#Jan Slawson

[longlistshort]

Dennis Johnson, “Red Hot Trucking”, Acrylic on canvas

Paintings by Elaine Mathews (two left) and William Nelson (painting on the right)

Mixed media piece by Michael Stanley (left); Center sculptures by Lucia Grossberger Morales; Pair of paintings by Lisa Van Herik (right)

Painting on left by Dennis Johnson; Center photographs by Andy Nystrom; Right painting by Mariana Maldonado-Pagán

Photo on left by Bill Leigh Brewer; Center painting by Jan Slawson and work by Karen Elizabeth Baker (right)

Photograph on the left by D Wallace Colvard; Sculptures by Dean Steiner (center) and photograph by Dean Genth (right)

The Artists Council is a non-profit organization focused on local artists in the Coachella Valley. They host several exhibitions, classes, and workshops in their gallery space in Palm Desert.

Their current member exhibition Hot Times Cool Art is on view until 10/6/24. You can see many of the artworks on view on their website.

[spookyoregon]

All Because of Shoes

Fetishes are weird. The fixation of an individual to one thing that will grant them sexual gratification can have a ring of cheesiness or cringe to it, yet many prevail in society. What causes a person to become fixated is still debated, with classical conditioning, a misfire of the brain, to imprinting at an early age as being potential causes. Maybe it's one reason, maybe it's all of them, but one strong fact is that men are more likely to develop a fetish than women. This is a story about one such man.

Jerry Brudos was the youngest child of his family. His mother had wanted a daughter and her displeasure was known to Brudos from an early age. When his mother discovered Brudos had stolen high heels from a local junkyard, the abuse he suffered by his mother increased. The family settled in Salem, OR, where Brudos's fixation on shoes continued to escalate to the point where he was willing to commit crimes to fulfill his desires.

Brudos stalked and beat women in his teens to steal their shoes. He even had a stint in Oregon State Hospital for a time where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. This stay did not cure him of his fetishism with shoes and it only continued to manifest in nightly prowling and mental abuse of his wife to accomplish satisfaction.

From 1968 to 1969, Jerry Brudros murdered four young women in his garage that he had transformed into a private chamber. His wife could not enter without first buzzing an intercom. He kept "trophies" of body parts, one of which was a foot in order to model his collection of high heels. Of his four victims, Linda Slawson, Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker, and Linda Salee, he was convinced of murdering 3. Brudos was the longest incarcerated inmate of the Oregon Department of Corrections for 37 years until his death in 2006.

Culturally, Brudos's oddity and singular fixation on shoes have gone beyond the Oregon borders: Silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill was based in part on Jerry Brudros. J. K. Rowling also based her serial killer character in Troubled Blood on Brudos.

Part of why Brudos was captured and convicted was the collection of "trophies" and photographs he took of his victims. The callous nature in which he killed just for the parts he fixated on may be partially understood by what he said after being caught.

"Detective Jim Byrnes recalled a conversation with Brudos in which he asked him, "Do you feel some remorse, Jerry? Do you feel sorry for your victims, for the girls who died?" Brudos then picked a half-piece of paper up off of the table, wadded it up into a ball and threw it on the floor, whereupon he replied, "I care about those girls as much as I care about that piece of wadded up paper."

sources: Wikipedia

[eldamaranquendi]

      “THANK YOU FOR LEGENDARIUM, CHRISTOPHER, & GOODBAY”

                      JRR Tolkien’s son Christopher dies aged 95

Youngest son of Lord of the Rings author was responsible for editing and publishing much of his father’s work

Nicola Slawson

Thu 16 Jan 2020 14.14 EST

Christopher Tolkien, the son of Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien, has died aged 95, the Tolkien Society has announced. The society, which promotes the life and works of the celebrated writer, released a short statement on Twitter to confirm the news.

The statement said: “Christopher Tolkien has died at the age of 95. The Tolkien Society sends its deepest condolences to Baillie, Simon, Adam, Rachel and the whole Tolkien family.”

