Sense Journal

Generous Thief (Robin Hood of Palestine) By Nazek Damra

2019-06-15T16:01:00.002+03:00

I found myself visiting them last night at their home and after seventy years of estrangement, and in the same house. But the house's court yard widened a bit and a wall of stone without cement or mud was built carelessly around. I cannot remember the details, but I avoided talking to his father. I rarely saw him اhappy smiling or laughing. He even spoke to his family in semi-orders with a quiet, whisper-like voice. Then leaves the house. I did not sit with him in my childhood. I only once ate a very salty dried tomato mixed with water. We ate it with bread. He then offered me a cup of coffee with a trace of sugar in it, the way he likes it. But I did not drink a quarter of that very small cup. I did not talk to him first when I arrived. My visit was to his son Mayiz.. We stood behind the house and talked. I am now a mature man, wore a modern decent suit. I came from America to visit Mayiz, and to remind him of his past good deeds. I felt I must express my thanks and appreciation to him; or to offer him any help if I could. His old father came back to home again. We both were still standing out talking in the outer courtyard of the house. Few minutes later, I head his father calling me. When I went to see him, he was lying near the door of the barbershop itself. I kissed his cheeks while he was still stretched lying. He felt so much joy. He invited me to get in. I saw his very old wife sitting on the floor near his feet. She was looking and her eyes welcoming me but looking to my neat clothes. I told him that I was in a hurry, and I am afraid I’ll late for the car that will carry me to airport to leave back to America.

My relation to this family started 1945. I mean about seventy-three years back. I related to Mayiz for almost three years. I will call him the noble thief, and to sail in time and space for the year 1945 and the next two years. I was a student at the neighboring village school. I often described the journeys of misery to that school in many previous stories and occasions. However, that school was three miles away from our village in Palestine. The road was unpaved and rocky in most parts of it, with ups and downs. In winter it was so muddy and long to describe how a child can walk in. It usually used to take us one hour to ninety minutes to reach the school. The lessons are usually ended about three-thirty PM, if there is no sports or agricultural activity in the school. Sometimes teachers force us to participate in such activities. We used to hate delaying us and did not want to get caught up in the school. After all, it was easy for us as children in the months of warmth and drought, but our biggest fear was in the winter with rain and cold.

My friend Mayiz was a barber. He inherited the profession from his father, and perhaps a career inherited by members of that family for decades. He was about 20 years old. I expect you to ask with some doubt when I say he was my friend. I am going to relate to this doubt later on. It happened once that my father visited that village for two nights. It was customary for the guest to stay at the guest house of the clan, as most villagers’ houses were small and of one room or two rooms at the most. There was no room for the guest with the family. The guest house of the tribe is usually wide, and it is called The meeting hall. Although it does not approximate the halls of these days, but not less than five by five meters space. It might accommodate about forty men sitting on the ground on simple mattresses and leaning backs to the walls. This idea of guest house was great and necessary in the case of weddings and joy occasions, or in the case of serious matter and death in the clan. When a guest visits any family, relatives meet to greet the visitor in the guest room and to share honor. Then almost everyone is involved in providing food for the guest from the available food at homes, and all the present share the food with the guest. My father was the guest that day. I do not know how and why my father advised me to spend the night at the house of the barber’s father, with his two sons, because the men stay late at the guest house.

I I was very obedient to my father. I do not argue what he says usually, no matter how difficult. I obeyed him and spent the first night at his friend’s house. just to rest from sitting between men talking things I do not care for. Although my host was about 20 years old, but his mind was much younger than his age. He could have fourteen years old thoughts at the most, but to say the truth, he was quiet, soft and slow. The young barber Mayiz never raised his voice, no matter what the world's problems around him or repentance or stubbornness, If someone criticized him, he does not show hurt, but he smiles and may say “God forgive you”, then continues his work cutting the customer's hair. His mother named him Mayiz. She said that she named him Mayiz, because she wanted him to distinguish good and halal from evil as the Arabic meaning of the name. Mayiz was about 12 years older than I was, and I expect anybody to have some doubt when I say that he was my friend. He claims I was his friend, but I never felt close to him.

It was the autumn of 1945 and I was in the 2nd grade when I spent the two nights in that small house. As a baby I had a quiet and good sleep between the two brothers and their only sister, who was almost my age. Their mother and father were in a very small room next to ours. and they sleep on the roof of the room in summer. It was strange to me right then that the girl does not sleep with her mother. You may guess the reason. In the morning they celebrated me. The mother sent the second boy to buy fresh tea from the small shop. That time Palestine was under the rule of British mandate. It was the habit of the rural people of those days to buy as much tea as they needed for that day only or for two or three days at most, if they have guests. I was hungry and enjoyed the food the mother offered to us. It was dried figs with wheat flour mixed with olive oil. I did not know how the people of Mayiz got the figs, because they did not have land to cultivate. They lived on their income from cutting hair to others. The people of the town loved them and appreciate their calm and soft treatment. Afterwards, Mayiz started contacts with me. I did not know the reason for that love. He used to visit me at school in lunchtime and brought me whatever food he could find, such as boiled egg, olives, pickles, or a single piece of candy. Every visit he makes was just to see me and hand me over what he got. I have to sit with him for a few minutes, because I want to play In the lunch break, like other children, before returning back to prison in the crowded small classrooms. His relationship with me continued over three years, beginning of school year in 1945, when I was in 2nd grade. To remember he was twenty years of age, but with mentality of around fourteen or may less. He was insisting to be a friend to a boy of eight years. When I moved to third grade, our relation continued. But during the winter and cold days, he used to come to invite me to spend the night at his simple house. The cold and torrents used to block our way to school or back home for five kilometer. Normally I did not accept the invitation because I knew I was a child and did not consult my father. I must tell my parents, otherwise they will keep terrified and worried for me. I had to tell two to three children from my town to ensure that one of them told my mother about my overnight stay in the neighboring village. I had far relatives in the village of the school. I was able to visit any house and I knew they welcome me. And even their children get closer to me and respect me. I know they would be happy if I decided to spend a day or two with them. I did not like to visit people's homes. I was very loved in my house by my parents, brothers and sisters. I used to enjoy the big family life, so if I had to stay outside our home, I would feel lost and longing for my family. It is necessary to mention that the barbershop was the reception room in that house, and the guests sat on the ground, above a very light mattresses and then becomes a room for sleeping boys at night, especially in the days of cold and winter. That small room had one small window, 30 centimeters wide by 50 centimeters height. The door with two shutters do not apply well, and cannot be closed to prevent intrusion. But safety was available among people, and they feared no aggression. Perhaps because there was nothing in the house worthy of theft and adventure. In short, the room was for the barbershop and the guests and night-sleeping and the food, with the area of two and a half meters width, and the length of three meters. The only furniture in that room was a mud shelf on which the barber puts his simple hand tools, which do not exceed the scissors and an old manual machine to cut the hair and an old comb with some defects with a copper bowl to put water and soap, and a wooden chair with no back support to seat the customer who wants to cut his hair.

It was hard to obtain notebooks and pencils for kids going to school before 1947, because of the very low income of the villagers and the lack of projects and businesses in the country. And Because the British Mandate neglected the affairs of the Arab citizens of Palestine. People were mainly dependent on agriculture, waiting for the harvest season or the fruits of olives and other few fruits, except in the areas of the coast where the cultivation of orange and lemon and trade. People were not in dire need of money in the villages of Palestine. Most of their needs were done by bartering trade. So if a child needed a candy or a notebook he has to take a kilo of wheat seeds to the shop to buy a pencil, a tablet, eraser, tea, sugar or a pill of aspirin. Others may barter a quantity of pure olive oil to get his emergency need only.

I remember my first night stay in his house when I was with my father passed in peace and rest. Mayiz visited my father next year and may be begged him to tell me to spend a day or two with them in their house. I accompanied him to his house the next day. His mother cooked ground lentils thick soup. She mixed it with good quantity of pieces of bread in one big plate to all the family. We sat around the big pot and ate using fingers. No spoons or forks were used in the villages. We used to drink soup direct from bowl to mouth. I liked that food may be because it was tender, salty and may be spicy. We ate green onions, olives, and the rest of the family ate chili, and green peppers. I was not accustomed to eating hot and still I cannot eat it till now. After the meal, Mayiz gave me three new notebooks, three pens and a large eraser I never owned before. Though I was very happy With my dear gift, but thought how could he get all this for me. I thanked him dearly as a child of nine years. He smiled happily and said I want you to be the best at school. Immediately I began to write my duties. I told him, “I need two notebooks only, I suggest keeping the third book for you.” He smiled, while he was drinking a small glass of tea, satisfied he dabbed on my back. He commented then saying, “tell no one how you got the gift except to your parents”. Days later I thought to ask him how he got this great present, knowing he does not have the money to buy it from the only shop in the town. He laughed and said “Frankly speaking it was stolen from your school, from the schoolmaster's room. I studied at that school eight years ago. I know the secret of how to open the defected old window. All the windows of the classrooms are not fortified with iron but, old wooden doors with glass. I entered from the defected window shutter and carried only what you need.” He listened quiet and calm, looked afar, and then said again. "All your books, pens and notebooks will be safe for you now on.” I did not dare tell him that they might discover you. But as if he knew what was going on in my mind, he commented “do not be afraid. I do not steal too much. I will only steal your need”. Even though I was a nine-year-old I thought, what makes this young man steal to help me. I told my father about the big gift and he praised him and his father and wished good health and happiness to them. I boasted with my new dear items and became loving school and teachers much more than before. I found myself then beloved and diligent. That gift changed my school life and increased my interest in study and success.

In the fall of that year, promoted to 3rd grade, he gave me more of school needs. I asked him for the second time. Why do you steal to help me? He sighed like he is in pain then said. “I tried the need, and I knew from my father the circumstances of your family. He told it is difficult for you because your family has many children. When I was in school for two years eleven years ago, I was asking my father to buy me notebooks, he used to say to me. “I do not have a single penny. Ask your mother. Maybe she will give you two eggs or a small quantity of wheat to buy your need.” And because we do not have land to plant it I know that our wheat stock comes to us annually for cutting hair of the people in the town, which is barely enough for our food. I could not do my homework because and I did not have a single notebook with me. I hated the school and I quit it. I then specialized in the barber profession as an assistant to my father.

