#Grand Royal Magazine 1996

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"GUARANTEED FRESH EVERY TIME" -- ONLY ON GRAND ROYAL RECORDS.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on "The In Sound from Way Out!," an instrumental compilation by the BEASTIE BOYS pressed on clear orange vinyl, and released in 1996 through their then own label Grand Royal Records. Only 5,000 copies were reportedly pressed.

EXTRA INFO: Also featured here is an advertisement for the then "rare, ultra-limited, and already collectible" record from the pages of issue #2 in "Grand Royal" Magazine, dated 1995.

Sources: https://prudentgroove.com/tag/grand-royal-magazine, various, etc...

[thecrownnetflixuk]

5 Truth Bombs from The Crown S5

Don’t Sweat the Technique

It’s official: The Crown is a fictionalised drama, not a documentary. Only 1% of GB adults surveyed viewed the whole show as fully accurate (which a drama will never be.) That figure edges up to 2% for those in the Gen-Z age bracket.

Nobody tell the 2% about ‘Spencer’, ‘The Windsors’ or those lifetime movies when Harry Botswana’ed Meghan and the, err, spirit of Princess Diana lives on in a lion (or something.)

But as Gillian Anderson put it recently, whilst certain scenes are fictionalised, The Crown is heavily researched, double and triple-checked. There’s true gems amongst The Crown’s jewels!

#1 Prince Charles did try to breakdance*

*apologies if eye-bleach is required

Actor Dominic West told Jimmy Kimmel that The Crown hired a choreographer(!) so he could dance in the same 'style' as Charles.

That’s a gift that must keep on giving during party season.

#2 Mohamed Al-Fayed did restore the former King’s home AND employed valet Sydney Johnson

When Sydney Johnson (Jude Akuwudike) started working for the Duke of Windsor it was unusual for a person of colour to be employed in a royal household. He went on to maintain this position for 30+ years before being employed by Al-Fayed (Salim Daw.)

Mohamed Al-Fayed auctioned the royal heirlooms in the 1990's – with rumours abound that Queen Elizabeth II was a secret bidder!

#3 Prince Philip donated his real DNA to identify the Romanovs

Prince Philip’s (Jonathan Pryce) maternal grandmother was Czarina Aleksandra’s sister. He donated blood to prove that bones unearthed in a Russian forest in the 1990′s belonged to the Romanov family, who were executed in 1918.

Philip’s DNA helped prove that Anna Anderson was what Time magazine called “one of History’s greatest imposters.” Anderson claimed to be the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia, but none of the Czar’s children survived the shooting.

#4 Prince Charles and Princess Diana really became “Couple 31”

After the biggest royal wedding of the 1980′s, the most famous royal fairytale whimpered to an end as just another  couple in divorce court.

Neither Charles or Diana attended court for the routine hearing (perhaps too busy making breakfast?!🍳) Their divorce was later finalised in Aug 1996.

#5 Princess Diana did vote against the monarchy

“Monarchy: The Nation Decides” was televised in the UK in January 1997. According to one source, the real  Diana voted ‘no’ for a monarchy 250 times(!)

Head of Research Annie Sulzberger told The Crown Podcast  that although this wasn’t shown on screen, teenage Prince William was there too, trying to convince his Mother not to keep voting due to the cost of the phone calls.

Image(s): Ana Blumenkron, courtesy of Netflix

[omagazineparis]

Offrez des moments de détente avec des cadeaux beauté sensationnels.