Tolkien, who was born in Leeds in 1924, was the third and youngest son of the revered fantasy author and his wife Edith. He grew up listening to his father’s tales of Bilbo Baggins, which later became the children’s fantasy novel, The Hobbit.

He drew many of the original maps detailing the world of Middle-earth for his father’s The Lord of the Rings when the series was first published between 1954 and 55. He also edited much of his father’s posthumously published work following his death in 1973. Since 1975 he had lived in France with Baillie.

Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner praised Christopher’s commitment to his father’s work and said: “Millions of people around the world will be forever grateful to him … We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed.”

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of HarperCollins UK, which publishes much of JRR Tolkien’s work, said: “Christopher was a devoted curator of his father’s work and the timeless and ongoing popularity of the world that JRR Tolkien created is a fitting testimony to the decades he spent bringing Middle-Earth to generations of readers.

“[He was] the most charming of men, and a true gentleman. It was an honour and privilege to know and work with him and our thoughts are with his family at this time.”

Tolkien scholar Dimitra Fimi hailed Christopher for enriching his father’s work. She said: “He gave us a window into Tolkien’s creative process, and he provided scholarly commentary that enriched our understanding of Middle-earth. He was Middle-earth’s cartographer and first scholar.”

In an interview with the Guardian in 2012, Christopher’s son Simon described the enormity of the task after his grandfather died with so much material still unpublished.

Simon said: “He had produced this huge output that covered everything from the history of the gods to the history of the people he called the Silmarils – that was his great work, but it had never seen the light of day despite his best efforts to get it published.”

His son was left to sift through the files and notebooks, and over the two decades after his father’s death, he published The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Beren And Lúthien and The History of Middle-earth, which fleshed out the complex world of elves and dwarves created by his father.

“It’s enormously to my father’s credit that he took on that huge task. I remember the crateloads of papers arriving at his home, and no one could be in any doubt at the scale of the work he had taken on,” Simon said.

Although he worked tirelessly to protect his father’s legacy, he was not impressed by what he saw as the commercialisation of his work. He was famously critical of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. In a 2012 interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said: “They gutted the book, making an action film for 15-to-25-year-olds.”

He also said: “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of our time,” and that “the commercialisation has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing”.

https://amp-theguardian-com.

[verumcrimen]

Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos, também conhecido como "O Assassino do Fetiche dos Sapatos", foi um estuprador americano necrófilo e efebofílico, assassino em série e sequestrador.

Brudos nasceu em 31 de janeiro de 1939 em Webster, Dakota do Sul, como o caçula de dois filhos. Durante sua infância, ele foi constantemente abusado por sua mãe devido ao fato de que ela sempre quis uma menina, e ficou descontente por ter outro filho. O fetiche de Brudos por sapatos femininos começou quando ele tinha apenas cinco anos, depois de brincar com sapatos de salto alto em um ferro-velho. Brudos mais tarde afirmou que ele tentou roubar os sapatos da sua professora da primeira série. Além de ter um fetiche por sapatos femininos, ele também tinha um fetiche por roupas íntimas femininas, o que o levou a roubar roupas íntimas de suas vizinhas. Quando adolescente, ele era paciente em muitos hospitais psiquiátricos, fazendo tratamento com psicoterapia. Ele também perseguia mulheres locais, derrubando-as, ou sufocando-as a ponto de inconsciência, e fugindo com seus sapatos. Quando tinha dezessete anos, ele sequestrou e espancou uma jovem, ameaçando esfaqueá-la se ela não seguisse seus comandos sexuais. Brudos foi preso logo depois e levado para uma ala psiquiátrica por nove meses. Lá, ele foi diagnosticado com esquizofrenia e misoginia extrema.