So, he stole from the same school to help me. He told me also he stole from the wheat ears at the time of they are almost ready to harvest, and stole the fruits of the olives and figs, to help the poor of the town. He told me that he helped an old man who was not able to work. “I cut off small bushes from the olive trees and planted them to the old man in his land.” He once brought us five pieces of green olive trunks with cells that sprouted while it is planted in the ground. He carried the heavy five pieces on his back in a hessian bag for five kilometers. He also planted them himself in our small land west of the town, and these five trees are still struggling to survive without care because of our coercive departure and immigration by Israeli force.

It became normal to stay with them when the rain was heavy and cold. As I mentioned before, people were still sleep on the ground. False Britain did help people to develop for a better living standard. The Palestinians found themselves living the same difficult circumstances as they were under the Ottoman rule. which was marked by ignorance, backwardness and naivety. I woke up once near dawn and found my friend, the barber Mayiz, sticking to me so much closely hugging me. Silently and quietly I moved to sleep between his youger brother and the girl. I hated him since that moment. I stuck very closely to his sister hugged her aimlessly and clung to her more, as I felt more comfortable the closer I approached her, but nothing of any bad evil came to mind. I was ignorant of everything related to sex relations. I think like I was created neutral not as a male or a female until I was fifteen years old. After I moved to study in the city and I started to hear stories and the adventures of the young people of the city. My blindness was lit up by a beautiful Christian woman who awakened me and became aware of what God had created us to.

I did not tell my friend Mayiz about what happened at night and did not blame him. On the other hand he did not ask me not even by hint about the great incident. I did not understand, whether he stuck to me wants to exploit me, or wants me to use his body. That incident remained hidden and secret not known in our world until this moment. From that day on I started to distance him. The one thing I must confirm that I was not ready to sleep next to him when I had to spend the night in their home. He noticed my care of distancing him, but he did not stop communicating with me, continued to help me in the third grade and also in the fourth grade, until I reached the fifth grade, The headmaster of school knew from teachers about my advancement, and the need of my family. He started to help me with books, notebooks and pens himself. It appears that the headmaster noticed that his inventory of these materials was decreasing month after month, so he decided to distribute some of them to the outstanding students in need. I started to cut much of relationship with my friend Mayiz. He tried to invite me and told me that there were notebooks and pencils waiting for me in their house. but I told him that the school master gave me everything I needed. He was still my barber. I used to visit him every two months to cut my hair. He used to respect me as before and with love. He also offered me the tea that he prepares himself, even if he has another customer. Before he puts the piece of rug around my shoulders, I check it. I dare to grab it myself, approach the door of the room, shook it well several times outside the room, then meditate on it so as not to have lice. One time before, I saw five or six lice on the surface of the white clean towel after shaving a rural child. Mayiz shook the towel in the same room where we slept on the floor in the night. After that when I spend a night at their house, the first thing I did when I got back to my house, I ask mom to wash and clean my clothes and to give me a bath. I did not have many clothes, but they were only two. My mother used to wash one, while I put on the other. My parents did not buy me clothes in two years. The only two wears lived with me until my body grew a little bit then they had to buy me a new one. I was wearing it for school hours only and when I come back home, I wear from old clothes that became narrow and tight on my body. My mother may mend the wear and tear, or expand it with a cloth that is close to the original color, even if it is different.

After the farewell to the old man, Mayiz walked me around ten meters, shook hands with him then I started to move away from their house. I did not look right or left, my eyes were worried for the obstacles of the road. I heard a slight movement. I saw two skylarks hovering at low altitude and when they landed, I stopped. I walked along the wide old Ottoman road linking the village to the paved road from the west. During our trips to the school, we did not use this route, because it was about two kilometers longer. I tried to look around me. There were fig trees close to the road and olive trees. After Ottomans agreed and built the elementary school in a centered village between many villages, they established that wide road for carts and the army. Before the twentieth century, I thought that the Ottoman empire did not have cars. I tried to approach a long-standing fig tree, to stand behind its decaying trunk, watching dozens of skylarks strolling on the ground searching for food. But when I approached the fig tree, tens of Palestine's national bird the sparrow flew away from between the branches of the huge fig tree. Feeling sorry I went back to the road which became very bumpy after the demise of the Ottomans. The British replaced them in the rule of Palestine, but did not pay attention to this road. The road became invalid for cars and not even for carts, because of torrential rains and for dozens of years, made frequesnt drifts and rolling small and big stones remained across the road. I looked the watch and found that I was late for the assigned car that will transfer me to the airport. I have to walk at a fast pace. I may have to run for a minute or two as I rest. While I'm in a hurry I remember I forgot to ask Mayiz somehow what he meant by hugging and sticking to me as I was a guest at their house when I was a child.

Martin Luther King's Holiday in America this year 21/1/2019

I liked eating because it was salty, bread crumbs were soaked and easy to swallow,

Nabih Iskandar Al Hassan - The divine candlestick smiles- 4

2019-05-30T15:46:00.002+03:00

Happy

With a spray of ice for the Jin

stars

Combine the bare earth

Lightning

The glittering of the lights of the Lord is tarnished

Palm

When the bunches hung wet and left

For the breeze

The birds spawn the branch

Plastic

As a virgin son of virgin hymns

Prayers

For the lover of Danoff roams a world

The space

The prayer of love is performed by the women

Clouds

He retains the sighs of Fouad shaking him

the fog

And the sleeping hangs spread a robe

Night

It is punctuated by the horns of the bell

The eldest

The star of the morning is dancing

Lights

Nasma Ba'bak washes

The dirt

Sprayed with spray

Cloud

I drew from the depths of the sea

Wide

, Begs the candelabrum

The divine

To be left behind

the fog

, The rose will include the bee

Shamefully

Corolla swaying in tears

The bastion

, Perhaps it is picking moments from a world

Forgetting ,

But the jellyfish left and left

He is hiding them

So the bee decided to float on the sarcophagus to reap

The nectar.

A Ready- Made Scenario By Mahmood Darwish - Translated by : Dr. Mohammad Addullah Al-Mallah

2019-05-25T00:51:00.001+03:00

Let's now suppose that we :

I and the enemy ,

Fell headlong from the sky

into a pit…..

... What will happen ?

A ready-made scenario :

First we wait for luck :

Rescuers might find us here

And throw us a lifeline .

He would say : Me first .

I would say : Me first .

He would swear at me ,

then I at him .

All in vain….

The line has not arrived yet....

The scenario says :

I'll whisper to myself :

That's called the optimist's selfishness ,

Without asking what my enemy says .

I and he ,

Sharing one snare ,

are partners in the game of maybes ,

Waiting for the line... the lifeline

To head , each on his own

From the edge of the pit -- the abyss ,

Towards what has remained for us of life

And war…

If we could survive !

I and he ,

Both fearful ,

Exchange no words

About fear… .or anything else ,

For we are enemies… .

What would happen if a snake

Emerged above us here ,

Out of the scenes of this scenario ,

And hissed to devour the fearful two together ,

Me and him ?

The scenario says :

We could be accomplices in killing a snake ,

To survive together ,

Or each on his own …

But no words of thanks or congratulation would we utter

For what we did together ,

As it was only instinct defending itself ,

Not us ,

And instinct has no ideology…

We talked not .

I remembered the art of argument ,

In our shared absurdity ,

When once he said to me

-- All that I've got is mine ,

And what's yours

is mine

and yours .

And as time passed --- time : the sand , the soap bubbles ,

He broke our silence , our boredom -- What to do ? Said he .

-- Nothing , I said . Let's deplete maybes .

-- Where in hope ? said he .

-- Comes from the atmosphere ,

said I .

Then he -- Haven't you forgotten that I burried you in a pit like this ?

-- About to forget , I said , because a vacuous tommorrow

pulled me by the arm.…. and left exhausted .

-- Would you bargain with me now ? said he .

-- On what would you bargain , now ,

in this pit , this grave ?

-- On my share and that of yours ,

Of our futility and shared grave

-- What for ? said I ;

Time has run away from us

And destiny deviated from the norm ;

Here a slayer and a slain sleep in one pit ,

… . Let another poet carry on with this scenario ,

To the end .

Beautiful morning stars 3 By Nabih Iskandar Al Hassan

2019-05-25T00:36:00.001+03:00

I do not know how

She charmed me

Bassmat Star

Morning.

My heart trembled to a ringing

Her voice

A trembling like dances

Rabbit

Teaches his most efficient dance

Herbs

Smile for a star

Sobhi

Smiling to the window of the door

And windows

Smiley for a nickname landed on

scapular

Sings the love song

the lost

Dodge Maze Drops

It's dark.

I warmly accepted it in the summer of Ra'iya

Nahar.

The night scarf wraps us from the eyes

the moon .

I do not know did not count

minutes

Delayed by speed

Optical ...

Akon her love penetrated into Hnaya

My heart ?.

The worshiper even loved her

Pious

She knelt down with the barks of her people

Mias

I did the homework before

Oyster

I was disappointed

She kissed her nine times

Ninety

And a hundred eagerly

And most

Drive her through

Galaxies

She slept off a niche on a shoulder

the moon .

I want to pray swans By Nabih Iskandar Al Hassan

2019-05-22T19:49:00.001+03:00

Beautiful morning stars

I want to pray swans

the White

Above the roll of the chest

Wave

With a tenderness, the crown of the necks heats

Sunset

Some of the knights are drawn

Wedding

The wings clap the water and wobble

Head

The iris radiates and starts

Dance

God has a swan that dances violently

the sea

The most beautiful view of their heads extended

Depth

Their bodies are filled with balloons that make them back

Wind

They raise their heads after

Feast

From the generosity of the depths of the sea

Al-Tai

They are swarms of swarms

Like stars

Prepare to dance on music

The Committee

And the greetings of the sunset color the feathers

White

The birds know the hymns

Shat

And the singing of the sailors of Anjem

Beautiful morning stars By Nabih Iskandar Al Hassan

2019-05-21T23:19:00.000+03:00

Beautiful morning stars

The salt lake is full of sparks

Cheers

Half a century and letters

loss

Crystal swabs reflect the strands

Intelligence

And the birds of Qitta are thirsty

Hybrid

Warda referred to the reservoir

the damage

And the light of Taidhi

Like a mirage

The beam hunter is in pulse

Letters

You are looking for a hiding place

the days

It is a secret to himself that we can not let him divide us

Banqueting

Salt Lake live joy

The expended

And infertile sterility

Banquet Facilities

Blessed are you who have made your belly as a drum

Empty

Salt Lake uttered death

Beasts

Sings for the glittering space pilot

And gulls

A rose I drank from my papacy until

The buzz

Adele refused a palace

Khawaja

The trunk trunk of the palm tree

Her knots

The Qata Islands harbor a lake

the salt

The birth of the dawn beam

new

O lake cod fisherman

the salt

Can you restrict strings?

the light ?..

