Blue Moon
Quick snap of tonight's #BlueMoon :)
(Bridge camera, no tripod) pic.twitter.com/nL32njWo48
— Kez (@Goleudy) July 31, 2015
Scott Neuman
July 31, 2015
...A blue moon, at least according to the modern definition of the term, has nothing to do with color. It simply means a second full moon in the same calendar month.
As NASA explains in the video above: "Most blue moons appear pale gray and white, just like the moon you've seen on any other night."
And that doesn't happen very often (the last time was in August 2012, and the next time will be January 2018), so "once in a blue moon" is a phrase still worthy of a rare occurrence.
'Blue Moon' tomorrow! The 3rd of 4 full moons in Summer. Some parts of the moon really are blue! This from @tomkerss: pic.twitter.com/KA3GAUHKfP
— Royal Observatory (@ROGAstronomers) July 30, 2015
This month, there was a full moon on July 1, and tonight, the last day of July, there's another. (Technically, the full moon occurred at 6:43 a.m. ET on Friday, about 20 minutes after it set for the U.S. East Coast, but it can still be seen again when the moon rises at 8:23 p.m. ET for Washington, D.C., residents.)
But the meaning of a "blue moon" has changed over time. It originally meant, according to folklore, something more ludicrous than rare. According to a 2012 Sky & Telescope magazine article: "[The] very earliest uses of the term were remarkably like saying the Moon is made of green cheese. Both were obvious absurdities, about which there could be no doubt. 'He would argue the Moon was blue' was taken by the average person of the 16th century as we take 'He'd argue that black is white.' "
But a secondary definition — the one about two full moons in a month — popped up (as an error, it turned out) in a 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope. Years later, in 1980, the mistake was amplified by the public radio program StarDate, and later, by the board game Trivial Pursuit. It stuck.
Philip Hiscock, a folklorist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, and Texas astronomer Donald W. Olson "helped the magazine sort all this out and admit the mistake back in 1999. The error led to the widely accepted definition of blue moon today: the second full moon in a given month. A blue moon occurs roughly once every 2.7 years," according to Space.com.
Even so, "on rare occasions, the moon can turn [the color] blue," according to the NASA video. It says: "A truly blue moon usually requires a volcanic eruption. Back in 1883, for example, people saw blue moons almost every night after the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded with a force of a 100-megaton nuclear bomb."
Amazing Grace
Back in 1983, Morley Safer sat down with 76-year-old U.S. Navy Captain Grace Hopper who, at the time, had the distinction of being the oldest woman in the Armed Forces. But that was far from the only reason she merited a 60 Minutes profile. Way back in 1944, Hopper helped design the legendary Mark series of computers at Harvard University.
Hopper is perhaps best known for figuring out the way to make computers "talk." As Morley put it in his piece: "She is more than just a superb mathematical talent; it was Grace Hopper who helped teach the machines a language, stopped them from speaking in undecipherable numbers, enabled them to speak in English or French or German or whatever language you choose."
And, if you've ever used the expression "bug" to describe a computer malfunction or software problem, you've got Ms. Hopper to thank as well. In 1947, something went haywire in the Mark II computer system. Upon closer inspection, a dead moth was discovered in the wiring and removed. From that point on, Hooper said, when anything went wrong with the computer, everyone said "it has a bug in it."
Not long after this piece first ran on 60 Minutes, Hopper was promoted to commodore, and when that post was merged with rear admiral in 1985, she became Admiral Hopper. She passed away on January 1, 1992 and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Today we celebrate what would have been Grace Hopper's 107th birthday.
© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Video
Be More Inspired
From year 1 of the PBS "Be More" campaign. (The talent here is Walter Beaudreux, Lead Conductor of the Montreal Orchestra. He wrote the music so the birds were clearly positioned accurately and the piece made sense musically. Shot by the director of the film "The Red Violin," Francois Girard.)
Thestrals
"I mean, a dog'll bite if yeh bait it, won' it - but Thestrals have jus' got a bad reputation because o' the death thing - people used ter think they were bad omens, didn' they? Jus' didn' understand, did they?"
~Professor Rubeus Hagrid during a Care of Magical Creatures class.
A Thestral is a breed of winged horses with a skeletal body, face with reptilian features, and wide, leathery wings that resemble a bat's.
They are very rare, and are considered dangerous by the Ministry of Magic. Thestrals are, undeservedly, known as omens of misfortune and aggression by many wizards because they are visible only to those who have witnessed death at least once (and fully accepted the concept) or due to their somewhat grim, gaunt and ghostly appearance.
Thestrals can be domesticated and mounted, so they are used as an alternative to brooms, Apparition and other methods of transportation. Once trained, they are very diligent and will quickly carry their owners wherever they wish to go.
Due to their classification as XXXX, only experienced wizards should try to handle Thestrals. Breeding as well as owning these beasts may be discouraged or even illegal without Ministry consent; in fact, wizards that live in areas not protected against Muggles are forced by law to perform Disillusionment Charms on their Thestrals regularly.
Harry Potter: "What are they?"
Luna Lovegood: "They're called Thestrals. They're quite gentle, really... But people avoid them because they're a bit..."
Harry Potter: "Different. But why can't the others see them?"
Luna Lovegood: "They can only be seen by people who've seen death."
— Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood discussing Thestrals.
Physical appearance
Thestrals have quite a disturbing appearance and the wizards who are capable of seeing them often only describe these creatures as being sinister and spooky. This is because they are seen as having big, bony figures and their dragon-like faces which bear white, glittering eyes that lack both expression and pupils. Additionally, they are lured by the scent of blood.
Being a type of winged horse, most of their anatomy is identical to a horse, excluding their large wings that sprout from their back. Unlike the Abraxan, another breed of winged horses, Thestral's wings do not possess any feathers at all; they have vast, black and leathery wings that are more similar to those of bats.
Their fleshless, lustrous bodies are covered with a translucent and glossy coat. This smooth and dark skin is a bit slippery and so thin that Thestral's bones are clearly defined through the entire extension of their sleek bodies.
These eerie horses have long black manes, as well as a large tail, either with flowing black hair, like horses or ending in a tuft, like zebras. Another distinction is their sharp fangs used to seize and slash their prey.
Nature
These creatures are seemingly rather dull, though Professor Rubeus Hagrid states that they are "dead clever", and, in fact, trained Thestrals are smart enough to understand their rider's words when they ask to travel to a specific location.
These magical creatures can be found in dark environments, and the forest is their natural habitat. They communicate with each other through a shrill and strange shriek that resembles some sort of monstrous bird.
They appear to be loyal creatures, able to discern a friend from an enemy. Thestrals would forcefully attack anyone or anything they see as a threat and, in the unusual case of domesticated Thestrals, any enemy of its owners.
In the Battle of Hogwarts, Hogwarts' trained flock of Thestrals cooperated with Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, to attack the Giants fighting for Voldemort. It's unclear whether or not wild herds can similarly cooperate with other species.