Apesar de institucionalizado, Brudos conseguiu se formar no ensino médio em 1957 e se tornou técnico em eletrônica. Quatro anos depois, ele se casou com uma menina de dezessete anos e teve dois filhos com ela. Os dois moravam juntos em um subúrbio de Salem, Oregon. Brudos costumava forçar sua esposa a fazer tarefas domésticas enquanto nua, exceto por um par de sapatos de salto alto, enquanto ele tirava fotos. Algum tempo depois, Brudos começou a reclamar de sofrer de enxaqueca e desmaios. Para aliviar os sintomas, ele roubava sapatos e roupas íntimas de renda durante suas escapadas noturnas. Ele manteve todos os objetos roubados e, por um tempo, os corpos de suas futuras vítimas, em uma garagem em que ele não permitiria que sua esposa entrasse sem anunciar sua chegada em um interfone. 

Em 1967, Brudos seguiu uma mulher até sua casa porque gostou dos sapatos dela. Ele então invadiu a casa dela enquanto ela dormia e a estuprou antes de estrangulá-la ao ponto de inconsciência, depois saiu com alguns de seus sapatos.

Os assassinatos de Brudos foram inicialmente sem planejamento, mas ele começou a evoluir seu M.O. em assassinatos posteriores. Ele raptava moças de locais públicos e as levava para sua casa. Lá, ele as estrangulava ou espancava até a morte. Depois de matá-las, ele se envolvia em atos de necrofilia com seus corpos e se vestia com as roupas de suas vítimas. Brudos também guardava troféus de suas vítimas, como um par de seios amputados que eram usados como pesos de papel e um pé esquerdo decepado que ele usava para modelar os sapatos que colecionava. Depois de satisfazer seus desejos com os corpos, ele os despejava nos rios locais, os amarrando em partes de peças mecânicas para afundá-los.

Em 26 de janeiro de 1968, Brudos matou uma garota chamada Linda Slawson quando a mesma vendia enciclopédias no bairro de Portland, onde Brudos morava com sua esposa e filhos. Ele se aproximou dela e fingiu estar interessado em comprar um conjunto de livros. Depois que ela baixou a guarda, ele a subjugou, espancando-a, antes de estrangulá-la até a morte. Depois de matá-la, ele jogou seu corpo de uma ponte no rio Willamette, na Interestadual 5, e seu corpo nunca foi encontrado. Vários meses depois, Jan Whiteney estava voltando para casa de um banquete de Ação de Graças quando seu carro quebrou, deixando-a presa na estrada. Dirigindo pela mesma estrada, Brudos a viu e parou para oferecer assistência, mas a estrangulou e se envolveu em necrofilia com seu corpo. Mais tarde, o carro de Whiteney foi encontrado abandonado em uma parada de descanso na Interestadual 5, entre Salem e Albany, enquanto seu corpo foi encontrado amarrado a um pedaço de ferro da ferrovia em 27 de julho de 1969.

No ano seguinte, Brudos sequestrou Karen Sprinker do estacionamento da empresa Meier & Frank e a levou para sua casa, onde ele a estuprou e a matou. Seu corpo foi encontrado em 12 de maio no rio Long Tom, perto de Monroe. Um mês depois, Brudos tentou sequestrar outra garota, Gloria Smith, mas Smith conseguiu escapar. Um dia depois, ele sequestrou Linda Salee de um estacionamento do Lloyd Center em Portland e a matou. Seu corpo foi encontrado no mesmo rio em que Sprinker fora encontrada.

Depois de uma dica de uma estudante da Oregon State University, Brudos foi identificado como suspeito dos assassinatos e sua casa foi revistada. Lá dentro, a polícia encontrou fios de cobre, cordas e fotos de suas vítimas. Brudos foi posteriormente preso e identificado como o homem que tentou sequestrar Gloria Smith. Ele foi acusado de três assassinatos e se declarou culpado três dias antes do início do julgamento. Depois de receber três sentenças de prisão perpétua, ele foi transferido para a Penitenciária Estadual do Oregon. Brudos morreu de câncer de fígado em 28 de março de 2006 às 5:10 da manhã. Ele tinha 67 anos na época.

