#Barcelona lighthouse

[honoringthor]

Barcelona harbor, Westfield, ny. Photos by sja

I heard a pine Siskin and belted king fisher.

[dailylighthouse]

Barcelona Light

Westfield, New York, United States

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Constructed: 1829

Have a favorite lighthouse? Curious about lighthouses in general? Send an ask!

[magics-neptunes-things]

The One Who Get Away

Hi guys!

This one come just from my imagination, I can't stop listening this cover of Katy Perry's song so... Here it is! Hope you'll like it :)

I put the version of the song I'm talking about under this text, please listen to it while listening :)

TW : Break up, angst, pressure.

Summary : Your a singer travelling the world with your group but the distance is too hard for you and your (ex) girlfriend. Will you find a way to make her stay?

PART 2 IS HERE

______________________________________________________________

"I just can't do that anymore"

Ona's voice, coming from your phone make your heart go heavier. You know how she feels about you always being away from your shared penthouse at Barcelona. Well actually you are away from Spain, and today even from Europe.

It’s been three years since your record company managed to place a Spanish band in the international market. Yours. So, now that it’s launched and that it’s been months that you are at the top of the charts, no one hesitates to make you travel to all the countries of the world, without stopping.

It’s been three years since you and your band arrived here by chance, when one of your single ended up on a summer hit. Since then, it has never stopped. In three years you have released two albums and you have made three world tours. You’re exhausted, physically and emotionally. But you made the mistake of not reading carefully the clauses of your contract, too happy to be able to live your dream.

Well, the dream slowly turned into a nightmare. Away from Ona for months now, you were supposed to return to Barcelona in two days to finally have a few weeks of rest. Except that your agent found it more interesting to impose televisions and various promotions in Japan, preventing you from returning from England where you currently are to Ona.

Yet, it was what you expected the most since the day you left her at the airport.

"I’m sorry" you whisper, feeling your throat squeeze. "I can always…"

"No, Y/N. I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t. There are no more ways out"

"What do you mean?"

You know what she means and you’ve been terrified of hearing that sentence for weeks. You’ve known Ona since you were a teenager, one night when you felt lonely and couldn’t sleep, you came across her blog. You don’t know what prompted you to write a comment to which she replied and you started chatting like that. Realizing that you were both from Barcelona, you met and the rest is history.

"I think we need to break up"

"No! Ona please we can work through this. Please. I need you, I can't lose you."

"It's better this way. I'm so sorry"

You don’t think you heard Ona’s voice shake in this way before and you are convinced that she is crying, too.

"Onita please… don’t do this"

"I’m sorry. I have no choice"

"Why? Did you… Did you met someone else?"

Ona has a sad laugh and you can perfectly picture her shaking her head sadly.

"Of course not. It has nothing to do with that. But it’s getting worse every time. It’s been going on for three years."

"It’s not my fault" you whisper softly.

"I know"

A new silence sets in and you hope that your girlfriend is thinking and changing her mind. You know you wouldn’t stand a breakup with her. Ona has been your lighthouse in the dark forever. She’s the most important person in your life.

"I have to go, the team is waiting for me. I think it’s better if we don’t write or call each other for a while."

"Ona wait…"

"No, Y/N. It’s over"

"I love you"

Ona doesn’t answer you, but the breath you hear on the phone confirms that she’s crying. She hangs up after a few seconds and you remain motionless for long minutes, stunned. You are dress for your next performance, your presence on stage being required in about twenty minutes. Fortunately your mascara is waterproof and it’s not necessary to redo it when your friend and guitarist enters the room.

"Y/N?"

"Ona just broke up with me" you say, looking at him through the mirror.

And with that, the sobs that were until now stuck in your throat suddenly come out. In a few seconds you find yourself transformed into a crying mess, hugged by Juan. He’s your best friend, even if your fans imagine you together. The record company has forbidden you to reveal your homosexuality and has fun supporting the rumors of romance between you two, claiming that it helps the group’s popularity.

"I’m so tired. I just want to go home" you manage to say in between sobs.

Said house being mostly Ona. Making a grimace, Juan caresses your hair. You are not the only one to be exhausted by the frantic pace imposed by your record company. Juan, your drummer Marco and your bass player Ricardo are just as exhausted as you.

"I know" is all he can tell you before someone of the staff come looking for you.

Your manager looks at you coldly seeing the state in which you are and hands you a tissue for you to arrange the draws. He doesn’t ask you what’s going on. He doesn’t care. You just know that if you don’t perform properly, you’re going to get yelled at.

******

"Are you sure you want to watch this? We can switch channels if you want" Cata kindly assures while looking carefully at Ona.

The brunette shakes her head negatively, stuck against Alexia who passed a protective arm around her. Ona was unable to hide your breakup from her teammates, she’s just as devastated as you are. They had planned an evening to watch the charity concert that you and your group are attending, installed in Lucy’s apartment.

After exchanging a look between them, they finally decided to leave the same channel, the artists walking one after the other. Since this is a charity concert, you had the opportunity to cover a song by one of the featured artists. Your group choose a song by Katy Perry, "The One who get away", a slower version than the original. If you had known, you would have made another choice.

After avoiding a nervous breakdown, you go sit on the stool in the middle of the stage. Juan at your side, you wait for his guitar to be tuned.

"She doesn’t look like she’s ok" Aitana begins, before being immediately shuts up when she meets Mapi’s murderous gaze.

Feeling Ona tense against her, Alexia gently tightens her against her as Ingrid starts to stroke her hair. At the same time, the song starts and you wonder how you are going to finish it. Your hands are shaking, your throat is clenched and you have trouble looking up at the crowd in front of you.

From the end of the first chorus, you have tears in your eyes and at the end of the second you feel a tear roll on your cheek. Despite Juan’s whispers of encouragement, you’re unable to hold her any longer. When the song finally comes to an end, you have the impression that every person who has looked at you has been able to read into you and realize how destroyed you are. And you hate it.

After greeting the audience with the three boys, you let yourself be taken backstage by Ricardo. Juan tries not to make too friendly gestures towards you in public, knowing how much it hurts you and Ona to see everyone jump on these kinds of moments to support their theory.

