I've been listening to this piece by Vaughan Williams over, and over recently. It's bright, and hopeful. Just the sort of noise I need these daze. Sure it has a Christian lens so what it's still bright.
Vaughan Williams originally wrote this to celebrate the end of the Horrors of the Second World War.
Most of Williams stuff is seriously swell. 'Been into it since I was a kiddie. My Uncle Louis had old 78rpms of his works. He also had tons of Swing sides too, but his straight stuff was neat as well.
If you have 15 minutes, and are of a mind for this sort'a thing put on headphones, and listen.
India Ink! While doing my "back to school" shopping a few weeks back I forgot to buy India Ink. This for my "Cartooning, and Cartoon Story Telling" class upcoming at the "92nd street Y".
When I was a kiddie we used India ink pens. They came with cartridges of ink ya had to put in them. Ball point pens were forbidden...???? Still don't know why other than they were new, and might be the tools of Satan.
I went to Catholic school...nuff said.
Anyway the desks we sat in had actual ink wells built into to them. The school was built in 1912, and these were the original desks. Complete with carved graffiti from the early part of the 20th century.
Amazing that.
The place is 102 years old now, and still turning out semi-literate basket cases. Tradition is a very important thing! Anyway if I'm feeling better during the week I'm off to get some small bottles of dear old India Ink!
Seems in the end we somehow always return to where we started.
Stay Tuned.
(I drew the above Faerie back in the late 1970's using a metal nib pen, and some venerable India Ink. I later went on to gel pens. They're cleaner, and far easier to use.)
(However as I mentioned once it looks like my art instructor is a traditionalist, and will insist on "Nib, and India!")
Sorry gang I'm sick as Hell again. Could this be the Final Daze...right I should be so lucky. Say anybody out there got a spare gastro-intestinal system handy?
Aw I'm okay I'll just take my Meds, and go back to bed!
Btw about "Machine gun Barbie up there. Hey these are evil times. A girl ain't safe. So some 'protection' is called for. 'Know what I mean.
I was thinking about the Korean War. It's probably one of my first memories. I'm with my Uncle Clyde in his 1950 Ford...blue plaid upholstery. We're driving past the downtown docks. New York was still a major shipping port then. Was till about 1970 or so.
There are so many men in dark brown coats. I now know they were soldiers. Giant cranes were lifting trucks onto ships. Someone in the car maybe my Mom or Aunt Agnes said something. She said, "...they're going to War."
This is a vivid memory.
It's also as I said one of my earliest. I suppose I was perhaps three, 1953. So this had to be the Korean War she was referring to. It started in 1950 a few months after I was born. My youngest Uncle, Reginald, was drafted into it.My Dad, and other Uncles were all WW2 Vets.
Luckily they were 'not' in the reserves so weren't dragooned into Korea. It was a Reservist War...at least at first. The regular Army was in Europe waiting to fight the Russians.
Uncle Reggie..actually I called him "cousin" because my Dad married late, and all my cousins on Dad's side were 10 or 15 years older than they should be.
I ended up care-giving for him later in life, but that's another story. The thing about "cousin" Reggie is that he was captured by the North Koreans. Even then these guys were insane.Reggie witnessed the mass execution of United Nations troops. Americans Brits Turks others.
He himself was tortured, and testified at the U.N. inquiry after the War. Of course North Korea didn't give a shit just as now. It's an interesting twist of history that Chinese troops..yeah the dreaded so-called Communist Chinese saved thousands of western POW's.
The Camps were slaughter houses of murder, and torture. The Chinese intervened, and took control of most...sadly not all of the camps from the North Koreans who seems intent on killing every U.N. POW under their control
Again my cousin Reggie witnessed this. He himself was tortured, and was on the death list. Yeah the fuckers had such a thing. So ironically when the Chinese entered the camp they in fact saved his, and everyone else's lives.
There are footnotes here, and there that refer to this, but the Cold War raged for decades more. So anything positive about China was ignored or suppressed. I 'd love to see some of this in a documentary or feature film.
Red Chinese troops entering a North Korean Death Camp, and saving U.N. prisoners. That would be interesting to see.
War all wars even the insane ones were fighting now are full of interesting ironies.
An interesting fact about the air war during the "Korean Police Action" as it was called at the time.Russian pilots flew many missions for the North Koreans.
They flew in Migs with N. Korean insignia, and even made the attempt to speak Korean over their radios.After a while though it was an open secret. Both side knew the game, and what was up.
If you listen carefully you can hear the Mig pilot speak in Russian for a few seconds during this simulated engagement.
(Btw...both the American F-86, and the Russian Mig-15 were both based on the same German WW2 jet design. What would we have done with the "Krauts"? It was also 'their' scientists that put Russia's Sputnik in orbit, and later got us to the Moon.)
Below is the scariest most disturbing frigging bean commercial in History. After seeing this noise I ain't 'even' going near no damned beans again!
Holy Crap!!
Whose fuck'n demented idea was this?! Fire that asshole..no first dump him in a vat of raw red meat, and cat shit then shoot him out of a clown cannon towards the shark tank...then fire'em!