Il y a quelques jours, les téléfilms de Noël faisaient déjà fait leur grande rentrée sur nos écrans. Preuve que la saison des fêtes est bel et bien lancée ! Alors, on le sait, chaque année, le choix des cadeaux peut devenir un véritable casse-tête. Ô Magazine prend donc les devants et vous propose aujourd'hui une sélection de cadeaux beauté pour femme aux petits oignons ! Sélection beauté pour Noël ©JeanneBALLION Les soins capillaires bio Floressance Expert botanique depuis 1996, Floressance propose pour cet hiver des nouveautés capillaires certifiées bio. Ce sont des soins obtenus à partir d’ingrédients d’origine naturelle, sourcés en France et produits sur le site de Périgny, aux portes de La Rochelle. Notre coup de coeur va pour le duo shampoing et après-shampoing Fleurs d'Aubépine de Bourgogne. Conçus pour cheveux colorés ou méchés, ces produits sont le combo parfait pour conserver couleur et brillance, et ce, avec du 100% bio ! Le rituel visage Abeille Royale Guerlain Les produits de l'abeille comptent parmi les meilleurs cicatrisants naturels au monde. Guerlain en a donc extrait la puissance active pour créer la gamme Abeille Royale : des soins dotés de la technologie BlackBee Repair qui aide à stimuler les mécanismes clés du processus de réparation de la peau pour aider à corriger en continu rides et perte de fermeté tissulaire. Nos coups de cœur vont pour l'huile démaquillante suivie de la lotion fortifiante. Cette association parfaite aidera votre peau à résister aux effets des différents stress et de la pollution qui altèrent sa qualité et sa beauté. Les masques naturels Origins Super puissants, les masques Origins sont efficaces pour maintenir une peau saine. Ils travaillent rapidement pour vous débarrasser des préoccupations majeures de votre peau. Leurs textures sont gourmandes et leurs notes olfactives sont chargées d’huiles essentielles 100% naturelles. Nos préférés ? Le CLEAR IMPROVEMENT™, au charbon et au miel, qui agit comme un aimant pour désincruster en douceur les pores des toxines et impuretés tout en nourrissant la peau. De même pour le DRINK UP INTENSIVE™, à poser en masque toute la nuit pour une hydratation en profondeur de la peau. Les soins visage So'Bio Étic Tous certifiés bio et naturels, les soins So'Bio Étic allient efficacité et respect de l'environnement. Pour celles et ceux qui recherchent une alternative plus naturelle et écologique, votre solution est toute trouvée. Aucune déception n'est possible avec les produits So'Bio Étic. Nos coups de cœur vont néanmoins pour le soin léger anti-âge nuit à l'huile d'Argan, un concentré de jeunesse à prix tout petit, et le soin contour des yeux anti-fatigue pour enfin dire adieu aux cernes.    À lire également : N’ayez crainte Juliette, il nous reste du bon champagne Le parfum au Jasmin envoûtant Bulgari Rien que par son nom, ce parfum nous attire : Splendida Jasmin Noir. Cet intitulé est emprunt de mystère, et nous promet donc un voyage sensoriel unique en ces temps de fêtes. En effet, Jasmin Noir est une fragrance contradictoire à l'imaginaire puissant. Pour les fins connaisseurs, on retrouve en note de tête le Gardénia, de l'absolu de Jasmin d'Arabie en coeur et une note de Patchouli en fond. Ainsi, en véritable ode à la féminité, à la séduction et à l'élégance, Jasmin Noir évoque de façon troublante la sensualité et le charme féminin. Bulgari vous propose donc le cadeau parfait pour la gente féminine en cette période festive ! La gamme Premium Lierac La gamme de soins visage anti-âge Premium Lierac a depuis longtemps fait ses preuves. Entre la crème best-seller voluptueuse anti-âge ou encore le sérum régénérant absolu, tous les produits de la gamme ont prouvé maintes fois leur efficacité. Néanmoins, notre coup de cœur va aujourd'hui pour leur nouveau masque tissus or anti-âge. Ultra ludique à l'utilisation, ce masque crée un film seconde peau au pouvoir reconstituant immédiat et au fini velouté sans pareil. Ainsi, dès l'application, votre grain de peau sera lissé, plus lumineux et votre visage repulpé !  Les sticks cosmétiques Milk Makeup Fraîchement débarquée chez Sephora, la marque Milk Makeup est la petite nouvelle sur le marché du cosmétique. Néanmoins, elle a d'ores et déjà fait ses preuves, proposant des produits aux formules clean et véritablement efficaces. Petit plus, la marque est contre les tests sur les animaux et 100% vegan, alors comment trouver mieux ? Nos produits chouchous : le mascara Kush High Volume pour un effet yeux de biche garanti, le stick Lip & Cheek, devenu notre nouvel indispensable maquillage, et enfin le Matcha Cleanser aka le nettoyant solide parfait pour détoxifier et purifier la peau en profondeur. Le soin capillaire absolu d'Hovig Etoyan Ce soin est véritablement la cerise sur le gâteau de cette sélection de Noël. Si vous souhaitez offrir un moment beauté unique, c'est chez Hovig Etoyan qu'il faut se diriger. D’origine libanaise, ce coiffeur manie aussi bien sa paire de ciseaux que la psychologie féminine pour sublimer ses clientes. Très intuitif, il possède un regard éclairé et aiguisé, qui lui permettra de vous sublimer en quelques coups de ciseaux. Notre coup de coeur ? Le nouveau protocole Soin Absolu, qui permet de rebooster et restaurer la fibre capillaire durablement. Il offre une hydratation immédiate et profonde du cheveu. Coup de boost assuré pour les crinières en perte de lumière et d'hydratation. N'hésitez pas à prendre contact sur son site, vous ne serez pas déçu(e)s, on vous le promet ! Grâce à cette sélection, fini la panne d'inspiration. Vous trouverez à coup sûr le fameux cadeau qui ravira votre maman, soeur, grand-mère, copine ou petite amie. Alors plus d'excuses, que le shopping commence ! Read the full article