********

The ride back to your hotel room was awful. All along the way in the van, your manager yelled at you so much that for the first time the boys rebelled against him. It surprised you but also made you very feel loved and cared. They’re the reason you haven’t dumped everything yet, you don’t have the courage to betray them by leaving. If you had been alone, it would have been different. But they are your childhood friends, more like brothers.

You haven’t looked at your phone once since you got back to your room an hour ago when someone knocked on your door. You know Ona won’t contact you. You have no interest in looking at it. You don’t answer when you hear a knock a second time, then a third time. And you don’t move either when the door of your room opens anyway a few minutes later. Juan went to ask for a copy of your magnetic card at reception, not hearing you open.

"We need to talk Y/N."

"Don’t want to" is the only sentence you manage to get out of your mouth.

Rolled up in a ball under your sheets, your cushion tight between your arms and your head resting on the plush lion that Ona offered you years ago, you only want to stay here until the end of time.

"We talked, with the guys," said Juan, regardless of what you just said. "We think you have to go."

You need a few seconds to realize what he just said.

"What?"

"I booked you a plane to Barcelona. You have six hours to pack and go to the airport. Marco takes charge of the manager and Ricardo makes sure the way is clear, but you’ll have to go out from this shit. You and Ona are more important than all this bullshit. Go take your girl back."

********

It is 7am when you land in Barcelona and 8am when you arrive on the doormat of your shared penthouse. You don’t have the key, usually Ona picks you up at the airport and opens you. You didn’t think about it until now. You’re too afraid to lose them somewhere in a hotel room on the other side of the world. But despite your doorbells, no one comes to open.

So you resolve to sit on your doormat and wait for Ona’s return. Your phone is out of battery, preventing you from contacting someone close to your girlfriend. You don’t know where she is and it awakens your fear that she actually found someone else. If that’s what pushed her to break up with you, it will be even harder to fix things.

Exhausted, you let yourself go against the door frame, your feet leaning on the other side. New tears roll over your cheeks and you are so tired that you start to doze.

"Y/N?"

Ona’s incredulous voice wakes you with a start and you bang your head against the handle of the front door while getting up. Your face fell when you realize that Ona is accompanied by a pretty brunette, who looks at you with curiosity. Is she the one she left you for? Why is she here? It lasts a few seconds, until Alexia comes out of the elevator too. Mechanically massaging the part of the skull you just banged, you continue to observe the unknown.

"What are you doing here?"

Ona's question makes you shift your attention to her and you cannot say why, but you cannot gather your ideas. Yet her tone is neither harsh nor accusing, quite the contrary.

"I…"

Reacting first, Alexia slips between Ona and you by seizing the keys Ona was holding and opens the door, making enter everyone. Seeing you struggling to get your suitcases, Ona bends down mechanically to help you get everything in.

"You never met my girlfriend, I think?" Alexia looks at you, maybe realizing what’s happening in your head. "This is Olga. Olga, this is Y/N."

You simply acquiesce but Olga hug you with a smile and you hug her back akwardly, the relief making you feel like you're hovering a thousand meters from the ground. Ona hasn’t met someone else. Just like she said.

"I think we’re going to leave you. Are you going to be okay?"

The look that Ona and Alexia exchange lasts a few seconds, before the captain decides that she can actually leave you both. She hugs you too before delicately closing the door behind Olga and her.

"You look exausted. Maybe you should go take a nice hot shower?"

You carry your eyes with heavy eyelids over Ona, shaking your head negatively. You honestly don’t know how long you will endure this sleepless journey, but you also don't know how long you will be able to stay with Ona. She can leave at any time.

"Come sit down, at least"

You feel a heat wave invading your body at the exact spot where Ona puts her hand on your arm to train you in the living room. You let yourself go on the couch, Ona settling next to you.

"You didn’t answer me. What are you doing here?"

"I left" you just whisper. "The boys helped me get out of the hotel and to the airport. Juan booked me a plane and I called my manager to tell him that I was leaving once on the plane. I was too afraid that he would hold me back"

"Wait, when you say you left…"

"I… quit? Broke the contract, call it what you want"

Ona looks at you with disbelief. She never gave you an ultimatum about your career, because she knew you had no choice.

"I should have done this before. But I couldn’t betray the boys" you whisper without being able to look at her.

A new silence settles and you end up lifting your eyes on Ona. She was looking at you attentively and you plunge your gaze into hers for a few seconds.

"I came to ask you for a second chance. I know things have been super complicated between us, especially these past few weeks. But I can’t live without you, Ona. I’ll do anything. I swear."

Ona’s face softens. Your eyes close when you feel her hand on your cheek, your whole body in search of any source of comfort from her. She stroke your cheek with her thumps, making you shivers.

"Do you know why I never asked you to choose between music and me?"

Without opening your eyes, you shake your head negatively. Ona’s voice is soft and helps you to calm down a little.

"Because I know how much you like it"

"I love you more"

You open your eyes even though your whole body is asking you not to. You’re exhausted and wondering what you might look like. Ona certainly saw you in a better light. She continues to look at you elsewhere, a few seconds of silence settling between you.

"I love you too" she ended up whispering. "But we’ll finish this conversation later, I think you need to sleep before you lose consciousness."

Without really giving you a choice, she gets up from the couch and makes you follow her, gently grabbing your hand. You let yourself be guided to your room, in which she helps you put on pajamas before letting you go to cool off in your bathroom. You don’t leave her figure with your eyes, even through the mirror while washing your teeth, fearing that she will disappear. But no, she waits patiently for you, sitting at the feet of your bed.

"Will you be there when I wake up?" you ask in a hesitant tone, finding the inimitable comfort of your bed.

Ona nods and even smiles as you slip under the sheets. Installed on your side, you can’t bring yourself to leave her eyes. That she still agrees to stay by your side despite everything makes you as happy as it terrifies you. She broke up with you less than 24 hours ago and didn’t really confirm to you that something was still possible between you. She said she loves you, but is that enough?

"I can hear you thinking from here"

With an arched eyebrow, Ona observes you with a semblance of severity.

