text:
"The study was double-blinded and was for two consecutive 6-wk periods. No diet was prescribed during the first period, a 5040-kJ/d diet was recommended for the second. Significant weight loss was observed in 5-HTP-treated patients during both periods. A reduction in carbohydrate intake and a consistent presence of early satiety were also found. These findings together with the good tolerance observed suggest that 5-HTP may be safely used to treat obesity."
Members agreed that the relevant matters under Section 52E(1) of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 included: (a) risks and benefits of the use of a substance; (b) the purpose for which a substance is to be used and the and extent of use; (c) the toxicity of a substance; (d) the dosage, formulation, labelling, packaging and presentation of a substance; (e) the potential for abuse of a substance; and (f) any other matters that the Secretary considers necessary to protect public health.
The diverse activities related to tissue repair may depend on interactions with receptors quite distinct from actin and possessing extracellular ligand-binding domains. Such multi-tasking by, or "partner promiscuity" of, proteins has been referred to as protein moonlighting.[14] Proteins such as thymosins which lack stable folded structure in aqueous solution, are known as intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs). Because IUPs acquire specific folded structures only on binding to their partner proteins, they offer special possibilities for interaction with multiple partners.[15] A candidate extracellular receptor of high affinity for thymosin β4 is the β subunit of cell surface-located ATP synthase, which would allow extracellular thymosin to signal via a purinergic receptor.[16]
The vascular system in the normal adult brain is stable, but is activated in response to certain pathological conditions including injuries.68 Von Willebrand factor (vWF) staining has been used to identify vascular structure in the brain after TBI.69 TBI alone significantly increased vascular density in the injured cortex, CA3, and DG of the ipsilateral hemisphere when examined at day 35 after TBI compared to sham controls.18,34,64,65 Tβ4 treatment significantly increased the vascular density in these regions compared to saline treatment.34 This is in agreement with in vitro and in vivo pro-angiogenic effect of Tβ4.70,71
Mouse BMMs were cultured with M-CSF (30 ng/mL) and RANKL (100 ng/mL) or CM collected from PDLCs for 5 days (A) and 60 minutes (B). The mRNAs expression was determined by PCR analysis (A). The phosphorylation of MAPKs (p38, JNK, and ERK), and activation of NF-κB were determined by Western blot analysis (B). Data were representative of three independent experiments. The bar graph shows the fold increase in protein or mRNA expression compared with control cells * Statistically significant differences compared with the control, p<0.05.
At first, the mice showed an irregular smattering of neural impulses when they heard the baby's cries. Then, as the oxytocin kicked in, the signal evolved into a more orderly pattern typical of a maternal brain. The study showed in unusual detail how the hormone changed the behaviour of neurons1. "Oxytocin is helping to transform the brain, to make it respond to those pup calls," Froemke says.
Exogenous Tβ4 can function like a hormone on cells in terms of its ability to modulate their biological behavior. Since one of the primary roles of Tβ4 in cells is the sequestration of actin monomers, and the protein is not secreted, previously indicated that it was unlikely that Tβ4 could have a hormonal function [42]. However, other studies have shown that the intracellular level of Tβ4 or its mRNA can be significantly and rapidly altered by external stimuli and that change in the level of Tβ4 often are correlated with cell differentiation [18, 43]. In the present study, exogenous Tβ4 peptide activate intracellular Tβ4, which results suggested that exogenous Tβ4 spontaneously enter the cytoplasm through rapid internalization, and acts their functions same as endogenous one [8, 18].
Cells on the surface of the skin are constantly being replaced by regeneration from below. The repair of a wound is a scaling up of this normal process, with additional complex interactions among cells, formation of new blood vessels, collagen, more extensive cell division and cell migration, as well as strict control of inflammatory cells and the cytokines they release to resolve the inflammation.
In September 2007, the FDA issued a public notice advising consumers to stop using melanotan II as it was an unapproved drug with no safety or efficacy data for the advertised indications. Furthermore, the FDA issues a warning notice to a company owner that was illegally selling and marketing the product via a website. This led to subsequent indictment.
Letdown reflex. In lactating (breastfeeding) mothers, oxytocin acts at the mammary glands, causing milk to be 'let down' into a collecting chamber, from where it can be extracted by compressing the areola and sucking at the nipple. Sucking by the infant at the nipple is relayed by spinal nerves to the hypothalamus. The stimulation causes neurons that make oxytocin to fire action potentials in intermittent bursts; these bursts result in the secretion of pulses of oxytocin from the neurosecretory nerve terminals of the pituitary gland.
This sounds very promising and I have a question I'm sure you haven't heard before. It's regarding healing. I'm about 230 and avid lifter as well as running occasionally. But I've had severe injuries to my l3-s1 for years a d yes I've tried some stuff before as far as lifting. But when I was 2 I had encephalitis. I survived it back in 74 which most didn't however the treatment had left me with migraines and seizures as a child and was told my adult teeth would be very weak when they grew in. So I'm 44 and most of my teeth have broken and I've been looking for alternatives to implants. You said both the products mentioned in this article would improve healing and I've heard stem cells are capable of regrowing teeth. Would this work for me and how or where would I inject it or maybe do a oral form and let it sit in my mouth for a bit? Never really thought about this but I've tried so many clinical trials and been turned down each time. Any info would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance.
I have taken BPC-157 in conjunction with TB-500 after reading about someone's experience. I used the BPC-157 at an injury/inflammation site in my shoulder. I have a pain that came out of nowhere and has prevented me from doing bench presses mainly, and shoulder presses. I also got pain when I did external rotation of my shoulder. The BPC-157 gave me good results at 250 mcg twice daily intramuscularly. The pain is not completely gone but it has definitely lessened in severity. I don't get any pain with a reverse grip press so I have been doing those with light weight and I can now do shoulder presses. BPC-157 really blew me away on how quickly it improved my gut status. For me it only took 4 days of orally dosing with 250 mcg. So I did both the oral and intramuscular daily for a month. Two weeks into the BPC-157 I ordered TB-500 and did 1mg per week subq in my thigh because I didn't know about injecting intramuscularly at the injury site.
In January 1955, adreno-corticotrophic hormone (ACTH) was included in the very first Poisons Schedules. It was included in Schedule 4, Part A, which is equivalent to the current Schedule 4 of the Poisons Standard. Provisions for a repeated script must be authorised by an authorised prescriber, including general practitioners, veterinarian or dentist (if required for the purposes of the dental profession or are permitted to be prescribed by a dentist).
Trust is increased by oxytocin.[95][96][97] Disclosure of emotional events is a sign of trust in humans. When recounting a negative event, humans who receive intranasal oxytocin share more emotional details and stories with more emotional significance.[96] Humans also find faces more trustworthy after receiving intranasal oxytocin. In a study, participants who received intranasal oxytocin viewed photographs of human faces with neutral expressions and found them to be more trustworthy than those who did not receive oxytocin.[95] This may be because oxytocin reduces the fear of social betrayal in humans.[98] Even after experiencing social alienation by being excluded from a conversation, humans who received oxytocin scored higher in trust on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.[97] Moreover, in a risky investment game, experimental subjects given nasally administered oxytocin displayed "the highest level of trust" twice as often as the control group. Subjects who were told they were interacting with a computer showed no such reaction, leading to the conclusion that oxytocin was not merely affecting risk aversion.[99] When there is a reason to be distrustful, such as experiencing betrayal, differing reactions are associated with oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) differences. Those with the CT haplotype experience a stronger reaction, in the form of anger, to betrayal.[100]
For this study, one of us, Ben Trumble, followed Tsimane men as they went hunting for food. Typically, Tsimane men set out alone or with a partner in the early morning and search in the forest for prey such as wild pigs, deer, monkeys, or the rare tapir. Following long looping trails they might be gone for eight or nine hours, traveling about six miles (ten kilometers). Ben collected saliva samples throughout the hunt in order to measure changes in men's hormone levels.
I broke my neck this year at C6-C7 facets. Started taking TB-500 immediately following the accident. I don't sit still well and was back in the gym almost immediately, simply to not go stir crazy and pump the blood anyway I could. 8 weeks later I was hitting bodyweight overhead squats for reps with the jerk, 0 pain and completely stable spine. I'm in my late 30s. I eat well, sleep well, and drink a lot of water. I doubt I would have been as well off, had I not taken the TB.
5-HTP increases a brain chemical called serotonin. Some medications for depression also increase serotonin. Taking 5-HTP along with these medications for depression might increase serotonin too much and cause serious side effects including heart problems, shivering, and anxiety. Do not take 5-HTP if you are taking medications for depression.
Some of these medications for depression include fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), amitriptyline (Elavil), clomipramine (Anafranil), imipramine (Tofranil), and others.
But what about the three-month warning? Dr Rush, while an advocate for the supplement, sees it as a short-term solution, and not something to rely on long-term, for good reason. "Technically taking 5-HTP alone can deplete important brain chemicals such as dopamine and adrenaline. While 5-HTP is aimed at increasing the amount of serotonin in the body, dopamine and adrenaline are also important for positive mental health states. In order to prevent the depletion of important brain chemicals, taking 5-HTP would need to be balanced with amino acids that support the production of dopamine and adrenaline." That's L-Tyrosine, which you eat in soy, chicken and beef, and can also be found in health food shops as a supplement.
But long before that, say researchers, oxytocin could use a rebranding. "It doesn't induce love; it doesn't induce massive amounts of trust," Guastella says. "The problem we've got ourselves into is that we're trying to look for a simple answer: either oxytocin does or does not work in a patient population, or it does or does not enhance a certain social process."
Humans are social animals. Our individual prospects depend to a significant degree on the prospects of the group(s) to which we belong, and how well we get along with the group(s). Survival means being acutely sensitive to who is on our side and who is not. So it isn't surprising that trust matters so much to how we go about protecting ourselves. And it isn't surprising to find the instinct for trust rooted deep in the brain.
5-HTP is converted by the body to serotonin, a chemical in the brain that plays an important role in mood, sleep, and appetite. Many prescription medications used for the treatment of depression increase serotonin concentrations in the brain. Because of 5-HTP's pathway to serotonin, it has appealed to researchers as well as the public as a "natural" alternative to antidepressants and treatment of depression, insomnia, migraines, obesity, and fibromyalgia.
Although obtaining Melanotan II and Bremelanotide is relatively easy to do, both substances come in powder form and then must be reconstituted using sterile water prior to subcutaneous injection—a method of administration that can cause lead to skin bruising, cross-contamination, or infection, if the person performing the injection is inexperienced and the syringe isn't clean.
Doctors have noticed cancer patients have a higher amount of Thymosin in the affected tissues than other people. So in the early stages of research, doctors assumed that this meant Thymosin may cause cancer. After more research was conducted, it was discovered that the main action of Thymosin Beta 4 was to produce new white blood cells – so its presence in the body in the areas affected by cancer was likely not a cause of the cancer, but instead, a matter of "showing up" in the body where cancer lived to help the body mount an immune system response.
Anxiety. Evidence on the effects of 5-HTP for anxiety is unclear. Early research shows that taking 25-150 mg of 5-HTP by mouth daily along with carbidopa seems to reduce anxiety symptoms in people with anxiety disorders. However, other early research shows that taking higher doses of 5-HTP, 225 mg daily or more, seems to make anxiety worse. Also, taking 60 mg of 5-HTP daily through the vein does not reduce anxiety in people with panic disorders.


