#Alexander Technique teachers

[betteratbeing]

Alexander Technique New York

betterATbeing / Alexander Technique is dedicated to helping you develop constructive, conscious control of yourself, reducing unnecessary tension, and with it pain and discomfort. You can put your AT skills to use at any moment of the day to improve your own general functioning and performance, and enhance your experience of upright posture. 

And because your mind and body are one continuum, it's not just your body that will benefit.  You will improve how you interact with yourself and the world around you.  To help you do that is my mission at betterATbeing.

Elizabeth Hurwitt

Get More Info : Alexander Technique Lessons

Website : https://betteratbeing.com/

Contact Us : Alexander Technique Lessons In Manhattan NYC

[mybeingthere]

Georgian artist Merab Abramishvili (1957-2006) started drawing very early. He studied at the Art School in Tbilisi, Georgia, but his real artistic skills were acquired in Alexander Bandzeladze's private studio. Merab often recalled the years spent there with gratitude - Alexander was not only an outstanding teacher, but also a good and kind man.

In his youth, Merab took part in a scientific expedition organized to study the frescoes of the temple Ateni Zion (the Church of the Virgin in the village Ateni, near the town of Gori, Georgia, built in VIIth century). This expedition was headed by Merab's father, Guram Abramishvili, art historian and doctor of philosophy. The expedition had profoundly affected Murab: "For me Ateni is the primary source, here I am filled with energy so I work most of the day and night," - said the artist. He began painting copies of frescos in the temple Ateni Sioni and continued this work for many years.

Merab Abramishvili painted on board, primed with gesso, with tempera paints, using traditional (egg yolk) technique. The method is complex and time-consuming, the results are reminiscent of medieval frescoes. Merab Abramishvili often said: "My paintings are stories of peace in the world".

http://oilpaintingsforme.nordblogs.com/.../artist-merab...

[sinclair-enterprises]

Lieutenant Helga Sinclair Comprehensive Combat Studies/Timeline

It’s difficult to say when Helga began professional combat training. It is documented that at some point during her youth she was encouraged to learn the art of combat by her father, U.S. Army Major Alexander Sinclair, as well as her five brothers after Helga declined her mother’s suggestion to pursue dance. At the age of 17 (approx. 1894) she met Commander Lyle Rourke while stationed in Maryland. After time spent at Yongsan (1894-1897) and Aberdeen Proving Ground (1897-1901), Helga traveled to Fort Dix sometime between 1901-1902 with the support of her father. It was at this time that she began to learn both the use of firearms as well as military tactics under Commander Rourke’s instruction. Rourke was impressed with Helga’s skills (& her potential to become a covert agent/spy), and he therefore took her with him on tour as a training assistant between late 1902-early 1903. Later in 1903 Helga accompanied Rourke on an expedition to Egypt as an intelligence officer, parting ways with him in August of that year to continue her training (possibly at Fort Dix or elsewhere). In 1904 Helga appears to have left on an unspecified expedition this time to San Domingo, but thereafter she made her way to the Philippines. During her stay in the then-U.S. colony she underwent the most substantial part of her close quarters combat training by studying under the founder of aikido, Moreihei Ueshiba, from 1904-1907. By the time Helga entered the employ of Preston B. Whitmore on December 5, 1911 as a personal bodyguard & chauffer, she was a proficient master in the art of several combat styles & techniques, encompassing close range to longer distance forms of fighting.

Tutelage under Moreihei Ueshiba:

During the period 1904-1907 Helga trained extensively in aikido as a student of Ōsensei Moreihei Ueshiba. Ueshiba himself served in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and was only discharged in 1907. This is where history & Atlantis’s lore diverge as historically Ueshiba traveled to Hokkaido after he left the army, staying there until 1919-while Helga already made her journey to the Philippines in 1904. We can thus assume that in Atlantis’s timeline he instead began to develop his style somewhat before and alongside his move to the Philippines instead in 1904, where he presumably opened a school and began to teach students in the ways of his new martial art. As Helga studied with Ueshiba in the early years of aikido she would have had access to a curriculum more focused on lethal strikes to vital points, as well as a greater emphasis on the use of weapons. It was only later that her teacher would come to develop aikido into an art less focused on martial techniques and more on spiritual self-improvement, and more practically the ability to subdue an opponent in ways that used that attacker’s strength/momentum against them.

Helga reached the rank of Yudansha-Yodan, or “4th Dan Black Belt,” by the end of her studies (Yudansha signifying the holder of a Dan grade [black belt], and Yodan indicating the 4th Dan level). By 1907 she had mastered several disciplines under the aikido umbrella, most prominently Henka Waza, Tanto Dori, and Tachi Dori.

Henka Waza:

Henka Waza (shift technique) is considered to be a more advanced skill focusing on switching between techniques in the middle of your move. This can be done as an adaptation to circumstances or simply if your opponent resists your initial technique. It is in all cases of its use intended to be a motivated shift.

Tanto Dori:

Tanto Dori (knife defense) is a technique which placed emphasis on defense against an opponent wielding a knife. The key point of this skill is to minimize the amount of harm done to the defender in the midst of both deflecting and controlling a knife attack. Body movement and leverage are often employed to redirect the opponent’s knife, as opposed to gripping or directly blocking it.

Tachi Dori:

Tachi Dori (sword taking) is a skill in which its practitioner is intended to disarm an opponent wielding a sword. This is again intended to be done with the bare hands as in Tanto Dori. This is a difficult technique, given that the uke, or sword holder, uses a two-handed grip which can be very firm and hard to dislodge.

Weapons:

As a result of her training between the 1890s to the early 1900s Helga mastered a wide array of close quarters weapons across multiple fighting disciplines including: the Colt throwing knife, bo staff, kama, field tanto, and the katana. It is also known that Helga was taught savage, tactical combat knife fighting somewhere in this same timeframe.

At the conclusion of her tutelage in the Philippines in 1907, Helga returned to the United States. It can be reasonably inferred that she continued to improve and build upon her skills in the period leading up to her employment by Whitmore Industries at the age of 34. One of Helga’s greatest achievements in physical combat is recorded in her file, in which she is stated to have bested Commander Lyle Rourke in unarmed combat-only one of three people to have ever done so. The circumstances surrounding this contest are unknown and so it is tough to make any clear analysis of her performance and application of the disciplines she had learned. Regardless, this fight between Lieutenant Sinclair and Commander Rourke remains clear evidence that the former had by that point become a formidable fighter in her own right. By the time the Atlantis Expedition got underway in 1914 Helga had over two decades of combat training and practical experience under her belt-proficient in multiple styles, techniques, and the use of an impressive assortment of both western and eastern weapons. She was a deadly, capable operative molded into exactly the kind of enforcer Commander Rourke needed her to be. Her abilities would end up being put to the ultimate test when Rourke betrayed her at the end of the Atlantean expedition where Helga was forced to engage him in a desperate fight to the death.

Unfortunately, her mentor revealed himself to still be far more capable than his student in a death match, and despite a spirited effort by the Lieutenant he ultimately defeated her, leading to her fiery demise.

Given that Helga was continually improving her skill set throughout the entirety of her life it’s possible she could potentially have at least achieved parity with Rourke in this kind of fight had she survived the expedition and into older age. This remains speculation, but what we can say is this: Helga Sinclair distinguished herself as a remarkable martial artist through the length and breadth of her career, and her mastery of such an assortment of fighting techniques speaks volumes to the discipline and dedication she carried herself with in life. Though her physical prowess was utilized in the service of less than savory causes, it was almost always used in the defense of those she cared about/those under her command until given no other choice. If Moreihei Ueshiba could have seen what became of his pupil, I think he at least would have taken solace in that.

[theoutcastrogue]

Venice in the art of Alexandra Exter (1882-1949)

Carnival in Venice (oil on canvas) 1930s

Carnival Procession (oil on canvas)

Masked Figures by the Banks of a Venetian Canal (oil on canvas)

Venetian Masks (oil on panel)

Pulcinella (gouache on paper) late 1920s-30s

Venice (oil and sand on canvas) 1925

Venice, 1915

"Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster, also known as Alexandra Exter, was a Russian and French painter and designer. As a young woman, her studio in Kiev attracted all the city's creative luminaries, and she became a figure of the Paris salons, mixing with Picasso, Braque and others. She is identified with the Russian/Ukrainian avant-garde, as a Cubo-futurist, Constructivist, and influencer of the Art Deco movement. She was the teacher of several School of Paris artists such as Abraham Mintchine, Isaac Frenkel Frenel and the film directors Grigori Kozintsev, Sergei Yutkevich among others." [x]

"Exter painted views of Florence, Genoa and Rome, but ‘most insistent and frequent were images of Venice. The city emerged in various forms: via the outlines of its buildings, in the ‘witchcraft of water’. In glimmering echoes of Renaissance painting, in costumes and masks and its carnivals’.