"I’m just scared" you mumble without taking your eyes off her.

"Of what?"

"Losing you forever. You’re the most important thing in my life, I shouldn’t have waited until I lost you to fix things. You deserve the best, of course, but give me time to show you that I can offer it to you."

Softly biting her lip, Ona advances into the bed until she finds herself sitting on her knees, at the height of your chest.

"I’m not going anywhere Bebita"

"Does that mean you believe enough in us to give us another chance?"

As before, Ona’s face softens and is soon dress with one of her most beautiful smiles. You wrote in one of your song that only one of her smiles makes you feel better and that’s still the case today.

"I thought it was clear. Of course I want to give us a second chance."

You’re so relieved you might cry. In truth, real tears cost on your cheeks and you realize that when Ona leans over your cheeks to kiss them.

"Don’t cry. Rest. I’ll be there when you wake up later, and every other day."

As if to support her words, Ona slips with you under the cover and sticks you against her, in her arms. It doesn’t take long for you to fall into a deep sleep, lulled by her caresses on your back, the softness of her hair that sometimes tickles your cheek and the smell of her perfume and shower gel.

*********

When you wake up, hours later, you need some time to understand where you are. Only after that you realize that Ona isn’t here and you panic.

You stand from your bed so quickly that you fell, making a terrible noise. While you stand up, you here footsteps coming to you and you raise your head just in time to see Ona enter your bedroom.

"What happened?" she asks you, taking your hand in hers.

"You weren’t here, I thought you left" you mumble while looking at your feet.

But Ona make you look at her, tilting your face with her index.

"I’m here. I’m not going an where, I promised"

You nod, taking your phone on the floor. You have hundred missed call, messages and notifications everywhere.

"I made pasta, are you hungry?"

In reality you are not at all, but Ona took the time to prepare you to eat and you don’t want to disappoint her at all. Or give her the impression that she wasted her time. So you nod again before following her to the kitchen. You sit where she asks you to, wincing when you see the different messages from your manager. He’s really not happy. In truth, he is even completely furious. "Is everything all right?" asked Ona as she sat down in front of you, serving you a plate that would be enough to feed your entire neighborhood. "I’m in trouble" you sigh softly as you let yourself go against the backrest of your chair. "They will surely seek to press charges or make me pay" It will not be easy. Your gaze is lost on the bay window of your living room, giving a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s partly thanks to this incredible view that you decided to choose this apartment. But you are quickly pulled out of your thoughts by the hand of Ona which lands on yours. "It doesn’t matter mi Corazon. Remember? We don’t care about others... "As long as it's You and Me" you answer with a slight smile. That was your credo when you were both teenagers. And when you grew up it stayed, even if lately the geographical distance took precedence over the rest. Now that you have her in front of you, you wonder how you managed to stay so long away from her. "We’ll find you the best lawyer and I’ll be there every second you need me." "Thank you" you answer simply, throat knotted with emotions Ona smiles tenderly and you feel your heart soaring like a butterfly. You find it hard to believe the reality in which you find yourself. Last night, Ona told you she wanted to break up with you and less than twenty-four hours later, you find yourself in front of her, in your apartment, apparently free of any contract.

"Can I kiss you?" you mumble shyly.

"Since when do you have to ask?" Ona laughs.

You shrug and smile too, inviting her to come to sit on your lap. Ona did and you pass your hand around her smaller frame.

Ona gently puts her hand in your hair, making you shiver.

"What do you want to do now?" Ona ask gently.

"Come see you play at the stadium, eat tortilla de patatas, go to the beach… Catch up on my sleep, if possible with the most beautiful woman in the world next to me."

"Did you already call her?" jokes the Spanish.

You roll your eyes before giving her a little kick on the thigh.

"As if you didn’t know it was you" you snorts before gently kissing her cheek.

"You missed."

Ona’s amused smile makes you smile back and you put your lips on hers this time. It’s a sensation you haven’t felt in far too long. Ona all against you, her skin against yours, her inimitable perfume. She is everything that count for you, well beyond your music group, your success and that we forgive you but obviously well above your fans.

"I’m so in love with you" Ona whispers against your lips.

"Certainly not as much as I am" you answer with a smile.

As you predicted, the record company, your producer and even your manager will launch legal proceedings against you. But thanks to Alexia’s lawyer, you managed to get away with it without much damage. Honestly, you didn’t care about losing money, all you wanted was to be able to get your freedom back.

Like you, the boys came back to Barcelona after the group disbanded. They formed another one for a while, with another singer, but they finally turned the page, claiming it’s not the same without you. None of the three resent you and you still see them regularly.

A few months after you left the band, you came out on social media. Without giving all the details either, you and Ona have not made an official announcement for your couple. You attend almost all of Ona’s matches, sometimes making the trip abroad with her and the team. You post what you want to post on social networks, photos of your holidays, your moments spent with your friends or with Ona, obviously.

It’s fun to see people wondering about your relationship, but you appreciate that they do it with someone you really are. Which you’re extremely in love with and extremely proud of. Wag’s life suits you perfectly, especially when the woman you follow is as perfect as Ona.

[twopoppies]

hey Gina I am new to the fandom so I hope you don't mind, but could you please navigate me through your tags/posts regarding these four events..?? sorry if it's a bother https://www.tumblr.com/sunflowervoltwentyeight/745958482635833344/rosesau-4-things-out-of-many-others-that-haunt?source=share

Not a bother at all, but I'm not sure how much I have.

I wasn't in the fandom for the first ring because that was back in 2012, but this is probably the best post I have for that VALENTINE'S DAY. You cam also look through HARRY'S RINGS

THE BARCELONA COIN BRACELET is also the day he wore the white jeans, which, while having nothing to do with Larry, should never be forgotten.

The LIGHTHOUSE T SHIRT is also part of a bigger conversation about the Lighthouse Tattoo that fans were suggesting Louis get to go with Harry's mermaid tattoo.

This is the T-shirt that the post is referring to. And I know I have posts about Harry being seen with it and fans saying he bought it for Louis, and then Louis showed up in it. But at the moment I can't find it.