A California jury ruled against Monsanto Tuesday in favor of plaintiff Mr. Edwin Hardeman who alleges glyphosate is responsible for his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The ruling was the first in a two-phase trial taking place in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
A statement from Bayer expressed disappoint in the jury's initial decision and remorse for Hardeman. It also stood behind the science confirming glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer.
Hardeman's case is the first in a series of similar trials scheduled this year. It will now enter phase two, where the focus will be on the questions of liability and damages.
A verdict in favor of the company in the second phase would mean Bayer would prevail in this trial. Bayer representatives say they're confident the evidence in phase two of the trial will show that Monsanto's conduct has been appropriate and that the company should not be liable for Mr. Hardeman's cancer.
Regardless of the outcome, the decision in phase one of this trial has no impact on future cases and trials — each one has its own factual and legal circumstances. More than a half dozen glyphosate trials could take place this year, and the litigation will take some time before it reaches closure. The second trial for 2019 is expected to start around March 25 in the Superior Court of the State of California.
"Regulatory authorities around the world consider glyphosate-based herbicides as safe when used as directed. There is an extensive body of research on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides, including more than 800 rigorous studies submitted to EPA, European and other regulators in connection with the registration process, that confirms that these products are safe when used as directed.
The company references the largest and most recent epidemiologic study – the 2018 independent National Cancer Institute- supported long-term study that followed over 50,000 pesticide applicators for more than 20 years that found no association between glyphosate-based herbicides and cancer.
Additionally, EPA's 2017 post-International Agency for Research on Cancer risk assessment examined more than 100 studies the agency considered relevant and concluded that glyphosate is 'not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,' its most favorable rating.
Contact the ISA Communications Team at communications@iasoybeans.com.


With brand owners and supermarkets putting pressure on the supply chain to be more environmentally aware, BPIF labels, together with one of the major suppliers of self-adhesive material, have commissioned Prismm Environmental to come up with alternative solutions for the disposal of waste.
The Zero to Landfill project is intended to cut the 200,000 tonnes of matrix and production waste that is sent to landfill every year by UK label converters. This is expected to help save costs while boosting the environmental credentials of the industry as a whole - something that is increasingly on the agenda for suppliers to brand owners and major supermarkets.
This scheme launched in April 2013 and there are now over 50 label converters involved. So far we have diverted over 10,000 tonnes of waste from landfill to a waste converter who can convert the labels waste into bio-mass fuels.
FACT: Since August 2015 Amberley Labels have recycled a total of 303.3 metric tonnes of label waste which previously would have gone to the landfill.


text:
Resource::Resource() {
	name = "";
}

void Resource::setName(std::string name) {
	this->name = name;
}

std::string Resource::getName() {
	return name;
}

std::shared_ptr<Resource> Resource::get(std::string name) {
	for (int i = 0; i < res_list.size(); i++)
	{
		if (res_list[i]->getName().compare(name) == 0)
		{
			return res_list[i];
		}
	}

	return nullptr;
}

double Resource::getNumber(std::string name, double def) {
	if (number_list.count(name))
		return number_list[name];
	else
		return def;
}

bool Resource::getBool(std::string name, bool def) {
	if (bool_list.count(name))
		return bool_list[name];
	else
		return def;
}

std::string Resource::getString(std::string name, std::string def) {
	if (str_list.count(name))
		return str_list[name];
	else
		return def;
}

void Resource::getArray(std::string name, std::vector<double>& vec) {
	if (array_list.count(name))
		vec = array_list[name];
}

void Resource::addResource(std::shared_ptr<Resource> res) {
	res_list.push_back(res);
}

void Resource::addBool(std::string name, bool boolean) {
	bool_list[name] = boolean;
}

void Resource::addNumber(std::string name, double number) {
	number_list[name] = number;
}

void Resource::addString(std::string name, std::string str) {
	str_list[name] = str;
}

void Resource::addArrayNum(std::string name, double num) {
	array_list[name].push_back(num);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Things are slow around here. Well, actually they're pretty busy, but things of the Glen Robinson books kind are slow on Amazon, so it's time to give some stuff away.
I'll be launching Tesla's Ghost later this month (you might have heard me shouting from the rooftops about it) and there will be some freebies associated with that one as well.
And I will see if I can rustle up some other free stuff. It's a little boring around here, and giving away stuff always makes it feel a little more like Christmas. Don'cha think?
Anyway, time to kick it into high gear around here….


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;
using VsTeXCommentsExtension.Integration.Data;

namespace PerformanceTests
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            var codeToWrite = RandomCodeGenerator.GenerateCode(segmentsCount: 150).Select(c => c.ToString()).ToArray(); //cca 2k lines

            //Load referenced assembly
            typeof(IContentType).ToString();

            const string VsEditorAssemblyPath = @"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\Editor";
            var vsAssembliesPaths = new[]
            {
                VsEditorAssemblyPath,
                @"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies"
                //@"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Preview\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\Editor";
            };
            AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve +=
                (object sender, ResolveEventArgs args) =>
                {
                    var shortName = GetShortName(args.Name);

                    //need to use assemblies referenced by this project and not by VS assemblies
                    var loadedAssemblies = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies();
                    var loadedAssembly = loadedAssemblies.Where(a => GetShortName(a.FullName) == shortName).SingleOrDefault();
                    if (loadedAssembly != null) return loadedAssembly;

                    foreach (var vsAssembliesPath in vsAssembliesPaths)
                    {
                        var path = Path.Combine(vsAssembliesPath, shortName + ".dll");
                        if (File.Exists(path)) return Assembly.LoadFile(path);
                    }
                    throw new InvalidOperationException($"Unable to find assembly '{args.Name}'.");

                    string GetShortName(string assemblyFullName) => assemblyFullName.Split(',')[0];
                };

            var vsEditorAssembly = Assembly.LoadFile(Path.Combine(VsEditorAssemblyPath, "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.VSEditor.dll"));
            var contentType = CreateContentType(vsEditorAssembly, "CSharp");
            var stringRebuilder = CreateStringRebuilder(vsEditorAssembly, string.Empty);
            var guardedOperations = CreateGuardedOperations(vsEditorAssembly);
            var textBuffer = CreateTextBuffer(vsEditorAssembly, contentType, stringRebuilder, null, guardedOperations);
            var teXCommentTagger = new TeXCommentTagger(textBuffer);

            var watch = new Stopwatch();
            Console.WriteLine($"{nameof(TeXCommentTagger)} performance:");

            (double elapsedMs, double allocatedMemory, double gcCollectionsCount) baseLine = (0, 0, 0);
#if DEBUG
            const int BaselineIterations = 1;
#else
            const int BaselineIterations = 100;
#endif
            for (int iteration = 0; iteration < BaselineIterations; iteration++)
            {
                var result = Test(codeToWrite, textBuffer, teXCommentTagger, watch, taggingEnabled: false);
                baseLine.elapsedMs += result.elapsedMs;
                baseLine.allocatedMemory += result.allocatedMemory;
                baseLine.gcCollectionsCount += result.gcCollectionsCount;
            }
            baseLine.elapsedMs /= BaselineIterations;
            baseLine.allocatedMemory /= BaselineIterations;
            baseLine.gcCollectionsCount /= BaselineIterations;

            Console.WriteLine($"Baseline (no tagging): { baseLine.elapsedMs}ms\tGC: { baseLine.gcCollectionsCount}\tTotalMemory:{ baseLine.allocatedMemory }");
            for (int iteration = 0; iteration < 10; iteration++)
            {
                var (elapsedTime, allocatedMemory, gcCollectionsCount) = Test(codeToWrite, textBuffer, teXCommentTagger, watch, taggingEnabled: true);
                Console.WriteLine($"{elapsedTime - baseLine.elapsedMs}ms\tGC: {gcCollectionsCount - baseLine.gcCollectionsCount}\tTotalMemory:{allocatedMemory - baseLine.allocatedMemory }");
            }
        }

        private static (double elapsedMs, double allocatedMemory, double gcCollectionsCount) Test(
            string[] codeToWrite,
            ITextBuffer textBuffer,
            TeXCommentTagger teXCommentTagger,
            Stopwatch watch,
            bool taggingEnabled)
        {
            textBuffer.Delete(new Span(0, textBuffer.CurrentSnapshot.Length));

            var totalMemory = GC.GetTotalMemory(true);
            var gcCount = GcCount();

            watch.Restart();
            for (int i = 0; i < codeToWrite.Length; i++)
            {
                textBuffer.Insert(textBuffer.CurrentSnapshot.Length, codeToWrite[i]);
                var spans = new NormalizedSnapshotSpanCollection(textBuffer.CurrentSnapshot, new Span(0, textBuffer.CurrentSnapshot.Length));

                if (taggingEnabled)
                {
                    var tags = teXCommentTagger.GetTags(spans);
                    var count = 0;
                    foreach (var tag in tags) ++count;
                }
            }

            return (watch.ElapsedMilliseconds, GC.GetTotalMemory(false) - totalMemory, GcCount() - gcCount);
        }