"Exter’s characteristic use of the bridge as a stage platform, seen most clearly in Carnival in Venice, is a legacy of her time as Tairov’s chief designer [Alexander Tairrov, director of Moscow's Kamerny Theatre]; the director believed in breaking up the flatness of the stage floor which the artist achieved for him by introducing arches, steps and mirrors. Even in her easel work, the emphasis is at all times on theatricality. Bridges are used as proscenium arches, the architecture creates a stage-like space in which to arrange her cast."

"For all her modernity, references to Venetian art of the past abound in these paintings. The masked figures are influenced by the Venetian artist Pietro Longhi, to whom Exter dedicated a series of works around this time. The incredible blues used in both Carnival Procession and Masked Figures by the Banks of a Venetian Canal are a direct reference to Titian, who was famed for his use of ultramarine, the pigment most associated with Venice’s history as the principal trading port with the East." [x]

"Exter had long since abandoned the Cubist syntax by 1925 but her sense of colour remained together with a strong conviction, shared with Léger, that a work of art should elicit a feeling of mathematical order. In its graceful interaction of fragmented planes and oscillation between emerging and receding elements, Venice (1925) echoes the more precise qualities that also appear in Léger's work at this time, both artists occupied with the continuous modulation of surfaces and the 'melody of construction' that Le Corbusier was still advocating in the 1930s. But while Exter subscribed to Léger's theory that 'a painting in its beauty must be equal to a beautiful industrial production', she never fully embraced the aesthetics of the machine and rejecting the common opposition between ancient and modern, her work often retains a classical edge - for example in these trefoil windows, arches and vaults. Human figures, which had been nearly absent from her Cubo-futurist paintings, also return in other works from this period."

"She was undoubtedly aware of the concept of 'defamiliarisation', a term first coined by the influential literary critic Viktor Shklovsky in 1917:

'The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar,' to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.'

An instance of this device is discernable in the present tight formation of the oars, seen from above. Like Braque and Picasso, Exter incorporates sand into certain areas of pigment to enhance the differentiation of surfaces, a technique also used to 'increase the length of perception'. The occasional lack of overlap between the boundaries of the textured surfaces and colour planes strengthens the paradoxical combination of tangible presence and elusive abstraction that makes Venice such a powerful work."

"Venetian subjects occur in Exter's work as early as 1915. A gigantic panneau of the city was one of the final works she produced in the Soviet Union and exhibited in the 1924 Venice Biennale." [x]

"The specific theme of the Commedia dell’Arte first appeared in Exter’s work in 1926 when the Danish film director Urban Gad approached her to design the sets and marionettes for a film which was to tell the story of Pulcinella and Colombina, transposing them from the Venice of Carlo Goldoni to contemporary New York. Pulcinella most likely relates to the artist’s subsequent experimentations on the theme of the Commedia dell’Arte. Pulcinella, who came to be known as Punch in England, is one of the classical characters of the Neapolitan puppetry. Typically depicted wearing a pointed hat and a mask, Pulcinella is an opportunist who always sides with the winner in any situation and fears no consequences." [x]

[opera-ghosts]

The Hawaiian Nightingale, also known as “Hawaiʻi's Songbird: Ululani Robertson (1890-1970):

Born in Honolulu on January 5, 1890 (approx.), Ululani McQuaid was the daughter of James H. McQuaid, an Englishman, and Kapulani Kalola Nahienaena Leinaholo Papaikaniau, a native Hawaiian and descendant of ali’i (Hawaiian royalty and nobility) from the islands of Maui and Hawaii. According to Ululani’s recollections, she was primarily raised by her grandmother and attended the Sacred Hearts Academy, a Catholic school which was popular among the Island’s wealthier residents. The school was staffed mostly by Belgian nuns and Ululani grew up speaking Hawaiian, French, and English.

There is little known about Ululani’s earliest years, beyond information given in interviews conducted later in her life. Even her exact year of birth remains unclear as there is no birth record available and various obituaries listed her as 75 or 80 in 1970. Musicologist Dale E. Hall, who published a brief biographical portrait of Ululani in his 1996 article Two Hawaiian Careers in Grand Opera, was able to locate the 1910 census records which indicated her age as 20, establishing her probable birth year as 1890. Hall also went so far as to contact the Sacred Hearts Academy which was unable to confirm any records of her attendance at the school.

Ululani married Alexander George Morison Robertson, a Hawaiian attorney and jurist, on May 29, 1907. After her wedding, she begins to appear in newspaper records as Mrs. A.G.M. Robertson, and her activities are more closely documented in the social columns. The earliest clippings found describe her as a hostess for celebrities and dignitaries visiting Honolulu and the Hawaiian Islands.

It is likely that Ululani was introduced to singing by her grandmother who was a well-known Hawaiian chanter, and who probably instilled in her a deep reverence for the Hawaiian language and song traditions. In the early years of her marriage, Ululani began taking lessons with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Mackall, one of Honolulu’s most noted voice teachers. Mackall helped to build Ululani’s knowledge of Western art music and develop her technique and repertoire.

Ululani’s first recorded recital appearance was in 1912 on a program featuring several of Mackall’s students. The next year, newspaper records give accounts of at least seven performances, both public and private. Ululani began incorporating musicales into the parties she hosted at her home.

Aside from her budding talent as a singer, Ululani was a noted hostess in Honolulu’s social circles. Both the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu’s largest and second largest news publications, praised the grandeur of events she hosted. An active member of her community, she was a member of the Morning Music Club and The Outdoor Circle, and was a founding officer of the Hawaiian Art Society.

As a result of Ululani’s talent, gracious personality, and social position, her popularity continued to increase between 1914 and 1920. She began appearing as a featured soloist with local churches and choral groups around Honolulu, receiving enthusiastic encores and splendid reviews from local newspapers.

wo notable performances in 1918 solidified the young Ululani’s place in Hawaii’s musical community, the first being a solo recital given for the benefit of the Red Cross at Honolulu’s new Mission Memorial Hall, and the second a feature in a Hawaiian musical given by Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole.

During World War I, the citizens of Hawaii did a great deal to support relief efforts, raising money and collecting clothing and food supplies. Ululani offered her talents as a singer, performing for events for Army and Navy groups stationed in the islands. Honolulu’s Ad Club sponsored a recital to benefit the American Red Cross on April 26, 1918 featuring Ululani Robertson (billed as Mrs. A.G.M. Robertson). Her program was a success, with nearly every seat filled. Encores included several Hawaiian songs, a tradition that the young singer would continue throughout her career. The concert was so well received that she was, from then on, known to the public as the “Hawaiian Nightingale.”

Later that year, with her notoriety as “Hawaii’s Nightingale,” Ululani was featured in a hookupu (traditional Hawaiian welcome ceremony for visiting nobles & dignitaries) given by Hawaii’s US Congressional delegate Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole. The event was a welcome for US Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane. On this program, Ululani performed traditional Hawaiian songs accompanied by ukuleles and a glee club from the Kamehameha Schools. Through this event she displayed herself not only as a fine singer of western art music but of the traditional and popular music of Hawaii. Throughout her life, Ululani would maintain her passion for performing and preserving the music and language of Hawaii.

Ululani continued performing and studying with Elizabeth Mackall. Sometime in late 1919 or early 1920, Mackall moved to San Francisco, California to join the music faculty at Mills College. Ululani took an apartment in San Francisco, travelling from Hawaii for periods of study with Mackall until 1921.

Having studied with Mackall for over a decade, in the spring of 1921, Ululani made the decision to seek a new teacher to further her musical accomplishments. Despite little connection to the musical world outside of Hawaii, she decided to seek an audition with Marcella Sembrich after reading an interview with the great prima donna in Mable Wangall’s 1899 book Stars of the Opera.

“When I went to New York I wanted to study with Madame Sembrich, not because someone had told me to go to her, but because I had read so much about this glorious woman. I had no letter of introduction to her. There was a long waiting list, so the secretary informed me.”

— Ululani Robertson, "Madame Butterfly Lauds Teacher, Mme. M. Sembrich." The Honolulu Advertiser. Page 27. January 20, 1935.

Having set her mind to meeting the renowned Sembrich, Ululani prepared to travel to New York. Her trip was hindered initially by a burglary at her San Francisco apartment and then when she contracted mumps on the long train ride. She arrived in New York City, but her prolonged illness delayed her seeking out Sembrich and caused her to miss Enrico Caruso’s final Metropolitan Opera performance, which she was to attend with fellow Hawaiian opera star tenor Tandy Mackenzie. After recovering, she began working to arrange her meeting with Madame Marcella Sembrich. After travelling five thousand miles and facing various trials and tribulations, her chance came on Easter Sunday of 1921.