Does anyone have access to that post? @daisiesonafield-blog @skepticalarrie Anyone?

[alex51324]

Eclipse Trip Report, Part 1

TL: DR, The eclipse was clouded out and therefore a bit underwhelming, but still neat, and the rest of the trip was fun, too!

I arrived at my campsite on Friday afternoon, amid snow flurries and sleet:

Luckily, I was staying in this snug little hut, a Pennsylvania state park "camping cottage." They're smaller and less quaint than the rustic cabins that I usually get, but because they're prefab, they have them at some of the parks that don't have full cabins, including the one where I was staying, 20 minutes outside the path of totality.

The hut has 3 of these little radiators, along with two sets of bunks:

Sophie always decides to sleep on that green blanket on the floor when we go camping, even though I make up a bunk for her. That ended up working out this time, because my dad decided at the last minute that he wanted to see the eclipse, too, so he came up Sunday night. I'm not sure who among the three of us would have had the hardest time getting up to a top berth.

Besides the bunks, you also get a table and chairs:

The cottages are located right on the park's little lake:

This was a less-than-a-minute walk from the cottage, and I could hear the frogs from my bunk!

The weather cleared up by about mid-day on Saturday, so we hopped in the car and drove to the path of totality to scout out viewing spots. Here's what we decided on, at Long Point On Lake Chautaqua State Park:

We walked out to the titular Long Point:

Which was very windy, but a nice view!

After that, we drove up to Lake Erie and had a look around, visiting two lighthouses, each with a little municipal park nearby. Here's the Dunkirk Lighthouse:

I got there a little too late to go on the tour inside, but I was mainly there to look at the lake, anyway. It's a very big lake. What's eerie about it, Lake Erie, is that it's sort of like the ocean--it has waves, and you can't see the other side--but it's like a normal lake in how it smells, and what the plant and animal life is like, and all that:

It's kind of disconcerting.

Also mildly disconcerting was how this little beach, a municipal park of some kind, was directly under the shadow of this factory:

There's also interesting driftwood, smoothed into odd shapes. This one looks like a dragon skull:

Then we drove up to the Barcelona lighthouse:

Which was also closed, in this case because it's falling down, and you can't even get a good look at the outside because it's all fenced off so it doesn't fall on top of somebody. (The vertical stripes on the tower are something they're apparently using to brace it up, and the whole other side is blocked off with orange construction fencing.)

It has a much cooler beach, though:

There were these crumbling slate cliffs, and little waterfalls coming down them!

Sophie enjoyed sniffing things, and drinking the lake:

When we got back to the hut, she was ready for a nice rest:

[hlseydaily]

June 1, 2023 | Halsey performing 'The Lighthouse' at Primavera Sound Barcelona!

[mariecd]

Early Spring Afternoon at Barcelona Lighthouse, Lake Erie, New York

[restaurant-in]

Celebrating Taurus Icons: Famous Celebrities Born in Taurus Who Shine Bright in the Zodiac Sky

Taurus, the second astrological sign of the zodiac, is known for its reliable, patient, and determined nature. People born between April 20 and May 20 fall under this earth sign, and many Famous Celebrities Born in Taurus embody these qualities, achieving great success in their respective fields. From Hollywood stars to music legends, let's explore some of the most iconic Taurus celebrities who have left an indelible mark on the world.

George Clooney One of the most renowned actors and filmmakers, George Clooney, was born on May 6. Clooney's career has spanned decades, earning him numerous awards, including two Academy Awards. His charming and persistent nature, typical of Taurus, has made him a beloved figure in the entertainment industry.

Adele The powerhouse vocalist Adele, born on May 5, is another Famous Celebrity Born in Taurus. Her soulful voice and heartfelt lyrics have touched millions around the globe. Adele's determination and resilience have been evident throughout her career, especially in her remarkable comeback after vocal cord surgery.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Born on May 2, Dwayne Johnson is a true Taurus through and through. As one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors and a former professional wrestler, his hard work and perseverance are unmistakable. Johnson's down-to-earth personality and dedication have earned him a massive fan following worldwide.

David Beckham Soccer legend David Beckham, born on May 2, also falls under the Taurus sign. Known for his incredible skills on the field and his influential fashion sense, Beckham's career in sports and beyond showcases the typical Taurus traits of endurance and stability.

Cher Iconic singer and actress Cher, born on May 20, is another notable Taurus. With a career spanning over six decades, Cher has continually reinvented herself while maintaining her unique style and powerful voice. Her unwavering dedication and resilience are quintessential Taurus characteristics.

Robert Pattinson Born on May 13, actor Robert Pattinson has made a significant impact in both blockbuster films and independent cinema. Known for his roles in the "Twilight" series and critically acclaimed films like "The Lighthouse," Pattinson's ability to adapt and persevere aligns perfectly with his Taurus zodiac sign.

Penélope Cruz The talented actress Penélope Cruz, born on April 28, has captivated audiences with her performances in films such as "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Volver." Cruz's hardworking and passionate nature, emblematic of Taurus, has helped her build a successful and enduring career in the film industry.

Conclusion These Famous Celebrities Born in Taurus showcase the remarkable traits associated with this zodiac sign—reliability, patience, and determination. Their achievements and lasting influence in their respective fields serve as a testament to the strength and resilience of Taurus individuals. Whether in acting, music, sports, or fashion, these celebrities have truly made their mark on the world, embodying the steadfast spirit of Taurus.

For more insights into the lives of your favorite celebrities, visit StardomBios.