        private static IContentType CreateContentType(Assembly vsEditorAssembly, string contentType)
        {
            var type = vsEditorAssembly.GetType("Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities.Implementation.ContentTypeImpl");
            var ctor = type.GetConstructor(
                BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic,
                null,
                new Type[] { typeof(string), typeof(string), typeof(IEnumerable<string>) },
                null);
            return (IContentType)ctor.Invoke(new[] { contentType, null, null }); //string name, string mimeType = null, IEnumerable<string> baseTypes = null
        }

        private static object CreateStringRebuilder(Assembly vsEditorAssembly, string text)
        {
            var type = vsEditorAssembly.GetType("Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Implementation.StringRebuilder");
            var createMethod = type.GetMethod(
                "Create",
                BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public,
                null,
                new Type[] { typeof(string) },
                null);
            return createMethod.Invoke(null, new[] { text }); //string text
        }

        private static object CreateGuardedOperations(Assembly vsEditorAssembly)
        {
            var type = vsEditorAssembly.GetType("Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Utilities.GuardedOperations");
            var ctor = type.GetConstructor(
                BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public,
                null,
                Array.Empty<Type>(),
                null);
            return ctor.Invoke(Array.Empty<object>());
        }

        private static ITextBuffer CreateTextBuffer(Assembly vsEditorAssembly, IContentType contentType, object stringRebuilder, object textDifferencingService, object guardedOperations)
        {
            var type = vsEditorAssembly.GetType("Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Implementation.TextBuffer");
            var ctor = type.GetConstructors().Single(c => c.GetParameters().Length == 4);
            return (ITextBuffer)ctor.Invoke(new[] { contentType, stringRebuilder, textDifferencingService, guardedOperations });
        }

        private static int GcCount() => Enumerable.Range(0, GC.MaxGeneration - 1).Select(gen => GC.CollectionCount(gen)).Sum();
    }
}