Diet
Thestrals are carnivorous animals and are attracted to the smell of blood. Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank mentions that they often attack birds. This indicates that, naturally, they hunt not only for food in the ground, but also pursue flying prey.
The Thestrals that live within the Hogwarts grounds, in the Forbidden Forest, are properly fed and well trained. They don't attack other creatures or students unless seriously disturbed.
Abilities
The Thestral tail hair is a powerful and tricky substance that can be mastered only by a witch or wizard capable of facing death. It should be noted that this substance can be used as a core in a wand's conception and it was used to create the most powerful wand known by wizards, the Elder Wand.
The most well known ability of these beasts is their invisibility to those who haven’t seen death. In other words, they are only visible to people who have seen someone dying and fully accepted, understood and internalized the concept.
Thestrals have an extraordinary sense of smell and will easily recognize the smell of blood and fresh flesh, even if the source of the scent is rather distanced.
They also have quite a useful sense of direction. The Thestral can understand exactly where their riders need to go. If their riders have a certain destination in mind, they only need to say the destination and the creature will diligently carry them to the intended location - much like owls do with letters.
These gentle, winged beasts are very capable and fast fliers and can travel long distances hardly beating their large wings. For example, in 1996, six members of the Hogwarts herd (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood) were capable of flying from Hogwarts (Scotland) to the Ministry of Magic (London) in a brief amount of time. It is possible that they were faster than even the fastest broomstick, as when Harry rode his, he did not think he had ever moved so fast, and he was the owner of a top-of-the-line broomstick, the Firebolt.
Their powerful wings are capable of lifting, at least, the burden of two humans plus their own weight.
Interaction with humans
Even with all their useful abilities, Thestrals are rarely used as methods of transportation due to their reputation as omens of evil and their somewhat dreadful and even distasteful appearance.
When riding a Thestral, the traveller usually holds the creature's mane to ensure balance during the flight (or ride.) To aid the mounting, the wizards also place their legs behind the wing joints to provide safety.
Flying on the back of a Thestral during a long journey is frequently an unpleasant experience, particularly to those who dare riding them without seeing the creature. The high speed flight on an invisible steed can be terrifying. The wind will, eventually, cause a temporary deafness and will force the riders to close their eyes. It is often difficult to keep balance on their slick backs.
The Hogwarts herd is gentle towards humans, they react satisfactorily to caresses and avoid attacking owls. However, taking into consideration the Ministry of Magic classification as "dangerous", this behaviour may be exclusive to well-trained Thestrals,[6] or just mere prejudice from the Ministry.
Hogwarts herd
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has a very loyal flock of Thestrals used mainly to pull the carriages that lead elder students from Hogsmeade Station to the gates of the Castle. To people who cannot see Thestrals, it appears that the carriages are autonomous. The herd at Hogwarts started with a male and five females. A number of them have been born since, beginning with one named Tenebrus, which is a special favourite of Hagrid's, the Hogwarts gamekeeper. Harry and a group of students flew Thestrals from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic in an attempt to rescue Sirius Black. They were also used by Albus Dumbledore, when he needed to travel but didn't care to Apparate.
Rubeus Hagrid, the trainer and breeder of this specific herd, strongly suspects that this is the only trained large group of Thestrals in the whole of Great Britain.
Harry Potter's encounters with Thestrals
Harry Potter first saw the Thestrals at Hogwarts in September of 1995, after having witnessed the murder of Cedric Diggory in June. Harry could not see them that June because he had not yet dealt with what he had witnessed. At first, he wonders why the supposedly horseless carriages are suddenly pulled by such sinister creatures when they are able to move on their own. He points the Thestrals out to Ron Weasley , and realises that Ron cannot see them. Sensing his desperation, Luna Lovegood assures him that she has always been able to see the horses and that he is just as sane as she is. Given Luna's odd habits and beliefs, this statement does not completely reassure Harry.
They were first identified by name by Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, after Hedwig was found injured, when she mentioned that Thestrals sometimes go after birds. They were next mentioned by Hagrid in a Care of Magical Creatures class, where the students were told that they could be used as mounts, and introduced their navigation abilities.
In June of 1996, Harry, Hermione Granger, Ron , Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom flew to London atop the Thestrals in order to find Sirius Black, whom Harry believed to be in danger in the Ministry of Magic. (Hermione, Ron, and Ginny had trouble mounting their Thestrals for the ride since, at least to the three of them, the Thestrals were invisible).
The Order of the Phoenix made use of Thestrals in the summer of 1997 during the Battle of the Seven Potters. Six of the Order's members took Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Harry, and then the "seven Potters" and their protectors fled 4 Privet Drive to safe houses of other members. Hermione Granger and Kingsley Shacklebolt flew on a Thestral, and so did Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, as Fleur doesn't like brooms.
During the Battle of Hogwarts, Thestrals were seen attacking Lord Voldemort's Giant soldiers from the air.
Nineteen years later, James Potter II teasingly warned his younger brother Albus about the Thestrals before they left for Hogwarts.
Known people who can see Thestrals
Rubeus Hagrid. Hagrid witnessed several deaths over the course of his life, including his father, and could see Thestrals.
Neville Longbottom. Neville mentioned being able to see Thestrals in a fifth-year Care of Magical Creatures class.
Luna Lovegood. Luna witnessed her mother die during a magical experiment gone wrong when she was nine years old, circa 1990-1991, and thus could see Thestrals when she first came to Hogwarts.
Harry Potter. Harry did not see Thestrals immediately after Cedric's death in June of 1995; it took a few months before he accepted this tragic event, and then was able to see Thestrals.
Severus Snape. Snape could see Thestrals, presumably as a result of seeing people killed in the First and Second Wizarding Wars, as Dumbledore once asked him "how many men and women" he had "watched die," though Snape had replied that "lately only those whom I could not save."
~Professor Rubeus Hagrid during a Care of Magical Creatures class.
They are very rare, and are considered dangerous by the Ministry of Magic. Thestrals are, undeservedly, known as omens of misfortune and aggression by many wizards because they are visible only to those who have witnessed death at least once (and fully accepted the concept) or due to their somewhat grim, gaunt and ghostly appearance.
Thestrals can be domesticated and mounted, so they are used as an alternative to brooms, Apparition and other methods of transportation. Once trained, they are very diligent and will quickly carry their owners wherever they wish to go.
Due to their classification as XXXX, only experienced wizards should try to handle Thestrals. Breeding as well as owning these beasts may be discouraged or even illegal without Ministry consent; in fact, wizards that live in areas not protected against Muggles are forced by law to perform Disillusionment Charms on their Thestrals regularly.
Harry Potter: "What are they?"
Luna Lovegood: "They're called Thestrals. They're quite gentle, really... But people avoid them because they're a bit..."
Harry Potter: "Different. But why can't the others see them?"
Luna Lovegood: "They can only be seen by people who've seen death."
— Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood discussing Thestrals.