Can you shackle echo

Minds?

Can you build a wall?

For the wind?

Is it easy to prevent pollen from hugging

The flowers ??

Salt Lake refers to all that is going on from

Ruin

The sparkling rhymes of my poetry

Contracts

I did not like you not to not

Find it

But for something I waited until I passed

Sixty

No ... not at all who is not

Banquet Facilities

I do not like Bruges

And agate

I wish to enlighten my grandmother and her bread

The Moon

And the mulberry tree off my cell, and its birds

Al-Gheida

Lake salt burned

Terrorism

Her letters are wrinkled

cerebral

Her prick hurts me and hurts me

Ash

Want to memorize the builders

tomorrow

Its right to weep ashes

Character

I see her awake, and dream

The pain cries

Ashkuk's History O Hunter

Dreams

A Syrian rose, Adele to a building, Shawkiya

Iraq

Raised the banners of victory on

Terrorism

Balukamal and inside Iraq

The wounded

Did you like what happened?

the question .

FEAR by Mahmood Darweesh - Translated by Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Al-Mallah

2019-05-15T00:36:00.001+03:00

1--

Fear has the smell of carnation

on the way from spring to autumn , While we walk filled with misgivings about tomorrow : the traveller may arrive whole-bodied ,

But spring is after him .

In every metre he moves a farewell to something chasing him ;

mysterious , like the fragrance of carnation ,

And he fears as not to regain it .

2--

Fear has the colour of water , enigmatic ….

Is it molten light ,

or a mirage bathing itself ?

Nothing prevents us from interpretation but the fear

of what will follow it .

And because we're the progeny of this water ,

we fear walking in the desert and abiding on distant peaks !

3--

Fear has the taste of magical lotus

in the Greater Odyssey .

The stranger may forget his homeland

and his friend : the faiithful dog ,

His first wife ,

and take to travelling .

l fear forgetting and dread the burden of my memory on tomorrow's manuscript ; there's no me there ,

Nor here , and I fear I shall not

write

the last line of this poem !!

4--

Fear has the sound of the flute , drilling in rock and setting

the valleys into dancing ,

Not out of happiness or sadness .

But yearning is yearning , and the Sufi's sigh :

The distant becomes within reach

if he sees a divine halo ,

And the nearby becomes distant

I fear the sound of the flute dividing me into two :

the air and the sole opening of the reed .

5 --

Fear has the touch of a fox , beguiling ;

We know not whether the foxes tame us , or we them ,

We fear the appeal of all mysterious things , and love them to realize

the unknown .

But I fear my way of feeling the pulse of the cosmos .

At times I fear for me from others ,

And always fear my runaway self .

6 --

Fear hurts : a shake in the knees ,

Rapid turning to all sides ,

A cramp in the belly and muscles , Lack of air and space ,

Dry throat and ,

a drop in dignity and temperature ,

And ceilings and walls teeming with ghosts ,

Speeding then slowing then speeding ,

A rise in the soul's activity to remain stubborn !

7 --

Fear has many a name ,

Of which is " not to fear "

and to see the hunter

in the feather of the game .

Until further notice By / safaa fawzy - Egypte

2019-02-09T19:36:00.001+03:00

As usual I came late

I realized now that I love you

Yes you...

I kept looking for you for life

To find you here with my heart and soul

Now that it is too late

After I was unable to meet

And deprived us of our dreams

Why have you come and gone?

Life of any pulse

Why did every dream come back with you?

And all safety and warmth and tenderness

I've been searching for you for a long time

A long time ago he was .. ..

But it is my fate and I am wrong

I leaked out of my hands

I did not feel you and loved you

Now announce my defeat before your eyes

I declare my thoughts and thoughts together

I really lost you, I wanted a father and a brother

A friend and a lover searched here and there

You are here before me and finally I found you

After you deprive us of everything

If only you could learn my joy by meeting you

I returned to my smile and happiness

My moments with you as a treasure I saved

Yesterday to continue in my battles

Today I see you a quarter of a century since we left

I wished I could not see you

She found me with you and found you with my heart quivering

But I found others with your heart and your life

She is not me .. she is you and you are her

I am without you...

It is your life and love and hold you and your treachery

I was a day in your heart and I remembered my memory

But you were not ... and became universal

Suddenly she found me implicated in you soaked in you

As usual, I dream of the impossible and I am in pain

I loved your happiness .. love .. your dedication ..

Your family .. I wish I were with you ..

Part of some of your interests ..

I wish I had a dream

Or anything I wish I was passing by

I saw her with that warm, tender eye

If you know how much I miss you ..

I cry ... It collapsed every night .. I miss you

I look forward to your picture ...

Followed by groans ... never ending

As a dream I was an impossible dream ..

As always my dream and the most important mirage

I see you now hold her hands and accept her love

She and your family embrace it with warmth

The warmth you wished for the tenderness that

I dreamed of him and missed him always ...

I came back to you and wish you happiness

You deserve more and more

But I deserve nothing but pain

I will never forget you will remain between me and my son

It will remain my dream

I will always dream of you ... and never

And even another notice

Crying hearts By Safa Fawzy Al - Nozhi - Egypt

2019-01-17T19:07:00.001+03:00

And when the hearts weep, everything is silent

Have you ever heard of crying hearts? !

Have you ever tried it? Do not believe that hearts cry?

Do you know when to cry?

She cries when she is overwhelmed, humiliated or humiliated by the nearest relatives, crying when Aziz dies,

Or hurt Ghali, crying when dealing honestly and spontaneously, and find only lies and deceit and negligence and hypocrisy, and bad faith and suspicion and treachery

They cry when you rejoice at their joy, grieve for their grief, find them rejoice for your grief, cry when you go to them eagerly, meet coldly and ignore, cry when your friends turn to enemies, when your relatives turn to strangers, when you fail again and again.

Then cry hearts, and a cry of hearts,

It is a heart fracture, a crumb of soul, a crumb of soul that makes you hate the world and what it is, but it loses you the joy of life, becomes a body, breathes, breathes pain, drinks compulsively, and takes pills of forgetfulness, but do not forget their treachery and neglect. Alive

Before you fight the battle of life, shake your passion

And stripped of your humanity, and threw your heart in the absence of the pit, and be warned to be picked up one of the car, not be emotionally stupid, life is rational, be reasonable insane

The Art of Photography By Eric Kim

2019-01-15T17:22:00.001+03:00

Dear friend,

I want to share you practical tips, insights, and advice on how to be a more ‘artistic’ photographer.

1. Is photography art?

Yes.

For me, art is creating things out of your imagination and soul. Whoever says that photography isn’t art is a pretentious asshole.

2. Why do you shoot photos?

First of all, one of the things you want to ask yourself is this:

“Why do I take photos?”

By asking yourself this question, you have a deeper understanding whyyou click the shutter. By answering this question, you find meaning, purpose, and direction in your photography.

For example, I take photos because it helps me truly connect with a deeper level with the world. Without a camera-in-hand, I am another zombie on their smartphone. I fail to notice and appreciate the beauty of everyday life around me.

However when I have my camera in my hand, and I can feel the weight of the camera in my hand, I look around and actively look for photo opportunities. By actively seeking photo opportunities, I feel the sensitivity of my eyes go up. I can perceive colors, shapes, forms, and gestures on a deeper level.

When I’m really ‘in the zone’ in street photography, I can notice every gesture, facial expression of people on the streets. I feel connected with the streets. I lose a sense of myself, and I feel like I’m on a different level.

Not only that, but I take photos because I am trying to encapsulate my love for those I photograph.

If I am only remembered for one photo project after I die, it will be the ‘Cindy Project’ — photographing the love of my life with all of my heart and soul. I hope not only to photograph Cindy, but to photograph the feeling I have for her. And I hope this project can inspire others to photograph their loved ones with as much tenderness and compassion. Because we don’t know when our loved ones will die. Photographing your loved ones is to think about death.

3. What makes photography different from painting or other arts?

First of all, in photography — you have to deal with physical atoms, shapes, and forms in the real world.

A painter can sit down, and simply imagine his environment or final painting. The painter can choose whatever colors, tools, or materials to create what is in their mind.

In photography, we are a little more enslaved to our environment. Without the right subject, the right background, light, or color — we can’t make images.

Some photographers pre-visualize their photos before shooting them. Richard Avedon once had a dream of photographing an albino man, with bees all around him. When he woke up, he sketched it, then put out an advertisement looking for an albino man. Then he photographed it.

Other photographers (myself included) — we don’t know what we’re looking for until we see it. For example, I often wander the streets, camera-in-hand, just being open to any opportunities.

I feel especially in the art of street photography — the secret is to make yourself malleable, flexible, and fluid like water. If you close off any of your options, you will not be as reactive, and you will miss out a lot of street photography opportunities.

4. What is your style?

Going back to the point at hand, each photographer has his or her subject-matter. Some of us like to photograph landscapes, some of us like to photograph our families, some of us like to photograph strangers, some of us like to photograph buildings, and some of us like to photograph ourselves.

As for me, I don’t think you should limit your subject-matter as a photographer. I think it is dangerous to over-specialize in your photography. Because you lose creative energy and steam.

For example, when I was too focused on street photography, I became frustrated. When I wasn’t in a busy city with an exciting downtown area, I felt I couldn’t make any photos. Being frustrated, I soon discovered the best subject to photograph — Cindy, the love of my life. Then I started to pursue ‘Personal Photography’ with full zeal and enthusiasm.