Despite having no letter of introduction, the secretary spoke to Sembrich who decided to hear the singer and have a luncheon to discuss Ululani’s ambitions as a singer. Another interview recounts the audition with Sembrich:

“The studio accompanist, hard-working fellow, brought the song to a close with a resounding chord. Its soft, somewhat sad, melody had been strange to him, and its words stranger still, for it was a Hawaiian bit about the rain and a drenched flower. The singer, resting now by the piano, gathered herself together for the verdict. She had come five thousand miles from Honolulu to ask the great Marcella Sembrich to teach her. And Mme. Sembrich was before her now, about to decide. She speaks. “Where, my dear, did you come upon such – shall I say – Chinese-Italian? So was habe Ich nie vorher gehört.” (tr. from German: I have never heard this before”) The singer, for all the fact that this audition was for her a solemn affair, had to laugh. “That, Madame, was not Italian at all. It was Hawaiian.” “Ah so,” breathed the great teacher, “you come from those islands out there in the Pacific, to have Sembrich teach you? Well, we shall see!”

— from "Mrs. A.G.M Robertson Returns After Long Absence." The Honolulu Advertiser. Page 3. December 10, 1933.

Following her audition, Sembrich asked the young Ululani what she desired from a career in music. She boldly told Sembrich that she had no ambition for a career, only to perfect her voice and her art. Following her audition and interview, Sembrich sent Ululani off to await a decision. After three days passed, Sembrich contacted Ululani to accept her as a pupil, only on the condition that she pursue a career. She immediately took an apartment near Manhattan’s Bryant Park and set to study. Ululani and Sembrich worked well together and Ululani was soon fondly called Sembrich’s “little tropical flower.”

In the summer of 1921, Ululani travelled with her new teacher to “The Maples,” Sembrich’s Adirondack retreat in Lake Placid, New York. It was there that the only known photographs containing both Ululani Robertson and Marcella Sembrich in the same image were taken.

“All pupils loved my teacher. It made no difference whether they were successes or failures, they never forgot her magnetic personality. I spent my first summer with Mme. Sembrich at her home in Lake Placid. She herself was a marvelous cook and she planned her menus each day. I remember a little squirrel who, each summer, came to the back kitchen door to be fed by Madame. I think he got his winter store of nuts from her. Like people, he never forgot the gracious woman.”

— Ululani Robertson "Madame Butterfly Lauds Teacher, Mme. M. Sembrich." The Honolulu Advertiser. Sunday, January 20, 1935.

For the next four years, Ululani alternated between periods of study in New York and trips to Honolulu to visit family and give performances. It is during these years that her billing for concerts now included the line “Artist Pupil of Mme. Sembrich.” Reviews praised her abilities and her fine coloratura voice. Ululani, much like her Sembrich, was also known to accompany herself for encores, playing the piano or ukulele.

Sembrich moved her Adirondack summer retreat to Bay View, an estate on the shores of Lake George, in the summer of 1922 and purchased the property the following winter. Ululani was among the first students, along with sopranos Dusolina Giannini and Queena Mario, to take lessons in Sembrich’s new teaching studio (today The Sembrich) which was completed 1924.

Reviews indicate that Robertson showed great improvement in stage presence and the finer details of her artistry following only a year of study with Sembrich:

“Her dulcet tones, always so appealing to her many admirers, have developed a range, a power, a flexibility and a depth of feeling which have lifted her from the mere amateur class into that of the semi-professional, as all who hear her at her concert next Wednesday will agree. One year under the direction of such a noted singer has done so much for Mrs. Robertson, that one can have no doubt that in the next year’s work, which she is planning, she will easily reach the goal for which Madame Sembrich sets for her most promising pupils, a successful New York appearance.”

— from "Teacher Perpetuates Fame Through Pupils." The Honolulu Advertiser. Page 5. July 11, 1922.

Ululani returned to Lake George and New York City for extended periods of study alongside Sembrich’s students from the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard Graduate School, where she was director of the vocal programs. During her studies with Sembrich, Ululani began studying the roles of Mimi (La Bohème) and Cio-Cio-san (Madama Butterfly) by Puccini. Sembrich worked with Ululani to refine her diction, stage presence, and musicality, preparing for for a grand debut. However, the New York City debut that was the standard for Sembrich’s pupils never came as was decided between singer and teacher that a trip abroad for European study was more advantageous than an expensive Aeolian Hall debut:

“Mme. Sembrich felt that I should have European study. So, with my husband’s approval, I sailed for Italy and studied with Professor Guisseppi Benvenuto. I had already had four years of study with Mme. Sembrich. But there were languages to be studied, stage deportment, and a repertoire to be built up. I also had a few lessons with Mascagni, author of the opera, Iris, which I was studying.”

— Ululani Robertson in “Island Hostess,” Paradise of the Pacific. Page 32. February 1953

One of Ululani’s final performances as a pupil of Sembrich was in September of 1925 in the Italian play “Scampolo.” The event was held in the studio of Lake George resident and Sembrich pupil Polly Hoopes on her estate Stillwater. Following her final summer in Lake George, Ululani set sail for Milan, Italy to further her studies in Europe.

Following Sembrich’s advice, Ululani sought out several European teachers to help further her musical education, beginning in Milan, Italy.

While there, she took lessons with Giuseppe Benvenuto and Pietro Mascagni, studying roles from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and La Bohème, Mascagni’s Iris, andCharpantier’s Louise. Ululani then set her sights on France, particularly Paris, for further study. She continued her preparations for a European debut with pianist John Byrne. In 1926, she made her concert debut at the Salle Comedia in Paris and garnered positive reviews, particularly for her inclusion of several songs from Hawaii.

“Miss Ululani Robertson, who had chosen the Salle Comedia for her concert, possesses a very pretty soprano voice with exquisite crystalline notes. She knows how to sing, she sustains a note and reaches the pianissimo with undeniable art... Where she was quite remarkable was in some “Lieder” by Grieg; in “The Answer” by Terry, which she was obliged to repeat, and, above all, in some Hawaiian songs, to which she gave a really artistic expression. The “Na Lei O Hawaii” by King, won her a unanimous encore.”

— Louis Schneider in "The New York Herald," Paris. July 9, 1926

Following her successful concert debut, Ululani began appearing for social club events and private salons in Paris. In April 1927, she made her operatic debut in the title role of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Bordeaux, France. Despite singing the role in Italian instead of French, which was customary in French opera houses, critics were enamored by her vocal ability and refined acting. Her debut was followed by 22 more performances of the role across the continent. Her career took her to Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain where she appeared on stages in Deauville, Florence, Liège, Leipzig, Lyons, Milan, Prague, Rouen, Vienna, and more. Billed as “Madame La Princesse Ululani,” news outlets praised her interpretation of the role, deeming her “an artist of unusual merit” and characterized her singing as “ravishing,” “charming,” and “superb.” Near the end of her tour, several news articles in Europe reported that Ululani would return to Honolulu to perform the role in 1928.

However, Ululani did not return to Honolulu and instead began study at the American Conservatory in Fountainbleau around 1928, coaching with pianist Camille Decreus, the long-time accompanist of the Polish Tenor (and friend of Sembrich) Jean de Reszke. During her studies, she continued to appear in concert and opera across the continent and her popularity in the European musical scene began to grow.

During this time in Europe, nationalism was a prevailing trend in the musical world. Folk songs, particularly those sung in original native languages, were garnering attention as the true expressions of national culture and identity. Ululani, being one of so few Hawaiian singers to achieve European fame, was made even more popular by her renditions of Hawaiian songs, her ukulele accompaniments, and her displays of Hawaiian dance for European audiences. Among the Hawaiian songs presented by Ululani was the popular song Na Lei O Hawaii by Hawaiian composer Charles E. King.

To date, no original recordings of Ululani’s singing have been located. The Victor Talking Machine Company has notes of two recordings recorded by Ululani in 1923, however, neither made it to publication. While Ululani was in Europe, another “Hawaiian Songbird,” named Lena Machado, began recording and popularizing the music of Hawaii in the United States. Machado’s 1928 recording of the work with traditional instrumental accompaniment is a definitive representation of the traditional Hawaiian vocal technique ha’i which is characterized by a distinct break between vocal registers and accompaniments.

Prior to her entrée to the European opera scene, Ululani was offered a position as a Hawaiian singer with a touring band. While she loved to sing the songs of Hawaii and perform the popular music for audiences, she still believed that the role of Butterfly best suited her. Although the operatic stage was her chosen home, Ululani did appear on several occasions performing popular Hawaiian music. One such instance was with a Hawaiian orchestra at the Colonial Exposition in Paris in 1931, which was broadcast on the radio and was heard by Ululani’s husband A.G.M. Robertson in San Francisco.

Ululani toured across Europe appearing as Madama Butterfly and occasionally in other roles such as Mimi in La Bohème. Then in 1931, it was announced that Mme. Ululani was to appear for several performances of Madama Butterfly at Paris’ Opera Comique, one of the most celebrated European venues with perhaps the most discriminating audience. This was the first time a Hawaiian opera singer would appear on the stage of the famous opera house. The night of her debut, Madame Sembrich cabled her fondest congratulations. Ululani’s husband even travelled from Honolulu to see her take the stage in Paris.