[truecrimedrive-blog]

Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos (January 31, 1939 – March 28, 2006) was an American serial killer and necrophiliac who committed the murders of a minimum of four women in Oregon between 1968 and 1969. Between 1968 and 1969, Brudos bludgeoned and strangled four young women. The only initial evidence were witness sightings of a large man dressed in women's clothing. In the garage of his Salem, Oregon home, Brudos kept trophies from his victims, expressly two pairs of amputated breasts that were used as paperweights and the left foot of a 19-year-old woman named Linda Slawson (his first murder victim), which he used to model the shoes he collected. After committing a murder, he would dress up in high heels and masturbate. Police investigation and interviews of local university students led them to Brudos, who described the murders in detail. He had confessed to murdering Linda Slawson, Jan Whitney, Karen Sprinker and Linda Salee, and was sentenced to life in prison. While incarcerated, Brudos had piles of women's shoe catalogues in his cell — he wrote to major companies asking for them — and claimed they were his substitute for pornography. He lodged countless appeals, including one in which he alleged that a photograph taken of him with one of his victim's corpses cannot prove his guilt, because it is not the body of a person he was convicted of killing. Brudos died in prison on March 28, 2006 from liver cancer. At the time of his death, Brudos was the longest incarcerated inmate in the Oregon Department of Corrections (a total of 37 years, from 1969 to 2006). #gymlife #health #fitness #fit #fitnessmodel #fitnessaddict #fitspo #workout #bodybuilding #cardio #gym #train #training #fitbody #health #healthy #active #strong #motivation #instagood #lifestyle #diet #cleaneating #eatclean #exercise #murder #serialkiller #death

[badgirlnila]

JRR Tolkien's son Christopher dies aged 95 by Nicola Slawson via Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RmupcC

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Jerry Brudos: The 'Shoe Fetish Slayer'

Jerry Brudos was born in Webster, South Dakota, as the younger of two sons. His mother had wanted a girl and was very displeased that she had another son instead, and constantly subjected him to emotional and physical abuse. 

Brudos had a fetish for women's shoes from the age of five, after playing with stiletto heeled shoes at a local junkyard. He reportedly attempted to steal the shoes of his first grade teacher. Brudos also had a fetish for women's underwear and claimed that he would steal underwear from female neighbors as a child.  He spent his teen years in and out of psychotherapy and psychiatric hospitals.

In his teenaged years, Brudos began to stalk local women, knocking them down or choking them unconscious, and fleeing with their shoes. At age 17, he abducted and beat a young woman, threatening to stab her if she did not follow his sexual demands. Shortly after being arrested, he was taken to a psychiatric ward of Oregon State Hospital for nine months. There it was found Brudos' sexual fantasies revolved around his hatred towards his mother and women in general. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. 

In 1961, Brudos married a 17-year-old girl, Darcie, with whom he would father two children, and settled in a Salem suburb. He asked his new bride to do housework naked except for a pair of high heels while he took pictures. It was at about this time that he began complaining of migraine headaches and "blackouts," relieving his symptoms with night-prowling raids to steal shoes and lace undergarments. Brudos would experience a transvestite period, where he used the female persona as a form of escape mechanism.

Between 1968 and 1969, Brudos bludgeoned and strangled four young women and attempted to attack two others:

Linda Slawson, 19, a door-to-door encyclopedia saleswoman who knocked on Brudos's door on January 26, 1968. Brudos lured her to the basement while his mother and children were in the house, knocked her out with a wooden plank, and strangled her. He dressed her in different female undergarments and shoes he had stolen, arranged her body in provocative poses, and used a hacksaw to cut off her left foot, which he kept in a freezer and used to model his collection of high-heel shoes. He disposed of the body in the Willamette River.