Now my style is a combination of photographing my loved ones (personal photography), strangers on the street (street photography), and I’ve actually been shooting more landscapes and nature. I don’t want to define myself anymore. If a person on the street asks me what I like to shoot, I usually say ‘Street Photography’ (because it is easier). But personally, I don’t even define myself as a photographer anymore. Because I don’t want to limit myself to just one medium — I want to draw inspiration from Jazz and Hip Hop music, from the impressionist painters, from the ancient Greek and roman poets, and from sculpture, dance, and theater.

5. Don’t specialize in your photography

So in the art of photography, my suggestion is this: don’t specialize in your photography. Be open to any opportunities photographically. Photograph anything that draws your eyes.

I still do believe if you want to commercially make photography your living, it is good to be a specialist. Then once you master your one field of specialization, then you can branch out. For me, I started off as a generalist photographer, then started to specialize in street photography. Then people began to know who I was. I built a career for myself, teaching workshops specializing on street photography. But now, I am starting to branch out of street photography — focusing on other forms of photography. Now I see all photography as photography — I wish I knew this sooner.

6. What camera should I shoot with?

My suggestion with camera choices: use the simplest, smallest, most compact, and ‘frictionless’ camera.

That might be a point and shoot camera, or your smartphone. It can even be a larger camera— anything that fits and suits you well.

“Not every shoe fits every foot.”

When you’re starting off in photography, you’re going to need to experiment with different cameras to figure out what fits you.

But after my personal experiences, the bigger your camera is, the less-likely you are to bring it with you everywhere you go, the fewer photos you are going to shoot, and the more frustrated you will be in your photography.

So my practical advice is this: optimize for a smaller camera, lighter camera, and more flexible camera whenever possible.

This advice can be given to any other form of artist. Artists often over-obsess about their equipment. The same happens with writers (what pen or paper should I write with?), it happens with painters (should I use acrylics or oil paint?), it happens with musicians (should I play electric or acoustic?). But with every art form, the simpler the tool, the better.

I know for me as a writer, I try to use the simplest writing tool possible. For my writing app, I use an app that is full-screen, has no other distractions, and just focuses on typing.

7. What makes my photography unique?

To start off, because you shot the photo, the photo is unique.

However, just because your photo is unique doesn’t mean it is a good photograph.

So in a sense, being a ‘unique’ photographer is overrated. You can take a commonly photographed subject (let’s say the Subway) — but you can make it great. It doesn’t matter how original or novel your idea— what matters the most is the execution of your images.

8. How to make better photos

In order to make better photos, you need to shoot with more soul.

That is what is lacking in today’s photography. There is too much emphasis on technical settings; rather than photographing with emotions and soul.

In photography, put your entire body, mind, and soul when you are shooting. Don’t over-complicate it. Don’t try to be too clever when you’re shooting.

What you should aim for is to create more authentic, personal, and transparent photos. Your photos should reflect who you are as a human being.

And of course, if you want to make good photos — you need to learn how to make good compositions.

To make good compositions is to have fewer distractions, less noise, and more ‘signal.’ Which means, when you’re shooting, try to make your photos as simple as possible. The simpler your compositions, the more emphasis you can put in the emotion and soul in your photos.

9. Limit your palette

If you want to keep your photos simpler, limit your palette. Start off in black and white, because it is the simplest form of photography. You can only focus on the blacks, the whites, and the grey in-between. By focusing in black and white photography, you will be able to focus more on composition, hand-gestures, body language, the light, shadows, reflections, and forms.

Then when you start to advance in your photography, I recommend picking up color photography. Because color is another variable which complicates your photography. With color, you have different shades, hues, intensities, luminance, and contrast. It is a whole new bag of worms.

Even when you shoot color photography, keep your palette and colors pretty simple. Nature prefers simple colors. You see green trees, with red fruit (so it is easy for animals to see the fruit). You see blue water, with some orange flowers sprouting out of the water.

You see animals that are colorful, yet limited in color. Peacocks are mostly green and blue. Tigers are mostly orange, black, and white.

Even when we see sunrises and sunsets— the hues are pretty much in harmony. Either there are mostly warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) — or there are mostly cool colors (blue, purple, green).

10. Dynamism in photography

To make better photos, you also want to make more dynamic compositions.

If you look at nature, there are no straight lines. Trees grow in a fractal pattern, which means they split out into smaller sub-forms in a “V” pattern.

Try to create compositions in your photography with curved lines. Or if you can’t find curved lines, try to incorporate more diagonals in your photos.

If you put a ball on a horizontal surface, it will not move. If you put a ball on a diagonal surface, it will roll, and gather speed. A diagonal line is easy to topple and push over. If we learn from physics, it can help our composition.

11. Eyes are the windows to the soul

In photography — if you’re photographing people, remember: eyes are the windows to the soul.

If you look at the last few thousand years, most portraits of human beings focus on the eyes. Either having the eyes look straight at the viewer, or off into the distance.

In real life, when we make eye contact with someone else, it is intimate, and often scary. If you make eye contact with a stranger, it can be a provocation or a threat. If you make eye contact with a loved one, it can sometimes cause someone (you or the other person) to cry.

As human beings, we are programmed to be drawn to eye contact. It is what kept us alive for thousands of years.

Even if we’re sitting in a public place, we can literally feelsomeone looking at us. I know personally, if I’m sitting at a coffee shop, minding my own business, maybe reading a book — I can feel someone looking at me (through my peripheral vision). My shoulders tense up, and the corners of my eyes twitch. I feel uncomfortable, and I have to turn around and look at the person.

So in your photography, if you want to make more intense images, make sure your subject looks straight into your lens. When I’m shooting portraits, I often ask my subjects: “Stare into the lens and don’t smile.” To capture more authentic portraits, don’t force them to smile. If you want a genuine smile, it is better to tell them a joke, or ask them to think of a pleasant memory— then start taking more photos.

12. Take a lot of photos

“Sometimes you need to milk the cow a lot to get a little bit of cheese.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson

One of the biggest misconceptions in photography is that you should only take 1 photo of the scene. While some photographers like William Eggleston use this technique, I think it is impractical for almost everybody else.

The more photos we shoot, the more likely we are to hit a home run. Very rarely is the first shot is the best shot.

Even if you look at the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson (the master of photography) — he shot many different photos of a scene. He would then choose the “decisive moment” after he shot a series of photographs.

Nobody can predict the future. Therefore when I’m shooting a scene, I often discover the composition and the ‘decisive moment’ while I’m in the process of shooting. The saying: “I don’t know what I want until I see it” rings true.

13. Push yourself 25% more

When you’re taking photos of a scene, another practical tip: try to shoot 25% more than you think you should.

I have a practical rule for myself:

When I think I ‘got’ the photo; I don’t. Then I need to shoot 25% more than I think I should.

Many of my best photos happen after I push myself. Many of my best photos happen on the last frame.

The mistake all of us make in photography is we quit too soon. This doesn’t only apply in photography; it applies to life. We quit our businesses too soon, before we turn a profit. As runners, we quit too soon — just when we are in-sight of the finish line. When we are climbing a mountain, we often quit before we make it to the summit.

So friend, don’t quit too early in your photography. Don’t become easily discouraged. Keep pressing forward. If you want to climb a steep mountain, you need to learn forward.

Also when you’re photographing a scene, I recommend shooting bothhorizontal (landscape) and vertical (portrait) photos. You often don’t know which will work better, until you go home and inspect your photos afterwards.

14. Focus on the edges

The best compositional tip I can give is this: focus on your edges when you’re shooting. Keep your edges as clean as possible. And make sure to get close enough to your subject, to fill the frame.

15. Get closer

Often in photography, we are too far from our subjects. Either too far physically, or too far emotionally.

You can get closer in your photos by using your feet. I am a big fan of ‘foot zoom.’

You can get closer to your subjects emotionally by engaging with them. If you’re photographing your subject, talk to them. Have a conversation with them. Ask them for their life story, their hopes, their dreams, or ambitions. Start off by opening up yourself— share your secrets, and make yourself naked. Then they will open up to you deeper, and then reveal parts of their soul which you can capture in your photos.

16. Creative constraints

I know my biggest deterrent in my photography is that I made too many excuses. My gear wasn’t good enough. My city wasn’t interesting enough. I didn’t have enough free time.

In reality, it is our constraints which help us be more creative.

If we are constrained in terms of our free-time; we don’t waste our free time.

If we are constrained in terms of our gear; we learn how to make the best out of our camera, which pushes us to innovate.

If we are constrained in terms of our city; we learn how to make the most interesting photos in a boring place.

The more I think about it — innovation is bred from necessity. Hunger is what drives us to move. Necessity is what pushes us to become more resourceful. Often the best entrepreneurs are born from refugee, immigrant, or poor families. Why? Because they were born hungry, and had to learn how to be resourceful.

Think about it— who is more creative: a kid who was born with an iPad, or a kid who has to make their own toys out of cardboard boxes?

17. Consistency and variety

In the art of photography; the two things you are trying to balance between is consistency and variety.

With consistency, you need to make your photos look consistent to build a certain style. That means, shoot all your photos in black and white, or color. Or only shoot in one city or area. Or only shoot one kind of subject-matter.

Yet if you did the same exact thing everyday for the rest of your life, you would want to die. Therefore, we need variety.

How can we integrate variety with consistency? We can integrate variety by blending it with consistency.

For example, you can have variety in terms of the different photo projects you have. When you start a new photo project, decide how you will be consistent within that project. So for one photo project, you can shoot it all in black and white film. The next photo project, you shoot it all in color with a digital camera.

Or let’s say you want to photograph a photo-project on men wearing suits. You can be consistent by photographing only men in suits, but you can have variety by photographing them in different areas, situations, and with different compositions.

Or perhaps you can be consistent in terms of where you photograph (let’s say one square block in your city). The variety can be that you shoot any type of subject matter you find interesting (buildings, trees, people, stuff you find on the ground, etc).

Or, you can be consistently inconsistent. Meaning, if you work on a photo project, you can intentionally alternate between color and black and white photos. You show a pattern through your inconsistency.

18. Pattern recognition

As humans, we are pattern-recognition machines. It is a mental shortcut for us to understand the world around us.