News of her lauded debut was announced in papers across the United States. Her achievements on the stage of the Opera Comique were the pinnacle of her international fame and solidified her place as one of the leading interpreters of Puccini’s Butterfly. The Parisian Critic Louis Schneider published this review of the Opera Comique performance in an unidentified Paris newspaper:

Louis Schneider, music critic, writes in a Paris newspaper…

Madame Ululani sang “Madama Butterfly” at the Opera Comique, on Monday night. Her carriage and extreme grace give her an exacting possession of the role in which she proves the fullest depths of the character in her interpretation. Her voice, although not of great volume, is sufficiently ample for the role; and if, on entering the stage, she was overcome with emotion, she affirmed herself in the succeeding acts with charm and beauty of her voice, and the seizing tenderness of her intonation. She sang quite remarkably “Sur la mer calmes,” and also the Berceuse. Her success was decisive and mounted act by act.

– from an unidentified French publication. Translated and printed in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Page 26. January 2, 1932.

Despite her success on the stage in Paris, in 1932, Ululani stated that she was needed at home in Honolulu to take care of her husband, and thus made the decision to end her European career, having achieved the success she initially sought. She remained in Europe performing and exploring the continent with her husband until the latter half of 1933 when she began her journey home.

On Thanksgiving Day of 1933, the Hawaiian Nightingale returned to Honolulu with her husband aboard the Lurline. Friends and acquaintances gathered at the port to welcome the newly minted international star home, showering her with flowers and leis. While she had ended her European career, Ululani continued to make appearances in Hawaii and rumors of a contract with the Civic Opera of Chicago and offers from New York managers abounded, but none proved true or of any interest to Ululani.

Upon her return to Honolulu, Ululani brought with her three Siamese cats she adopted while in Paris. The trio, Handsome, Poupoulle, and Big Boy, captured headlines and even won awards in the first official Honolulu cat show in 1935.

Ululani, like Sembrich, was a lover of nature and animals. In a 1953 interview, Ululani said:

“I am a great animal lover and I was always bringing home stray kittens to be cared for or little puppies who had no home. But I am especially fond of kittens.”

- from “Island Hostess” in Paradise of the Pacific. February, 1953.

One of her first notable appearances upon her return to Honolulu was on an NBC live radio broadcast commemorating President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first year in office. Ululani was a featured soloist on this program. She performed a new composition by Charles E. King, dedicated to Mrs. Roosevelt, titled Makuahine O Ka Lahui.

Her debut with the Honolulu Symphony was initially scheduled for 1934, but was cancelled due to illness. Her debut with the Symphony finally came the next year when she appeared as a guest soloist, performing “Pleurez mes yeux” from Massenet’s Le Cid. Praise for her artistry was universal andthe only critique noted was “the aria was too short.” Ululani continued to appear in venues across the islands and was ubiquitous with Hawaiian musical life in Honolulu.

In 1936, Ululani was able to, once again, display her talents as both an operatic prima donna and a champion of the music and traditions of Hawaii. In March, she appeared in a Hawaiian pageant reenacting the High Chiefess Kapiolani’s defiance of the volcano goddess Pele. Ululani took the lead role as the High Chiefess and scored great success singing traditional Hawaiian songs and melodies.

About two weeks later, the Morning Music Club and the Honolulu Symphony announced that they would launch a joint production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Ululani reprising her signature role. This proved to be a highly anticipated musical event in Honolulu as it was the first time the opera would be staged in Hawaii. American Tenor Frank Colson, who performed under the stage name Aroldo Collini, was brought to Hawaii from Los Angeles to star aside Ululani as Lt. Pinkerton. The opening of the opera was delayed by a day due to illness. The next night, the production opened and proved to be the musical event of the season, earning generous plaudits from the press. This was the last time Ululani appeared in her signature role on the operatic stage.

“Outstanding in an evening of excellence was the lovely and meticulous singing of Mme. Ululani Robertson. Effective and convincing was her sympathetic portray of the fragile Japanese girl. Her singing was of a high order, her phrasing was that of an accomplished musician in full command of her role, and her high tones rang out with real splendor. Mme. Robertson was considerate of every meaning of her music, her sense of dramatic values is schooled as it is in thoughtful European teaching and direction. Butterfly delighted by approaching the music through intelligence. A broad vocal sweep was evident in Mme. Robertson’s singing and she shaded her songs according to the meaning of the words.”

— from "Local Opera is Hit with Mme. Robertson Star" by Edna B. Lawson. Honolulu Advertiser. May 15, 1936

Over the next decade, “Hawaii’s Songbird” gave recitals, hosted musicales, and quickly reentered the social circles of Honolulu, becoming involved with local clubs and social groups including the Morning Music Club, The Outdoor Circle, and the Civic Club. In 1938, she was elected President of the Morning Music Club and began publicly advocating for the preservation of the music and language of Hawaii through a Hawaiian School of Music and presenting entire programs featuring the songs of Hawaii. Ululani was also featured in a serial column in the Honolulu Advertiser titled, “How’s Your Hawaiian?”

In 1941, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Ululani once again became involved in relief efforts. Following the devastation from the bombing, Ululani opened her home to several displaced families. Gayle Andersen, who was 15 at the time, was one of those displaced. In a 2017 article, Anderson recalled:

“‘I was let loose,’ reminisced Andersen about her short but memorable time at the house. ‘I could go anywhere I wanted to during the day. Mrs. Robertson didn’t care, so I played up and down both sides of the bank [of the stream], and the stepping stones were [just] slightly in the water, so you could go across.’ Andersen remembers the formal dinners she enjoyed in the company of Robertson and the host’s regal appearance. She recalled the host’s elegant muumuus, trailed over her arms as she walked down the stairs. Andersen also remembers admiring Robertson’s old opera costumes. ‘She wanted me to take home some clothes. I was fifteen, but I [even though I] only weighed 115 pounds, I couldn’t fit any of them. I was too big!’ exclaimed Andersen.”

— from “World War II Survivor Visits HBA High School” by Kayci Kumashiro in Eagle Eye. Honolulu. January 3, 2017

Similar to her efforts during World War I, Ululani organized performances for troops stationed in Hawaii during the second World War. Through her involvement with the Hawaiian Civic Club she raised funds for the Red Cross and organized events for the sale of war bonds. She also chaired benefit events for the Civic Club and served a term as President of the organization.

Near the end of the war, in July 1945, fellow Sembrich student Dusolina Giannini visited Oahu to sing for members of the armed services stationed on the island. Giannini and Robertson had studied together under Madame Sembrich in New York City, Lake Placid, and Lake George. It is no surprise that Ululani insisted on hosting Giannini for her stay and, in elegant fashion, threw a grand reception for her friend and fellow artist.

Following the war, Ululani performed less frequently, instead focusing on her involvement with social clubs and organizations. In 1946, she was named to the board of Public Parks and Recreation in Honolulu and played a large role in the beautification of the city.

It is also suspected that during this time, her husband’s health was in decline. In 1947, A.G.M. Robertson passed away, leaving his estate to Ululani.

In the final two decades of her life, Ululani rarely performed but stayed actively engaged in her community. In 1948, she remarried to Jan Jabulka, the managing editor of the Honolulu Advertiser. They held the event at Ululani’s home and her friends filled her home with flowers for the occasion. A small ceremony was held in the evening with the Nuuanu Valley as the backdrop.

In 1951, Jan Jabulka was named the Executive Director of the Hawaii Statehood Commission. The couple relocated to Washington D.C. and made their primary residence in the nation’s capital, working to secure statehood for the territory. Ululani anticipated that they would be away only three to four months. However, securing statehood for the Hawaiian Territory took nearly a decade. Reports of Ululani’s activities in Washington are scarce, but she does appear in attendance records for several events, occasionally singing by popular request. In 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state in the Union and the Jabulkas’ time in Washington DC came to a close.

Following Hawaii’s battle for statehood, the Ululani and her husband returned to Honolulu. Ululani was pleased to return to her Honolulu estate following nearly a decade living in apartments and hotels in Washington, DC. Ululani spent the 1960s as a socialite, presiding as a patroness of numerous club events. She passed away at her home in 1970 at the age of 80.

Following her death, Ululani’s estate home passed on to the heirs of her first husband and was eventually sold. The building still stands and is the administration building for the Hawaii Baptist Academy’s High School. Her second husband inherited her Tantalus mountain home and the rest of her estate. The majority of her belongings were sold at auction in 1971, aside from a few items that were bequeathed to family and friends. Her collection of ali’i jewelry was donated to the Bishop Museum and still remains in their collection. Honolulu’s Morning Music Club, of which Ululani was a dedicated member, established the Ululani Memorial Voice Competition, as a tribute to the late singer. A 1934 poem dedicated to the Hawaiian opera star by Maryjane Kulani F. Montano also appears in several publications:

Manu Memele (Original Hawaiian)

Hooheno i ka lai ehukai Lamalama po Mahealani Ko leo, e ka manu hulu Melemele Hoene malie i ka poli.