Physical appearance
Being a type of winged horse, most of their anatomy is identical to a horse, excluding their large wings that sprout from their back. Unlike the Abraxan, another breed of winged horses, Thestral's wings do not possess any feathers at all; they have vast, black and leathery wings that are more similar to those of bats.
Their fleshless, lustrous bodies are covered with a translucent and glossy coat. This smooth and dark skin is a bit slippery and so thin that Thestral's bones are clearly defined through the entire extension of their sleek bodies.
These eerie horses have long black manes, as well as a large tail, either with flowing black hair, like horses or ending in a tuft, like zebras. Another distinction is their sharp fangs used to seize and slash their prey.
Nature
These creatures are seemingly rather dull, though Professor Rubeus Hagrid states that they are "dead clever", and, in fact, trained Thestrals are smart enough to understand their rider's words when they ask to travel to a specific location.
These magical creatures can be found in dark environments, and the forest is their natural habitat. They communicate with each other through a shrill and strange shriek that resembles some sort of monstrous bird.
They appear to be loyal creatures, able to discern a friend from an enemy. Thestrals would forcefully attack anyone or anything they see as a threat and, in the unusual case of domesticated Thestrals, any enemy of its owners.
In the Battle of Hogwarts, Hogwarts' trained flock of Thestrals cooperated with Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, to attack the Giants fighting for Voldemort. It's unclear whether or not wild herds can similarly cooperate with other species.
Diet
Thestrals are carnivorous animals and are attracted to the smell of blood. Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank mentions that they often attack birds. This indicates that, naturally, they hunt not only for food in the ground, but also pursue flying prey.
The Thestrals that live within the Hogwarts grounds, in the Forbidden Forest, are properly fed and well trained. They don't attack other creatures or students unless seriously disturbed.
Abilities
The Thestral tail hair is a powerful and tricky substance that can be mastered only by a witch or wizard capable of facing death. It should be noted that this substance can be used as a core in a wand's conception and it was used to create the most powerful wand known by wizards, the Elder Wand.
The most well known ability of these beasts is their invisibility to those who haven’t seen death. In other words, they are only visible to people who have seen someone dying and fully accepted, understood and internalized the concept.
Thestrals have an extraordinary sense of smell and will easily recognize the smell of blood and fresh flesh, even if the source of the scent is rather distanced.
They also have quite a useful sense of direction. The Thestral can understand exactly where their riders need to go. If their riders have a certain destination in mind, they only need to say the destination and the creature will diligently carry them to the intended location - much like owls do with letters.
These gentle, winged beasts are very capable and fast fliers and can travel long distances hardly beating their large wings. For example, in 1996, six members of the Hogwarts herd (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood) were capable of flying from Hogwarts (Scotland) to the Ministry of Magic (London) in a brief amount of time. It is possible that they were faster than even the fastest broomstick, as when Harry rode his, he did not think he had ever moved so fast, and he was the owner of a top-of-the-line broomstick, the Firebolt.
Their powerful wings are capable of lifting, at least, the burden of two humans plus their own weight.
Interaction with humans
When riding a Thestral, the traveller usually holds the creature's mane to ensure balance during the flight (or ride.) To aid the mounting, the wizards also place their legs behind the wing joints to provide safety.
Flying on the back of a Thestral during a long journey is frequently an unpleasant experience, particularly to those who dare riding them without seeing the creature. The high speed flight on an invisible steed can be terrifying. The wind will, eventually, cause a temporary deafness and will force the riders to close their eyes. It is often difficult to keep balance on their slick backs.
The Hogwarts herd is gentle towards humans, they react satisfactorily to caresses and avoid attacking owls. However, taking into consideration the Ministry of Magic classification as "dangerous", this behaviour may be exclusive to well-trained Thestrals,[6] or just mere prejudice from the Ministry.
Hogwarts herd
Rubeus Hagrid, the trainer and breeder of this specific herd, strongly suspects that this is the only trained large group of Thestrals in the whole of Great Britain.
Harry Potter's encounters with Thestrals
Harry Potter first saw the Thestrals at Hogwarts in September of 1995, after having witnessed the murder of Cedric Diggory in June. Harry could not see them that June because he had not yet dealt with what he had witnessed. At first, he wonders why the supposedly horseless carriages are suddenly pulled by such sinister creatures when they are able to move on their own. He points the Thestrals out to Ron Weasley , and realises that Ron cannot see them. Sensing his desperation, Luna Lovegood assures him that she has always been able to see the horses and that he is just as sane as she is. Given Luna's odd habits and beliefs, this statement does not completely reassure Harry.
They were first identified by name by Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, after Hedwig was found injured, when she mentioned that Thestrals sometimes go after birds. They were next mentioned by Hagrid in a Care of Magical Creatures class, where the students were told that they could be used as mounts, and introduced their navigation abilities.
In June of 1996, Harry, Hermione Granger, Ron , Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom flew to London atop the Thestrals in order to find Sirius Black, whom Harry believed to be in danger in the Ministry of Magic. (Hermione, Ron, and Ginny had trouble mounting their Thestrals for the ride since, at least to the three of them, the Thestrals were invisible).
The Order of the Phoenix made use of Thestrals in the summer of 1997 during the Battle of the Seven Potters. Six of the Order's members took Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Harry, and then the "seven Potters" and their protectors fled 4 Privet Drive to safe houses of other members. Hermione Granger and Kingsley Shacklebolt flew on a Thestral, and so did Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, as Fleur doesn't like brooms.
During the Battle of Hogwarts, Thestrals were seen attacking Lord Voldemort's Giant soldiers from the air.
Nineteen years later, James Potter II teasingly warned his younger brother Albus about the Thestrals before they left for Hogwarts.
Known people who can see Thestrals
Rubeus Hagrid. Hagrid witnessed several deaths over the course of his life, including his father, and could see Thestrals.
Neville Longbottom. Neville mentioned being able to see Thestrals in a fifth-year Care of Magical Creatures class.
Luna Lovegood. Luna witnessed her mother die during a magical experiment gone wrong when she was nine years old, circa 1990-1991, and thus could see Thestrals when she first came to Hogwarts.
Harry Potter. Harry did not see Thestrals immediately after Cedric's death in June of 1995; it took a few months before he accepted this tragic event, and then was able to see Thestrals.
Severus Snape. Snape could see Thestrals, presumably as a result of seeing people killed in the First and Second Wizarding Wars, as Dumbledore once asked him "how many men and women" he had "watched die," though Snape had replied that "lately only those whom I could not save."
Maximilian Schich's Western Culture Migration Map
How Cultures Move Across Continents
by KARA MANKE
August 01, 2014 1:03 PM ET
www.npr.org
They may look like flight paths around North America and Europe. Or perhaps nighttime satellite photos, with cities lit up like starry constellations.
But look again.
These animations chart the movement of Western culture over the past 2,000 years, researchers report Friday in the journal Science.
To make these movies, art historian Maximilian Schich and his colleagues mapped the births and deaths of more than 150,000 notable artists and cultural leaders, such as famous painters, actors, architects, politicians, priests and even antiquarians (people who collect antiques).