text:
—Bubkes.Org
Bubkes: Yiddish and mid-20th-century New York-ese for the seemingly inconsequential. Bubkes.Org: Images and observations by Stephen Lewis
About Bubkes.Org
About Stephen Lewis
Photographic Approach
Recollections of Sofia: Empty Balconies, Life Turned Inward, and Harsh Light on Peeling Facades
Bulgaria, Film-based Photography, Photography, Public Space, Rolleiflex 6x6cm, Sofia, Uncategorized
One summer, a little over twenty years ago, I took to wandering the streets of Sofia, Bulgaria late in the evenings, with a medium-format camera and a light-meter slung over one shoulder and a heavy tripod balanced on the other. At the time, I was entranced by the interplay between strong artificial streetlight and the textures of well-worn building facades and the way it registered on high-contrast black/white film pushed a stop or two beyond its rated sensitivity.
Among my favorite subjects, then as in recent years: balconies. As I've mentioned in previous postings, Sofia was and still is a city of balconies: wrought iron, wooden, concrete, and plaster. Two decades ago, however, just as today, most of Sofia's balconies appeared empty, even on springtime and summer evenings. Life had turned inward, so it seemed, and had yet to reemerge. The social function of balconies as an interstice between the private and public realms had ceased, with nobody observing public life from balconies nor conducting their private lives in view of neighbors or passersby. Instead, a sharp, albeit invisible, dichotomy arose between public and private and indoors and out.
The source of this dichotomy is by no means a mystery. Factors include a rise of urban anomie in general, a search for privacy and an over-reaction against the pressures and intrusions of the public realm during the communist period, and the absence of social cohesion and trust in the time since. The replacement of physical interaction and neighborhood connections by internet-based social networks also plays a part, as does the out-dated confusion of gated isolation with status. For an in-depth examination, both of the history of Sofia and matters of public vs. private space in general, I recommend urbanist Sonia Hirt's excellent book, Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-socialist City, which I have been savoring chapter-by-chapter over the past year.
Recollections of Istanbul: One Balcony, Two Views, Two Media
Architecture, Film-based Photography, Fuji X100 digital, Housing, Istanbul, Photography, Turkey, Urban Dynamics, View Camera Photography
Two views from a balcony on a cul-de-sac street in the Tepebaşı quarter of Istanbul, anno 2013. The buildings: Row houses built a century-and-a-quarter ago when the neighborhood was populated by Istanbul Greeks; the narrow frontages of the buildings dictated by late-19th-century regulations issued in the aftermath of fires that had swept gutted swaths of the city. Even day, these balconies continue to form an interstice between private and public space, serving as mini-terraces, extensions of domestic space, and perches for observing street life, chatting with neighbors, or just enjoying late day breezes.
The photo above was taken in 6X9 cm format on 120 color negative roll film through a 55mm Rodenstock lens (viewpoint equal to 24mm on 35mm film or "full-frame sensor" digital formats) mounted on a Toyo folding field camera. The photo below was taken with my customary APS-C format Fuji X100 digital camera (a "full-frame" equivalent of 35mm). The negative of the image at the top was scanned but, otherwise, not processed further. The sharpness and optical accuracy of the Rodenstock lens and the delicate colors of negative film stock are inimitable.
Monumentally Non-Monumental: A Diner near the Westside Docks and a Military Recruiting Station in the Bronx
Architecture, Bronx, Film-based Photography, New York, Photography, Uncategorized, Urban Dynamics
Two images of non-monumental structures, each with monumental tales to tell…
Both photos were taken in the late-1980s on 6×4.5cm transparency film using a light-weight, fixed-lens, wide-angle (28mm-equivalent) Fuji roll-film camera which featured manual focusing by estimation of distance and depth-of-field and a very accurate built-in manual light meter, so accurate, that when using it, I almost never bracketed exposures, not even when the camera was loaded with low-dynamic-range, transparency film. I miss the camera and I miss the 3:4 format ratio of its output.
Above: The one-time Corfu Diner on 10th Avenue and West 18th Street in lower Manhattan, a stereotypical Greek-owned, railway-car inspired diner, and a hangover from a past age when the Hudson River docks still flourished and provided work and ample venues for heavy-eating and hard-drinking to stevedores, truckers, warehouse workers, and others. I haven't walked down lower 10th Avenue for many years and have no idea if the Corfu Diner still stands, whether vacant or open in a new incarnation. Any updates are welcome, thus. (Note the slogan on the orange-painted truck parked to the background at the left side of the photo: "Schleppers, Moving Storage, Never a No Show." The 1980s saw the rise of independent non-unionized moving companies in New York. Many, like Schleppers — Yiddish for "draggers" or "carriers" — and Moishe's were owned by recently arrived Israelis, legal and illegal, and staffed by their compatriots, mostly young, strong, and well pumped-up for long hours of lifting and carrying with liberal rations of cocaine. Other independent movers provided women with entree into this formerly all-male domain. The memorable name of one of the first such company: Mother-Truckers!)
Below: The last of several World-War-II-era US military recruiting booths (this one, if I am correct, originally built for the Navy, per its streamlined art deco take on the bridge and stack of a ship, and later transferred to the Marines) that stood on the Fordham Road overpass spanning the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. (In the background, the Wagner Building, a 1930s office block, one of a piece with the many great art deco apartment and commercial buildings that line the Concourse from 161st St. northward). From the early-1940s on, generations of neighborhood young people — Jews, Germans, Italians, Poles, and Irish, followed by Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and African-Americans — volunteered at this and the other booths to fight America's wars, just and cynical, against enemies real and invented. Some volunteered out of idealism and others for adventure, to avoid prison, or to escape into the larger world and begin life anew. Many returned alive, be it unscathed or maimed; many others, however, had their lives cut short.
Mondrian Meets Dorian Gray: Patterns of Neoliberal Disregard + Thoughts on Infrastructure + The Wrong Tools for the Job
Architecture, Bulgaria, Fuji X100 digital, Infrastructure, Photography, Public Policy, Sofia, Urban Dynamics
Hadji Dimitar quarter, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2016. Fuji X100 w/+1.4 lens converter. Click to enlarge.
Mondrian meets Dorian Gray: Patterns of neo-liberal disregard
The photos above and below not only capture the accidental Mondrian-like effect of relegation of the maintenance of building envelopes to individual tenants, they also reveal a Dorian-Gray's-like picture of the inefficiencies of neo-liberalism and the cumulative effects of decades of rising economic inequality and shirking of collective investment in an important component of the infrastructure that enables and sustains us.
Thoughts on infrastructure in general and building exteriors in particularly:
Infrastructure has been a recurring theme throughout the twists and turns of my eclectic work-life: Subway transportation,* the third city water tunnel, and green infrastructure in my native New York; airports, harbors, and inter-modal transportation nodes in the Netherlands; telecommunications and "smart" workplaces in Western and Central Europe; monitoring of infrastructure projects in the broader European context; and the history of infrastructure in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire.
A broad view …
My view of infrastructure is a broad, social-democratic one; a take that does not limit infrastructure to the usual narrow scope of roads, bridges, tunnels, etc. but that zooms out to include educational processes and facilities, health care delivery systems, the urban natural environment, and public housing — in other words, all that is critical to human activity and survival and implementation of which is beyond the reach of individual users and the efficacy of for-profit "entrepreneurial" activity (i.e. the so-called "market") and outside of simple models of enterprise-based accountancy.
Envelope as infrastructure …
Building exteriors are infrastructure. The upgrading and maintenance of the legacy built environment are not just matters of patch-work attempts to achieve individual comfort and moderately lower energy bills. Attention to building envelopes is crucial to effective energy conservation society-wide, the slowing of climate change, and the reducing of dependencies on profit- and politically-motivated energy producers. As a side effect, it removes the visible stigmata of who can and cannot afford to insulate their dwellings.
Societal glue …
Across-the-board attention to building exteriors provides societal glue. The inefficient patchwork of apartment by apartment insulation is a sign of societal failure and ideologically-motivated narrowing of the responsibilities of governments, communities, and even tenants' councils. In Eastern Europe, it is a visible sign of the abandonment of "we" in accordance with the cynical dictum of Margaret Thatcher and her like that "… there is no society." Worldwide, we now foot the bill for such idiocy.
Hadji Dimitar quarter, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2016. Fuji X100 w/-1.4 lens converter. Click to enlarge.
Success …
The mass construction of panel-block housing in the former Soviet bloc was a strategy for creating low-cost housing during the post-war period of massive migration to cities, constraints in housing stock, and minimal availability of resources. The aesthetic merits of such housing might remain open to debate but among the the practical result in Sofia, for example, was that by the final years of the communist period more than 80% of the population was housed in dwellings to which they had clear title of ownership, a major achievement by any account.
And failure …
The design and implementation of panel-block buildings was achieved according to a short-sighted logic that has been unsustainable for decades. On the positive side, the panel bloc approach cut costs through standardization and modular prefabrication. On the negative side, however, it gave no attention to insulation, heat retention, or cooling through shading. The period of mass construction of panel block housing in Sofia was congruent with a period of nuclear power and nominal charges for electricity consumption. Thus, if rooms were cold, one simply plugged in a few electric convection heaters. And, if enough heat was not retained, one simply turned up the heaters up another notch and run them longer. As to improving insulation: One could always cover one's single-glazed windows with sheets of newspaper.
A remedy unlikely to effect a cure …
I do not follow news from Bulgaria closely but in a conversation last week I heard that one-by-one private insulation of individual apartments recently has been made illegal. Also, it seems, there are now European-financed programs for the insulation and renovation of apartment building exteriors. But, as always, there's is a rub, things turn out not to be so simple. To qualify for European-financing, buildings must first be organized as legal entities, this requiring the assent of each and every apartment title-holder. Also, residents must contribute a portion of total costs. Not least, the organization of such requires good-will towards one's neighbors and familiarity with the law, as well as a degree of experience with navigating official channels. A single hold-out or contrarian can block the process. Thus, available funds flow more readily to smaller buildings with fewer and more prosperous and educated residents, rather than to higher-need towering apartment blocks with scores upon scores of apartments in the lower-income neighborhoods of the city. For the moment, thus, it is uncertain whether the remedy is likely to effect a cure.
* Specifically, subsidized, affordable subway fares as a means for ensuring work-forces and customers to the private sector, for maintaining well-trafficked streets, and drawing the city's ethnically and economically diverse population out of their homes and into cultural institutions. Coincidentally, a similar argument was recently advanced by infrastructure advocate and scholar Alex Marshall. Marshall's excellent book The Surprising Design of Market Economies contains a passage about the social nature of infrastructure that may (or may not) have had its origin in an approach to the definition infrastructure that I shared with him during a conversation at the Regional Plan Association in New York in 2010.
Hadji Dimitar quarter, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2016. Fuji X100 w/+1.4 lens converter. Click on image to enlarge.
Photographic footnote: The wrong tools for the job
On the basis of the photos above, absolutely nobody — me included! — would ever confuse me with the likes of, say, Andreas Gursky! Indeed, the photos above were taken with the wrong tools in the wrong way and then processed in a manner no less inappropriate. I'll explain …
First, each of the photos was taken hand-held rather that tripod-mounted, a self-deceiving arrogance when working with strong verticals and horizontals and when confronted with a large two-dimensional object to be positioned parallel to the film- (or sensor-) plane. Second, the photos were taken from ground-level with the camera pointed upwards rather than from a neighboring building at a height roughly to half the height of the subject.
The result? An amalgam of vertical and horizontal distortions (keystoning, pitch, yaw, etc.) beyond the reach of the correctional powers of image processing software, especially when working within the small confines of a laptop screen. In Lightroom, for example, one can easily correct for vertical distortion and rotate an image, but add horizontal adjustments plus some compensation for barrel or pincushion distortion to the mix and the shapes within an image begin to contort and vertical and horizontal lines to squiggle — and this atop the irregularities and lack of true verticals and horizontals in the subject itself, in the case of panel block buildings the results of attention to speed rather than precision during construction combined with the effects of gravity and the elements as the years pass.
So, for now, I'll view the images above as "studies" and next time will head out with my tripod, my old folding field camera fitted with a lens and film back, or with my ever older combination of a legacy Nikon analogue body and perspective-correcting shift lens. In the meanwhile, my excuses.
Eye-to-Eye, Part Two: Two photos, two x two decades, two fast ways to focus, two cameras, and two worthy links
35mm Photography, Alzheimer's, Brooklyn, Faces, Film-based Photography, New York, Photography, Public Space, Urban Dynamics, Work
Local residents, fishing village, Sunda Strait, Western Java, mid-1970s, 35mm b/w neg, scan of print. Click to enlarge.
Further to my recent post on eye contact in photography, two photos taken two decades apart on opposite halves of the globe …
Java to Brooklyn
During the second half of the 1970s, while working from the Netherlands for a large international engineering company, I spent repeated months-long stretches in Indonesia documenting oil- and gas-related construction projects, organizing participation in technical conferences, liaising with government agencies, and using my seeming abilities to "go native" and step into the worlds of others to build mutual understanding and confidence and help to win project contracts without resorting to the flagrant corruption that was the calling-card of Western business at the time and that plagued Indonesia in the Suharto era. When I had weekends free, I joined Indonesian colleagues in escaping the noise and congestion of Jakarta. In those days, camera-bearing foreigners were few and far between in non-touristic locales in rural Indonesia and a word of a sincere smile and word of greeting and on the part of an outsider brought very hearty responses in return.
Two decades later, in the mid-1990s, I spent a few years based in my native New York. At the time, American clients and employers were underwhelmed, and even condescendingly contemptuous, towards work experience gained abroad, a reaction seemingly cut from the same cloth as present-day America's counter-factual preoccupation with denigrating the economic, social, and technical achievements of the European Union. And so, between work assignments and research projects abroad, I temporarily stepped back into the world that had shaped me in the first place — the pre-service-sector, pre-financial-sector New York of small, low-overhead businesses and of heavy physical work, skilled and unskilled — a nostalgic retreat that would be impossible in the face of the high-rent, high-cost-of-living, low-chances-for-mobility economy of present-day New York.
