’s close enough.
US customs refused to let the work leave the country after Henry Bondi of Princeton, New Jersey, filed a claim that said his late aunt was forced to give up the painting before fleeing Vienna in 1939 to escape to London when Germany annexed Austria.
She died in 1969. Henry Bondi also has since died.
The controversy over the portrait, which the Leopold Museum acquired after the war, contributed to Austria passing a 1998 law that stipulates the restitution of property taken from the country’s Jews by the Nazis.
Ok, I think I get it. Anything that the Nazis touched is evil. Granted. So this is akin to theft, and Blondi’s estate is entitled to the painting. Even if it’s pretty ugly:

Andreas Noedl, who sits on the Leopold museum’s board, acknowledged the gross injustice done to Austria’s Jews, telling reporters today that the portrait “reflects the history of the horrendous atrocities during the Holocaust.”
Leopold Museum chief Peter Weinhaeupl called the return a “symbolic day” for the museum.
It was created by the late Rudolf Leopold. He is credited with assembling Austria’s largest and most important private art collection that includes more than 5,000 works by renowned artists such as Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka, along with the famous The Fallen Madonna With the Big Boobies by Von Klump.
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Monday - September 20, 2010
Monday Again
I know it’s Monday.
But it was Friday yesterday.
Where did the weekend go?

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Thursday - September 09, 2010
JAWS 3 ?
For other larger shots ....
Some darn good photography and stunning shots.
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Wednesday - September 08, 2010
photography and George Bernard Shaw
OK, before anyone flames me for a limited subject let me say at once.
This is for those who read books and have some feeling for same, if not for this particular person. What really caught my attention today was his intense interest in photography. I never associated him with that art form. Of course, way back when I didn’t have a computer to expand my knowledge of him.
I didn’t find him that easy a read, only based on the admitted very little I was exposed to. But I became a fan of Man and Superman which certainly showed his sense of humor.
Thousands of photographs from a collection that belonged to him, are going to be made available online. This is a project of England’s National Trust, and there are somewhere between 20 and 24 thousand pictures they are going through. Many are in need of cleaning and restoration and so not everything is on display. According to a short article in the paper this morning, there are supposed to be “several hundred” already online. But I couldn’t find even a hundred. So far. Must dig for more I guess.
The trust hopes to have it all available by next summer.
In addition to prints are approx. 4000 cellulose and glass plate negatives.
There are also albums collated by Shaw which are still in their original housing and covering topics such as Shaw’s family and travels, including his visit to Auguste Rodin.
This should also interest those who enjoy early photography and history etc.
I’m so used to seeing Shaw as an old man with that white beard. Never thought about him as young.
At this point in time, there aren’t many on show, but there are links to some very interesting things and much reading.
I suppose if you have the patience and the time, you could spend a lot of it with the Natl. Trust. There’s also a link for those so inclined to be updated as the trust adds to the collection.
Man and Cameraman - revealing the photographic legacy of George Bernard Shaw
“If Velasquez were born today, he would be a photographer and not a painter.” George Bernard Shaw, quoted in The Best of Popular Photography, p276.
George Bernard Shaw bought his first camera in 1898 and was an active amateur photographer until his death in 1950. Shaw was a pioneer of photography as a serious art form: reviewing exhibitions and writing widely on the topic.
His photographs document a prolific literary and political life offering glimpses into Shaw’s inner world. Shaw’s images are almost endless in their subject coverage, from changes in fashions to portraits of the 1860s from architecture to education, and their personas, from Vivien Leigh and Mrs Patrick Campbell to Sidney and Beatrice Webb. They also record his experiments with photography and for the photographic historian the collection provides a record of the development of photographic and processing techniques available from the 1890s. In total the archive comprises approximately 24,000 photographs and negatives and 15 photograph albums compiled by Shaw.
‘Bernard Shaw’
The dawn of colour
August 31st, 2010 by Karyn Stuckey, Man and Cameraman Project ArchivistEvery picture tells a story: this one signals a new age when the dream of colour became a reality. Early photographers experimented with how to reproduce colour but it wasn’t until 1903 that a device for doing so, the autochrome, was patented (commercial available from 1907). Prior to this hand tinting was the only guaranteed way of providing colour images, although many other techniques were tried. GB Shaw’s photographs and negatives show him as a keen experimenter and forays into colour are no exception. Early colour images allow us to see a world we are used to seeing in black and white in colour, though of course the quality of that colour was not always true to life.
Posted by peiper
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • UK •
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Monday - September 06, 2010
Jonathan Livingston Seagull ……….
Welcome back. I think.
Had other plans for first post till I saw this. Nice photography and I really enjoy this sort of thing.
I believe this is the second time in a matter of months that this has happened. That is, a smaller less lethal winged warrior has landed on another bird of prey.
Maybe it happens a lot more but there are no cameras to capture the moment.
Whatever, I never tire of this.
Eagle is ambushed above for his supper above Norwegian fjordBy Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 11:44 AM on 6th September 2010This is the moment a brave seagull decided to take on an eagle mid-flight in a battle for fish.
Soaring over the Norwegian fjords the sea eagle was not expecting trouble as it scanned the deep water below for a meal.
With its razor sharp beak and talons the huge bird of prey swooped down for its catch of the day.
However, before it could grab the fish, it was subjected to an astonishing attack by a seagull which landed on its back.
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HERE for the final chapter ...
Posted by peiper
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Nature •
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