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Chet Baker, 1929-1988 (sheet music Jazz transcriptions)

Chet Baker (sheet music Jazz transcriptions) The tragic story of Chet Baker, the trumpeter whose death is a mystery Best Sheet Music download from our Library. Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you! Cultor of cool jazz Playing with bird Debt problems Return to europe With Enrico Rava A documentary as a requiem Browse in the Library:

Chet Baker (sheet music Jazz transcriptions)

https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLHraDT2z7ffbj1adbE7lKG3rgnJ69hymA&layout=gallery

The tragic story of Chet Baker, the trumpeter whose death is a mystery

Chesney Henry Baker Jr., Chet Baker (Yale, Oklahoma, United States, December 23, 1929 - Amsterdam, Holland, May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. He is one of the most popular jazz musicians in history. As a child, Chet Baker sang love songs on radio contests. A documentary film, released in Barcelona around 2008, Let's Get Lost, from 1988, shows us a very clichéd jazz musician, although clichés carry a lot of reality, a musician hooked on opiates and stimulants, with a life tortured by excesses. The movie All the Fine Young Cannibals is also loosely based on his biography. Chet Baker, a talented improviser and singer of a unique style with a tragic history of drug addiction. His death was shrouded in mystery: suicide or accident. Chet Baker was found dead in the early hours of May 13, 1988, on the street. He was in a fetal position, his head and part of his face were smashed, and his posture would indicate that he did not die immediately. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and striped pants, and he reportedly fell from the second floor of the Prins Hendrik hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he had occupied room C-20 for a long time and where the police found heroin and cocaine. Chet was 58 years old. Doubts about his death were immediate, since those who knew him admitted that he lived under the influence of heroin (he had been dragging an addiction for more than 30 years), but they ruled out that suicide was an option for the artist who had concerts scheduled in Scandinavia. One version indicated that the hotel had prevented him from entering his room for lack of payment and that he decided to climb the two floors to recover, at least, his trumpet, but this possibility would have been virtually ruled out. Another pointed out that it would have been the result of a reckoning for the debt he had with several traffickers who, tired of excuses, threw him out the window. Finally, the expert said that it could have been an accidental death.

Cultor of cool jazz

Baker was one of the main exponents of Cool Jazz, the jazz of the West Coast of the United States, a style strongly embracing the harmonies of bebop, but rhythmically attached to swing. His interpretive style had an intimate, sober, modest tone, but beyond jazz, the trumpeter attracted a good part of his audiences for his photogenic appearance and his peculiar vocal style. Some called him the James Dean of jazz.

Chet Baker managed to become a cult idol in a short time, a star in the world of music, which not only did not solve his drug problems, but rather made him a coveted prey for the police. He was someone special, a jazz musician, white, famous and good looking. Despite a persistent heroin addiction, which would have started lukewarmly around 1952, Baker recorded 230 albums as a leader during his 36-year career. He has recorded with Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Jim Hall, Archie Shepp, Joe Pass, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, Bud Shank, Ron Carter, Lee Konitz, and Roland Hanna, among others. He came to master more than 500 songs, that is, he had a privileged memory. Its beginnings were in jam sessions in different places in California, such as in the Hermosa Beach area and in the famous Lighthouse club, which was on the beach and was a permanent meeting place for jazzmen from the West Coast. His first group was that of saxophonist Vido Musso, from which he went on to Stan Getz's quintet, with whom he recorded an excellent version of Out Of Nowhere, on March 24, 1952; At the end of May of that year, he got the audition to accompany none other than Charlie Parker at Tiffany's Club. Chet Baker also sang, something that in his last years he did more, due to the difficulty in playing the trumpet.

Playing with bird

In his autobiography As if I had wings. Lost memories, Baker recounts those moments: “It was incredible to be on stage with Bird. The first song was very fast, after which the rest of the evening was quiet. Charlie Parker was an impeccable instrumentalist even though he scooped up shit and drank Hennessy non-stop; he gave the impression that all that did not produce the slightest effect on him ”. In August, the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan puts together his famous pianoless quartet in Los Angeles, a novelty for the jazz scene, with Baker on trumpet, Chico Hamilton on drums and Bob Whitlock on double bass. Successful due to its excellent compositions and a fresh and airy sound that imposes an innovative sound aesthetic, the quartet records one of the great albums of cool jazz, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet with an emblematic version of My Funny Valentine, a theme that Miles Davis recorded years later. Baker had limitations as a musician, for example a not very wide register, a poor ability to read sheet music and a technique that was little special, as a soloist he is among the most outstanding of his generation. His intuition for melodic improvisation was superlative and his expressiveness was moving. first time in prison In October 1952, Baker was arrested for the first time and his problems with the law began. In June 1953, Mulligan is arrested for heroin possession and the group disbands and Chet almost unwittingly begins his career as leader. They were intense years for the trumpeter who between 1952 and 1953 recorded 35 albums, some as a leader and others within different groups and ensembles. All of this work is rewarded by countless offers for club shows, concerts and recordings that Baker cleverly handled. In 1954, he released several recordings, but two were very successful, Chet Baker Sings (the original record did not mention that he sang) and Chet Baker Quintet With Strings. Yes, Baker sang as if he had never heard anyone before; he is surprised by his natural and direct style with which he achieved a deep emotional penetration in the listener; his way of singing is more stylized than his way of playing the trumpet. Since that time, Baker has never stopped singing in his live performances. Chet Baker, trumpeter and singer with a tragic history. The times of fame In a short time he achieved a fame that took him on tour in several cities in the United States and that is consolidated by having won the surveys of Metronome and Donwbeat magazines as Best Trumpeter and Best Jazz Vocalist. His icy beauty even takes him to Hollywood, where he films Hell's Horizon and photographer William Claxton does historic photo shoots that he puts together in the work 'The Young Chet'. In 1959 he received his first conviction for drug possession; six months in Rikers Island, New York, of which he serves four months for good conduct and when he leaves he travels to Europe. It is in the 1960s when drugs begin to significantly interfere with his career. In the early 1960s he traveled to France and from there to Italy, where he had already been and had good friends and contacts. After undergoing a sleep cure in Milan due to his strong addiction to opiates, he is arrested in August for falsifying prescriptions and possession of drugs that lead him to spend fifteen months in prison. He goes out and celebrates it by recording in Italy the excellent Chet Is Back! (1962). On the presentation tour he is arrested in Germany and expelled to Switzerland and then to France. He moves to England with his third wife, Carol, but in March 1963 he is deported to France and from there he travels to Barcelona. He is again found with drugs during a tour of Germany, and in March 1964 he is deported to the United States, where he will remain until the mid-'70s.