[dan6085]

Here are the top 20 most watched entertainment events in history:

1. **The 1996 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony** - Seen by an estimated 3.5 billion people worldwide, making it the second most-watched event in television history[1].

2. **The Funeral of Princess Diana** - Attracted a global audience of approximately 2.5 billion viewers in 1997[1].

3. **The Funeral of Michael Jackson** - Watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people globally in 2009[1].

4. **The Beatles on "Ed Sullivan"** - Their first appearance on the show in 1964 was watched by 73 million viewers in the U.S. alone[1].

5. **The First Debate Between Richard Nixon & John F. Kennedy** - Watched by 66.4 million viewers in 1960, a record at the time[1].

6. **The Grand Opening of Shanghai Disneyland** - Attracted a global audience of 1.5 billion in 2016[1].

7. **The 2022 FIFA World Cup Final** - Watched by an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide[1].

8. **The 2011 Cricket World Cup Final** - Seen by 558 million viewers globally[1].

9. **The Wall – Live in Berlin** - Watched by 500 million people on television in 1990[1].

10. **The State Funeral of John F. Kennedy** - Seen by at least 180 million viewers in the U.S. in 1963[1].

11. **The Beatles' First U.S. Concert** - Watched by 73 million viewers in 1964[1].

12. **The Oprah Winfrey Show Series Finale** - Watched by 40 million viewers in 2011[1].

13. **The Final Episode of M*A*S*H** - Watched by 105 million viewers in 1983[1].

14. **The Final Episode of Cheers** - Watched by 80.4 million viewers in 1993[1].

15. **The Final Episode of Seinfeld** - Watched by 76.3 million viewers in 1998[1].

16. **The Final Episode of Friends** - Watched by 52.5 million viewers in 2004[1].

17. **The Final Episode of The Sopranos** - Watched by 11.9 million viewers in 2007[1].

18. **The Final Episode of Breaking Bad** - Watched by 10.3 million viewers in 2013[1].

19. **The Final Episode of Game of Thrones** - Watched by 13.6 million viewers in 2019[1].

20. **The Final Episode of The Big Bang Theory** - Watched by 18.5 million viewers in 2019[1].

These events, ranging from Olympic ceremonies and royal funerals to series finales and sporting events, have captivated global audiences and left indelible marks on popular culture.