Therefore if your style is too random and all-over-the-place; nobody will pay attention to you. Because you have no consistency.

As Seneca said: strive to be the same person from the beginning of the play until the end of the play. But perhaps if you start a new play in your life, you can take on a different role.

A practical suggestion: stick with one camera, one lens, and only black and white for an entire year. And perhaps you can focus on only shooting street portraits for a year. I believe in concrete, focused goals in order to make progress.

Then the next year, you can experiment shooting color photography — and pursue some other project.

19. When to be flexible

In photography, you also want to be flexible. My suggestion: think of yourself like a captain of a ship. You know your general destination, but you need to adjust the direction of your ship based on the weather. Your goal as a captain is to reach a certain point on the map, but you’re going to have to change course depending on whether there is a storm, whether your boat has a leak in it, or whether some other interruptions occur.

Similarly, trees are born pliant, flexible, and soft when they’re small and first born. When trees die, they are brittle, and hard.

I also like the analogy of bamboo— bamboo is strong, yet flexible.

Therefore be strong in your vision, but flexible with your details in your photography, and photo-projects.

20. How to train your eyes

If you want to become a great photographer, you need to train your eyes. You need to train your eyes, like you train your muscles.

The photographer Jay Maisel calls it ‘visual push-ups.’ You can do a visual push-up by looking at great art. Looking at great photos from the masters of photography, or by looking at other visual artists. I know for myself, I gain the biggest inspiration from studying master photographers from the past, Renaissance painters, ancient sculptors, interior decorators, fashion designers, and by mother nature herself.

You are also what you eat. If you constantly consume McDonalds and Coca Cola, you will become obese, contract diabetes, and perhaps die. If you want to become strong and fit, you want to abstain from sugar, simple carbohydrates, and processed foods.

The same is with your visual health. You will ruin your visual health if you spend too much time looking at things on social media, advertisements, and crap.

As bountiful physical health comes from a variety of food sources, a strong visual health will come from a variety of visual inspirational sources.

Only consume the best.

21. Time either improves or extinguishes

In photography, time is your best counselor.

For example, there are certain photos I like more as time goes on. There are also certain photos I start to hate more as time goes on.

The photos that improve with time are your good photos, and should be kept. The photos that disintegrate with time are your bad photos, and should be deleted.

I like to call this process “marination.” The idea is that with good steaks, the longer you let your meat marinate, the better it will taste. Of course, there is a limit to this in the food analogy.

Another analogy is letting things ferment. The longer you let Kimchi marinate (up to a certain point), the better it will taste. The same goes with beer, wine, and other fermented-goods.

So if you’re not sure whether your photo is good or not, just sit on your photos. Don’t be eager to upload a photograph too quickly to social media. It is like serving a half-cooked steak to your guest. Or it is like picking a fruit before it is ripe.

22. All killer, no filler

Less is more. More is less.

The fewer photos you share with others, the better. You only want to share the ‘creme de la crop’ — the best of the best.

You are only as good as your weakest photograph. Just like a chain is only as strong as the weakest link.

I’ve often looked at photo projects which have 19 incredible images, but 1 really bad photo. That 1 bad photo ruins the entire project. It is like how one rotten egg can spoil the bunch.

When you’re working on a photo series, focus on which photos to subtract— rather than what to add. Start off with 50 images or so, and then edit it down to 40 images, then 30 images, then 20 images, and perhaps only 10 images.

If you think about our entire lives as photographers, we will be lucky if we’re remembered for just 1 photo, or 1 photo project. But if you achieve that goal— you’ve done your job as a photographer.

Leonardo Da Vinci is only remembered for the Mona Lisa. The photographer Nick Ut is remembered for ‘Napalm girl.’ Henri Cartier-Bresson is remembered for the guy jumping over the puddle. Every great artist in history has their own ‘Magnum Opus’ (great work) that they are remembered for. But it is rarely only 1 which is remembered (except perhaps Homer, who is remembered for both the Illiad and the Odyssey).

23. Shoot if today were your last

In the art of photography, death is our best motivator. If you shoot each day as if it were your last, you will never have any regrets in your photography.

There is no better time for you to be a photographer than now.

So why hesitate and delay? What guarantee do you have that you will live to see tomorrow? Who knows if you will get hit by a drunk driver, whether you shall get some rare form of cancer, whether you have a heart attack in your sleep, or whether you slip on the streets and crack open your skull?

Don’t delay being a photographer. Don’t wait until you go on that traveling trip next year. Don’t wait until you retire. Don’t wait until you move to a different city.

Photograph your surroundings. Photograph your own life. Photograph yourself.

An easy photo project you can do is a ‘day in the life’ (of your life). Photograph your morning routine. Start off by going to bed with your camera on your bedside. Wake up, grab your camera, and photograph your ceiling, or your loved one on your side. Then photograph the view from your window. Photograph your morning coffee, photograph during your commute to work, photograph at your job, photograph your lunch break, photograph on your commute back home, and photograph your evening with your loved one. And if you have nobody else to photograph, photograph yourself— in the mirror, your shadow, or just shoot a selfie.

The only way to be a better photographer is to increase the sensitivity of your eyes. To realize that each moment is a potentially beautiful and precious moment. To not take anything for granted.

The greatest photographer can make an ordinary scene extraordinary. Poor photographers make ordinary photos of extraordinary things.

24. How to steel your courage in photography

One of the most important things in photography is to build a steel spine.

Courage is your backbone in your photography. Courage is what will help you have the guts to take the photo. Courage is what will give you the self-confidence to share your work with others. Courage is what will help you take risks in your photography, in your journey of self-greatness.

To steel your spine in photography, know that you have nothing to fear but death itself. All of our irrational human fears stem from death, and the fear of pain. For example, we are afraid of shooting street photography because we are afraid of pissing people off, having them physically assault us, or to have strangers (possibly) kill us.

We are afraid of ‘putting ourselves out there’ in terms of sharing our photos, because we are afraid of begin negatively judged. We are afraid of being negatively judged, because we fear being ostracized by our peers, getting fired from our jobs, becoming homeless, and dying on the streets.

But the best antidote is to imagine the worst, and to not fear death. Don’t fear becoming homeless, don’t fear pain, and don’t fear dying. If you take a photo of a stranger, they will not kill you. If you share a photo online, the worst that will happen is that nobody will respond or ‘like’ your photo. If you want to pursue being a full-time photographer, the worst that will happen is that you will have to get a barista job to pay the bills (which actually isn’t a horrible back-up plan).

Another tip — expect to be criticized, and judged negatively. If anything, this is the only way you can measure your personal ‘success.’ The more people who hate your work, the more successful you have become. For example, if you are a nobody— nobody will criticize your work. William Eggleston first gained renown when he exhibited his color photos at the NY MOMA — and everyone hated his work. Daido Moriyama made a name for himself once people started to criticize his high-contrast, gritty, out-of-focus photos. Millions have called The Beatles ‘overrated.’

Also to have more confidence in your photography, know that photography is your duty. You were born to put out beautiful and inspirational images. You’re not just shooting for yourself— you’re photographing for others.

If it weren’t for you, who would have a document of your local town? If it weren’t for you, who would have a document of your family and loved ones? If it weren’t for you — who would appreciate the beauty of everyday life?

By knowing that photography is your duty, you elevate yourself. Your photography isn’t a selfish act— it is for the greater good.

25. Beginner’s mind / Child’s mind

One of the best ways to stay creative for your entire life is to embrace ‘beginner’s mind’ or ‘child’s mind.’

A child is born as a beginner. A beginner has no concepts, theories, or ideas about art. Yet each child is born as an artist.

When we are kids, we take the paper and throw colors onto it. We create art with our soul, without any self-censorship. We don’t do it for the sake of making money, for gaining fame, or notoriety. We create art because it is fun.

I used to take my photography too seriously; which was a serious impediment to my progress. When I started off as a beginner, I just photographed for fun. This is when I was the most creative, and this is when I had the most motivation. I photographed for myself, and to share my photos with a few friends.

26. Create for yourself

Don’t shoot for an audience; shoot for yourself.

It is impossible to know what kind of photographers others would like. But it is easy to know what kind of photos that you like.

I used to be addicted to social media— worrying whether my photos would get a lot of likes. I would ‘crowd-source my self esteem’ by counting the success of my photos based on how many likes I got. But I started to realize that I became a slave to the opinion of others. I no longer shot for myself; I shot for others.

I therefore took a break from social media. I stopped uploading my photos online, and started to only focus on myself. I would make photos, and then look at them and ask myself:

“Do I like this photo?”

Without worrying about what others might think.

Ultimately, you are the most difficult person to please. And you are the most important person to please.

What if you had a photo that got a million likes, but you hated the photo? Would it be worth it? Or consider the photo that you love, but nobody else likes. I still think your own opinion is more important than the opinion of the masses.

I still think it is good to get honest feedback and critique from others, just to understand how others see your photos. But at the same time, take their opinions into consideration— but don’t listen to their opinion blindly. Listen to your own conscience before the opinions of others.

A practical tip to judge your own photos — if you saw your own photo in the social media stream of someone else — would you ‘like’ the photo, or share it with someone else?

27. You are not your photos

A lot of us falter in our photography because we over-commit ourselves to photography. We take our photos too personally. We think we are our photos.

Therefore when people criticize our photos, we feel like they’re criticizing us as human beings. Just because someone doesn’t like your photos, doesn’t mean that they don’t like you.

For example, if someone calls your photo “shit” — they aren’t calling you a shitty person. You are separate from your photos.

Therefore after you take a photo, remember: it no longer belongs to you.

Not only that, but don’t refer to your photos as “your” photos. Rather, call them “the” photos. This will help distance yourself from your own work— and judge them more objectively.

When you judge your own photos; imagine like you’re judging someone else’s photos. Be your own best self-critic.

28. Avoid boredom

A child stops playing if they’re bored. The same should be in our photography — don’t shoot if you’re bored. You want to have fun, or else it becomes a job.

How to avoid boredom in your photography? Pursue a different photo project. Choose a different medium for making images (switch to shooting film, to your smartphone, or switch to black-and-white). Perhaps shoot a different part of town, or start shooting a different subject-matter.