Mehe lehua pua kea a-la E haaheo maila i ka uka I po ke aha onaona Ko leo, e ka Manu Memele.

Yellow Bird (English Translation)

Bewitching the ocean spray’s fair clime, Brilliant as the full moon light, Your voice, O bird of yellow plumage Brings melody gently yo the breast

Like unti a pale yellow Lehua Proudly blooming at the uplands That pervadesits fragrant scent, Is your voice, O singing bird.

In 1980, following the death of Jan Jabulka, a gift of $1,000,000 was bequeathed to the Bishop Museum for the construction of a new open air entrance pavilion in honor of his late wife. The Jabulka Pavilion was completed in 1982 and continues to serve as the main entrance to the museum.

[anamoon63]

Another school day, Anika just received Alexander's reply to her message from yesterday. Almost 24 hours without hearing from him and this is what he replied: "Hey, Anika, sorry for not replying yesterday but I had to go into class, we have lots to talk about, I'll call you later. xoxo."

And that was all? Well, enough of Alexander and his escape techniques. It's better for Anika to focus on her studies this time so she doesn't end up like the day before. By the way, Kennedy managed to convince Miss Coombes not to give them a report. Lucky to have the teacher's pet as a sister!

After school, Anika checked her phone again, there were two messages from Alexander, one was a meme, the other was a funny video. Anika: Alexander, you idiot, how much longer are you going to keep postponing our talk?

She spent the whole day at school brooding about her and Alexander, so, by the time she got home she was fuming. Anika: "Why is he talking to my dad if he's not going to talk to me? Maybe because he's not really interested in me and just wanted to look good for him. Well, if that's the way things are, then to hell with you Alexander."

[yellow-yarrow]

Plain text version of this post about Russian cosmism and Disco Elysium's lore part 2 :

Cosmist connections in Elysium’s lore Part 2 - Music and mathematics

From Sacred and Terrible Air:

He is an aristocrat, the comte de Pérouse and the comte de Mittrecie; but his hatred of the bourgeoisie, which have usurped the upper classes, makes him a proletarian and therefore a revolutionary. In the course of his life, Émile has also come to think of himself as a composer. He has a morbid thirst for fame, but he’s determined to win the hearts of the people with his dodecaphonic works. The comte’s sound is based on a strikingly modern geometric-symbolist system of harmonies that has nothing to do with the music of the rest of the civilised world. To the human ear, it sounds like unacceptable screeching. Émile considers the tonal, traditional sonority to be womb-shaped. A soul-soporific babble. The music of amoebas.

Millions and billions, hundreds of thousands of billions of young girls in love, they love me and my twelve-tone melody!

-

The twelve-tone technique, also known as the “twelve-tone technique organized in a series in which each note is related only to the next,” was Schoenberg’s revolutionary innovation that expanded the boundaries of musical composition. This method sought to create equal emphasis on all twelve pitches within an octave, eliminating any sense of hierarchy or tonal center. [1]

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Nonetheless, much of his work was not well received. […]his work is usually defended rather than listened to, and that it is difficult to experience it apart from the ideology that surrounds it. [2]

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Independently of his influential contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a much more dissonant musical language that had transcended usual tonality but was not atonal, which accorded with his personal brand of metaphysics. [3]

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Alexander Scriabin, who was inspired by the Russian Cosmist ideas of his day, sought to unite humanity for a common task much like Fyodorov. He can be regarded as the most representative member of the artistic branch of Russian Cosmism. Scriabin's vision was to use artistic means to achieve Cosmist ends. His artistic vision, which was grounded in philosophy and spirituality, can be most clearly observed in his project Mysterium. [3]

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'A seven-day tumult of light and sound, perfumes and pyrotechnics'

Scriabin’s work was Mysterium – a medieval miracle play raised to the point of cosmic transfiguration. A tumult of light and sound, perfumes and pyrotechnics, it would last seven whole days. And it would climax – its composer believed – with the end of the world as we know it and the birth of a new, ‘nobler’ human race. 

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At the end of the Prefatory Action’s libretto, he wrote ‘We will all dissolve in the ethereal whirlwind We will be born in the whirlwind! And in the splendid luster Of the final flourish Appearing to each other In the exposed beauty Of sparkling souls We will disappear... Dissolve...’

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“From the end, there, through the polar night, that music will resound. It will play on future phonographs. On magnets! Yet—it does not come from there. You’ll be famous, Monsieur Mittrecie, your music will reach us from the true end, even further beyond there, where all matter is but memory. So sounds the white light that shines into every darkroom, turning all revelations into nothingness.” He rises up on tiptoe, under the critic’s nose. “All revelations—I said—turn to naught!”

The little man finishes and bows to the comte. “Every single part was absolute, mathematical perfection.”

“Oh no, I’m not a critic,” the man replies, his eyes sparklin with admiration. “I’m a maths teacher.”

-

Joyce -"The further into pale you travel, the steeper the degree of suspension. Right down to the mathematical -- numbers stop working. No one has yet passed the number barrier. It may be impossible."

Abandoned Lorry - It looks like an article ripped out from a radio-enthusiast magazine. Complex mathematical equations explain the basics of something called 'the ULAN frequency system'.

"A pale latitude compressor is used to sort of… make the pale more manageable. With a lot of these, you can force a radio signal grid on the pale -- literally crunch the distance across it." (..) It's meant for forcing dimensions on something that doesn't have them. Needless to say, the frequencies used are… out of this world. "At the upper limit is the large prime number generator station. It's used specifically for pale latitude compression. That's why you may be hearing some numbers.

“It’s maths, right?” Jesper is sitting with his hands under his head. “Some mathematical rule explains this [the killer wave]?” (..) “but the same non-linear effect also explains the pale. They use it in entroponetics. This is how the pale behaves when it sweeps over the world.”

“That’s right, [Ulv] talks with the dead. They’ll come if he plays them some Van Eyck and old Rietveld.” (…) “He communicates with the pale.”

Soona, the Programmer - "It was mathematical information -- from the anomaly -- presented as a waveform. That's what it was technically -- theoretically…"

Endurance - The abstract shapes swelling in the foreground have done so in vain. This is a core matter. The answer, in the double-kick that moves the millilitres through your mind. The dark thud is the source of all rhythm, the inspiration behind mathematics… Endurance - The hard core.

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“In any case, the secret of expanding our power over nature obviously lies in extending this method to the entire environment. The idea of a universal mathematics was prefigured in many ancient theories that shaped the science of numbers. Since the most ancient times, we find traces of this science among the Chaldeans and Babylonians, […] and, partly, the Gnostics, this research in numerical symbolism was transmitted to medieval philosophy, ”

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“ In the nineteenth century, mathematics enjoyed an unprecedented heyday: in its countless applications, it became the basis of all modern technology and man’s real power over nature. Its meaning was the same as in the ancient teachings about numbers: the desire to express all things by means of numbers and the conviction that knowing the formula of a process or thing gave us the power to change and guide the process and thus create the thing. ”

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the most perfect species of thought is thought encapsulated in numbers, the project and all its departments and units must consist of a system of formulas or numbers, each providing a key to a process performed by action. […] science in general must provide the formula of any and all possible actions in its theoretical and practical modes. […] However, numbers can be replaced with similarly effective signs or names, whose knowledge gives us dominion over nature. All these tasks clearly involve transforming nature, altering and improving what was heretofore produced by the spontaneous actions of its powers.

The quotes are from the following writings:

Unveiling the musical revolution: Schoenberg’s atonality and the innovation of twelve-tone system by giuseppe.bonaccorso

Arnold Schoenberg wikipedia page

Alexander Scriabin wikipedia page

Temples, incense, giant bells hanging from the clouds: the wild world of Scriabin's Mysterium BBC music magazine

A Universal Productive Mathematics by Valerian Muravyev from Russian Cosmism edited by Boris Groys

Disco Elysium, Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz

bonus: more about the Mysterium

[scotianostra]

March 3rd 1847 saw the birth of Alexander Graham Bell in Edinburgh.

Bell’s education was largely received through numerous experiments in sound and the furthering of his father’s work on Visible Speech for the deaf. Bell worked with Thomas Watson on the design and patent of the first practical telephone. In all, Bell held 18 patents in his name alone and 12 that he shared with collaborators.

The second son of Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, he was named for his paternal grandfather, Alexander Bell. For most of his life, the younger Alexander was known as “Aleck” to family and friends. He had two brothers, Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell, both of whom died from tuberculosis.

During his youth, Alexander Graham Bell experienced significant influences that would carry into his adult life. His Grandfather was a well-known professor and teacher of elocution. Alexander’s mother also had a profound influence on him, being a proficient pianist despite her deafness. This taught Alexander to look past people’s disadvantages and find solutions to help them.