A shimmering blue dot lights up each new birth, while red dots represent each death.
We can watch as artists flock from rural areas to urban centers like London, Paris, Rome and Berlin after the Renaissance. Then in the late 17th century, people start to catapult from Europe into the eastern U.S. and then eventually leapfrog over to the West Coast.
"We're interested in the shape of the coral reef of culture," says Schich, of the University of Texas at Dallas. "We are taking a systems biology approach to art history."
After mapping the births and deaths, Schich and his team analyzed demographic data to build a model for how people and their cultural achievements ebb and flow across continents.
Right now the team has only maps for the U.S. and Europe. But Schich hopes to extend these visualizations beyond the Western world.
And the model isn't just fun to look at. The data also reveal trends and patterns in human migration over the past two millennia.
"From a very small percentage of the population ... we get out these general laws of migration that were defined in the late 19th century," Schich says.
One law was unexpected: People don't like to move too far from home, even in the 21st century. Despite the invention of trains, planes and cars, artists nowadays don't venture much farther from their birthplaces then they did in the 14th century. The average distance between birthplace and where a person dies hasn't even doubled in 400 years, the team found. (It's gone from 133 miles to 237 miles.)
Schich and his team also showed that deviations from these overall trends could be linked to historical events. For example, a lot of politicians and architects died in France between 1785 and 1805, right around the time of the French Revolution. But the violence had a much smaller effect on people in the fine arts.
The models are the latest application of a rapidly growing field, called network science — which uses visualizations to find the underlying patterns and trends in complex data sets.
Several groups of scientists around the world have used networks science to map human migration. For example, physicists in Berlin analyzed the circulation of dollar bills to uncover laws of human travel, while a team in Boston examined mobile phone data.
Back in March, Nikola Sander and her colleagues at the Vienna Institute of Demography illustrated the flow of human migration over the past 20 years using U.N. census data from over 150 countries. The result is a beautiful interactive graphic, showing the major immigration routes around the world.
All these studies, Sander says, come with their limitations. In particular, the data typically represent only a select portion of the population — those that spend cash, use mobile phones or are found in particular databases. And of course, most of us will never make it to a list of "notable artists."
But things get interesting, Sander says, when all these individual data sets point to a similar overall pattern. That's exactly what has happened here. The migration rules that Schich and his colleagues observed are similar to those found from looking at mobile phones and dollar bills.
"It's like little pieces of a puzzle." Sander says. "And it is nice if they come together to make a bigger picture."
12 Letters
12 Letters That Will Melt Your Heart
Let’s face it. Snapchatting someone just isn’t the same.
posted on October 3, 2013 at 3:51am EDT
Luke Lewis
BuzzFeed Staff
Dear Mr. Kennedy,
Please stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole because they will kill Santa Claus. I am 8 years old. I am in the third grade at Holy Cross School.
Yours truly,
Michelle Rochon
October 28, 1961
Dear Michelle:
I was glad to get your letter about trying to stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole and risking the life of Santa Claus.
I share your concern about the atmospheric testing of the Soviet Union, not only for the North Pole but for countries throughout the world; not only for Santa Claus but for people throughout the world.
However, you must not worry about Santa Claus. I talked with him yesterday and he is fine. He will be making his rounds again this Christmas.
Sincerely,
(Signed, ‘John Kennedy’).
Via The Letters of John F. Kennedy (Bloomsbury Press) / lettersofnote.com
2. A mother writes to her son after he came out on Facebook.
3. A little girl offers her services to a homeless shelter.
*Stay in school.
*Be a leader, not a follower.
*Don’t do drugs.
*Be yourself.
*Love your neighbor.
*Be good to one another.
4. J.K. Rowling’s response to a teenage fan whose drug-addicted parents had both been murdered.
The transcript of Rowling’s response:
Dear Sacia (beautiful name, I’ve never heard it before),
Thank you for your incredible letter; incredible, because you do indeed sound phenomenally like Harry Potter, in your physical resemblance and in your life experience. I cannot tell you how moved I was by what you wrote, nor how sorry I am to hear about your parents. What a terrible loss.
I know what it is like to be picked on, as it happened to me, too, throughout my adolescence. I can only wish that you have the same experience that I did, and become happier and more secure the older you get. Being a teenager can be completely horrible, and many of the most successful people I know felt the same way. I think the problem is that adolescence, though often misrepresented as a time of rebellion and unconventionality, actually requires everybody to conform if they aspire to popularity - or at least to ‘rebel’ while wearing the ‘right’ clothes! You’re now standing on the threshold of a very different phase in your life, one where you are much more likely to find kindred spirits, and much less likely to be subject to the pressures of your teenage years.
It is an honour to me to know that somebody like you loves Harry as much as you do. Thank you very much for writing to me, I will treasure your letter (which entitles you to boast about this response as much as you like!)
With lots of love
JKRowling
(Jo to you!)
x
5. A tragic love letter from one World War II soldier to another.
8. Alex Turner’s Valentine’s Day love note to Alexa Chung.
10. Caitlin Moran’s posthumous advice for her daughter, in The Times.
“Look – here are a couple of things I’ve learnt on the way that you might find useful in the coming years. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start. Also, I’ve left you loads of life-insurance money – so go hog wild on eBay on those second-hand vintage dresses you like. You have always looked beautiful in them. You have always looked beautiful.
“The main thing is just to try to be nice. You already are – so lovely I burst, darling – and so I want you to hang on to that and never let it go. Keep slowly turning it up, like a dimmer switch, whenever you can. Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’.
“Second, always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit. You’d be amazed how easily and repeatedly you can confuse the two. Get a big biscuit tin.
“Three – always pick up worms off the pavement and put them on the grass. They’re having a bad day, and they’re good for… the earth or something (ask Daddy more about this; am a bit sketchy).
“Four: choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. There are boys out there who look for shining girls; they will stand next to you and say quiet things in your ear that only you can hear and that will slowly drain the joy out of your heart. The books about vampires are true, baby. Drive a stake through their hearts and run away.
“Stay at peace with your body. While it’s healthy, never think of it as a problem or a failure. Pat your legs occasionally and thank them for being able to run. Put your hands on your belly and enjoy how soft and warm you are – marvel over the world turning over within, the brilliant meat clockwork, as I did when you were inside me and I dreamt of you every night.
“Whenever you can’t think of something to say in a conversation, ask people questions instead. Even if you’re next to a man who collects pre-Seventies screws and bolts, you will probably never have another opportunity to find out so much about pre-Seventies screws and bolts, and you never know when it will be useful.
“This segues into the next tip: life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, ‘NO! NO!’ Even when Jesus was on the cross, I bet He was thinking, ‘When I rise in three days, the disciples aren’t going to believe this when I tell them about it.’
“Babyiest, see as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it. Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there. Host extravagantly, love constantly, dance in comfortable shoes, talk to Daddy and Nancy about me every day and never, ever start smoking. It’s like buying a fun baby dragon that will grow and eventually burn down your f***ing house.