The woman in the photo that follows had just arrived in America and was about to enter the bottom rungs of laboring New York and care full-time for an elderly couple lost in the fogs of Alzheimer's. An unusually heavy blizzard provided her with her first view of and outing into snow. Indeed, the snow blanketing the great lawn of Prospect Park was so ample and so pristine as to even attract cross-country skiers, one of whom can be seen in the background just to the left of the subject.
Brazilian immigrant encountering first snow fall, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, winter 1995-1996, 35mm b/w negative. Click to enlarge.
Two ways to focus
The fastest way to focus? Well in advance! The photo of the woman in the park was taken with a camera that I miss tremendously: A Minox 35, a tiny 35mm camera, not much taller or thicker, but appropriately wider, than a film cassette and resembling a black plastic, small-scale reproduction of a Zeisss Ikonta, fold-out lens and all. The Minox had an excellent 35mm-focal-length optics and a very accurate aperture-priority metering system, but it offered absolutely no optical focusing aids of any sort, neither split-image nor matte-glass. One focused the Minox by estimate, setting the perceived camera-to-subject distance on the numeric scale on the lens barrel or using the depth-of-field scale to match aperture to hyper-focal distance. The benefits: An uncluttered viewfinder and absolutely no focusing or shutter lag, focus having been set prior to lifting the camera to one's eye. As to the two ways to focus? One could chose to estimate and set the distance in feet … or in meters!
Two fallible cameras
The downside of the Minox 35 was its delicacy. I went through three in a decade and a half. The metering system failed in one, the shutter in another, and a light leak and faulty film advance mechanism crippled a third. Even less robust, however, was the camera with which I photographed the Javanese villagers, the first iteration of the Olympus OM-1, a camera that was not up to the rigors of the heat and humidity of Indonesia. Within weeks of purchase, the rubber focus grips on the barrels of the Olympus's lenses (35, 50, and 100mm, as per the classic combination of the time) had come loose and the lens elements of each were obscured by a proliferation of fungus — this quite unlike the medium-format Mamiya and 35mm Canon and Nikon equipment that I'd before and after.
Two worthy links
In my recent post on eye contact (linked to above), I weighed the balance between eye contact drawing out subjects and prompting them to manifest themselves vs. manipulating and overwhelming them with the presence and persona of the photographer.
Last week, I witnessed the transcendence of this dichotomy in an exhibition at Gallery Photosynthesis in Sofia, Bulgaria of near-life-size prints of magnificent, technically-masterful, full-length portraits taken by Bulgarian (Plovdivian/"Filibelı") photographer Sonya Stankove.
Sonya Stankova took the photos in the late-1980s/early-1990s. At the time, the period immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Stankova was working in a photo studio in her native city of Plovdiv, where hundreds of queued each day to have their photos taken for passports required to leave Bulgaria in search of opportunities, real and fantasized, abroad. Every now and then, when a customer struck Stankova's fancy, she asked if she could take a second photo for her own collection. She would then slide a fresh full-frame sheet of film into the large-format wooden view-camera the studio ordinarily used for passport-sized photos, engage the subject, and squeeze the shutter release bulb, keeping the lens open for an amount of time estimated by intuition. The resulting photos captured the individuality of the subjects and, displayed together, provide a documentary view into the place and time they were taken.
To close, I (figuratively) zoom-out further to consider the ultimate question underlying photography in the digital age, via a link to the eclectic weblog of "The Online Photographer," master-printer Michael Johnston. The subject: "Why take more photographs at all?"
Reconsideration: Eye to Eye, Squint to Squint, and Thoughts on Who is Photographing Who
Faces, Film-based Photography, Istanbul, Photography, Rolleiflex 6x6cm, Street Commerce, Turkey, Urban Dynamics
Paint store workers, Perşembe Pazarı, Galata, Istanbul, 2013; B/W negative; Rolleiflex Xenotar f2.8. Click on image to enlarge.
I have not posted to this site since mid-year, 2015. Conceptually, long-form reading (for research purposes and for its own sake) caused me to push short-form writing to the side. Visually, failure of digital photographic equipment , the increasingly complex logistical chain of purchasing and processing film, and a search for new photographic approaches and subject matter led me to reconsider both the worth of my backlog of images and the processes for sharing them. But now, for the moment at least, I've decided to pick up the thread …
The photo above provides continuity with my last post. It was taken in the Perşembe Pazarı (the Thursday Market), the centuries- (millennia-, actually!) old ship's chandler and metal-working market at the mouth of the Golden Horn at the waterfront of the old Galata neighborhood of Istanbul, in one of the narrow streets just behind the buildings fronting the water at the left of the photo featured in my last post. The street in question contains the narrow stalls of paint merchants, competitors grouped together as per the practices of traditional markets. The paint merchants test and display custom-mixed colors by painting pointillist brush swaths and and Jackson-Pollack-like spray bursts onto exposed retaining walls in the increasing number of vacant lots that scar the neighborhood as developers race to position themselves for the windfalls of inevitable gentrification. (For a closer view of waterfront street-life elsewhere in Perşembe Pazarı click here.)
Eyes to eyes … or squints to squints?
For years, I have shied away from candid photography, especially (per my lifelong contrived contrariness vis-a-vis fashion) the recent rage for so-called "street photography." To me, hidden cameras and surreptitious photographers manifest cowardliness, trickery, and exploitation. My take is (was?) that achievement of direct eye-contact shows force of personality and attentiveness on the part of the photographer towards the person-hood of the subject. Eye contact enables the subject to manifest him- or herself in a manner either inherent to themselves or as they themselves wish to at the moment. It leads to willful collaboration of subject and photographer.
Objectivity or self-deception?
Recently, I've begun to question my stance. I ask myself how much the achievement of eye-contact and the seduction involved therein are true techniques of environmental portraiture versus how much they are techniques of projection, surrogate self-portraiture, and/or transcendence of loneliness on the part of the photographer? Or, more abstractly, whether for eye-contact is a means for capturing transcendence rather than subject? Or, more banal, how much the search for eye contact is a but a hangover from, and nostalgia for, for the family snapshots of my childhood?
As to what spurred my questioning … several things:
1. The suggestion of a collaborator on a proposed joint research project that I reread Photography and Sociology, a 1970s essay by the octogenarian one-time jazz musician, innovator in participant research into "deviant" behavior groups (beginning with one of the first detailed studies of marijuana-smokers!), and, to this day, still active sociologist, Howard Becker;
2. The suggestion of the same colleague that I re-examine the detached, clinical but nonetheless telling and powerfully moving portraiture of August Sander (the full collection of which can seen on the website of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and
3. My recent reviewing — in the context of a proposal for a retrospective exhibition — of photos of a series of architectural details (balconies, doors, windows, caryatids, stairways) that I took in Sofia, Bulgaria during a winter of political upheaval and economic collapse nineteen years ago. How much, I now ask myself, did the Sofia series actually portray their inanimate subject matter? How much did my choice of subject matter, viewpoint, and framing actually represent the grim pessimism and insecurity of the society at the time? Or, how much were the photos simply expressions of my own inner state and preoccupations, independent of subject matter and context? Did the photos tell larger tales of the objects portrayed, their contexts, and the times, or merely express the narcissism or autism of me, the photographer?
More on this — and a sampling of photographs from the series referred to — in subsequent posts.
(Disclaimer: I have not worked or resided in Istanbul since January, 2015. Since then, I have only returned to Istanbul for a two-week stay during which I did not visit Perşembe Pazarı. Thus, I do not know how much of the market area has been razed since nor have I attended to my usual practice of trying to return to provide the subjects of photos with prints of their own, regardless of intervening time. Anyone more up-to-date on the present state of Perşembe Pazarı is welcome to comment)
Dusk on the Golden Horn: A Neglected Field Camera, a Pleasingly-Flawed Pocket Camera, and an Architectural Palimpsest
Architecture, Istanbul, Photography, Small Sensor Digital Photography, Turkey, Urban Dynamics
Dusk, Galata, Istanbul, 2013. Panasonic LX3. Click to enlarge.
Neglected Field Camera
There is (or there used to be) a saying in Dutch that all that comes from afar is tastier ("Wat je veer vandaan halt is lekkerde" … or some-such). At first hearing, this might sound clever but its implications are unfortunate. Expecting greater satisfaction from afar can blind one to the satisfactions of all that is familiar and ready-to-hand. The scene portrayed in the photo above was a recurring vista along my routine trajectories during frequent stays in Istanbul over the last decades. Thus, in the spirit of the odd perspective of the Dutch saying, I neglected to photograph it with the attention it deserved. Many times, especially at dusk, when wending my way through crowds and passing by in a rush, I made notes to myself that I should return someday with a field camera, tripod, and roll or sheet film — reminders that I consistently ignored or postponed.
Pleasingly Flawed Pocket Camera
One late afternoon, however, I did happen to have a camera in my bag while walking by — a small-sensor, pocket-sized Panasonic LX3, a camera that by current standards and tastes should be retired to the shelf. However, despite its limitations and flaws — miniscule sensor with attendant poor light sensitivity, digital noise, smearing, lack of sharpness, etc. — on the rare occasions when I still take the LX3 with me I find it capable of surprisingly pleasing results, including the old-fashioned-picture-postcard-like "feel" of the photo above.
Architectural Palimpsest
The photo above portrays Galata from Eminönu, just at that time of day when the sky turns orange and pink and its colors are reflected on the silvery-blue surface of currents converging at the mouth of the Golden Horn. It shows Galata at its most monumental and most prosaic. At the top of the rise is the Galata Tower, a gargantuan remnant — rebuilt several times over the centuries and extensively remodeled during the 1960s — of former defensive walls and originally dating to pre-Ottoman Byzantium (1389) when Galata was a self-governing Genoese trading enclave.
Juxtaposed against the tower is the thin spire of the one-time British Sailors' Hospital (1855). Just below and slightly to the left are the upper floors of the massive rear facade of a symmetrical dual structure originally built (1890) to house the headquarters of the Ottoman Bank and state tobacco monopoly. Designed to resemble an Ottoman-period wooden waterside mansion, the side of the building facing the Golden Horn and the hills of the old city of Istanbul on the opposite bank was conceived as counterweight of tradition to balance out the building's self-consciously neoclassical and western-appearing street-side facade and main entrance-way.
Other buildings comprising the pointillist-like day-end physiognomy of Galata include late-19th- and early-20th-century commercial and residential structures and stark concrete structures built in the mid-20th-century on the footprints of past generations of buildings. At the water-side level are the warren of decrepit buildings, open spaces, and narrow streets comprising the Perşembe Pazar (Thursday Market), a ships'-chandler and metal-working market that has functioned since Byzantine times but that is now under threat of proposed redevelopment into an upscale tourist and "cool" restaurant, coffeehouse, and nightspot zone — necessary "progress," perhaps, but "progress" that erases historical continuity, legacy trades, and economic functions that are tradition passageways to socio-economic mobility.
Afterword: Subjective Mapping
The photo also indicates places prominent in my own subjective mapping of Istanbul. It was on the bridge partially visible at the very far right of the photo that I was once involved in an accident that propelled me out of the world of work and income for a year but that also — despite surgery, pain, and other inconveniences — delivered me into an alternate world of reading, resting, exercising, and self-renewal. A miniscule protrusion slightly to the right of the Galata Tower appears to be the very tip of the pillow-like, orientalist-fantasy dome of the Ashkenazic Synagogue — opened in 1900 as the synagogue of the former Austro-Hungarian Jewish community of Istanbul and designed by architect Gabriel Tadeschi, also the architect of the Or-Ahayim Hospital in Balat — a place that I have visited on-and-off over the decade since my first work assignment in Istanbul in the late-1970s. Amongst the many worthy edifices — churches, office buildings, early apartment houses, synagogues, mosques, hans, and fountains — obscured by surrounding buildings and thus not visible in the photo is the late-19th-cenury neo-gothic Italian Synagogue, the Kal de los Frankos (Congregation of the Franks), where I enjoyed many pleasant Saturday mornings these past years and met a number of worthy friends and acquaintances .
Pauses: Online, in New York, in Prospect Park, and Photographically
Feet Unfettered, Ears Unfilled: A Siren's Song from the Coney Island Surf
The Architecture of Social Democracy, Red Vienna, 1919-1934: Karl-Marx-Hof and the Amalien Bath
Amsterdam-South, Long Ago: Rounded Corners, Garden Gnomes, Dreams and Disappointments
The Hague Long-Ago, A Visual Footnote: Minimalism and Wry Humor
35mm Photography
Film-based Photography
Fuji X100 digital
Gezi Park / Taksim Square
Identities and Traditions
Print and Broadcast Media
Rolleiflex 6x6cm
Roma (Gypsies)
Small Sensor Digital Photography
Street Commerce
Urban Dynamics
View Camera Photography
Or Ahayim Hospital, Balat, Istanbul: A Shining Light, Discretion/Anonymity, and the Erasure of Urbanity
Past Glory: Abandoned Mineral Bath Pavilion, Sofia, Bulgaria
Beneficent Brutalism: A Hill-Top Church and a Towering Housing Estate, Vienna
Istanbul Conflicts From Afar: Issues and Aspersions, Headscarves and Rambo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Vol. 1
Arina Tanemura, Author, Arina Tanemura, Illustrator . DC/CMX $9.99 (172p) ISBN 978-1-4012-0555-3
Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura, Vol. 1
Full Moon O Sagashite, Vol. 1
Time Stranger Kyoko
Short-Tempered Melancholic and Other Stories
The Gentlemen's Alliance Volume 1
Kusajabe Maron, the heroine of this manga series, will remind Americans of television's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer": both are high school students who secretly combat supernatural evil by night. But the concept behind Tanemura's series is more convoluted and downright wacky. As Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Maron is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, a historical version of the warrior woman archetype that is now widespread in pop culture. Just how reincarnation can fit Joan of Arc's Catholicism goes unexplained. The devil has dispatched demons to enter into paintings, whose beauty "enslaves" onlookers' hearts, enabling demons to possess them. As God's agent Jeanne must exorcise these demons despite opposition from the police, who think she is vandalizing art. Further complicating matters are Maron's supposed best friend Miyako, who helps her detective father hunt Jeanne, and Maron's handsome classmate Chiaki, who, unsurprisingly, turns out to be Jeanne's masked rival Kaito Sinbad. What the stories lack in suspense they make up in energy with Tanemura's busy art style and stereotypically cute characters. The story of Maron's learning how to balance her two sides—confident Jeanne and emotionally vulnerable Maron—is what makes this book work. (Oct .)
Paperback - 1 pages - 978-1-4012-0842-4