Sources

[1] Top 20 Most Watched Events in History | Articles on WatchMojo.com https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/top-20-most-watched-events-in-history

[2] The Most Important Events of the Century From the Viewpoint of the ... https://news.gallup.com/poll/3427/most-important-events-century-from-viewpoint-people.aspx

[3] Magazine Archives: Time Capsules for 20th Century Historical Events https://www.ebsco.com/blogs/ebscopost/magazine-archives-time-capsules-20th-century-historical-events

[4] 25 Most Important Events In History - List25 https://list25.com/25-most-important-events-in-history/

[5] Top 10 Moments from History | English Heritage https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/1066-and-the-norman-conquest/top-10-moments-from-history/

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.

- Murray Walker, BBC commentator and the ‘Voice of Formula One’

Murray Walker, otherwise known as the ‘Voice of F1’, was a BBC commentating legend from 1976 to 1996 before joining rivals ITV in 1997, where he stayed for a further five years.

Seldom can any frontrank outside-broadcast commentator have had a longer span at the microphone, or a voice more distinctively identifiable with their sport, than motor racing’s Murray Walker.

In British broadcasting lore John Arlott’s rural burr will always remain redolent of cricket’s roots in the village green, just as Dan Maskell’s creamy courtside whisper was homage to the leisured grace of the suburban tennis club, and Bill McLaren’s Borderer’s brogue forever implied the blazered probity of olde-tyme amateur “rugger”.

So, at grand prix time for bikes and cars, for more than half a century, the passionate yawp and yowl emanating from Walker’s commentary box was an almost onomatopeic accompaniment to the snarling beasts hurtling past at 200mph. It may have been high-octane noise, but the descriptions were also skilled and professionally accomplished.

On both radio and television, Walker’s florid “pants on fire” commentaries were heard across seven decades. The first grand prix he described live was for BBC “wireless” at Silverstone in 1949 (won by Baron Toulo de Graffenried’s Maserati 4CLT). His last live commentary of a grand prix was in 2007 for BBC radio, when he was 83.

In all, Walker covered more than 350 Formula One grands prix, more than 200 Isle of Man TT and senior Manx motorcycling events, and countless other categories from powerboat races to motocross and speedway. For well over half a century, if noisy motor sport was broadcast, you could pretty much guarantee that Walker’s decibels were attempting to drown it out in his valiant efforts to enhance the narrative and embellish the scene. But it was not without cost. Years of exposure to the din left him with hearing loss in both ears.

While his stimulating ebullience was appealing to (most) cognoscenti petrolheads, a wider audience fondly enjoyed the commentator’s accompanying torrent of tautologies and full-spate sophistries, his “Murrayisms”, as he called them. Most outside broadcasters are embarrassed by (or flatly deny) their reported heat-of-the-moment bloopers, but Walker happily revelled in, and nurtured his. “Far too often I’d operate mouth before engaging brain,” he would admit, “but the action in front of me was always happening at such a lick.”

The good ol’ trouper knew, too, that happily confessed horse’s-mouth recitation of these touching gaffes not only saved the bother of a freshly minted script each time, but also handsomely enhanced his fees on the lucrative after-dinner circuit.

You need to squawk for the full effect:

“This leading car is absolutely unique – except, of course, for the one immediately behind it, which is identical.”

“Mansell’s now totally in front of everyone in this race, except the two in front of him.”

Michael Schumacher on the Monaco GP grid: “There are seven winners of the Monaco Grand Prix on the grid today and four of them are Michael Schumacher.”

Nigel Mansell putting in a lap: “Nigel Mansell is slowing down now, he is taking it easy. Oh no he isn’t! It’s a new lap record!”

Pedro Diniz’s fire in Argentina: “There’s nothing wrong with the car except that it’s on fire.”

“How you can crash into a wall without it being there in the first place is beyond me!”

But what F1 fans remember best: “It’s go, go, go!”

Murray Walker was born in 1923 in Birmingham, England. Walker had a happy childhood and was proud of his roots. Walker was conscripted into the armed forces and passed out as an army officer from the Royal Military College in Sandhurst. Murray was commissioned in 1942 into the Royal Scots Greys, achieving the rank of captain. He helped make the push from Normandy to the Baltic. He would command a Sherman tank in the Battle of the Reichswald with the 4th Armoured Brigade before leaving the Army as a captain.