“Love, Mummy.”
11. A child tries to strike a deal with the tooth fairy.
Otto Dix
Title: Self-portrait
Year: 1913
Title: Self-portrait as Mars (Selbstbildnis mit Artillerie-Helm)
Year: 1915
Description: In the second year of war, he depcits himself as the God of War with angles borrowed from cubism. In this scene, death is abundant. Horses rear and flee. Buildings burst open and cities crumble. Yet Dix remains alive. Survival under such circumstances might give anyone a messiah complex.
Publisher: Municipal Gallery, Stuttgart
Title: The Foundry
Year: 1919
Description: The Foundry was hot and the air was foul but it supported the family. Otto's father toiled there for most of his life. Its bricks are dark from soot and its yard is filled with scrap, yet through the Dixian filter, the Foundry is quite attractive.
Publisher: Otto Dix Foundation
Vadux, Germany
Title: The Skat Players
Year: 1920
Description: The war has left them crippled and deformed but their capacity to play skat remains in tact. It is a three-handed card game favored by the Krupps, German manufacturers of the types of weapons that misfigured men such as these.
Publisher: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
Title: Prager Straße
Year: 1920
Description: Along Prague Street, deformed men beg for money and attention. A woman in a tight pink dress has no time for them. The Nationalists do. Beside one veteran is a pamphlet entitled, "Jews Out!" The Nazis were not yet a National movement but one of their basic tenets was beginning to disseminate.
Publisher: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
Description: Dix often depicted the lives of the downtrodden. Here we have a chance to see the start of the cycle. The working class boy is anything but carefree. He is overburdened and robbed of youth. His gaze is split as though he's trapped between worlds. He leads the life of an adult although he is just a child. He would like to play but there are mouths to feed. The left eye, the serious eye, steers him toward work.
Publisher: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
Title: Working Class Boy
Year: 1920
Description: Dix often depicted the lives of the downtrodden. Here we have a chance to see the start of the cycle. The working class boy is anything but carefree. He is overburdened and robbed of youth. His gaze is split as though he's trapped between worlds. He leads the life of an adult although he is just a child. He would like to play but there are mouths to feed. The left eye, the serious eye, steers him toward work.
Publisher: Neue Galerie
Description: In 1925, Hugo Simons won a lawsuit on Dix's behalf. The artist painted his portrait in a display of gratitude. He generally preferred to accentuate a subject's ungainly characteristics but this depiction was almost flattering. The pair maintained a friendship for the rest of their lives. When the Nuremberg Laws stripped him of citizenship, Simons fled Germany for Canada. He died in Montreal with Dix's portrait hanging on the wall opposite his bed.
Publisher: Montreal Fine Arts Museum
Description: Iwar von Lücken was the last in the line of Baltic aristocrats. He was born into privilege and died in poverty under unknown circumstances. His aesthetics were of the avant garde while his family was entrenched in tradition, a difference that cast von Lücken as a black sheep.
Iwar von Lücken was a poet whose work is reduced to a thin single volume. He'd be a literary unknown if not for this portrait. Dix provided post mortem fame that he was unable to obtain with a pen.
To Otto Dix, von Lücken was a sorry figure and that's probably what drew him to the artist. Dix accentuates his poverty -- the poet's complexion is gaunt and his suit was cut before he grew thin. The poet slouches and needs a chair rail for support. Peter de Mendelssohn saw him Berlin soon after he posed for this portrait. The poet with the enobling "von" was seen begging for coins in a cafe.
Publisher: Berlinische Galerie
Description: When the NSDAP came to power, Dix was forced into self-imposed exile near the Swiss border. The new regime branded him a degenerate and destroyed as much of his art as they could find. Fortunately for posterity, many of his pieces were in private collections.
In the final stages of the war, Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm, a military homeguard comprised of young boys and old men. He was soon captured by the French and spent the duration in a POW camp. Dix was granted access to materials and he painted a triptych for the prison chapel. Portrait of a Prisoner was completed inside the camp.
The prisoner is a sympathetic figure. Dix forgot his tendency to accentuate his subject's worst features. After the war, his art would take on a strong relgious tone. Here we find a foreshadowing of that tendency as barb wire creates the prisoner's crown of thorns.
Publisher: Private Collection
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈhaɪnʁiç ˈɔto ˈdɪks]; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Early life and education
Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera. The eldest son of Franz and Louise Dix, an iron foundry worker and a seamstress who had written poetry in her youth, he was exposed to art from an early age. The hours he spent in the studio of his cousin, Fritz Amann, who was a painter, were decisive in forming young Otto's ambition to be an artist; he received additional encouragement from his primary school teacher. Between 1906 and 1910, he served an apprenticeship with painter Carl Senff, and began painting his first landscapes. In 1910, he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden (Academy of Applied Arts), where Richard Guhr was among his teachers.
World War I service
When the First World War erupted, Dix enthusiastically volunteered for the German Army. He was assigned to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the autumn of 1915 he was assigned as a non-commissioned officer of a machine-gun unit on the Western front and took part in the Battle of the Somme. In November 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia, and in February 1918 he was stationed in Flanders. Back on the western front, he fought in the German Spring Offensive. He earned the Iron Cross (second class) and reached the rank of vizefeldwebel. In August of that year he was wounded in the neck, and shortly after he took pilot training lessons. He was discharged from service in December 1918.
Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and would later describe a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses. He represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called Der Krieg, published in 1924.
Post-war artwork
At the end of 1918 Dix returned to Gera, but the next year he moved to Dresden, where he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste. He became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, during a period when his work was passing through an expressionist phase. In 1920, he met George Grosz and, influenced by Dada, began incorporating collage elements into his works, some of which he exhibited in the first Dada Fair in Berlin. He also participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.
In 1924, he joined the Berlin Secession; by this time he was developing an increasingly realistic style of painting that used thin glazes of oil paint over a tempera underpainting, in the manner of the old masters. His 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furore that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, cancelled the purchase of the painting and forced the director of the museum to resign.
Dix was a contributor to the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others. Dix's work, like that of Grosz—his friend and fellow veteran—was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexual murder. He drew attention to the bleaker side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age and death.
In one of his few statements, published in 1927, Dix declared, "The object is primary and the form is shaped by the object."
Among his most famous paintings are the triptych Metropolis (1928), a scornful portrayal of depraved actions of Germany's Weimar Republic, where nonstop revelry was a way to deal with the wartime defeat and financial catastrophe, and the startling Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926). His depictions of legless and disfigured veterans—a common sight on Berlin's streets in the 1920s—unveil the ugly side of war and illustrate their forgotten status within contemporary German society, a concept also developed in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
World War II and the Nazis
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they regarded Dix as a degenerate artist and had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy. He later moved to Lake Constance in the southwest of Germany. Dix's paintings The Trench and War cripples were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst. They were later burned.