The newest kid on the block, this insanely yummy bar brings together organic, fair trade coconut with dark chocolate chips, creamy peanut butter and a pinch of sea salt. It's our #1 best seller for good reason!
Ingredients: oats, natural peanut butter, honey, fair trade organic coconut, fair trade organic dark chocolate, organic pumpkin seeds, sea salt.
Contains: peanuts, tree nuts. May contain traces of wheat.


text:
Chris Rock Asks Court to Determine Boy's Paternity
A Georgia woman claims the comedian is the father of her 13-year-old child
By People Staff
Chris Rock asked a court to determine if he's the father of a 13-year-old boy, according to papers filed in a paternity dispute with a Georgia woman.
If he's proven to be the father, Rock wants to "contribute to the support, maintenance, and education" of the boy, say the papers filed Monday in Statesboro, Ga.
Kali Bowyer had first tried to file a paternity action against Rock last month, but withdrew it because Rock, a New Jersey resident, lives outside the southeastern Georgia court's jurisdiction, the Associated Press reports.
Rock's filing now starts the proceedings.
Bowyer's lawyer, Brett Kimmel, says Bowyer is "looking forward to establishing that Mr. Rock is the father of their son and bringing the case to a swift conclusion," according to the AP.
The attorney declined to describe the nature of his client's relationship with Rock or say why she waited 13 years to seek a paternity claim.
Rock, 42, is married with two young children. He and wife Malaak have brushed off rumors their marriage is in trouble.
His rep wasn't available for comment.


text:
Why Is the US Backing
Sunni Jihadists?
by Michael Tennant Posted on March 13, 2007 August 7, 2009
Interview recorded Feb. 27, 2007. Listen to the interview.
Although we've talked about this issue, your article in The New Yorker, "The Redirection," a couple of times, Mr. Hersh, would you give us a thumbnail sketch of your story?
Hersh: Yeah, basically, it's a story saying that we've changed our policy in a very dramatic way in the last few months.
It's awfully hard to know when and where. We are involved in a war now in Iraq, and it is not going well. So the president has decided we are going to expand this. What we want to do is – our target now is Iran. We want to isolate Iran. We want to run operations against Iran. We've been doing that for a year, and we also want to escalate against Iran's buddies in Syria and Lebanon.
So we are now… The United States has joined forces with the Brits, Israelis, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan – the moderate Sunni Arab countries – in a coalition designed to beat back the Shia. They are a minority, but a very powerful minority. As you know, Iran is Shia. Right now in Lebanon, the Sunni government, controlled by a man named Prime Minister Siniora, is under much pressure from a coalition headed by Hezbollah – which is Shia. It's got Christians on it too, but the coalition wants a bigger share of the pie in Lebanon – more power.
So, there is a standoff there.
The U.S. is throwing in – all the way – with those who want to stop the Shia anywhere in the Middle East. That is a huge escalation because, among other things, the growing contradiction of the policy is that we have made the Shia in Iraq our allies. It is not quite clear how strong that relationship is anymore, but that's… So you've got… It's sort of like the yellow submarine, you know? They disappear.
The policy is so complicated, so contradictory and so ad hoc, you just wonder what these guys are thinking of.
Goyette: I've described it on my show – Bush and these people – as the sorcerer's apprentice. They've unleashed these forces that they cannot contain – they cannot foresee. But isn't anyone in the administration overcome with shame in not foreseeing the obvious: that the de-Ba'athification and the invasion of Iraq would have contributed substantially to the a Shia power block? I mean, that seems like it would have been foreseeable back in 2002.
Hersh: You know, you've got to understand how obdurate these neocons are. When the war began, by June of 2003… You know, I'm tuned in. I've been writing critically about this. I've written no other story since 9-11, only this one insane crummy subject – it's driving me nuts.
But within two or three months [of the beginning of the war in 2003], my buddies on the inside were saying, "We are beginning to hear the insurgency ditty bopping." We could hear them communicating with each other. We couldn't break the code, but we picked up messages. It was Iranian signals gear. It was pretty sensitive stuff. The Iranians were passing along communications gear [to Iraqis]. By the way – why shouldn't they? I mean, that's not a sin. Why shouldn't they [Iran] help their ally and weaken us? That's the way the world is.
In any case, the neocons refused to listen to the idea that the Shi'ites in the south – whom they were pushing, because they wanted to de-Ba'athify: get rid of the army and anything in connection with Saddam, which is really stupid. They [neocons] would say to the military and the intelligence service, "Don't worry about it. Don't forget that there was an eight year war in the eighties between Iraq and Iran – very bloody by the way – where twenty thousand people would die on any given day. There were horrible battles. The Shia in Iran and the Shia in Iraq hate each other."
That was the theory: there is no way the Iraqi Shia are going to support Iran after that war. This is what the neocons said. It didn't matter how many times the [intelligence] community would report and say, "we've got real problems here. We notice five thousand Iranian intelligence officers."
You know, you saw the presence of the Quds brigade and others in every major city in the south of Iraq. One thing about the Iranians: they are not very subtle. They wear usually black suits, white shirts, no ties, buttoned up all the way, black shoes and white socks. You can see them. They make no attempt to hide themselves. Actually, at one point in 2004 they were actually renting big apartment buildings in Basra and other places where they put up their people. They weren't just doing military stuff. They were doing a lot of humanitarian work too. You know – helping out an ally, because the more they can get the war going against us, the stronger their position gets.
Goyette: It was even more than that, because we effectively announced to the world that once we are finished in Iraq, then Iran and Syria are next. We made it in their [Iran's] interest to keep us bogged down.
Hersh: That is why I don't understand why the public isn't more cynical. Every time Bush says, "Iran is helping Iraq. Syria is helping and supplying arms – the same for Hezbollah."
If you remember the halcyon days – the first couple of weeks when everyone thought it was going to be [okay]. The statue [of Saddam] fell and everybody thought democracy would spill like water all over the middle east out of Iraq. Cheney and others would say, "we are doing Iran next and then Syria and then Lebanon." I mean, they basically laid down a trump card and then wondered why people there objected [laughter] and tried to resist us as much as possible.
It is beyond belief just in sheer terms of competence, you know? Just in sheer terms of competence – it is amazing.
Goyette: Well, explain to me this Sunni tilt, and how that plays into the hands of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-like interests.
Hersh: What happened is… You know, I didn't know [about] this [Sunni tilt].
I went in December… I went twice to Beirut. I've been there a lot over the years, because the Middle East is obviously important since this war. So I went to Beirut. I had an interview and was the first Westerner, I guess, to see Nasrallah [after the Israeli bombing of Lebanon]. I had seen him before. I had always talked to Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah – a very bright guy.
Yes, Nasrallah was one of the leading cutting edges of terrorism in the 1980's. Yes, but in the last ten years he has been operating politically. The toggle switch from terrorism to politics has gone that way, and you know what? Let's keep them [Hezbollah] in politics. They had members of parliament in Lebanon. They had four or five cabinet ministers that they pulled out because of the recent fight. But they were very involved politically and socially – [with] schools and hospitals in southern Lebanon.
So I went to see Nasrallah a bunch of times – usually about Iraq. He was a Shi'ite leader very friendly with the Iranians and also very friendly with the Shi'ite leadership in Iran. They all trained together. They all were the same religious group. They went to the same basic schools. I would sort of get a feel on what's going on.
This time I went to see him about Lebanon. If you remember last summer, he had conducted something that had never happened before. He had done a war against Israel – put up against Israel and beat them. The only Arab country to ever do it. Nobody is more important right now. This isn't just me talking. This is our intelligence people in the government saying to me, "the most important man in the Middle East right now is Nasrallah"
In places like Egypt – I was just in Cairo – he is more popular than anybody in the Egyptian government. This a Shia. In almost totally Sunni Egypt – in what they call the "Arab street," it's Nasrallah – he's the boss.
Anyway, so I go to see the guy [Nasrallah] in December and oh man… Look, I know the Israelis have him under a death threat. They've had him under a death threat for years, particularly after he won the war – or did well in the war. So I am in three or four cars. I am searched. I mean, [it's] black, with all of the shades and the curtains drawn in the car. I am transferred three or four times in basements – all bombed out.
I finally get to the guy and say, "What is going on, man? I didn't know you were that scared of the Israelis?" He says, "Oh no, it is not the Israelis. We've got fellow Arabs: Jordanian intelligence, Salafis, Wahhabis – jihadists. These are the most extreme guys."
Salafis and Wahhabis are out of Saudi Arabia. They are Sunni radicals, who are connected to al-Qaeda in the sense that they believe anybody who is not a Sunni is an infidel – an infidel and disposable.
Then you discover that there are 3, count them, 3 units, one large and the others smaller – three terrorists linked to al-Qaeda units in Lebanon that have all been formed in the last six to eight months. And we, the United States of America, are looking the other way as money flows in from us and from Saudi Arabia under the table to get these guys [al-Qaeda terrorists] arms, clothing, and material goods so that they…
Why do we support the Sunnis? Why support the same guys – I mean the Salafis, [Wahhabis etc.] – that we would have arrested two or three years ago and put in Guantanamo? Now we are supporting them because they are potential allies against Nasrallah and Hezbollah. They [Sunnis] are tough. Hezbollah's tough. Hezbollah knows how to do terrorism. These guys do too.
[It's] in case we end up in a civil war there. We want to have allies. That is the height of cynicism. First of all, why do we want them… you know… what's going on in Iraq between the Sunni and the Shi'ites is crazy. And where are the Christians in Iraq? There used to be two million – now they are gone.
Goyette: Right.
Hersh: And they are gone. I mean, it's a civil war, and it is a sectarian war. Now he's trying – This president, with this policy, is going to push Lebanon into sectarian war too. There is already trouble between Sunni and Shia. It's just really…
Goyette: It strikes me as Orwellian – it's like Winston rewriting history and shoving stuff down the memory hole. You would think that the American people would at least have the short term memory to remember that these [Sunni jihadists] were supposed to be the bad guys.
Hersh: Well, I mean look, they [Americans] are just learning about this. The story has only been out a couple of days. The major newspapers haven't given it a whiff yet because they probably don't know how to do it.
Goyette: They don't understand what it means…
Hersh: Uh, yeah, you know, I worked for the New York Times for nine years. I always have a mixed feeling about them. It is the most important newspaper in America. It still is. When they report a story, it has enormous influence. They just haven't figured out this presidency. I think that just maybe they don't know how. I mean, it is sort of amazing to me they haven't figured out this presidency.
Goyette: Well, back to Nasrallah, is there a new Israeli-Lebanese war brewing right now?
Hersh: Sure. I would say, we have replaced the Israelis in this situation. I don't think there is going to be an open conflict. I think what you are seeing right now is tremendous pressure being placed on Nasrallah to neutralize them by us, in supporting the government there.
What Nasrallah wants is a bigger piece of the pie. Under the crazy rules in Lebanon, the way they have divided the country up politically is a hoot. They fixed the percentage everybody can have in the parliament. The Shia – this was done in 1943 – were fixed then at twenty percent.
Well, the Shia are a hell of a lot more than twenty percent, and they may even be more than fifty percent. What Nasrallah basically wants is to change these numbers. He wants a bigger piece of the pie, and he's got a coalition that includes a very prominent Christian in a man named Michel Aoun, who got 74 percent of the Christian vote in the last election. So Nasrallah is not alone in this. They want to redo the electoral procedure. That is the critical issue.
Our American position is, that there will be no compromise in Lebanon. They are not going to get anything. If it means war, so what?
Goyette: Now back to your New Yorker article, "The Redirection: A Strategic Shift." A lot of us at talk radio shook our heads in utter amazement at these shrink wrapped, washing machine sized palates of cash that came into that country in billions. We thought that it was all just disappearing in your typical average graft – showing up in gym bags and people stuffing money in duffel bags. But in truth, there may have been substantial slush funds as you suggest in your article, created for black ops.
Hersh: Yes, and here is where it gets complicated. There is always pools of money around for black ops. There always are [for] side pockets. We all know from the hearing the other week with Congressman Waxman that something like almost nine billion dollars was not accounted for. There was some very funny conversations with Mr. Bremer of the coalition provisional office testifying that, "Oh, he just didn't know. He didn't keep track." [Laughs]
Goyette: [Bremer said,] "I had to do it. I had to get people paid. They wouldn't take their own currency…"
Hersh: There were also other pools of money. Saddam had anywhere from – you count it – half a billion to more than that, that we found in just raiding his bunkers. There also was, I am told, as much as a billion dollars more in cash found the various ministries when we took over the government.
So you had three large pools of money. I am here to tell you that nobody could prove it, because that's the thing about money. It's not accountable. That is one reason that being opaque is very important for the [intelligence] community. You can do anything you want [with cash].
But I have been told very reliably that this money – some of it anyway – was being used by covert operations. I don't have a video tape of it. I just have people I trust. In the New Yorker we decided to be very careful about it, which is totally appropriate. We were very careful. We said, "It is not clear."
There are people who believe that this money showed up directly in covert ops even against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. We do know that major covert programs have been run in those three countries by us without Congressional funding. Where is the money coming from?
Goyette: This is a handy way to bypass the Congressional authorization process, which brings us back to the Iran-Contra precedent. It's the same thing but worse. Iran-Contra looks like a little PR disaster – a little PR black eye – compared to starting another national war.
Hersh: Iran-Contra… During the Reagan years – for those who don't know – Reagan really wanted to do something to stop what he considered to be the left wing revolutionary government in Nicaragua, the Sandinista government. Reagan wanted to use a guerrilla force called the Contras that the CIA had setup with financing. Congress issued a series of legislative amendments saying, "No way. You cannot use Congressional money to for this."
Goyette: The Boland Amendment.
Hersh: The Boland Amendment. You got it exactly right.
They [Reagan administration] just created this incredible scheme – this Rube Goldberg scheme. They would sell arms. They would get Saudi money to buy arms and ship them through Israel into Iran, which is the same country that had held us hostage five or six years earlier – 300 guys hostages for a year. Out of that [Iranian arms deals] they generated enough profit to support the Contras.
There were hearings on it that went no where, because – I don't know why – the press wasn't… We let them off the hook.
By 1987 Reagan was clearly losing it. So it didn't go anywhere. But the precedent was there. The graph I'm proudest of, and the story I did, described this without much sourcing… One of the key players in that operation then was a guy named Elliott Abrams, who was in the National Security Council.
Abrams is now the special assistant to the president for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council – a very senior deputy in the government. He convened a lessons-learned-session sometime less than two years ago [by] pulling everybody who was still in the Bush administration that was involved in Iran Contra. They discussed what was good and what was bad.
The good was that you could do stuff and cheat Congress. The bad is you got caught. So the lessons learned are: you don't tell anybody anything. You don't trust the CIA. You don't trust the military. You don't run it out of the National Security Council. At that point in 1984 or 85, an Admiral named John Poindexter was the guy that they used [to head things up]. Now they said, "This time you use the man himself, the Veep – the vice-president." Cheney.
I think even then they were thinking and obviously talking about it [finding money for covert CIA operations]. Now you have this in fruition. You have Prince Bandar – the former Saudi Ambassador to Washington, who is very tight with Cheney – and other neoconservatives funneling money that we use to run operations without telling Congress. This is not only in Lebanon, but against Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, and also in Iran. I mean, it is really out there.
Goyette: It's really bad. Now, one other thing that I want to make sure we cover is the Negroponte resignation. I never thought that he was exactly Mr. Clean to begin with. I mean, going all the way back to Central America.
Hersh: Well, I guess he was under pressure to do what he did.
Goyette: Right…
Hersh: All I can tell you is that there has been a lot of tension between him [and Cheney], when he was head of intelligence, the job he quit to become deputy secretary of state. If you remember, he gave up a cabinet level job to take a sub-cabinet level job, which is interesting. So [in] the job he quit as head of intelligence there was a lot of tension between him and Cheney. I understand (and the Pentagon) he was not approving of many of the operations they wanted to do. He thought they were high risk and also not legal.
He was seen as a stickler – whether for moral grounds or legal grounds, I don't know. He was seen as a pain. That is one element. He was also seen by them as somebody, who wasn't very good at what he did. That's another element. But the critical issue, I was told by no less than three pretty well informed people, was that he had had it.
He had gone through Iran-Contra: there were hearings, and he almost got in trouble on that. He didn't want to do it again. He was very much against this policy of using Saudi money for covert arms – action rather. So he protested and eventually quit because of it. Look… I didn't talk to him. He didn't talk to me. The New Yorker had a series of queries. He did not deny. He just simply said he had no comment – for all that that means…
Goyette: I have heard now from sources one degree of separation, or maybe occasionally two, from the CIA that one of the sources of the conflict was Cheney. He [Negroponte] didn't want to participate in cooking the books on the national intelligence estimate on Iran.
Hersh: That is also very possible, because these guys… You know… It is not so much… I wish it was so simple as cooking the books. I think the tragedy of Cheney is that he believes what he believes.
Goyette: Oh, yeah. I don't doubt that.
Hersh: He just thinks the CIA is wrong. [Laughs] He doesn't think he's forcing them to tell a lie, he thinks he is forcing them to tell the truth. [Laughs]
Goyette: Well, you suggest the intelligence professionals are watching this thing in a state of stunned and shaken silence – of horror.
Hersh: Well, it's been going on for years. The silent horror is pretty silent – but it sure is horror.
Goyette: Yeah.
Hersh: And the same with the Joint Chiefs: they are watching this planning for Iran, the bombing, going on, and they don't know what to think.
Goyette: Would you handicap it? Do you think we will be able to either find a pretext for a war or have a bombing campaign?
Hersh: The only thing I can tell you is I've been writing this story for a year. It is serious. People would accuse me of being chicken little – you know, the sky is falling, sky is falling. Now it is clear that there is something to it. I just don't know what Bush is going to do, but I don't think he is going to leave office without dealing with Iran.
Goyette: Well, he has said as much. How about the Congress though? We thought back in November maybe a new Congress would act as a check or a brake on him.
Hersh: This is the real story. Will they get up and issue a Boland Amendment? That's the real story.
Goyette: All right. Seymour Hersh, you've been very generous with your time. We thank you so much.
Hersh: Good day.
Author: Michael Tennant
Michael Tennant is a software developer and freelance writer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. View all posts by Michael Tennant
Previous Previous post: Monday: 76 Iraqis, 2 GIs Killed; 13 Iraqis Injured
Next Next post: Reducing the Risk of Nukes
Michael Tennant's Latest Posts
Neat, Painless, Perpetual War
Previous Governments: To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute?
Lebanon and
Goyette's Second Law