Debt problems

In the United States, Chet Baker moves between New York and California although his career was seriously affected in July 1966 as a result of a beating he suffered in San Francisco related to his drug debts and which caused him to have his mouth broken. and a tooth (the incident was exaggerated, even by Baker himself) and that he was removed from the scene for a while due to embouchure problems with the instrument. Now, the general deterioration of his teeth that led him to need a false one has to do with the use of drugs and not with that fight. So, although the beating was not the determinant of the decline of his career, he did have an emblematic weight in his decline. At the beginning of the '70s he stopped playing: he worked at a service station and began a treatment with methadone that improved him mentally and physically. Helped by his colleague Dizzy Gillespie, he planned his return to a New York club and a famous meeting with Gerry Mulligan, on November 24, 1974, at Carnegie Hall, in which John Scofield and Ron Carter participated and which was edited as Carnegie Hall Concert: Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker. Chet Baker's death is shrouded in mystery. The police concluded that it was an accident, but there is talk of murder or suicide.

Return to europe

Soon after, Baker returned to Europe and settled in different countries, France, England and finally the Netherlands. He traveled often to Japan and from time to time to the United States. He kept recording and playing, with some periods where he disappeared from the scene for a while. In the '80s he caught the attention of some rock musicians, such as Elvis Costello, who invited him to record the trumpet on the theme Shipbuilding, against the Malvinas War. His activity is incessant; he records with French, Italian, German musicians and builds a permanent circuit in Europe. His last concert was in England on April 1, 1988. Baker's youthful appearance was replaced by a grim cowboy face, wrinkled and prematurely old. Chesney Henry Baker Jr. was born Yale, Oklahoma, on December 23, 1929; his father was a professional guitarist and Chet participated in different choirs and singing competitions in his childhood. When he was thirteen years old, his father, a great admirer of Jack Teagarden, gave him a trombone that, due to his size, he could not play; weeks later the trombone disappeared and a trumpet arrived. 'It's just that my father also liked Bix Beiderbecke,' the musician said in his memoirs. He had an enormous musical capacity, an intuitive and intelligent musician, virtues that somehow played against him in becoming a diligent student. He memorized and did not need to read, which meant that he did not finish his studies at the El Camino College Conservatory at the age of 16. He enlisted in the army twice, the first time, in 1946, he was stationed in Germany, but military life did not work out for him, although it gave him an enriching experience. Baker was married three times; Charlaine, Halima and Carol were his wives; he had four children, Chesney, with Halima, and Dean, Paul, and Melissa, with Carol. It was inevitable that the effects of a life steeped in drugs would not decline, yet strangely enough the music of Chet's later years was imbued with a sweetness and an almost architectural order, a true paradox in the face of a life totally messy. Chet Baker is buried in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in California, next to his father. Baker dixit: “I get the feeling that most people are impressed by just three things: how fast you play, how high-end you get, and how loud and loud you bring out of the instrument. This is a bit infuriating to me, but I'm much more experienced now and have come to understand that probably not even two per cent of the public can hear properly. When I say I mean the ability to follow a trumpeter and discern his ideas.

With Enrico Rava

Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava met Chet Baker in the 1970s. One of the musicians who knew Chet Baker best was the Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava. 'When Chet wasn't playing he was at home in Torino and there I was, trying to say something clever or surprise him with some witty remark. Nothing ever came of it; he would just look at him and nod when he made a joke or something like that,' the Italian said. He remembered that when he would ask him a question about technique, Chet had no idea how to convey this or that idea to him. 'He was self-taught, like me, so he only knew how to play the songs, but not how he did it. He felt that he was quite frustrated that he couldn't explain how he played them,' he said. According to Rava, he often sang more than he played because of a persistent cold sore on his lip that made life miserable. 'It was very painful but he neither complained nor stopped his performances, but he could hardly play the trumpet,' he recalled. To Rava, Chet was special. He could be very sweet and warm, but the dire need for money to support his addiction made him, at times, unscrupulous. “I think I could kill you for a few coins”, and he recounted his experience with that side of Baker: “One afternoon I came home with a personal recorder, they were one of the first to be launched on the market and he was precisely at home. It was a beautiful device and we spent the whole afternoon trying it out. I had to go play and he stayed. Upon my return, he had left with the recorder, ”recalled the musician. “Unfortunately, drugs did not allow him to manage his career so that he could have some financial peace of mind. The day to day was all she could plan. He came to touch the cap in the streets of Rome ', concluded Rava.

A documentary as a requiem

On September 15, 1988, four months after his death, Let's Get Lost, the documentary dedicated to Chet Baker, directed and produced by photographer Bruce Weber, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, in which he also appears of the trumpeter, his third wife, Carol Baker, pianist Russ Freeman and photographer William Claxton, among others. The film traces an arc between the musician of the fifties, young and successful, and the one of the eighties, struck by the long-standing addiction to heroin and virtually forgotten by the music business. A contrast between that James Dean and the sleazy-looking cowboy he had become. A documentary that was being filmed when Baker died. Read the full article

[valian-business-solutions]

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[spacenutspod]