Dix, like all other practicing artists, was forced to join the Nazi government's Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste), a subdivision of Goebbels' Cultural Ministry (Reichskulturkammer). Membership was mandatory for all artists in the Reich. Dix had to promise to paint only inoffensive landscapes. He still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals. His paintings that were considered "degenerate" were discovered among the 1500+ paintings hidden away by an art dealer and his son in 2012.
In 1939 he was arrested on a trumped-up charge of being involved in a plot against Hitler (see Georg Elser), but was later released.
During World War II Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm. He was captured by French troops at the end of the war and released in February 1946.
Later life and death
Dix eventually returned to Dresden and remained there until 1966. After the war most of his paintings were religious allegories or depictions of post-war suffering, including his 1948 Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire. In this period, Dix gained recognition in both parts of, the then divided, Germany. In 1959 he was awarded the Grand Merit Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz) and in 1950, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the National Prize of the GDR. He received the Lichtwark Prize in Hamburg and the Martin Andersen Nexo Art Prize in Dresden to mark his 75th birthday in 1967. Dix was made an honorary citizen of Gera. Also in 1967 he received the Hans Thoma Prize and in 1968 the Rembrandt Prize of the Goethe Foundation in Salzburg.
Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a second stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel. He is buried at Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.
Dix had three children: a daughter Nelly (1923-1955) and two sons, Ursus (1927-2002) and Jan (* 1928).
Description: By 1920, Dix was associated with the Berlin Dadaists. In the summer of that year, he exhibited this painting, the War Cripples, there. Unlike many works on display, this one avoided official controversy although it clearly blamed the military for butchering a generation. Others on display were not as fortunate. The military filed charges of insult against several artists at the exhibition.
When Hitler rose to power, Dix was forbidden to exhibit his work but Nazis were under no such restriction. In 1933, this painting was siezed and displayed in the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition. It was captioned, "Slander against the German Heroes of the World War."
The reproduction seen here was taken from a period photograph. The War Cripples disappeared after the Degenerate Art exhibition. It's location is currently unknown and it is presumed destroyed.
Publisher: Location unknown
Title: Portrait of the Lawyer Hugo Simons
Year: 1925
Description: In 1925, Hugo Simons won a lawsuit on Dix's behalf. The artist painted his portrait in a display of gratitude. He generally preferred to accentuate a subject's ungainly characteristics but this depiction was almost flattering. The pair maintained a friendship for the rest of their lives. When the Nuremberg Laws stripped him of citizenship, Simons fled Germany for Canada. He died in Montreal with Dix's portrait hanging on the wall opposite his bed.
Publisher: Montreal Fine Arts Museum
Title: Der Dichter Iwar von Lücken
Year: 1926
Description: Iwar von Lücken was the last in the line of Baltic aristocrats. He was born into privilege and died in poverty under unknown circumstances. His aesthetics were of the avant garde while his family was entrenched in tradition, a difference that cast von Lücken as a black sheep.
Iwar von Lücken was a poet whose work is reduced to a thin single volume. He'd be a literary unknown if not for this portrait. Dix provided post mortem fame that he was unable to obtain with a pen.
To Otto Dix, von Lücken was a sorry figure and that's probably what drew him to the artist. Dix accentuates his poverty -- the poet's complexion is gaunt and his suit was cut before he grew thin. The poet slouches and needs a chair rail for support. Peter de Mendelssohn saw him Berlin soon after he posed for this portrait. The poet with the enobling "von" was seen begging for coins in a cafe.
Publisher: Berlinische Galerie
Title: Portrait of a Prisoner
Year: 1945
Description: When the NSDAP came to power, Dix was forced into self-imposed exile near the Swiss border. The new regime branded him a degenerate and destroyed as much of his art as they could find. Fortunately for posterity, many of his pieces were in private collections.
In the final stages of the war, Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm, a military homeguard comprised of young boys and old men. He was soon captured by the French and spent the duration in a POW camp. Dix was granted access to materials and he painted a triptych for the prison chapel. Portrait of a Prisoner was completed inside the camp.
The prisoner is a sympathetic figure. Dix forgot his tendency to accentuate his subject's worst features. After the war, his art would take on a strong relgious tone. Here we find a foreshadowing of that tendency as barb wire creates the prisoner's crown of thorns.
Publisher: Private Collection
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈhaɪnʁiç ˈɔto ˈdɪks]; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Early life and education
Otto Dix was born in Untermhaus, Germany, now a part of the city of Gera. The eldest son of Franz and Louise Dix, an iron foundry worker and a seamstress who had written poetry in her youth, he was exposed to art from an early age. The hours he spent in the studio of his cousin, Fritz Amann, who was a painter, were decisive in forming young Otto's ambition to be an artist; he received additional encouragement from his primary school teacher. Between 1906 and 1910, he served an apprenticeship with painter Carl Senff, and began painting his first landscapes. In 1910, he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden (Academy of Applied Arts), where Richard Guhr was among his teachers.
World War I service
When the First World War erupted, Dix enthusiastically volunteered for the German Army. He was assigned to a field artillery regiment in Dresden. In the autumn of 1915 he was assigned as a non-commissioned officer of a machine-gun unit on the Western front and took part in the Battle of the Somme. In November 1917, his unit was transferred to the Eastern front until the end of hostilities with Russia, and in February 1918 he was stationed in Flanders. Back on the western front, he fought in the German Spring Offensive. He earned the Iron Cross (second class) and reached the rank of vizefeldwebel. In August of that year he was wounded in the neck, and shortly after he took pilot training lessons. He was discharged from service in December 1918.
Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of the war, and would later describe a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed houses. He represented his traumatic experiences in many subsequent works, including a portfolio of fifty etchings called Der Krieg, published in 1924.
Post-war artwork
At the end of 1918 Dix returned to Gera, but the next year he moved to Dresden, where he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste. He became a founder of the Dresden Secession group in 1919, during a period when his work was passing through an expressionist phase. In 1920, he met George Grosz and, influenced by Dada, began incorporating collage elements into his works, some of which he exhibited in the first Dada Fair in Berlin. He also participated in the German Expressionists exhibition in Darmstadt that year.
In 1924, he joined the Berlin Secession; by this time he was developing an increasingly realistic style of painting that used thin glazes of oil paint over a tempera underpainting, in the manner of the old masters. His 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furore that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, cancelled the purchase of the painting and forced the director of the museum to resign.
Dix was a contributor to the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, which featured works by George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz and many others. Dix's work, like that of Grosz—his friend and fellow veteran—was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the act of Lustmord, or sexual murder. He drew attention to the bleaker side of life, unsparingly depicting prostitution, violence, old age and death.
In one of his few statements, published in 1927, Dix declared, "The object is primary and the form is shaped by the object."
Among his most famous paintings are the triptych Metropolis (1928), a scornful portrayal of depraved actions of Germany's Weimar Republic, where nonstop revelry was a way to deal with the wartime defeat and financial catastrophe, and the startling Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926). His depictions of legless and disfigured veterans—a common sight on Berlin's streets in the 1920s—unveil the ugly side of war and illustrate their forgotten status within contemporary German society, a concept also developed in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
World War II and the Nazis
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they regarded Dix as a degenerate artist and had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy. He later moved to Lake Constance in the southwest of Germany. Dix's paintings The Trench and War cripples were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst. They were later burned.