Excitement and curiosity should drive your forward progress in your photography. You should never ‘force’ your photography — it should be effortless. Only shoot when you feel like it, or else your photos will have no enthusiasm or soul.

29. Should I shoot everyday?

It depends.

Some people are motivated when they do something everyday. Some of us don’t feel the same way.

For example, I don’t write everyday. But I have been able to stay quite prolific throughout the last decade. The same in my photography — I generally shoot everyday, but there have been times I haven’t shot everyday. And I’ve still made a handful of photos I’m proud of.

Constant toil will kill us. We all need rest, in order to recover.

If you feed a plant too much water, it will die. If soil has too much nutrients, your crops won’t grow. If you exercise the same muscle everyday, your muscles will never have a chance to recover, and grow stronger.

Sometimes we need creative breaks from our photography, in order to re-inspire our photography. If you’re lacking inspiration in your photography, don’t force yourself to go out and start shooting again. Pick up another art. Pick up poetry, pick up painting, singing, dancing, or sculpture.

I know for me, my biggest inspirations from photography come from outside of photography. I gain inspiration from hip hop music, through ancient Stoic philosophy, from Zen Buddhism, and powerlifting. Like a bee, I skip from flower to flower, collecting different pollen — and eventually, I create my own honey which is comprised of different sources.

You know yourself better than anybody else. So shoot everyday if it suits your personality; and don’t shoot everyday if it doesn’t suit your personality.

30. How to make good habits in your photography

If you indeed want to take more photos, perhaps on a daily basis— know that you are your habits.

What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Check your cell phone, or your email, or your social media?

What do you do when you’re eating? Do you check your phone, or actually eat your food?

What websites do you check on a daily basis? What foods are you accustomed to eating? What albums do you regularly listen to?

Habits probably make up more than 80% of our day. We are like grooves in a record player. Time creates grooves, and once we create these grooves, it is hard to carve new grooves.

Or another analogy — when a tree starts to grow in a certain direction, it is hard to change the direction. But the good thing is, you can change the direction where a tree grows (by creating support, by binding the branches, or by changing the light source).

The same is in our photography. We should strive to build good habits in our photography, based on our goals.

For example, if your goal is indeed to shoot more photos, figure out how you can make a habit of having your camera ready as often as possible. Perhaps your habit can be to always have your camera in your front pocket, or better yet, in your hand.

Or let’s say you want to make it a habit to study more great photography. Perhaps keep a photo book on your breakfast table, and you will always look at a few photos when you’re having your morning coffee. Or keeping a photo book by your bedside, so you can go to sleep looking at great photos, before sleeping.

If you want to make it a habit to not always check social media, uninstall social media apps from your phone, and only check it on your laptop.

We all know what our bad habits are. Therefore, we need to learn how to change our environment to change our habits.

For me, I am easily distracted by blogs and websites that prevent me from writing. Therefore, I ‘tie myself to the mast’ like Ulysses, through pre-commitment. I know that I am lured by distracting websites (like the Sirens), therefore I install website blocker plugins on my browser, and block distracting websites. I can only focus by removing distractions.

If you find it hard to have time to make photos, figure out how you can change your daily routine. Perhaps you can leave to work 15 minutes earlier, and use that time to snap a few photos. Perhaps you can stop having lunch at your computer desk in your office, and use those 30 minutes to walk around and snap some photos. Perhaps you can take a different route home from work everyday, and you can use that to inspire yourself to make photos. Perhaps you can take photos on your subway or bus commute to work or back home. Or if you’re stuck in a car, take photos (carefully) when you’re stuck in traffic.

If you have a hard time staying inspired in your photography, perhaps you can start listening to photography podcasts when you’re heading to work. When you’re bored at work, don’t waste time looking at social media or distracting websites, use that time to study the work of the master photographers.

Become the photographer you want by changing your habits. And there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ habits in your photography. Just change your environment to become the photographer you want to become.

31. Light in photography

Photography means ‘painting with light.’ Without light, photography wouldn’t be possible.

To start off, there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ light in photography. There are different qualities of light — harsh, soft, or directional. There is also natural light and artificial light. You can shoot without a flash, or with a flash.

It doesn’t matter what kind of light you use. What matters is what kind of emotion and mood you’re trying to evoke in your photos.

If you want darker, more mysterious photos, under-expose your photos, and emphasize the darks and shadows in your photos. If you want softer, more intimate photos, photograph your subjects by a window — to give them softer natural light.

If you want more edgy photos, photograph your subjects with a flash (either on-camera, or external).

Whoever says that natural light is the best light is talking silly talk. I like to control my light, not to be the slave of the light.

The biggest liberation I got in my photography when I started to shoot with a flash. Because this allowed me to shoot whenever I wanted. Before hand, I could only shoot when the light was ‘good’ (golden hour, when the sun rises, and when the sun sets).

Once again, there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ light — there are just different types of light.

But you still want to be aware of the light. You want to be aware where the light is coming from. Or if you use a flash, you need to know the correct technical settings to create the type of images you want.

The biggest suggestion I would give you regarding light is to just experiment. Learn how to see the light, by photographing at different times in the day. Learn the temperature of the light, by photographing at sunrise, by photographing under fluorescent lighting, by photographing your subjects next to a window, and by photographing at sunset, and once the sun goes down.

32. Perspective

In photography, you want to control your perspective to create a different type of mood in your photos.

For example, you can photograph your subjects from a low-perspective, by crouching down, by lying on your back, or keeping your camera on the ground. This will make your subjects look ‘larger than life’ — or as they call it, the ‘superman effect.’ By photographing people from a lower angle, you make them look bigger, stronger, and more grand.

If you photograph your subjects from a high perspective, you make your subjects smaller. Imagine the ultimate perspective— photographing from a tall building, looking down, making your subjects look like tiny ants.

We often don’t know what the best perspective is when we’re shooting, so the practical tip is this: switch up your perspectives.

For example, if you’re photographing a subject, take many photos from different angles. Shoot crouching. Shoot by taking a step to the left, or the right. Ask your subject to move. Or stand on top of a chair, and photograph them looking down.

33. Focal lengths

The focal length you use in photography will change how your photos look.

For example, if you photograph with a wide-angle lens (generally 28mm-35mm), whatever is on the edges of your frame will become stretched out, distorted, and seem longer than they are in real life.

The longer your lens (50mm-200mm) the more you “compress” the scene. You lose depth in your photos. All of the elements in your photo look like they are on the same visual plane.

Generally the wider your lens, the more intimate your photos feel. It gives a wider field-of-view, which makes your viewer feel like they’re part of the scene. This is why in street photography, I generally recommend using a 35mm lens, or a lens wider than 35mm. This puts the viewer in your shoes.

However traditionally in model or portrait photography, they use longer lenses (85mm-200mm+), because it makes their faces look smaller, and doesn’t stretch out their facial features. Many individuals think this looks more ‘flattering.’

But ultimately, there is no ‘best’ lens for photography. You just need to think of what kind of effect or mood you’re trying to create in your photos.

For example, I shoot much of my portraits at 28mm mode, sometimes from 20cm away. This exaggerates their facial features; but I am trying to create a surreal-looking face. Therefore the 28mm lens works well for me.

If you want to shoot a landscape, and make the sun, mountains, and foreground look like they’re all part of the same focal plane, you might want to use a 200-300mm lens.

But the ultimate suggestion I will give you to become a great photographer is this: stick with one focal length for a long time. This will allow you to truly internalize, and understand a lens.

For example, I shot with only a 35mm lens from when I was 18 years old until I was 28 years old. This allowed me to know how a photograph looked before I even brought up my camera to my eye. I could quickly compose on the go.

Using one camera, one lens is a good example of a ‘creative constraint.’ You force yourself to become resourceful and innovative based on the limitations of your equipment. Zoom lenses tend to make us lazy.

For 90% of photographers, I recommend a 35mm ‘full-frame equivalent’ focal length. Because it is the ultimate versatile lens. If you’re too far away, take a step closer and use ‘foot zoom.’ If your subject is too close, just take a few steps back. apparently the human eye is around a 40mm focal length. So 35mm (gives you a little more room) is generally ideal to give you more flexibility.

But once again, that is just my opinion. Experiment with different lenses, and figure out what best suits your eye.

34. Never stop painting

The last point I want to leave with you is this — the art of photography is baring your soul to your audience. It means to inspire yourself with the very marrow of life.

It means to never take anything for granted. It means to never stop creating, and never to stop capturing the beauty of the world around you.

Never stop painting with your camera. Treat yourself like a child with a camera, and you will never lack inspiration.

Always, Eric

Hanoi, 2017

Photography

2019-01-15T16:56:00.000+03:00

Photography

Why Read George Eliot? By Paula Marantz Cohen

2019-01-15T14:29:00.001+03:00

In 1873, when George Eliot was at the height of her fame, she accepted an invitation to visit the critic F. W. H. Myers at Cambridge. He describes the most dramatic moment during their meeting as follows: “Taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of men,—the words of God, Immorality, and Duty,—[she] pronounced, with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the first, how unbelievable the second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the third.”

Although Eliot’s successors, the Edwardians, would snicker at such “terrible earnestness,” the statement goes to the heart of Eliot’s greatness. Spiritual belief had begun to ebb during the Victorian era; what was there to replace it? Matthew Arnold in “Dover Beach” wistfully invokes love as the raft to cling to. But Eliot presents a more practical solution. Her novels explore how the cultivation of moral character can serve as a source of meaning, even in the absence of a belief in God.

Eliot began her career with all sorts of obstacles in her way: she was not rich; she was not pretty; she had no pedigree or social standing. She broke with her family and scandalized her society by choosing to live with a married man, George Henry Lewes, whose wife refused to divorce him. She wrote and developed as a writer even at a time when women were discouraged from intellectual work (hence the assumption of her pen name, George Eliot, in place of her real one, Marian Evans).

What is especially impressive about Eliot’s literary career is the way it continually widened in scope as new projects provided more room for the exercise of her intellect and imagination. She began by doing translations of German philosophy and theology, “soul-stupefying work” that nonetheless taught her respect for the meticulousness required for good writing. She then moved to editing and reviewing, staying in the shadow of others but becoming versed in contemporary issues and literary styles. Finally, she began writing fiction—first short stories, then novels.