Jan Susan Whitney, 23, a motorist whose car broke down on Interstate 5 between Salem and Albany on November 26, 1968. Brudos offered to drive her to his home with the excuse of letting her call a tow truck there. While still in the car, he strangled her with a leather strap and raped her. He kept the body hanging from the pulley in his garage for several days, during which he dressed, photographed, and had sex with it. This time, Brudos cut off one of her breasts and made a resin mold of it that he used as a paperweight. Afterward he tied the body to a piece of railroad iron and threw it in the Willamette along with Slawson's foot, which had rotted.

Karen Sprinker, 18, abducted at gunpoint from a parking lot outside a department store on March 27, 1969. Brudos was dressed in women's clothes during this attack. He brought her to his garage, made her try on his collection of undergarments and pose while he photographed her, raped her, and strangled her by hanging her by her neck from a pulley. Brudos had sex with the body on several occasions and cut off her breasts to make plastic molds. Afterward, he tied the body to a six-cylinder car engine with nylon cord and threw it in the Willamette.

Sharon Wood, 24, attempted to abduct at gunpoint from the basement floor of a parking garage in Portland on April 21, 1969.

Gloria Gene Smith, 15, attempted to abduct on April 22, 1969.

Linda Salee, 22, abducted from a shopping mall parking lot on April 23, 1969. Brudos brought her to his garage where he raped and strangled her, and played with her corpse. He decided to not cut her breasts off because they were "too pink," and instead applied an electrical current to the body in an attempt to make it "jump", which failed. Afterward, he tied the body to a car transmission with a nylon cord and threw it in the Willamette.

Brudos would dress up in high heels and masturbate after committing a murder. In May 1969, a fisherman found the bodies of Salee and Sprinker in the Long Tom River. The police asked students at a nearby university campus about suspicious men and one led them to Brudos, who had phoned her several times to ask her for a date. Brudos gave police a false address, which increased their suspicions. At his garage, the police found copper wire that was determined to have been cut with the same tool that cut the cords used to tie the bodies. Brudos was arrested, and he made a full confession.

On June 28, 1969, Brudos pled guilty to three first-degree murders (Sprinker, Whitney and Salee) and was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment in Oregon State Penitentiary. Though he confessed to Slawson's murder, Brudos was neither tried nor convicted for it because he did not make and keep photographs of the body, unlike in the other cases, but only of her foot. Whitney's body was found a month after Brudos' conviction, about a mile downstream from where he said he had thrown it.

While incarcerated, Brudos had piles of women's shoe catalogues in his cell. He wrote to major companies requesting them, and claimed they were his substitute for pornography. He lodged countless appeals, including one in which he alleged that a photograph taken of him with one of his victim's corpses could not prove his guilt, because it was not the body of a person he was convicted of killing. In 1995, the parole board told Brudos that he would never be released.

Brudos died in prison on March 28, 2006, from liver cancer.

[mellowfestbanana]

US Politics Is Embroiled In Its Own Anti-Semitism Row – Here's What It's All About

US Politics Is Embroiled In Its Own Anti-Semitism Row – Here’s What It’s All About

Congresswoman Omar slams former President Obama in Politico interview US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has faced a backlash for comments about Israel – By Nicola Slawson, HUFFPOST

While Labour’s anti-Semitism row continues to rumble on, the US has been embroiled in its own version over the past week.

An ugly backlash…

[ajb-wanderings-blog]

Packaging to be environmentally friendly !

(Bruce, 2018)

Supermarket chain Iceland plans to eliminate plastic presentation from most of its brand products by 2023 and called on the industry to check out its lead.

Privately owned Iceland, has 900 UK stores specialising in frozen food. Iceland announced that instead of using plastic. It will use packaging consisting of paper and pulp trays along with paper bags which are fully recyclable and therefore less bad for the surroundings. Its pledge on plastic material is a first from a significant British grocer. (Reuters UK, 2018)

The supermarket counted a survey where 80% of 5,000 people polled said they would endorse the going plastic-free.(Telegraph.co.uk, 2018) Iceland managing director, Richard Walker, said:

“The world has woken up to the scourge of plastics. A truckload is joining our oceans every minute, causing untold damage to our marine environment and ultimately mankind - since we all rely upon the oceans for our survival"

“The onus is on retailers, as leading contributors to plastic packaging pollution and waste, to take a stand and deliver meaningful change.”