text:
About Wesana
Wesana Health Announces Positive Findings From Animal Study on Novel Depression Treatment Protocol Combining Psilocybin and Cannabidiol
in Press Releases, Research and Development
Wesana's novel and proprietary depression treatment protocol that includes a single high dose of psilocybin followed by a maintenance regimen of a microdose of psilocybin combined with cannabidiol, significantly reduced depressive behaviors in a validated animal model
A single high dose of psilocybin alone demonstrated rapid, significant, and short acting improvement in depressive behaviors up to 14 days following administration
Following the single high dose, the maintenance regimen of a microdose of psilocybin in combination with cannabidiol resulted in an additional and sustained 64% reduction in depressive behaviors relative to the psilocybin single high dose alone
CHICAGO and TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wesana Health Holdings Inc. ("Wesana" or the "Company") (CSE: WESA; OTCQB: WSNAF), a data-driven life sciences company focused on developing the novel therapies of tomorrow and delivering new care paradigms today, has announced positive results of an animal study on a novel depression treatment protocol. Combining psilocybin and cannabidiol, the animal study, conducted by an independent global laboratory services provider, demonstrated considerable and sustained improvement in depressive behaviors.
Wesana's novel and proprietary depression treatment protocol includes a single high dose of psilocybin followed by a maintenance regimen of a microdose of psilocybin combined with cannabidiol. In a validated preclinical animal model of depression, the maintenance regimen demonstrated up to 64% further improvement than those observed with a single high dose of psilocybin alone.
Furthermore, the maintenance regimen provided a sustained antidepressant effect after the single high dose of psilocybin. Wesana's proprietary treatment protocol is currently being evaluated for the treatment of multiple mental health conditions including major depressive disorder associated with traumatic brain injury.
"The positive results of this study align with my individual experience and the improvements that I observed in my personal journey with depression. It's thrilling to see our scientific data support Wesana's mission to find more effective treatments for the millions of individuals suffering from the symptoms of traumatic brain injury including depression," said Daniel Carcillo, Wesana founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Dr. Mark Wingertzahn, Wesana's Chief Scientific Officer, added "This is a great step forward in establishing the scientific evidence to support the utility of a combination product including psilocybin and cannabidiol in the treatment of depression and other unmet medical needs. Additionally, these data provide fundamental, independent scientific support for the ongoing drug development program for SANA-013."
Please refer to the Company's management's discussion and analysis dated November 29, 2021, available on the Company's profile on www.sedar.com for additional information as to the Company's drug development program and the steps required to be completed for the Company to be able to commence phase I clinical trials.
On behalf of the Board of Directors:
"Daniel Carcillo", Chief Executive Officer
About Wesana Health.
Wesana Health helps people transcend barriers in mental health and performance. We innovate in care development through our therapies and patent-pending protocols, and in care delivery through activating a new multidisciplinary, technology-supported clinical model. Learn more at www.wesanahealth.com.
Keenan Gentry
Email: IR@wesanahealth.com
Isadora Forman
Email: media@wesanahealth.com
Forward-Looking Information and Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to future partnerships, collaborative research and the focus of the Company's business. Any such forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "contemplates", "believes", "projects", "plans" and similar expressions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance regarding the participation in, or success of, partnerships or collaborative research or that the Company will continue its business as described above. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances or actual results unless required by applicable law. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Listing Statement filed on Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for information as to the risks and other factors which may affect the Company's business objectives and strategic plans.
Source: Wesana Health
https://wesanahealth.com/wp-content/themes/impeka/impeka/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Wesana Health Wesana Health https://wesanahealth.com/wp-content/themes/impeka/impeka/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg January 18, 2022 March 25, 2022
Wesana Health CEO Daniel Carcillo to Keynote Charles River Symposium: Re-Imagining Substance Abuse, Addiction, and Mental Health Disorders with Psychedelic Therapies
Wesana Announces First Quarter 2022 Financial Results
Wesana Health Outlines Accelerated Drug Development Pathway
Wesana Health Granted US FDA Pre-IND Meeting for SANA-013
Wesana Health is a data-driven life science company pioneering drug development through its lead candidate SANA-013. Targeting Major Depressive Disorder as the lead indication, SANA-013 utilizes proprietary drug delivery protocols and a novel combination therapy. Wesana is composed of leaders from the scientific, research and medical industries driven by a common goal of improving the lives of millions of people globally suffering from mental health indications.
Copyright 2022 Wesana Health | Privacy Policy