Alexander Graham Bell was homeschooled by his mother, who instilled in him an infinite curiosity about the world around him. He received one year of formal education in a private school and two years at Edinburgh’s Royal High School. Though a mediocre student, he displayed an uncommon ability to solve problems. At age 12, while playing with a friend in a grain mill, he noted the slow process of husking the wheat grain. He went home and built a device with rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes that dehusked the wheat. It was his first invention.

A lot has been written about Bell’s invention but before the family emigrated he was only 16, when he accepted a position at Weston House Academy in Elgin teaching elocution and music to students, many older than he. At the end of the term, Alexander returned home and joined his father, promoting his father, Melville Bell’s technique of Visible Speech, which taught the deaf to align specific phonetic symbols with a particular position of the speech organs (lips, tongue, and palate).

After the death of his two brothers, and Aleck’s health deteriorating his father decided, for the sake of his health they had to move to a better climate in the Americas, his son resisted the move at first but he relented, and in July 1870, the family settled in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. There, Alexander’s health improved, and he set up a workshop to continue his study of the human voice. He later took up a position as a tutor at Boston School for Deaf Mutes and settled in the city in 1871.

Two years later, he was appointed Professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at Boston University.

These early experiments in speech creation, along with his knowledge of anatomy, informed his own experiments on transmitting speech, which he began in earnest from 1873.

Bell did not think he was inventing a ‘telephone’ during his early experiments. He was working on the holy grail of the day: sending multiple telegraph messages over the same wire. He aimed to make electro-mechanical devices capable of transmitting and receiving different tones for each message.

He was supported financially in this work by the father of one of his students, Gardiner Hubbard, a wealthy lawyer and politician, whose deaf daughter, Mabel, had been taught to lip-read and speak by Bell. Bell fell in love with Mabel. Her father, being aware of Bell’s experiments with possible ‘speaking telegraph’ devices, refused his permission for the couple to marry until Bell had successfully developed his new invention. To speed matters along, he also funded an assistant, Thomas Watson.

Sensing the danger of rival developments for this valuable invention, Bell’s future father-in-law filed an application for ‘Improvements in Telegraphy’ on 14 February 1876. On that very same day a few hours later – or was it actually a few hours earlier? – inventor Elisha Gray filed his own idea for a telephone at the same office. Bell was granted the patent on 7 March 1876. On 9 July 1877, Bell, Hubbard, Watson (and other funders) established the Bell Telephone Company to market the new device. Bell and Mabel married two days later.

Controversy remains as to whether Bell or his father-in-law might have had access to the details of Gray’s patent through an office clerk in Hubbard’s pay. The clerk seemed to admit as much in a later court case, but Bell’s patent was upheld, as it was in the many cases which followed.

On 11 August 1877, Bell and Mabel arrived in Britain from the USA on honeymoon. In Bell’s luggage was his new communication device, the telephone. Bell travelled the country promoting his invention, even demonstrating the device to Queen Victoria, who was so amused she asked to keep the temporary installation in place. The first telephones went on sale later that year.

Sometimes described as the most valuable patent ever filed, for years following the award, Bell had to defend his patent in expensive and protracted litigation battles brought by a whole range of inventors. In 2002, the US Congress formally recognised Italian Antonio Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone, based on prototypes he demonstrated in 1860. Bell and the Italian had shared a workshop in the 1870s. Meucci was pursuing his claim in the Supreme Court when he died in 1889. France and Germany cite their own contenders for the title.

In many respects, Bell’s telephone was flawed, his receiver and transmitter designs being considerably improved by others within a couple of years. Among those were Thomas Edison and Professor David Hughes, who both produced improvements to Bell’s early instrument, transforming the telephone into a truly successful communication device.

Still widely known as ‘the inventor of the telephone’, Bell had given up his interest in this invention by his early thirties. He spent the rest of his life with Mabel and their family in Canada, working on a series of varied projects including flight, sheep breeding, developing a ‘vacuum jacket’ to aid artificial breathing and the founding of the National Geographic magazine. His foremost passion remained enabling deaf people to lip read and speak, therefore blending into a hearing world. This was in itself controversial to sections of the deaf community, disenfranchising those who preferred to communicate using sign language, which they viewed as the primary language of the deaf.

Bell’s last visit to Edinburgh was in November 1920. At a speech given to pupils at the city’s Royal High School, where he had been a student 60 years before, he imagined that this young generation might live to see a time when someone “in any part of the world would be able to telephone to any other part of the world without any wires at all.”

He died on 2nd August 1922 aged 75. On the day of his funeral the telephone systems in the US and Canada were silenced for one minute, can you imagine that happening nowadays!

[byneddiedingo]

Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, and Everett Sloane in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorhead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris. Screenplay: Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz. Cinematography: Gregg Toland. Art direction: Van Nest Polglase, Perry Ferguson. Film editing: Robert Wise. Music: Bernard Herrmann. 

Things I don't like about Citizen Kane:

The "News on the March" montage. It's an efficient way of cluing the audience in to what it's about to see, but is it necessary? And was it necessary to make it a parody of "The March of Time" newsreel, down to the use of the Timespeak so deftly lampooned by Wolcott Gibbs ("Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind")? 

Susan Alexander Kane. Not only did Orson Welles leave himself open to charges that he was caricaturing William Randolph Hearst's relationship with his mistress, Marion Davies, but he also unwittingly damaged Davies's lasting reputation as a skillful comic actress. We still read today that Susan Alexander (whose minor talent Kane exploits cruelly) is to be identified as Welles's portrait of Davies, when in fact Welles admired Davies's work. But beyond that, Susan (Dorothy Comingore) is an underwritten and inconsistent character -- at one point a sweet and trusting object of Kane's affections and later in the film a vituperative, illiterate shrew and still later a drunk. What was it in her that Kane initially saw? From the moment she first lunges at the high notes in "Una voce poco fa," it's clear to anyone, unless Kane is supposed to have a tin ear, that she has no future as an opera star. Does she exist in the film primarily to demonstrate Kane's arrogance of power? A related quibble: I find the portrayal of her exasperated Italian music teacher, Matiste (Fortunio Bonanova), a silly, intrusive bit of tired comic relief.  

Rosebud. The most famous of all MacGuffins, the thing on which the plot of Citizen Kane depends. It's not just that the explanation of how it became so widely known as Kane's last word is so feeble -- was the sinister butler, Raymond (Paul Stewart) in the room when Kane died, as he seems to say? -- it's that the sled itself puts so much psychological weight on Kane's lost childhood, which we see only in the scenes of his squabbling parents (Agnes Moorehead and Harry Shannon). The defense insists that the emphasis on Rosebud is mistakenly put there by the eager press, and that the point is that we often try to explain the complexity of a life by seizing on the wrong thing. But that seems to me to burden the film with more message than it conveys. 

And yet, and yet ... it's one of the great films. Its exploration of film technique, particularly by Gregg Toland's deep-focus photography, is breathtaking. Perry Ferguson's sets (though credited to RKO art department head Van Nest Polglase) loom magnificently over the action. Bernard Herrmann's score -- it was his first film -- is legendary. And it is certainly one of the great directing debuts in film history. But I don't think it's the greatest film ever made. In the top ten, maybe, but it seems to me artificial and mechanical in comparison to the depiction of actual human life in Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953), the elevation of the gangster genre to incisive social and political critique in the first two Godfather films (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972, 1974), the delicious explorations of obsessive behavior in any number of Alfred Hitchcock movies, the epic treatment of Russian history in Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966), and the tribulations of growing up in the Apu trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955, 1956, 1959). And there are lots of films by Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, Robert Bresson, and Jean-Luc Godard that I would rewatch before I decide to watch Kane again. There are times when I think Welles's debut film has been overrated because he had a great start, battled a formidable foe in William Randolph Hearst, and inadvertently revealed how conventional Hollywood filmmaking was -- for which Hollywood never forgave him. It's common to say that Citizen Kane was prophetic, because the downfall of Charles Foster Kane anticipated the downfall of Orson Welles. That's oversimple, but like many oversimplifications it contains a germ of truth. 

[betteratbeing]

How to learn the Alexander Technique | Alexander technique singing

The first concern when setting out on how to learn the Alexander Technique is to find a teacher near you who can give you in-person, hands-on lessons. Read up, get acquainted and make sure you feel confident in the training and character of your teacher, and that you feel comfortable spending time together. The relationship is an important part of the work. You will be taking a journey together, and good companionship will count for a lot of the work’s success.

With this established, as lessons commence, you can rely upon the teacher to convey the basic concepts of AT via verbal instruction and impart the crucial experience of utilizing AT skills via guiding touch, leading you through the process and accompanying you all the way as an active, ever-present partner.

Whatever you may have seen advertised to the contrary, you cannot expect to learn the Alexander Technique effectively via online lessons. You can learn Abou Alexander Technique online from reliable sources, but the experiential endeavor of gaining a real understanding of AT, and incorporating it into your life, takes place in your actual, physical self, in relationship to your real surroundings, under the guidance of your teacher’s hands.