Among her most notable early novels is the autobiographical The Mill on the Floss (1860), which is both a Wordsworthian paean to childhood joy and an unsettling exploration of childhood trauma. Her big books—Henry James would refer to them as her “baggy Monsters”— came a few years later: Romola (1863), a monumental historical novel, exploring the religious and artistic ferment of 15th-century Florence, and Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), a background of the British labor movement of the 1830s. Her most important novels were her two final ones—Middlemarch (1871–72), a sprawling anatomy of English society, and Daniel Deronda (1874–76), an attempt to reach beyond English society to embrace larger issues of identity and nationalism.

Middlemarch, which I will discuss later at greater length, established Eliot’s place as the foremost literary figure of her age; Daniel Deronda tested her reputation by raising issues that many of her readers preferred to ignore. Deronda is an English aristocrat who discovers midway through the novel that he was born a Jew. With this personal revelation comes a more general awareness of British intolerance, and this prompts him, at the end of the book, to leave England for Palestine.

When the novel appeared, many readers were offended by the idea of a Jewish hero and by the criticism of Britain, which was central to the plot. Others faulted the novel’s structure, arguing that its “Jewish parts” lacked the coherence and realism of its “British parts.” But Eliot’s overreaching in this final novel—her determination to attempt more than her society or even her talent could encompass—reflects the enormous ambition that had propelled her career from the beginning.

A BBC adaptation of Daniel Deronda was broadcast a few years ago, so that more people are now familiar with the plot. Yet the adaptation had nothing to do with the book. Unlike Jane Austen, where so much of what counts resides in the dialogue, making her easily adaptable to the screen, Eliot’s greatness lies not in her dialogue (which Virginia Woolf noted was the weakest aspect of her fiction) but in her style, an element that cannot be separated from the written word.

Eliot’s style has three principal facets. There is her use of startlingly original metaphors to encapsulate her characters and foreshadow their destinies. Thus, we get a vivid premonition of marital disaster, when Casaubon, the dryasdust scholar in Middlemarch, is said to woo his bride with a “frigid rhetoric . . . as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the cawing of an amorous rook.” There is a similar sense of problems in store when, in the same novel, the superficially charming Rosamond Vincy is described as someone who “acted her own character, and so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.”

Also central to Eliot’s style is her phrasing, which often follows the path of her characters’ pretensions, rising high, then falling in a heap at the end: “Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of others is naturally exhausting” (The Mill on the Floss). “Some attributed [Mrs. Sampson’s] reticence to a wise incredulity, others to a want of memory, others to simple ignorance” (Felix Holt). “[Dorothea] felt that she enjoyed [riding] in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it” (Middlemarch).

The most important—though most derided—aspect of Eliot’s style is her narrative voice, which frequently breaks into the action to philosophize or cast judgment on what is going on. In the following celebrated passage from Middlemarch, we are alerted to the countless sorrows that transpire around us without our noticing them:

That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

The second line of this passage is often quoted alone, diluting the force of Eliot’s meaning: for it is not only humanly impossible to absorb the tragedy of everyday life; it is also a function of human stupidity that this tragedy goes unnoticed. Eliot’s genius is to show that the two ideas are both connected and distinct.

Many critics, even those as discerning as Henry James, have criticized her narrative voice as overly intrusive and sententious. But their criticism seems entirely wrongheaded. Eliot’s voice, in its assumption of a wiser, juster, more all-encompassing perspective, is the ligament of her novels. It elevates them from ingenious storytelling to divine comedy.

I am not the first to compare Eliot to Dante (her contemporary Lord Acton also did), for all that these two epic imaginations delineated different worlds. Dante accepted a system of medieval hierarchy and predetermination while pointing toward a humanistic concept of character. Eliot clung to a humanistic conception while pointing toward a more modern, relativistic one—she was, after all, a precursor of Sigmund Freud (as D. H. Lawrence put it: “It was really George Eliot who started it all. It was she who started putting action inside”). But what Eliot shared with Dante was a compulsion to describe and evaluate the moral nature of human beings. And for all her understanding of interior, unconscious action, she retained a belief in the power of the human will to shape character.

Of all Eliot’s novels, Middlemarch, about everyday life in a rural community around the time of the first Reform Bill of 1832, is the most comprehensive in creating a moral taxonomy of character that can serve as a guide for living. Set in a period some 40 years before it was written, its characters fall into established groups. There are the entrenched rich: the silly but enthusiastic Mr. Brooke; the solid if unimaginative Sir James Chettam; and the morally energetic but naïve Dorothea Brooke. There are those in the industrious middle class: the honest workman Caleb Garth; the sanctimonious banker Nicholas Bulstrode; and the potential recruit to committed work Fred Vincy. And there are the creative (or allegedly creative) spirits: the scientific Lydgate; the scholarly Casaubon; and the poetic Ladislaw. These are only a sampling of the vast and variegated cast of Middlemarch.

While many of these characters are simple sketches meant to exemplify a singular trait or moral attribute, the most interesting ones—Lydgate, Fred Vincy, Dorothea, Ladislaw, Bulstrode—have mixed natures. Eliot seems to have conceived of human character as resembling a chemical reaction in which a large number of potentially important variables are present but only some are activated. The direction a life takes becomes a matter of which variables are activated and which are not, something that lies, at least partially, within the individual’s power to control. “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice,” she asserts in Daniel Deronda.

Here is where Eliot’s greatest value lies for a culture. As one of the most clear-sighted inhabitants of Middlemarch, the clergyman Farebrother points out to the idealistic Dorothea: “Character is not cut in marble—it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.” Eliot shows how a character’s resolve can be weakened and aspects of human nature, endearing or harmless in youth, can become toxic later in life. By the same token, she also demonstrates the reverse, expressed in Dorothea’s rejoinder to Farebrother: “Then [character] may be rescued and healed.” The novels acknowledge the possibility of change for the better.

Moreover, Eliot presents these insights using situations recognizable in any time and place. When Fred Vincy’s father urges him to pursue a career in the church despite his unsuitability for this work, the impulse is as misguided but as understandable now as it was then. And when Dorothea Brooke marries the austere scholar Casaubon, seeking to find meaning for her own life through his, she learns the lesson, as true now as it was then, that it is impossible to live through another person.

The novel contains other insights into the power dynamics of relationships. Lydgate, seduced by the seemingly pliant Rosamond, discovers that her will is stronger than his, though her intellectual and moral judgment are weaker. Fred Vincy is also mastered by his wife, Mary Garth, but with positive results, since she saves him from his weaker nature and gives his life solidity and direction. (The idea of being “saved” by a good woman, a hackneyed staple of so much Victorian literature, seems entirely convincing in this case.)

Eliot does not directly critique the idea of male superiority in her novels, but there are times when her narrative voice becomes biting on the subject: “a man’s mind—what there is of it—has always the advantage of being masculine,” she comments acidly at one point, “—as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm—and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.” Mary Garth’s love for Fred Vincy, though tender and steadfast, is not unmixed with scorn: “Husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order,” she tells her father at one point. Likewise, Dorothea chooses for a second husband a man who has none of the mental or spiritual superiority that she imagined in her first.

But despite such hints at social critique, the novels never go so far as to attack established authority or convention. Eliot knew that revolutions could be dangerous—an awareness central to both Felix Holt and Romola. She plants germs of new ideas, under the assumption that a change in perception in small things is the safest and surest way to change large ones. Ultimately, her tentativeness and moderation with respect to social reform reflects her belief in the complex interconnectedness of private and public worlds: to pull too hard in one direction is to rent the fabric in the other. Life is a balancing act between what we desire and what we can do (here again, she anticipates Freud).

Her careful attitude toward change also relates to her attachment to the past. “There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labor of choice,” she writes in The Mill on the Floss. We find meaning in the past, according to Eliot, because it is the world we know. By the same token, that world contains only the seeds of our future lives; their potential may or may not be realized. Mary Garth explains that she loves Fred Vincy “because I have always loved him,” but she refuses to marry him until he can realize in some concrete way the potential goodness that inspired her early love. The tragic destinies in Eliot’s novels are reserved for those who try to compartmentalize past and present, private and public. Lydgate never achieves his scientific aspirations because he is trapped in a marriage with a woman who cannot respect his work. Bulstrode is eventually toppled from his position of influence because his piety in the present is built on a denial of the past.

One of the harshest indictments of contemporary society is that there seems to be no place in it for George Eliot’s novels. The Edwardians rejected Eliot as a sensibility against which they needed to rebel; she was the antithesis of the experimental styles and iconoclastic politics of modernism. But our society has not rejected her on esthetic or ideological grounds. Her moral seriousness simply doesn’t register on our cultural landscape; most people don’t have the time or patience to read her “baggy monsters.”

Ironically, she still appears in the one place she ought not to be: the high school curriculum, which often insists on assigning Silas Marner to 10th graders (when it is not performing the greater error of assigning Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome). As Virginia Woolf observed, Eliot wrote novels for grown-up people. Our society and our relationships would be saner and better if more grownups read her.

Paula Marantz Cohen is dean of the Pennoni Honors College and distinguished professor of English at Drexel University. She is the author of the novel Jane Austen in Scarsdale or Love, Death and the SATs. Her latest novel, Beatrice Bunson’s Guide to Romeo & Juliet, will be published in March.

The Kiss by Francesco Ayets

2019-01-13T22:28:00.001+03:00

Aietz Francesco, an Italian painter, a representative of Romanticism, who worked mainly in Milan. The basis for learning the artistry of painting Hayes was in Rome at Canova and Engr. His name throughout the XIX century was the focus of the artistic community.

The painting is written in the style of Italian Romanticism. There are three copies of this picture, two of which are kept in private collections, and the third, where the woman is wearing a white dress, was written in 1861 for the family Mylius and sold on November 12, 2008 at Sotheby’s auction in London for 780,450 pounds sterling.

Ayez considered the “Kiss” one of his most important works. In it he tried to combine such properties of Italian romanticism as naturalism and close attention to sensual love, with the ideal of Risorgimento – patriotism. Kissing couple is an allusion to Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare, as well as to Renzo and Lucia from Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed. Clothes heroes and architecture indicate that the scene occurs in the Middle Ages, but a completely new iconography of the picture and its patriotic message convince the viewer in its modernity.