Upon demobilisation, went into advertising, a career which, on its own, might have made him worthy of note. Trying to find his place in the world, he studied shipping management before being employed as an accounts director by the Masius agency, where he was in charge of the Mars project which came up with the famous slogan ‘A Mars a day helps you work rest and play’.

Although he continued working in advertising, once again Walker broadened his horizons when, in 1948, he made his first public broadcast at Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb. A year later and he was commentating for BBC radio on the British F1 Grand Prix.

He established himself as the BBC’s chief motorcycling commentator before going into F1 full-time from 1978. However, even then Walker continued to dabble in other series, from the British Touring Car Championship to motocross and Macau.

It was his partnership with James Hunt at the BBC though which cemented Walker’s place in commentating history, as he brought the breathless passion and excitement which proved the perfect foil for Hunt’s dry wit and in-depth knowledge.

Walker remained with the BBC through to 1996 with Jonathan Palmer stepping up following Hunt’s death. But with F1’s television rights going to ITV in 1997, so too did Walker. This time it was former racer turned commentator Martin Brundle who brought the F1 know-how to Walker’s ‘Murrayisms’.

He retired from full-time commentating in 2001. After he ended his regular Formula One commentaries, Walker continued to appear on television for a number of years afterwards, mainly on magazine programmes but occasionally commentating on less high-profile motorsport events. Acknowledging the partial deafness he had developed over the years, in 2006 he became an ambassador for the David Ormerod Hearing Centres, and campaigned to help people understand the importance of frequent hearing tests.

On Saturday, March 13, 2021, the British Racing Drivers’ Club announced the sad passing of Murray Walker at the age of 97.

RIP Murray Walker.

F1 commemorate Murray Walker at the Bahrain Grand Prix 2021

[debutart]

Debut Art is proud to announce that we are now representing artist Vince Pastiche in the U.S.

Award winning artist Vincent McIndoe was born in Canada. After graduating OCAD in 1985 with numerous scholarships, he became a celebrated illustrator as well as a successful fine artist. Vincent was featured in many magazines such as Allure and Applied Art magazine. He was also a guest for international TV talk shows. Vincent has designed series stamps for Canada Post ; The Canals of Ontario (1998), Toronto’s 200th Anniversary stamp, and 50th Anniversary of All Star Game stamp (2000) as well as a portrait of Queen Elizabeth (1996). Vincent also designed the Hudson’s Bay company’s 325th Anniversary commemorative Silver Dollar. Vincent’s posters and paintings are housed and viewed in private and public collections worldwide. Clients include: Moet and Chandon, Stolichnaya Vodka, The Royal Canadian Mint, Canada Post corporation Big Apple Circus, Crush Wine Bar, Wine Spectator, Tokaji, Anheuser-Busch, Jaguar, Barclay’s Champagne, Festival, Romana Sambucca, Starbucks, PM”S X1 Cricket Match 2015, BBC, Radio Times, F1 50th Grand Prix at Silverstone, Honda, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Levi Strauss, Nike, MacCallan Whiskey, Zinfest, and many more.

[livinglikebritishroyalty]

𝒯𝒾𝒶𝓇𝒶 𝒯𝓊𝑒𝓈𝒹𝒶𝓎

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𝒯𝒾𝒶𝓇𝒶 𝒩𝒶𝓂𝑒

The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara

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𝒪𝓌𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈/𝒲𝑒𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓇𝓈:

♕ Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1874 - 1920): Created for the Grand Duchess by the Bolin, the Russian imperial court jeweler for her wedding to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia.

♕ Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia (1920 - 1921): The Princess inherited the Tiara from her mother Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, after her death.

♕ Her Majesty Queen Mary (1921 - 1953): The Queen purchased the Tiara from Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia.

♕ Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1953 - 2014): The Queen inherited the Tiara from her grandmother Her Majesty Queen Mary, after her death.

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𝒞𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒴𝑒𝒶𝓇:

Created for the Grand Duchess by the Bolin, the Russian imperial court jeweler in 1874 for her wedding to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia.