Get More Info : Voice and the alexander technique

Websites : https://betteratbeing.com/

Contact Us : Alexander Technique Classes New York

[mybeingthere]

Georgian artist Merab Abramishvili (1957-2006) started drawing very early. He studied at the Art School in Tbilisi, Georgia, but his real artistic skills were acquired in Alexander Bandzeladze's private studio. Merab often recalled the years spent there with gratitude - Alexander was not only an outstanding teacher, but also a good and kind man.

In his youth, Merab took part in a scientific expedition organized to study the frescoes of the temple Ateni Zion (the Church of the Virgin in the village Ateni, near the town of Gori, Georgia, built in VIIth century). This expedition was headed by Merab's father, Guram Abramishvili, art historian and doctor of philosophy. The expedition had profoundly affected Murab: "For me Ateni is the primary source, here I am filled with energy so I work most of the day and night," - said the artist. He began painting copies of frescos in the temple Ateni Sioni and continued this work for many years.

Merab Abramishvili painted on board, primed with gesso, with tempera paints, using traditional (egg yolk) technique. The method is complex and time-consuming, the results are reminiscent of medieval frescoes. Merab Abramishvili often said: "My paintings are stories of peace in the world".

http://oilpaintingsforme.nordblogs.com/.../artist-merab...

[voice-freedom]

How RACIRS enslaves the mind: A blueprint for totalitarian control

In the shocking video Different Countries, the Same Script | What Do the Media Do to People?, the ALLATRA volunteer also discusses Dvorkin—a man who created an entire network of agents within the Russian pro-religious anticultist organization RACIRS. This organization operates under the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church and allegedly in its interests to establish a global totalitarian regime.

How to recognize bipolar disorder within oneself? The answer to this question is also covered in the video Different Countries, the Same Script | What Do the Media Do to People?

.

The ALLATRA volunteer states the following in the video:

Many people wonder: who is behind all of the processes in Russia and a number of other countries? A shadow government? No, behind all of that, there is a single mentally unstable and at the same time genius man who globally conducts the entire orchestra of his agents in mass media and has already managed to bring the entire Russia to its knees. The same man influenced the Russian president’s ideology to such an extent that the president even speaks in the words of that man who actually has a certificate of mental disorders. It has all been achieved by one man — Alexander Dvorkin, the chief ideologist of the Russian pro-religious organization RACIRS. Whatever event you begin to unravel, all the threads lead to him only, as if to the spider in the center of a web.

This very man didn’t sleep days and nights and spent a lot of time studying methods of manipulation and influence on consciousnesses. He is driven by the global goal of establishing totalitarian power. Thanks to his connections and experience adopted from his teachers — direct successors of Nazism, this man managed to do what nobody else did: he has put the world on its knees. Now he has formed his own shadow army that is bullying billions of people and is gradually destroying the world.

But tell me, why have the 30-year destructive activities of this international network of agents not yet been revealed? After all, in different countries there have been so many warnings about Dvorkin and his agents by various public figures, scientists, and human rights organizations! Numerous reports have been issued, and many commissions collected data and appealed to the international community to draw attention to the crimes and extremism committed by Dvorkin. We have no answer to this question, except for his genius.

This is an invisible war, and it has been going on for a very long time. Dvorkin's war against the whole world. Activities of his agent network across the globe, armed with sophisticated methods of manipulation, is really a threat to us and our future. If you think that weapons of mass destruction are stored in warehouses unused, you are wrong. The real weapons of mass destruction with selective action are being widely used by agents of the Russian pro-religious organization RACIRS.

Indeed, in many countries, activities of the network of RACIRS agents are well disguised, but their actions are still easy to recognize because of the characteristic methods once used by Walter Künneth for turning an ordinary National Socialist party into the Nazis as we know them today. 

In reality, the roots of these manipulative techniques go much deeper into history — they are millenia old. Recall the story of Jesus Christ whose teaching was also branded a sect. The same ancient anticultists, the same apologists for their titular religion, used the same methods that anticultists use nowadays to get the crowd to shout “Crucify him!”. Experts who understand human psychology and psychology of the masses are well aware which specific mechanisms were applied back then. Within 24 hours, the crowd that had admired Christ the day before, the next day demanded his agonizing death. 

The secret of this kind of transformation is simple and horrifying: anticultists of that time used a basic manipulation — they belittled Christ and elevated people in the crowd above him. That's all. It all boils down to the same ideology of superiority that creates the ground and justification for individual murders and mass extermination of people. And it all starts with just one person who becomes convinced of his superiority over the “dehumanized” others.

The truth is that every individual harbors the potential to become a Nazi or a Communist. It is only sanity that keeps us on the path of democratic values. It is precisely through critical thinking that we can restore freedom, democracy, and fundamental human rights.

Therefore, you should ponder it over: if you have aggressive reactions to certain media headlines, spontaneous mood swings, panic attacks, or a sense of superiority over others — all these are the signs of bipolar disorder. This means you're already caught in their web. These are signs that the program instilled in you through various manipulative techniques is not being executed. If the program of destruction is not carried out externally — meaning, you’re not acting on what was implanted — it begins to turn inwards, destroying you from within. Therefore, the only way to break this vicious circle is to realize what is happening in order to free yourself from imposed destructive programs and to regain control over your mind.

And now, I would like to appeal to all people involved in the legal field, human rights defenders and psychology experts. Please look and critically examine all the facts I have given in this video and in the previous two videos. This is indeed a revival of Nazism in a hidden form. Whether it’s a threat or not, let law-enforcement agencies and lawyers evaluate. We cannot assume such functions, we only state the facts. We are interested parties and may have a biased opinion on the penalties and articles to be applied. Therefore, I urge that these issues be addressed by competent professionals.

If you are concerned about your own future and the future of your children, if you are concerned about the future of democracy, study this thoroughly because as professionals in your fields, you can put up a worthy resistance to that. No one else will. Can't you see that this is a dangerous, highly coordinated network of agents actively destroying humankind? Just look at the fate of the groups they target.

Take Jehovah's Witnesses: they were persecuted by the Nazis and Communists, and now they are being persecuted in modern Russia by the same methodology. What is so terrible about those people? The fact that they do not violate laws? That they are peace-loving and profess the principle, “If one strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left”? Those who are familiar with them know what I'm talking about. These people are harmless; they are hardworking and honest, but they are persecuted in order to intimidate the rest of the population. To make people afraid that if they disobey the regime they will be treated the same as Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Watch the full videoDifferent Countries, the Same Script | What Do the Media Do to People?

for more details about this.

[taichiexaminer]

Sifu Jamee Culbertson on the Alexander Technique & Healing Art

The Alexander Technique (AT), developed in the late 19th century, has gained popularity in recent decades as more people recognize the profound influence of the mind-body connection on overall health. Sifu Jamee Culbertson, a senior Tai Chi and Qigong instructor and an experienced teacher-trainer in AT from Boston, Massachusetts, recently shared insights on this method and other healing practices…

[pooma-today]

𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗 𝗦𝗖𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗗𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗣𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 - 𝗡𝗢𝗩 𝟭𝟬

Why Science Matters - Engaging Minds and Empowering Futures' We celebrate World Science Day for Peace and Development since its inception by UNESCO in 2001, and the first celebration as an annual event was held on November 10, 2002, highlighting the significant role of science in our society, underlining the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives.

This year, on November 10, 2024, we celebrate ‘World Science Day for Peace and Development’ all over the world with the theme 'Why Science Matters - Engaging Minds and Empowering Futures', with the purpose to highlight the continued importance of science in our daily lives with an aim to foster closer connection between science and society, promoting the shared understanding and appreciation of its significance.

Science is the field of study concerned with the aim of identifying the purpose of the investigation, leading to inventions and discoveries, and describing the whole world by observing and experimenting; developing a body of knowledge resulting in watching natural occurrences, formulating relevant logical theories to explain them, and then applying those scientific theories to create forecasts for upcoming observations or events of relevance, as a result.

All branches of science are considered as Biology, chemistry, and physics, which are based on simple chemical formulations and solutions; in which we may come across Earth Science, Space Science, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Botany, Zoology and more.

The word Science originated from the Latin word ‘scientia’, which in English means collective knowledge, a knowing, expertness, or experience, has consistently carried the meaning of being a socially embedded activity: people seeking, systematizing and sharing knowledge.

Aristotle - pioneered the techniques of logic, observation, inquiry and demonstration; is considered to be the first scientist, in the fourth century BC. The scientist Galileo Galilei was described as ‘Father of Modern Science’ by Albert Einstein. He was known to be an important part of the scientific revolution, as a teacher, philosopher, astronomer, and physicist.

As Mathematics is considered as a tool which solves problems of every other science, Mathematics is considered as the ‘Mother of All Sciences’. Also considered as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’. As the concept of Physics enables us to grasp the functions of nature, Physics is known as the ‘King of Science’.

Modern Science is a concept that relies on the study of physical world and human condition through experimentation to find observable and repeatable results with the goal of improving the world and the lives of people. There are many inventions with the support and applying the concept of science.