Pulsars are the lighthouses of the universe. These rotating dead stars shoot twin jets of radiation from their poles, usually with a predictable rhythm. But sometimes pulsars behave strangely, and one pulsar in particular has had astronomers scratching their heads for years. It’s called PSR J1023+0038, and a decade ago, it shut off its jets and began oscillating between two brightness levels in an unpredictable pattern. Now, scientists think they understand why: it is busy eating a neighboring star. When a supergiant star approaches the end of its lifespan, it will explode and collapse into a back hole if it has enough mass, or into a neutron star if it does not. Neutron stars are the remaining, ultra-dense cores of the old star. They are often very fast-spinning, and a subset of them become pulsars. PSR J1023+0038 began life this way, and when it was discovered in 2007, it behaved like a normal pulsar. But it didn’t stay that way. In 2013, something changed. The radio pulses – evidence of its twin lighthouse beams – shut off. The was a sudden explosion of energy at multiple wavelengths: gamma rays and X-rays increased by a factor of five, and in visible light the star brightened by 1-2 magnitude. Astronomers also discovered that it seemed to have formed an accretion disk: a hot swirling mass of material surrounding the star. Perhaps most strangely, the star began alternating between two intensities in X-ray wavelengths: a high mode and a low mode, and it has continued like this over the entire decade since. It spends about 70% of its time in high mode, the rest in low, and alternates between the two every few seconds or minutes on an unpredictable schedule. Recently, astronomers devised an ambitious plan to find out what’s going on. “Our unprecedented observing campaign to understand this pulsar’s behavior involved a dozen cutting-edge ground-based and space-borne telescopes,” says Francesco Coti Zelati of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona. These telescopes covered a gamut of electromagnetic wavelengths, and with them, astronomers were able to piece together what was going on.  Here’s what they found. The accretion disk is made of matter being pulled from the pulsar’s neighboring star. This matter, as it closes in on the pulsar and begins to accumulate, is heated by the solar wind. The matter begins to glow in X-ray, UV, and visible light, and the hot, glowing material is what astronomers have been seeing as the pulsar’s ‘high mode.’ Eventually, however, there is a process by which the matter is expelled at high energies, leaving perpendicular to the accretion disc, in the direction of the pulsar’s jets.  “Enormous amounts of matter, similar to cosmic cannonballs, are launched into space within a very brief time span of tens of seconds,” says Maria Cristina Baglio of New York University Abu Dhabi, and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. This violent expulsion results in the pulsar returning to its ‘low mode,’ having removed the heated material from its vicinity. The cycle then repeats. PSR J1023+0038 is a wonderful example of how the universe can throw weird and wild mysteries at astronomers. It also highlights the incredible collaborative work that scientists do to try and solve them. The lessons learned from this weird pulsar have taught astronomers more about the physics of accretion, and that knowledge can now be applied in the study of other unexplained variable pheonomana, including the accretion disks of some black holes. Learn More: “ESO telescopes help unravel pulsar puzzle.” ESO. M. C. Baglio et al. “Matter ejections behind the highs and lows of the transitional millisecond pulsar PSR J1023+0038.” Astronomy & Astrophysics. Featured Image: An artist’s impression shows the pulsar PSR J1023+0038 stealing gas from its companion star. Interactions with the solar wind cause the pulsar to switch two modes of brightness every few seconds or minutes. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser The post A Bizarre Pulsar Switches Between Two Brightness Modes. Astronomers Finally Figured Out Why. appeared first on Universe Today.

[dailylighthouse]

Montjuïc Lighthouse

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Source: Wikimedia Commons | Wikimedia Commons

Constructed: 1917

Have a favorite lighthouse? Curious about lighthouses in general? Send an ask!

[hobbyspacer]

ESO: Explaining the ups and downs in a pulsar's brightness

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO): ESO telescopes help unravel pulsar puzzle

This artist’s impression shows the pulsar PSR J1023+0038 stealing gas from its companion star. This gas accumulates in a disc around the pulsar, slowly falls towards it, and is eventually expelled in a narrow jet. In addition, there is a wind of particles blowing away from the pulsar, represented here by a cloud of very small dots. This wind clashes with the infalling gas, heating it up and making the system glow brightly in X-rays and ultraviolet and visible light. Eventually, blobs of this hot gas are expelled along the jet, and the pulsar returns to the initial, fainter state, repeating the cycle. This pulsar has been observed to switch incessantly between these two states every few seconds or minutes. With a remarkable observational campaign that involved 12 telescopes both on the ground and in space, including three European Southern Observatory (ESO) facilities, astronomers have uncovered the strange behaviour of a pulsar, a super-fast-spinning dead star. This mysterious object is known to switch between two brightness modes almost constantly, something that until now has been an enigma. But astronomers have now found that sudden ejections of matter from the pulsar over very short periods are responsible for the peculiar switches. “We have witnessed extraordinary cosmic events where enormous amounts of matter, similar to cosmic cannonballs, are launched into space within a very brief time span of tens of seconds from a small, dense celestial object rotating at incredibly high speeds,” says Maria Cristina Baglio, researcher at New York University Abu Dhabi, affiliated with the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and the lead author of the paper published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. https://youtu.be/YScuIfa-MmQ A pulsar is a fast-rotating, magnetic, dead star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation into space. As it rotates, this beam sweeps across the cosmos — much like a lighthouse beam scanning its surroundings — and is detected by astronomers as it intersects the line of sight to Earth. This makes the star appear to pulse in brightness as seen from our planet. PSR J1023+0038, or J1023 for short, is a special type of pulsar with a bizarre behaviour. Located about 4500 light-years away in the Sextans constellation, it closely orbits another star. Over the past decade, the pulsar has been actively pulling matter off this companion, which accumulates in a disc around the pulsar and slowly falls towards it. Since this process of accumulating matter began, the sweeping beam virtually vanished and the pulsar started incessantly switching between two modes. In the ‘high’ mode, the pulsar gives off bright X-rays, ultraviolet and visible light, while in the ‘low’ mode it’s dimmer at these frequencies and emits more radio waves. The pulsar can stay in each mode for several seconds or minutes, and then switch to the other mode in just a few seconds. This switching has thus far puzzled astronomers. "Our unprecedented observing campaign to understand this pulsar’s behaviour involved a dozen cutting-edge ground-based and space-borne telescopes," says Francesco Coti Zelati, a researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences, Barcelona, Spain, and co-lead author of the paper. The campaign included ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), which detected visible and near-infrared light, as well as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. Over two nights in June 2021, they observed the system make over 280 switches between its high and low modes. “We have discovered that the mode switching stems from an intricate interplay between the pulsar wind, a flow of high-energy particles blowing away from the pulsar, and matter flowing towards the pulsar,” says Coti Zelati, who is also affiliated with INAF. https://youtu.be/xHCwab2B72A In the low mode, matter flowing towards the pulsar is expelled in a narrow jet perpendicular to the disc. Gradually, this matter accumulates closer and closer to the pulsar and, as this happens, it is hit by the wind blowing from the pulsating star, causing the matter to heat up. The system is now in a high mode, glowing brightly in the X-ray, ultraviolet and visible light. Eventually, blobs of this hot matter are removed by the pulsar via the jet. With less hot matter in the disc, the system glows less brightly, switching back into the low mode. While this discovery has unlocked the mystery of J1023’s strange behaviour, astronomers still have much to learn from studying this unique system and ESO’s telescopes will continue to help astronomers observe this peculiar pulsar. In particular, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile, will offer an unprecedented view of J1023’s switching mechanisms. “The ELT will allow us to gain key insights into how the abundance, distribution, dynamics, and energetics of the inflowing matter around the pulsar are affected by the mode switching behavior,” concludes Sergio Campana, Research Director at the INAF Brera Observatory and coauthor of the study. Links Research paper Photos of the VLT Photos of ALMA Photos of the NTT Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research === Amazon Ads === Celestron - NexStar 130SLT Computerized Telescope - Compact and Portable - Newtonian Reflector Optical Design - SkyAlign Technology - Computerized Hand Control - 130mm Aperture === An Infinity of Worlds: Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe Read the full article