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𝒟𝑒𝓈𝒾𝑔𝓃:

The Tiara is an elaborate diamond and pearl tiara. The piece is delightfully flexible & the pearls can be removed, as well as part of the diamond-encrusted structure, allowing it to be worn in a more closed form. The tiara is generally described as "widowed" when worn without its pendant stones. Maria wore the tiara without its pendants as a smaller closed coronet. In 1920, the Vladimir Tiara was damaged during its journey from Russia to England, as some of the pearls and diamonds were missing from the piece. In 1921, Her Majesty Queen Mary purchased the tiara from Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia to have the tiara fixed. 3 years later in 1924, Queen Mary had the tiara re-worked again, so that the Vladimir Tiara adapted so it could be worn in a third setting, with a series of fifteen cabochon drops from the Cambridge emerald collection. From then on, the emerald version of the tiara was often worn with pieces from the Delhi Durbar Suite (Including the Delhi Durbur Parure Tiara). In 1988, The House of Garrard renovated the hundred-year-old tiara once more, building it a completely new frame. In 2002, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II wore the tiara "widowed" -- meaning the tiara had neither its pearl or emerald drops.

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𝑅𝑜𝓎𝒶𝓁 𝐸𝓋𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈

♕ 1880 (2 Times): 1. Portrait of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia & 2. Romanov Historical Masquerade Ball

♕ 1891: The Cover of Le Petit Journal Magazine (Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia)

♕ 1902: Mother Daughter Wedding Portrait of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia (Her Wedding Portrait) & Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (Maria Wearing the Tiara)

♕ 1904: Royal Portrait of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia

♕ 1930: Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Mary with the Pearl Version of The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara

♕ 1934: Portrait of Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia

♕ 1935: King’s Silver Jubilee Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Mary

♕ 1936: Her Majesty Queen Mary’s Portrait for Edward VIII's Coronation with the Pearl Version of The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara (Which never happened due to his Abdication)

♕ 1954: Royal Film Performance of Beau Brummel (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1955: The movie premiere of Richard III in Leicester Square (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1961: Royal Event (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1963: Gala performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream during the Greek State Visit (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1966: Worn at the Austrian Embassy in London (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1969: State Visit to Austria (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1972: Royal Event (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1976: State Banquet with President Gerald Ford in The United States of America (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1978: Official Tour of Germany. (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1980: A Visit to the Vatican (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1982: State Banquet honoring the Sultan of Oman at Buckingham Palace (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1983: A Visit to San Francisco (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1986: A Visit to Nepal (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1994: State Banquet during The Zimbabwe State Visit at Buckingham Palace in London (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1996: State Visit to King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 1999: State Banquet during the Chinese State Visit at Buckingham Palace in London (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 2002: State Dinner in New Zealand (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 2004: State Banquet in London (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 2006: State Banquet during the Baltic State Visit at Buckingham Palace in London (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

♕ 2014: Landmark State Visit from President Higgins of Ireland

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𝐹𝓊𝓃 𝐹𝒶𝒸𝓉𝓈:

♕ When Maria fled the palatial Vladimir Palace in Saint Petersburg for a villa in Kislovodsk, her jewels, including the tiara, remained in a hidden safe in her bedroom at the palace. That summer, Maria Pavlovna's son, Grand Duke Boris (pictured above), and a friend, Bertie Stopford, hatched a dangerous plan to retrieve her jewels. He and Boris disguised themselves as workmen, and with the help of a palace caretaker, they snuck into the Vladimir Palace and smuggled out the contents of Miechen's secret safe. The Vladimir Tiara and her other jewels were placed in a pair of Gladstone bags, and Stopford managed to sneak them out of Russia. He took the jewels to London, where they were placed in a safety deposit box.

♕ In 1921, Her Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena of Russia decided to sell some of her mother's jewels.

♕ What a Group of Women! A 2 Grand Duchesses & 2 Queens have worn this tiara! The power that tiara holds!

♕ This is one of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite tiara’s due to the amount of times she has worn during incredibly important royal events.