Some of the top inventions are : The Printing Press - by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, The Steam Engine - by James Watt between 1763 and 1775, The Telephone - by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, The Light Bulb - by Thomas Edison in 1879, The Aeroplane - by The Wright Brothers in 1903.

As far as science is concerned, as a career, science education unlocks endless career possibilities by equipping with a dynamic and in-demand skillset that can be applied to any type of industry. As a career, the aim of Science is to build knowledge about the natural world and improve the knowledge to the further steps. This knowledge is open to question, revision and facing the challenges, as we come up with new ideas and concepts, and discover new evidence/s. ‘Scientific Knowledge’ (not knowledge on Science) is always reliable, because it has been tested and proven.

The unlimited potential of science is exciting, consistently carried the meaning of systematizing and sharing knowledge based on systematic methodology of proven evidence. With a scientific mindset, one will know what questions to ask and how to go about finding the answers. Be curious and know more.Let’s celebrate World Science Day for Peace and Development.

(Author: Kunju C Nair, UN Designate)

[traditonalclothingresearch]

Databases

Bloomsbury Fashion Central. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.bloomsburyfashioncentral.com/

Fashion Studies Online. Ethnographic Video Online Vols. I & II: Foundational Films. https://video-alexanderstreet-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/channel/ethnographic-video-online-foundational-films

Database: Bloomsbury Fashion Central.

This database is a number of collection within one database al centering around fashion and dress. The contents include "interconnected major reference works, exclusive articles, scholarly books, case studies, biographies, lesson plans, bibliographic guides, textbooks, video content, runway and backstage photos from fashion shows, and tens of thousands of images from museums " (Bloomsbury Fashion Central). This will be the best database to look into historical embroidery, it should give us articles, historical accounts, and a variety of images to draw from to further our research and knowledge. This database is helpful to the auidence of researchers as fashion is so wide and broad yet often lacking in other databases, who focus on the sciences more than the arts or this particular aspect of history. This also allows for recreators to better achieve the true historical look. 

There is a basic and advanced search function. There are additional limits, and facet searching available on this database as well. The database covers ancient to modern and is updated regularly.  The content is primarily index and abstracted, but has an option to find the full resource within your local library if they offer it. Peer reviewed articles are available. There are mechanisms to sort by format, date, relevance, and further sorting related to fashion such as place of origin or techniques used. There is a function to save, share, and print articles/ media found. There is also a way to form an account. 

Database: Fashion Studies Online

"A core resource for anthropology courses of all levels, this two-volume collection contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world." (Alexander Street). For those that want a video format for your research this will be a helpful database for you as it contains a multitude of videos on different ethnic cultures which will give insight into a researcher's goal. For the costumer this means getting the background context of the culture or in some instances seeing the technique be done.

There are only 26 videos within their current collection for ethnographies, but feature a filtering feature none the less. The greater resource has a large a larger search function that one may be able to use to find something more specific, such as searching Traditional fashion and filtering to anthropology to get a number of news coverings and documentaries. The database as a whole covers from about 1960 to now and is regularly updated. There are mechanisms to sort by format, date, and relevance.

[themovieblogonline]

'Salem's Lot Review: Gary Dauberman Delivers The Goods

Gary Dauberman's 'Salem's Lot is an engrossing and atmospheric adaptation of Stephen King's 1975 novel, successfully transforming the source material into a cinematic experience that feels both classic and contemporary. With a cast led by Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, and Bill Camp, the film recaptures the eerie, claustrophobic horror of the novel while introducing modern filmmaking techniques that amplify its chilling themes. For fans of supernatural horror, the film strikes a near-perfect balance between slow-burning tension and pulse-pounding moments, with some minor flaws in pacing and narrative focus. Nevertheless, 'Salem's Lot proves to be one of the better King adaptations in recent years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtVzKkv03ic Premise: The film follows writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman), who returns to the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot—colloquially called "Salem’s Lot"—to find inspiration for his next novel. But as he reconnects with his childhood home, he begins to notice that something sinister is lurking beneath the surface of the town. This familiar trope, where a protagonist returns to a haunted or cursed hometown, is given new life through Dauberman's tight direction, creating a sense of isolation and dread that is palpable throughout the film. Lewis Pullman is captivating: Pullman plays Mears with a quiet intensity, capturing the character’s intellectual curiosity and growing paranoia as he uncovers the town’s dark secret: the arrival of a vampire, Kurt Barlow (played with menacing gravitas by Alexander Ward). The gradual discovery of Barlow’s influence on the town is masterfully paced, and the film’s slow reveal of his horrific powers heightens the tension in a way that will please both fans of King’s novel and those unfamiliar with the story. The ensemble cast is one of the standout elements of 'Salem’s Lot. Makenzie Leigh delivers a strong performance as Susan Norton, Mears’ love interest, whose warmth and sincerity make her a grounded and relatable character amid the escalating chaos. Leigh's chemistry with Pullman is convincing, and their relationship provides a necessary emotional anchor to the film’s supernatural elements. Woodard and Camp shine: Alfre Woodard, as Dr. Cody, brings gravitas and wisdom to her role, making her one of the key figures in the fight against the vampire threat. John Benjamin Hickey, as Father Callahan, also stands out, portraying the clergyman’s crisis of faith with both vulnerability and strength, particularly as he faces the town’s supernatural invasion. His arc is one of the film’s most compelling subplots, adding layers of existential dread that enhance the overall theme of good versus evil. Bill Camp’s portrayal of Matthew Burke is a particular highlight. His character, a high school teacher who helps Mears and the other residents confront the vampire, exudes a mix of paternal warmth and weariness. Camp’s performance brings a touch of humanity to the bleak, otherworldly atmosphere of the film, and his moments of dry humor provide a much-needed respite from the horror. Kurt Barlow: Ward's Kurt Barlow is terrifying in his restraint. Rather than overplaying the villainous role, Ward's portrayal of the ancient vampire is cold, calculating, and deeply unsettling. His piercing eyes and commanding presence make every scene he’s in nerve-racking, creating a chilling antagonist that feels truly evil without descending into campiness. Atmosphere: One of Dauberman's strengths in 'Salem’s Lot is his ability to craft an atmosphere of slow-building horror. The town itself, with its aging houses, shadowy streets, and decrepit landmarks, feels like a character in its own right. The cinematography by Michael Burgess uses lighting and shadows to great effect, capturing the oppressive atmosphere of the town as it descends into darkness, both literally and figuratively. There are several key sequences in which the use of fog, dim street lamps, and long, empty corridors evoke a haunting, gothic horror that feels timeless. This atmospheric build-up is complemented by a chilling score from composer Nathan Barr and Lisbeth Scott. His music, subtle yet effective, accentuates the sense of dread without overshadowing the film’s quieter moments. The balance between silence and sound is key to the tension, with the eerie melodies creeping in at just the right moments to ratchet up the suspense. Pacing: While the film adheres to the core structure of King’s novel, Dauberman also updates the narrative for modern audiences in ways that feel organic. The pacing, though at times uneven, is generally well-executed, allowing the story’s themes of isolation, fear, and the corruption of innocence to resonate in today’s world. The small-town dynamics and interpersonal relationships are fleshed out in ways that make the horror feel grounded, ensuring that the supernatural elements hit even harder when they arrive. The first half of the film is slow and methodical, focusing on character development and setting the stage for the eventual descent into chaos. This deliberate pace may feel frustrating to viewers expecting a more action-driven horror film, but for those familiar with King’s brand of slow-burning tension, it’s a rewarding build-up. When the horror finally erupts, it’s visceral and terrifying, with practical effects that enhance the film’s gritty, grounded tone. Set pieces: The film’s major set pieces—particularly the climactic battle between the townspeople and Barlow’s minions—are well-staged, with a sense of desperation and raw violence that makes the stakes feel incredibly high. Dauberman doesn’t shy away from bloodshed, but he uses it sparingly, allowing the horror to creep into the audience’s psyche rather than relying on shock value. Flaws: While 'Salem’s Lot is a standout in many respects, it’s not without its flaws. Some characters, particularly those in the supporting cast, feel underdeveloped, and the film’s middle section drags slightly as it transitions from the mystery of Barlow’s influence to the full-on horror of his takeover. A few narrative threads are left unresolved or feel rushed, which may leave some viewers craving more closure. That said, these issues don’t detract significantly from the overall experience. The film’s strengths—its atmosphere, performances, and ability to evoke genuine terror—far outweigh its minor pacing issues. Overall: 'Salem’s Lot is a masterfully crafted horror film that does justice to Stephen King’s beloved novel. With strong performances, a chilling atmosphere, and a well-executed narrative, the film stands as a testament to Dauberman’s understanding of King’s work and his ability to translate it into a visual medium. For fans of supernatural horror and Stephen King adaptations, this is a must-see, delivering scares that linger long after the credits roll. Read the full article