Dix, like all other practicing artists, was forced to join the Nazi government's Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste), a subdivision of Goebbels' Cultural Ministry (Reichskulturkammer). Membership was mandatory for all artists in the Reich. Dix had to promise to paint only inoffensive landscapes. He still painted an occasional allegorical painting that criticized Nazi ideals. His paintings that were considered "degenerate" were discovered among the 1500+ paintings hidden away by an art dealer and his son in 2012.
In 1939 he was arrested on a trumped-up charge of being involved in a plot against Hitler (see Georg Elser), but was later released.
During World War II Dix was conscripted into the Volkssturm. He was captured by French troops at the end of the war and released in February 1946.
Later life and death
Dix eventually returned to Dresden and remained there until 1966. After the war most of his paintings were religious allegories or depictions of post-war suffering, including his 1948 Ecce homo with self-likeness behind barbed wire. In this period, Dix gained recognition in both parts of, the then divided, Germany. In 1959 he was awarded the Grand Merit Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großes Verdienstkreuz) and in 1950, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the National Prize of the GDR. He received the Lichtwark Prize in Hamburg and the Martin Andersen Nexo Art Prize in Dresden to mark his 75th birthday in 1967. Dix was made an honorary citizen of Gera. Also in 1967 he received the Hans Thoma Prize and in 1968 the Rembrandt Prize of the Goethe Foundation in Salzburg.
Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a second stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel. He is buried at Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.
Dix had three children: a daughter Nelly (1923-1955) and two sons, Ursus (1927-2002) and Jan (* 1928).
“I did not paint war pictures in order to prevent war. I would never have been so arrogant. I painted them to exorcise the experience of war.” ~Otto Dix
“People were already beginning to forget, what horrible suffering the war had brought them. I did not want to cause fear and panic, but to let people know how dreadful war is and so to stimulate people’s powers of resistance.” ~Otto Dix
The Trench by Otto Dix (1923)
Title: The War Cripples
Year: 1920
When Hitler rose to power, Dix was forbidden to exhibit his work but Nazis were under no such restriction. In 1933, this painting was siezed and displayed in the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition. It was captioned, "Slander against the German Heroes of the World War."
The reproduction seen here was taken from a period photograph. The War Cripples disappeared after the Degenerate Art exhibition. It's location is currently unknown and it is presumed destroyed.
Publisher: Location unknown
Workers renovating the former residence of Otto Dix have uncovered six murals by the artist. The home is being turned into a museum, to be run by the Stuttgart Kuntmuseum http://www.kunstmuseum-stuttgart.de The Carneval-themed pieces, most likely from 1966, were behind a bookcase in the cellar library and are incredibly well-preserved. The museum opened in June 2013.
Love
Col. Potter: Listen, when you're in love, you're always in trouble. There's only two things you can do about it - either stop loving them, or love them a whole lot more.
Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger: But if you love them a whole lot more, won't that just get you a lot more trouble?
Col. Potter: Yep - then you love them even more.
Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger: Boy, that sounds tough.
Col. Potter: It's murder.
Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger: But if you love them a whole lot more, won't that just get you a lot more trouble?
Col. Potter: Yep - then you love them even more.
Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger: Boy, that sounds tough.
Col. Potter: It's murder.
Helen
Morley Safer Profiles Dame Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, the 62-year-old British actress, won acclaim this year for her three memorable performances as Queen Elizabeth I, as a troubled police detective and as Elizabeth II in the movie "The Queen," an account of the crisis that enveloped Buckingham Palace in the week following the death of Princess Diana.
For that role she won both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for best actress.
Dame Helen can fairly be described as a great trouper in the grand tradition – classical theatre, questionable movies that required nudity as much as they did talent, and memorable television roles. But as correspondent Morley Safer reports, her specialty is playing formidable women, women of great power, women with great flaws.
She plays women like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning queen of England. And with equal ease, Mirren became Elizabeth I and dominated every scene, much the way this Elizabeth dominated her realm.
These women may appear to be made of tempered steel but Mirren disagrees. Speaking about Elizabeth I, Mirren comments, "Vulnerable, stupid, silly …. Made such ridiculous mistakes."
"And a tempestuous person, a very vulnerable personality," Mirren points out. "Bursting into tears one minute, throwing her shoes the next minute."
Elizabeth I, says Mirren, was a very volatile personality. "Not steel at all. And I think that that's what makes any character interesting, is their vulnerability, their fear, their insecurities."
But the most flawed of Mirren's strong characters is Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison of the cult television series "Prime Suspect." She plays a tenacious single cop with a long, impeccable list of bad habits, including heavy drinking and sleeping with the wrong people.
Mirren plays her with a total absence of vanity, especially in the very last installment of "Prime Suspect."
"You look like crap. You're hung over. You know you've done something naughty the night before but you can't even remember who you did it with," Safer remarks. "You have a shot of vodka for breakfast."
"Well, to get through the day," Mirren says.
"And then things start going badly," Safer continues.
"And then they go downhill from there, that's right," she agrees.
Tennison is known for getting even with men, especially the chauvinist cops who blocked her promotion. In the series, she uses words as if they were bullets.
"Was the opportunity to play a role in which a woman treats men like dirt…," Safer asks.
"Not all men," Mirren objects. "No, she doesn't treat all men like dirt. You know Morley that's, now I think that's a bit of a sexist remark."
"If a male is messing up, she's unafraid of saying so," Mirren explains.
Mirren's Tennison never uses what used to be called feminine wiles. There's no sweetness, no light. "As a woman, you're used to getting your own way or asking for things with a smile, you know. 'Would you mind?' 'Is it ok?' You know, 'Morley, could you?' You know," Mirren says.
"Of course," Safer agrees.
"Instead of saying, 'Morley, go get that for me,'" Mirren says.
But how much Jane Tennison is in Helen Mirren? One critic said, 'She's all about sex and domination. Part submissive, vulnerable and yet invincible. Pretty good.'"
"Very accurate," Mirren agrees, laughing. "Now that is kind of true. I think there is great truth in that."
Those are the roles that are written for her but Mirren says she chooses them.
"Well, I don't choose them, they come my way and I don't say no," she adds.
"You make them into submissive, vulnerable, yet invincible, correct?" Safer asks.
"Maybe. I mean that's not conscious, Morley, I mean I'm not conscious like that. One isn't. You just do, you do what seems right at that second," she explains.
When Mirren started in theater, her goal was to be a great classical actor. Originally, Mirren says, she was inspired by Shakespeare.
Asked if she was inspired by the language of his writing, Mirren tells Safer, "The language, but really more the stories, the characters, the imaginative world that these people lived in that were just so much more exciting than the dull, little world that I lived in Southend on Sea, Essex, the armpit of England."