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[omegaplus]

# 2,911

Atari Teenage Riot “Deutschland Has Gotta’ Die!” / “Riot 1996″ (1996)

Picked this up for a few dollars at the turn-of-the-millennium at some all-too-common suburban pop-merchandise shop I won’t need to mention here, only because they claimed to be punk but sold the same Ataris, Blink 182, and Green Day vinyl records over GG Allin, Brainbombs, and Subhumans (UK). DHR historically released very few 7″ records and this was their most attainable. Thanks to Beastie Boy Mike D’s acquisition of them for his Grand Royal label, Details Magazine’s review of this single was where I found the very first instance of Atari Teenage Riot, a few months before they broke out on radio and music-video in 1997. Featuring two tracks from 1997′s The Future Of War and their stateside hybrid compilation record of the same name, along with the label’s backbone mission statement “Riot Sounds Produce Riots”. Long live classic Atari Teenage Riot.

[taww]

Review: Silverline SR17 Supreme loudspeaker

Silverline SR17 Supreme loudspeaker

The Audiophile Weekend Warrior (TAWW)

TAWW Rating: 5 / 5

Combining the body and scale of a larger speaker with traditional mini-monitor virtues, the SR17 Supreme is an exceptional conveyor of musical color and expression.

PROS: Organic midrange tone; top-to-bottom coherence; ample scale and dynamics; superb imaging; unfussy setup.

CONS: Smidge of lower midrange coloration; favors acoustic over electronic music; awkward recessed terminals.

This review has been a long time coming. Back in 2010, @mgd-taww​ gave the Silverline SR17 Supreme (USD $7,500) a rave review in Bound for Sound magazine, and heartily recommended them to me as an upgrade to my Merlin TSM speakers. It took me 8 years and a move to the West Coast to finally reach out to Silverline for a review pair; then another 15 months of listening to get around to this review. In the meantime, lots of speakers have come and gone in the market, particularly in the 2-way monitor category saturated with offerings at every conceivable price point. And yet, to my ears, the SR17 Supreme endures as one of the most satisfying speakers of its kind. Read on for my take on how it’s withstood the test of time.

History & Design

Silverline is a small speaker manufacturer based out of Walnut Creek, California, a short drive northeast of San Francisco. The SR17 is one of their first models dating back to a couple years after their incorporation in 1996:

1998: The SR17 debuted at the 1998 Stereophile Show in LA, sporting a Dynaudio D28/2 tweeter and Esotec 17WLQ midwoofer.

1999: Updated with an Esotec D260 tweeter and revised crossover.

2004: The SR17.5 was introduced, with increased internal volume via a deeper cabinet for better bass response.

2009: The SR17 Supreme is introduced with an Esotar T330D tweeter and further refinements.

Proprietor/designer/craftsman Alan Yun has continued tweaking the Supreme over the last decade, and though the Dynaudio drivers he prefers are out of production he’s stockpiled enough units for years of production and repairs. The enclosure, recognizable by its trapezoidal shape and depth, is manufactured in China by a shop that does cabinet work for a number of high-end marques, with final assembly performed by Alan’s own hand. He shared a bit more about their production:

California has strict environmental regulations. The paints on cabinets are governed by strict rules, and is why there are fewer and fewer cabinet makers in California. Many manufacturers now find their production overseas.

Actually our cabinets were rawly made in China, painted, and the final detailing is done by me, also putting sonic materials inside the cabinets. This job is pretty tricky for tweaking the sound. The crossovers were handmade by me, matching components, soldering, etc. The drivers were fitted carefully and precisely by my hands with European-made T-15A screws. Final testing and listening are all done by me in my workshop. 😅 Therefore, the SR 17 is rather unique. I am also the original designer of this shape/type of speaker cabinet since 1996. I did research and to the best of my knowledge there were no similar designs then.