text:
An oral history of the animated Beauty and the Beast
Walt Disney long wanted to make a cartoon Beauty and the Beast but didn't see it in his lifetime. Here's the story of how it came about, told by the people who brought it to life.
By Steve Daly
March 14, 2017 at 09:34 AM EDT
The following is an excerpt from the oral history of Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast, which is part of Entertainment Weekly's collector's edition The Ultimate Guide to Beauty and the Beast. To read the full history of the animated classic, as well as interviews with the cast and creative team behind the upcoming live-action remake, pick up the special issue, on newsstands now.
It was summer 1989, and Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg thought he might finally realize a dream that had eluded Walt Disney himself: adapting the French fairy tale "La Belle et La Bête" as an animated film. The British husband-and-wife directing team Richard and Jill Purdum would oversee development of a nonmusical version in London, collaborating with a team from Disney's animation facilities in California — producer Don Hahn (just off Who Framed Roger Rabbit), screenwriter Linda Woolverton (a TV-animation veteran) and a number of artists, including Glen Keane, who began developing the look of the Beast. Then the whole gang would come back to Los Angeles to begin production. Except it didn't work out that way. In September Hahn and Dick Purdum flew to Orlando, where Jeffrey Katzenberg was visiting a new ancillary animation studio the company had just built inside Walt Disney World. Hahn and Purdum privately showed Katzenberg a 20-minute reel of rough sketches and temporary vocals. There were no songs. Belle had a little sister with a cat and a mean, greedy aunt who wanted to many her off to rich Gaston. With one exception, none of the enchanted-castle objects had faces or voices. Katzenberg was unimpressed.
GLEN KEANE, ANIMATOR: We were waiting back in London. Don [Hahn] pulled us together and said, "Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, we're still going on a five-day research trip to the Loire Valley in France tomorrow to study the châteaus. The bad news is, everything you've worked on so far has been thrown out.
KIRK WISE, CODIRECTOR: [Disney execs] decided they wanted to pull Howard [Ashman] and Alan [Menken] into the mix and turn it into a musical, because the version the Purdums were working on was very straight, very dramatic. It lacked that Disney charm we all know and love. Howard suggested that the "object" characters, which were previously sort of silent pantomimes, be full-on speaking and singing characters. He proposed ideas for musical numbers. The Purdums decided this wasn't the movie they signed on to make, so they graciously bowed out. That left an empty space in the directors' chairs. But Gary and I weren't feature directors. I think they were happy with "Cranium Command," this crazy five-minute short we directed for Epcot Center. I guess they figured, Why not give these guys a shot?
RELATED: How Emma Watson Changed Belle's Backstory in Beauty and the Beast
GARY TROUSDALE, CODIRECTOR: Kirk and I got called in by the head of the development department. Christmas was three weeks away. He said, "Can you be on a plane in two days to New York? You might get to direct Beauty and the Beast." I didn't really have that great a time directing "Cranium Command." I like drawing. Directing was a lot of work — and not a lot of fun work. So I said, "Can I think about it?" And [development head] Charlie [Fink], God bless him, said, "No!" And that was that.
The new creative team now also included three gifted story artists who would go on to become directors themselves: Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), Brenda Chapman (Brave) and Roger Allers (The Lion King). They all spent the winter of 1989–90 banging out a brighter, funnier, song-filled plot while headquartered in dowdy conference rooms at a Residence Inn in the upstate New York town of Fishkill, near Ashman's home in Beacon. Ashman, by then sick with AIDS but keeping his illness from the team, was worried he'd become too weak to travel to L.A. much during production.
GARY TROUSDALE: Howard was smart. I mean really, really smart. He could form an idea, articulate it and argue it on the fly, in a way that would just leave you standing in the dust. He clearly knew the Broadway musical-theater discipline. But he liked cartoons, he liked the Beatles, he liked popular music, he liked movies, he liked campy stuff, so he was easier to talk to than some other lyricists. He wasn't a theater snob.
LINDA WOOLVERTON, SCREENWRITER: I hit it off right away with Howard, even though I didn't come from musical theater. Howard and I wanted to make a sea change in the Disney heroine. Together we conjured up Belle, who loved to read. She was unconscious about her beauty. She had dreams of faraway places, and she wasn't a victim; she's not sitting around waiting for anybody to rescue her or [for] a prince to come. We of course came into a lot of pushback about it. There was a template of what a Disney heroine should be: taking all of this abuse, smiling and talking to little animals through it all. That's not what I felt the world needed. I used to rail about it, honestly. I didn't make myself very popular. Which I'm sure you'll hear.
DON HAHN, PRODUCER: The storyboard artists weren't used to having a screenwriter in the same room, and Linda, uh…Linda's manner at times could be combative. And I would say that if she were in the room with me right now. It was an unusual [and] difficult, tense relationship with Linda. But…Howard liked her, and Jeffrey saw that Linda would be a good collaborator with Howard.
John Seakwood/Disney
KIRK WISE: The visual possibilities were leaping off the page with every rhyme Howard turned in. He had a great imagination and a tremendous sense of humor. But like many artists, he was also extremely passionate. And he could be very stubborn.
DON HAHN: Howard was a very intense guy. He used to chew legal pads. Like he'd rip off a piece of paper and wad it up, stick it in his cheek like chewing gum. And he'd work over these amazing couplets and rejoinders of words. He didn't suffer fools. But he wasn't a jerk. He was incredibly big-hearted. He would come in with donuts from his favorite bakery every day. Our story crew would pitch ideas, and Howard would musicalize them. Alan Menken was kind of a short-order chef, serving up melodies in the appropriate style. When the songs started coming in, it was like winning the lottery. First came the two opening numbers, "Belle" and "Belle's Reprise," on the same tape with "Be Our Guest." The title ballad came in on a separate tape a few weeks later.
ALAN MENKEN, COMPOSER: Howard was pretty apoplectic when we FedExed those cassette tapes. He was saying, "We can't send a seven-minute opening number to Disney. Nobody asked for that." But they went crazy. They loved it.
For the rest of the oral history — which includes memories from the voice cast of the animated classic — and for exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes coverage of the new film, pick up Entertainment Weekly's special issue The Ultimate Guide to Beauty and the Beast, on sale now.
Popular in Movies
Angelica Ross calls Pose representation a 'shift of power' in Queering the Script clip
How Disney is succeeding with its live-action remakes
Leonardo DiCaprio's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood costars tease him about Titanic death
The Lion King first reactions praise a 'breathtaking,' 'beautiful' 'visual masterpiece'
Paul McCartney to write musical adaptation of It's a Wonderful Life
Animal Kingdom, Peaky Blinders star among 3 actors cast in Fast & Furious 9
Brad Pitt launches perilous space race in stunning Ad Astra trailer
Jennifer Lopez scales stripper poles and scams rich men in fierce Hustlers trailer
Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding in love! Get a sneak peek at Last Christmas
What to Watch on Thursday: Netflix's creepy thriller Secret Obsession
John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and John Leguizamo are terrible firefighters in Playing With Fire trailer
Peaky Blinders and Into the Badlands actor Karl Shiels dies at 47
Harry Styles in early talks for Prince Eric role in live-action The Little Mermaid
Cats first look: Behind the scenes of the musical with Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson
Glory director Ed Zwick explains how he worked to avoid 'a white savior narrative'
Listen to Beyoncé's Lion King: The Gift album featuring Jay-Z, Pharrell, more
Chris Evans (and his beard) are on a mission in The Red Sea Diving Resort trailer
All Topics in Movies
An oral history of the animated Beauty and the Beast