It was necessary to have considerable courage that in the 1820s, when the carnarians were arrested and many of them were forced to emigrate from the country, writing pictures on subjects that were protesting against tyranny, freedom-loving ideas were expressed. Patriotic content was seen by contemporaries in the canvas “Kiss”. The farewell of the heroes, dressed in costumes of the XIV century, was regarded as an allusion to the scene of the forced flight of a young Italian patriot – carbonarius.

The daughter of the night (Girl with a bouquet of lilies) by John White Alexander

2019-01-13T22:23:00.002+03:00

Symbolism became, in fact, one of the first artistic trends in modernist art of the second half of the XIX century. However, the Symbolists showed themselves much more in poetic creativity than in painting. This is especially true of France and Russia. However, there were masters who associated themselves with symbolism in painting, even on a distant American continent. One of them is John White Alexander.

In 1889, he painted a girl with a bouquet of lilies. The symbolist would not be a symbolist if he did not give the picture a second, figurative name – “Daughter of the Night”. This is even somewhat strange, because the cloth itself is saturated with light and color. The girl is in the middle of a field of meadow flowers and lilies in her hand look even some kind of alien body against this background. White, apparently, drew a representative of the indigenous population of America – an Indian.

She is tall, slender, in a dress to the very heels, fitting her elastic, flexible young body. Paints, like in many other types of modernist art, are slightly blurred, as if blurred. The background is not properly painted. The very image of the heroine of the picture as if trembling, floats in the haze of a summer day. And it was burned by the heat – to know, because of this detached expression and a contemplative look at the lilies.

A woman busy with weights by Jan Vermeer

2019-01-13T22:16:00.003+03:00

Painting of the Dutch artist Jan Vermeer Delftsky “Woman, busy with scales”. The size of the picture is 42.5 x 38 cm, canvas, oil. This work of the Dutch master is also known under the title “Measurement measure.” In his painting, the painter Vermeer depicted a young woman in a dim room, standing at the edge of the table. She looks at the scales of the scales, which she holds in her right hand, leaning on the tabletop, left.

There are three boxes on the table – one from the scales, a larger box for money, one silver and three gold coins lie on the table, and the largest casket is ajar, a pearl necklace and a massive gold chain rest on its lid. A string of pearls with yellow ties also lies on the table. All together – pearls, money, gold – personify prosperity and some vanity, vain joys of life. In the left part of the picture there is a window closed with a yellow curtain, the same as in the picture “A Girl Trying on a Necklace,” and a mirror. Mirror appears only four times in the paintings of Vermeer.

The iconography of mirrors in Western painting is contentious, but most researchers tend to believe that it means self-knowledge and reflection of truth. All these details are important for understanding the basic idea of the picture. The scales in the woman’s hands are empty. She does not weigh pearls and gold, nor her own sins in anticipation of the Last Judgment. It establishes a balance between the joys of life and the requirements of the church. And the mirror reflects this truth.

It is believed that the picture was posed by Vermeer’s wife, Katarina Bolnes. She was also a model for his other paintings: “A girl with a letter at an open window” and “A lady in blue reading a letter.” She has the right beautiful features, big eyes, straight nose. During the creation of the picture, Katarina, who was a year older than her husband, was 32, which corresponds to the age of the depicted woman. The composition of the picture is extremely successful.

The combination of strict vertical and horizontal surfaces is softened by folds of tissues, the center of the picture – the hand of a woman – is not only a geometric but also a logical center. The direction of the diagonals – the picture frame and the floor tiles – also converge in this place. The arrangement of objects is subject to semantic content and reflects the mood, but quite naturally by nature. The combination of light and volume of objects creates a balanced, but dynamic composition of the picture.

Awakened Shame by William Hunt

2019-01-13T22:13:00.000+03:00

As in the painting “Awakened Shame” by Hunt, the room is filled with symbolic signs hinting at the position of the girl. Cracked window glass, torn curtains and a shabby table speak of poverty and exploitation, on which the owner’s miserable possessions are exposed: scissors, Indian rosary, hairpin scarves.

A few coins on the table are probably her ridiculous fee from a client who is already about to leave. For the mirror frame, in which the worn paisley shawl hanging on the bed is reflected, the opened letter is thrust – it is likely that the mental state of the girl is caused by them.

Fine Arts

2019-01-13T22:04:00.002+03:00

Fine Arts

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

2019-01-13T17:28:00.001+03:00

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -

Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore-

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -

This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; -

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" -

Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -

'Tis the wind and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore -

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door -

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-

Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before -

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."

Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of 'Never - nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore:

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-

On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-

Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting -

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

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I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

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Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte
— 1847 —

The American by Henry James

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The American
by
Henry James

Novels

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Novels

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

In 1946, The New Republic Panned George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' By GEORGE SOULE

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In honor of Banned Books Week, we're publishing our original reviews of frequently banned books. In 1946, our critic George Soules read Animal Farm with disgust, calling the book "on the whole dull...a creaking machine...clumsy." We imagine he may have lived to regret these judgments.

George Orwell in his critical writings shows imagination and taste; his wit is both edged and human. Few writers of any period have been able to use the English language so simply and accurately to say what they mean, and at the same time to mean something. The news that he had written a satirical allegory, telling the story of a revolution by farm animals against their cruel and dissolute master, and of their subsequent fortunes, was like the smell of a roast from a kitchen ruled by a good cook, near the end of a hungry morning. The further news that this book had been chosen and was being pushed by the Book of the Month Club, though it occasioned surprise, was pleasant because it seemed to herald one of those instances when unusual talent of the sort rarely popular receives recognition and a great tangible reward.

There are times when a reviewer is happy to report that a book is bad because it fulfills his hope that the author will expose himself in a way that permits a long deserved castigation. This is not one of them, I was expecting that Orwell would again give pleasure and that his satire of the sort of thing which democrats deplore in the Soviet Union would be keen and cleansing. Instead, the book puzzled and saddened me. It seemed on the whole dull. The allegory turned out to be a creaking machine for saying in a clumsy way things that have been said better directly. And many of the things said are not instantly recognized as the essence of truth, but are of the sort which start endless and boring controversy.

Orwell does know his farm animals and gives them vivid personalities. Many will recognize Benjamin, the donkey who never commits himself, never hurries and thinks that in the end nothing much matters. Mollie the saddle horse, who wanders from the puritanical path of the revolution to seek ribbons for her mane, the cat who never does any work, the hens who sabotage by laying their eggs in the rafters, Clover and Boxer, the powerful, trusting and honest draught horses, are all real enough. But these spontaneous creatures seem in action like circus animals performing mechanically to the crack of the story-teller's whip.

Part of the trouble lies in the fact that the story is too close to recent historical events without being close enough. Major, the aged pig who on his deathbed tells the animals of their oppression and prophesies revolution, must be Karl Marx. His two followers who lead the revolution, Napoleon and Snowball, are then readily identified as Lenin and Trotsky. This identification turns out to be correct in the case of Snowball, but the reader soon begins to puzzle over the fact that Napoleon disapproves the project of building a windmill—an obvious symbol for electrification and industrialization—whereas this was Lenin's program. The puzzlement is increased when Napoleon chases out Snowball as a traitor; it was Stalin who did this.

And so it goes through incident after incident. The young dogs are alone selected for schooling; later they appear as the secret police. Is this a picture of Soviet education? The pigs not only keep the best food for themselves, but also become drunkards, taking over the pasture reserved for retirement of the superannuated in order to raise the necessary barley. Of course prohibition was abolished early in the revolution, but have the leaders drunk too much and has social insurance been abolished? There is a pathetic incident when Boxer, the sturdy and loyal old work horse, is sent off to be slaughtered and turned into dog food and bone meal, under the pretext that he is being hospitalized. Just what part of Soviet history corresponds to this?

Nobody would suppose that good allegory is literally accurate, but when the reader is continually led to wonder who is who and what aspect of reality is being satirized, he is prevented either from enjoying the story as a story or from valuing it as a comment. Masters like Swift and Anatole France, with whom Orwell is compared in the blurbs, were not guilty of this fault. They told good stories, the interest of which did not lie wholly in their caricature. And their satire, however barbed, was not dependent on identification of historical personages or specific events.

The thoughtful reader must be further disturbed by the lack of clarity in the main intention of the author. Obviously he is convinced that the animals had just cause for revolt and that for a time their condition was improved under the new regime. But they are betrayed by their scoundrelly, piggish leaders. In the end, the pigs become indistinguishable from the men who run the other nearby farms; they walk on two legs, have double and triple chins, wear clothes and carry whips. Animal Farm reverts to the old Manor Farm in both name and reality.

No doubt this is what George Orwell thinks has happened in Russia. But if he wants to tell us why it happened, he has failed. Does he mean to say that not these pigs, but Snowball, should have been on top? Or that all the animals should have been merged in a common primitive communism without leaders or organization? Or that it was a mistake to try to industrialize, because pastoral simplicity is the condition of equality and cooperation? Or that, as in the old saw criticizing socialism, the possibility of a better society is a pipe-dream, because if property were distributed equally, the more clever and selfish would soon get a larger share and things would go on as of old? Though I am sure he did not intend this moral, the chances are that a sample poll of the book-club readers in the United States would indicate that a large majority think so and will heartily approve the book on that account.

There is no question that Orwell hates tyranny, sycophancy, deceitful propaganda, sheeplike acceptance of empty political formulas. His exposures of these detestable vices constitute the best passages in the book. There have been plenty of such abuses in Russia, They also crop up in other places. It is difficult to believe that they determined the whole issue of the Russian revolution, or that Russia is now just like every other nation. No doubt in some respects she is worse than most; in other respects she may be better.

It seems to me that the failure of this book (commercially it is already assured of tremendous success) arises from the fact that the satire deals not with something the author has experienced, but rather with stereotyped ideas about a country which he probably does not know very well. The plan for the allegory, which must have seemed a good one when be first thought of it, became mechanical in execution. It almost appears as if he had lost his zest before be got very far with the writing. He should try again, and this time on something nearer home.

Play - Samuel Beckett (Beckett on Film, 2001) Video

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