Mirren grew up in Leigh-on-Sea, a suburb of Southend, a working class holiday town. She was born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff. Her father Vasily was the son of Russian aristocrats stranded in England after the Russian revolution. Her mother Kathleen was a cockney girl daughter of a butcher, who grew up when "class" really mattered.
The Mironoffs or Mirrens, who were considered slightly Bohemian, did not exactly fit in to any class.
"I never felt quite that I absolutely belonged," Mirren says. "And I had yearnings for another world. I never wanted to get married and live in Leigh-on-Sea for the rest of my life which is what a lot of my school colleagues did."
School was St. Bernard's, a convent school run by Bernardine nuns. It was strict – no boys, no short skirts, no mention of sex. But it was at the school that Mirren got her first shot at acting, in the annual Nativity pageant, where she played Eve.
"I was Eve. It was sort of a leopard skin outfit, it was great. 'Oh Adam, what shall we do, whither shall we go?' I remember my lines as I was being thrown out of the Garden of Eden downstairs in the hall…. A lot of this," she recalls.
It was in the Southend amusement park that Mirren honed her acting skills working as a barker, enticing holiday makers to take a shot at the games of chance.
"And you sort of shout out something like, 'Excuse me sir, excuse me, did you park in at the gate? Sir, sir, sir. Did you park in at the gate?' And they go, 'What? What?" You're talking rubbish.' And so they come over and then they say 'I'm sorry what did you say?' You say, 'Did you park in at that gate? Anyway it doesn't matter, I've got a lovely attraction here look, great dart stall, prizes you can win,'" Mirren remembers.
Asked if she learned something that she still uses today, Mirren says, "I did. Oh! A very high skill in bodushitsu."
Bodushitsu, she explains laughing, is the Japanese for b---s---.
"No, you know I brought away with me a love, an appreciation of the vulgar and the carnival," she says. "It's rough and working class and real."
"You use some of that in a couple of roles, correct?" Safer asks.
"Yes, absolutely. Yes, it's always in me a bit, this world," she replies.
Mirren's earthiness won her rave reviews. After a sizzling portrayal of Cleopatra while still in her teens, she was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She dazzled audiences with her talent and blatant sexuality in modern and classical roles.
And then there were the early films, like Caligula.
Most of them were turkeys, most notable for Mirren taking her clothes off.
"Indeed," she agrees. "We call it 'Getting your kit off' in England."
"Yes. I'm famous for getting my kit off in England, yes," Mirren says.
The roles have earned her such titles as "the sex queen of Stratford" and "the thinking man's crumpet."
Asked if any of this got to her in any way, Mirren says, "It did used to get to me. I just kind of ignored it. Which I'm still doing to this day, Morley. It's still hanging around."
And she's still doing it – "getting her kit off." As recently as age 58, Mirren took it all off again for "Calendar Girls."
"Oh, it gets better as you get older, Morley, you should try it," she tells Safer.
"Well, no…," he replies.
"Yes, I think we should do this interview, both of us in the nude. You'd love it. Go on," she says.
"What the hell?" Safer replies, laughing.
"Well, you know I mean, I don't see the big deal, you know I don't get, it," Mirren says.
Despite her commercial and professional success, Mirren says her twenties were the worst years of her life. She was plagued by a lack of self confidence and panic attacks.
"I wasn't happy then, I wasn't happy. I was frightened," she says. "I mean just frightened that nothing would work out."
Mirren finally sought help from a psychiatrist. "And he was Scottish. And so he said, 'Well, I think what your problem is, Helen, I think you'll find … I said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear what you said.' 'Well, Helen I think you'll find your problem is … ' And before the fourth time, I thought 'This is ridiculous, I'm here with this psychiatrist, he's telling me the answer to all my problems, and I can't understand what he's saying,'" she remembers.
So she went to a palm reader who told her her future – which she carefully wrote down and instantly forgot.
But she remembered one thing the palmist told her. "He said 'When you're in your 50s you will get to be very, very famous,'" she tells Safer.
And she is very famous. In her fifties, she won two Academy Award nominations and eight Emmy nominations, including two wins. She's on the red carpet again this year, getting attention and Oscar buzz for her star turn in "The Queen."
Also in her fifties, she married director Taylor Hackford, her husband of nine years. They live in London, in a house by the Thames, when they're not at their house in Los Angeles, or New York, or the south of France.
Asked if Mirren regrets never having had children, she says, "No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I am so happy that I didn't have children. Well, you know because I've had freedom."
She had the freedom to become the person she dreamed about when she was barking at the suckers on the pier in Southend-on-Sea.
"Did you ever believe when you were a kid here that you would be who you are today?" Safer asks.
"No," she replies. "'Course I hoped and I did this I mean embarrassing thing when I think about it now, I used to sit on a bench on the seafront, you know, my hair like this, imagining that a film producer would be driving by and would screech to a halt and get out and say 'You're the girl I've been looking for.' Really, really pathetic. I had my sort of silly dreams and of course, the reality is so much more interesting the way in which life takes you – the hard work is so much more fun actually."
"Fun, I guess when you look back through the misty light of memory," Safer remarks.
"Look Morley, it's the sun setting on my career," Mirren says.
"Our career!" he replies.
"I was going to say! Exactly! As we walk hand in hand on into the sunset!" Mirren tells Safer.
Beatrix Potter
From: BuzzFeed
Posted on July 28, 2013 at 9:00am EDT
Posted on July 28, 2013 at 9:00am EDT
Ariane Lange
1. She describes the real Peter Rabbit. Not one to be fettered by reality, she then draws pictures of rabbits throwing snowballs.
“My rabbit Peter is so lazy”: maybe the most adorable independent clause in any letter, ever.
2. She writes about feeding buns to elephants, and about not being allowed to feed the ostriches because “a naughty boy gave them old gloves and made them ill.”
Presumably, that drawing towards the middle is a drawing of a naughty boy feeding old gloves to an ostrich.
3. Just look at that mouse bundled up in an armchair.
4. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly side of things. There’s a fox with a dead bird in his mouth!
5. She describes branches as “quite covered with chickens.”
6. She reminds you to appreciate the little things.
“It is such a pretty place, and we have a boat,” she writes.
7. When she knows you’ve been sick, she sends the illustrated conclusion of the “Owl and the Pussy cat.”
Her letters also teach you how to drive a bargain.
8. She knows that just because you’re a dog named Stumpy doesn’t mean you’re not a gentleman.
Or rather “a polite grave gentleman.”
9. And, like all the better pen pals, she is not too proud to admit she’s offended when a dog named Stumpy snubs her.
“He is such a polite grave gentleman, but so proud! I meet him out shopping in the morning, he looks at me sideways but he never speaks.”
10. Her letters are a little window into her precious mind.
“Indeed the cottages are so little, I think they must have been meant for cats and dogs!” A supposition as unlikely as it is winning.
11. And she felt bad when she didn’t have time to draw more pictures.
“I am going today to a place called the Lizard so I have no time to draw any more pictures.” So sweet of her to explain!
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