[safereturndoubtful]

Day 10 - to Ponte Madeira

For two days at Moreira bay I have seen practically nobody. No other vehicle came down to the sea. I did see a farmer, a hundred metres or so away, moving some sheep, but that was it.

It will rank in my top ten stopovers, whenever I get round to compiling that chart.

The wind dropped considerably today, swings and roundabouts, as the more pleasant conditions outside, meant the seas were a lot calmer today, and less entertaining.

It was my last day on the coast and I had two visits planned. The first to Rostro Beach, about 2 miles long. Once again, nobody else was there.

Near the coast wind turbines are very common. Spain is second only to Germany in power obtained from such turbines. There are 1,265 wind farms. It intends to have 75% of its power from renewables by 2030.

What happens when your dog drinks tadpoles? Do they come out the other end as frogs? Stay tuned..

My last port of call on the Costa da Morte was its southern terminus, the lighthouse and Cape Fisterra. You may recall me mentioning this when I was at the lighthouse at Estaca de Bares 8 days ago. The two lights were the original ones of the coast here, built to a similar design in 1856.

This is a fairly major tourist destination, and was actually quite busy today. Cape Finisterre in English, Cape Fisterra in Spanish, was believed in Roman times to be the end of the world.

It’s fame though these days, is that it is the end of the Camino de Santogo, the Way of St James. A few intrepid hikers were finishing, having carried everything with them the whole way. I chatted briefly with a Japanese couple. Apparently some accommodation was open, but by no means all. The tour companies, which arrange everything, including luggage transport, will not start operating until mid-March.

The town is a bustling tourist venue, with plenty of new hotels and restaurants, and was busy, though not a patch on what it will be in a couple of months. The road to the lighthouse from town was closed for tree-felling, but I had planned to hike over the hill anyway, making it into a circuit.

The best part was high up at 250 metres, looking towards the lighthouse and the ocean. There were six school buses there, and a charge to get close to the lighthouse, which I skirted. I think the view I had from above was vastly superior.

I met a German couple with a yellow labrador who told me they had parked their blue self-built camper next to mine. They had been on the road for 3 weeks, and were just on their way home, having travelled the Spanish coast clockwise from Barcelona.

I didn’t want to tell them that they had missed the best bit, the next 200 km to the north..

These old stone elevated buildings are very common. They are called ‘esteos’ in Galicia, though more widely in Spain known as ‘hórreos’.

They are granary stores, elevated to keep rodents out.

Then it was farewell to the Atlantic, and onwards inland. I’m due at Volkswagen in Santiago de Compostela tomorrow morning, and wanted to stay reasonably close.

I drove inland through great country parallel to the Camino de Santiago, and on my way somewhere else, stumbled on the Ponte Madeira.

The old bridge was built in the 13th century, and rebuilt, or improved upon, in the 18th.

The village dates back to then also, as does the chapel of St Brais.

[mwilliams93]

Blog 14 1/18

The Sagrada Familia, St. Peter's Basilica and the Church of the Jubilee are three very different churches but all work towards the same goal of getting people to come inside. The exterior architectural features are the most obvious difference when the three churches are first observed. St. Peter’s Basilica is a centerpiece in the Vatican and is surrounded by other monumental religious structures. The basilica many Romanesque architectural features. It uses traditional storytelling elements through the use of statues on the exterior depicting different parts of the gospel. The Jubilee church slightly different approach in terms of storytelling. The structure was built to look like a sailboat sailing towards a lighthouse. There was no statues or other engravings on the exterior. This would make it difficult for an individual to know the story of the gospel just by looking at the Jubilee church whereas when looking at Saint Peter’s Basilica, an individual would have a very good understanding of the Christian faith because of the exterior decorations. At the time that the Saint Peters was constructed, many people were illiterate and the only way they could know the stories of Christianity was the exterior of the church. When the Jubilee church was built, most people in the area were literate enough to know the stories of Christianity so they did not need to learn it from the outside of a church. The Sagrada Familia takes the traditional storytelling approach with its exterior. All the engravings and sculptures tell different parts of the same story.

The second feature I picked up on was how the interiors were constructed to look. As soon as I walked into Saint Peter’s Basilica I couldn’t speak. I was in complete awe of the place that I was in. Everywhere you looked, there were paintings and sculptures. When you looked up, the ceilings were intricate and like the outside of the church, told a story. The Jubilee church and the Sagrada Familia take a simpler approach. While the rooms are still large, they are not decorated to the same degree. Both structures focus much more on using natural light to fill the space. The Sagrada Familia does a better job at this by using stain glass windows to fill the space with colors. The Jubilee Church is covered in bright white light making the space feel sterile.

The third feature was the location of each church and how they fit in the space. Saint Peter’s Basilica serves as a centerpiece in Vatican City. The surrounding structures flow towards the Church. The Sagrada Familia and Jubilee church are more disruptive in their given spaces but in different ways. The Sagrada Familia stands out because of its massive Gothic Style spires. When it is done with construction, it will be the tallest church in the world. The church fits the space because it isn’t the only tall building in Barcelona, and the color of the building doesn’t make it stand out. The building sticks out because it’s unique. The Jubilee church was designed to act as a disruption to an otherwise depressing looking neighborhood.

[thingsmk1120sayz]