He also said Iceland would ensure all packaging was totaly recyclable and would be recycled, through support for initiatives such as a bottle deposit return scheme for plastic bottles. (Slawson, 2018)

In 2017 Iceland together with the Co-op were the first supermarkets to support a bottle deposit scheme after the government sought views on the theory to reduce clear plastic pollution in the oceans.

The retailers came out in favour of establishing a mandatory deposit return scheme (DRS) in Britain and Wales as the environment secretary, Michael Gove, examined the results of the seven-week consultation on whether to introduce a system to increase recycling rates of plastic containers and reduce leakage in to the oceans (Laville, 2018)

Fast food giant McDonald’s has said all its packaging worldwide will come from sustainable sources by 2025..

The restaurant chain will try to get all its materials like bags, straws, wrappers and cups from recycled or renewable materials.

McDonald’s also wants 100% of its restaurants to recycle packaging by then, weighed against only 10% now.

Both companies iceland and McDonald’s said there is an overwhelming demand from customers to make packaging more environmentally friendly (BBC News, 2018)

References

Bruce, A. (2018). target © 2018 Andrew J Bruce All Rights Reserved. [image].

BBC News. (2018). McDonald’s aims for fully recycled packaging by 2025. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-42704291 [Accessed 17 Jan. 2018].

Laville, S. (2018). Co-op and Iceland back bottle deposit scheme to reduce plastic pollution. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/30/co-op-iceland-bottle-deposit-scheme-uk-reduce-plastic-pollution [Accessed 16 Jan. 2018].

Reuters UK. (2018). Supermarket Iceland targets plastic-free own label ranges by 2023. [online] Available at: http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKBN1F50R5 [Accessed 16 Jan. 2018].

Slawson, N. (2018). Iceland supermarket vows to eliminate plastic on all own-branded products. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/15/iceland-vows-to-eliminate-plastic-on-all-own-branded-products [Accessed 16 Jan. 2018].

Telegraph.co.uk. (2018). Iceland pledges to go ‘plastic-free’. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/16/iceland-pledges-go-plastic-free/amp/ [Accessed 16 Jan. 2018].

[allisonzerr]

This Week in Frederick County (Jan 29-Feb 4)

Pirates of Penzance, January 20-March 11, 2017

Set sail with Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular comic opera. Pirates of Penzance is a hilarious farce about sentimental pirates, bumbling policemen, dim-witted young lovers, and an eccentric Major General. Way Off Broadway Dinner Theater. Fri & Sat 6pm (show starts at 8pm); 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sun of each month at 12:30pm (show starts at 2:15pm).

To find out more, call (301) 662-6600 or head to the official website here: http://www.wayoffbroadway.com/

African American Surgeons of the Civil War Era, February 4, 2017

Meet the unsung heroes of Civil War medicine-African American surgeons. NMCWM volunteer, Dr. Robert Slawson, will discuss his research into the African American surgeons of the Civil War-era. National Museum of Civil War Medicine. 2:30-3:30pm

For more info, call (301) 695-1864 or check out the official website here: http://www.civilwarmed.org/event/slawson1/

The Frederick Coin and Currency Show, February 4-5, 2017

Thirty or more U.S. and World coin and currency dealers from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Ohio, and North Carolina will be buying and selling old and new U.S. and World coins and currency. Free appraisals. Sat, 9am-6pm; Sun, 9am-4pm.

To find out more, call (443) 623-7025 or head to the official website here: http://www.coinshows.com/

Enjoy Frederick County, MD!

Allison Zerr

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