Large, but not ungainly, atop Dynaudio Stand 6′s

The depth of the cabinet - 15 inches, to be exact - gives it a rather top-heavy look on a typical stand, but it’s mitigated by the elegant tapered profile. My pair was impeccably finished on all sides in rosewood veneer. Rapping down the sides revealed it to be very solid, but not as fanatically braced and damped as my old Merlin TSM monitors or the Audiovector SR 1. Each speaker weighs around 26 lbs. The bi-wire terminals are recessed, which made them a bit of a pain, particularly as they have larger rectangular posts that will take 1/4" spades only in certain directions - I recommend banana terminations.

The crossover sports just 4 components, with 1st order high-pass (tweeter) and 2nd order low-pass (woofer) filters. Parts quality - Solen metallized polypropylene capacitors, a generic-looking wirewound resistor and an air-core inductor - is solid but hardly fancy, a deliberate decision by Alan who isn’t much of a believer in expensive boutique parts. Based on the results he’s achieved here, it’s hard to argue.

Cardas jumpers sounded better than the stock bridges to my ears. Stick with bananas for the cable termination - spades are awkward.

Setup

The SR17 is fairly efficient (nominally 90.5 dB/watt @ 8 ohms), but more importantly it's easy to drive - my Ayre AX7e, known for being rather limited in the power delivery department, sounded open and effortless. Alan Yun said the Dynaudio drivers love current and will benefit from powerful amplifiers, yet will sing with low-powered tube amps. I can confirm it loved the grunt of the 300wpc Bryston 4B Cubed, yet I never felt lower-power amps like the Ayre or Bryston B60 integrateds were lacking for dynamics. And my favorite pairing by far was with the 55-watt Valvet A4 Mk.II class A monoblocks sporting a single pair of bipolar output devices. (Incidentally, Alan’s favorite amp paring with the SR17 is the 30-watt Pass Labs XA30.5, which @mgd-taww can attest to being a magical combo.)

Similarly, I found the SR17 easy-going when it came to cables. My preferred cable had more to do with the amp used, but I got good results from a single run of Audience Au24 SX [review], Cardas Clear Light and DH Labs Q10 Signature cables. With the Audience, I felt the speaker was the sweetest and most dimensional; the DH Labs brought out more bass power and treble brilliance; while the Cardas brought out more upper midrange presence. With the Bryston 4B3 amp, I settled on the Cardas; with the Ayre and Valvet, the Audience was the clear winner. Unlike with the Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté (review forthcoming), I didn't find bi-wiring to lend a noticeable improvement, but I did prefer replacing the stock metal jumpers with nicer Cardas ones from my Merlin TSM's for a little more refinement.

As with any high-quality monitor, stands are important. Something around 24-25” height seems right, though I wouldn’t be afraid to sit them an inch or two lower as the speakers are capable of projecting good image height. A trend these days is to decouple speakers from the stands/floor, but the SR17’s are “old school” in that they prefer tight coupling, meaning heavy suckers with spikes and a judicious amount of BluTack on the top plate. My old Osiris stands, heavy dual-column steel beauties loaded with sand, were a perfect match, but sadly I sold them with my Merlin TSM’s; they were replaced by higher-WAF but inferior-sounding Dynaudio Stand 6’s, which in stock form are quite light and choked the sound of the Silverlines. Fortunately I was able to get them to a better place with some tweaks; not as good as the Osiris, but close. A better choice sonically might be something like the Target Audio MR stand with the four pillars mass-loaded.

Pulling them out further improves imaging, but they still work well relatively close to the back wall.

Placement was pretty standard for a monitor speaker - keep it at least a couple feet from the back wall, with a 2:3 width-to-listener distance ratio and toed in about halfway. In my room, which has a number of living constraints, I had the back of the speaker about 21” from the wall, tweeters 76” apart and the plane of the speaker 8 ft. from my ears. While many small-box monitors rely (often excessively) on rear ports for low-end boost, the bass tuning on the SR17 is far more subtle and sophisticated - putting my ear to the port, I heard a fairly modest amount of output. I remarked this to Alan, and he described the port as more a method of pressure equalization than bass volume. This means in a pinch I could push the speakers as close as 12" from the wall without fear of low notes booming out of control. All in all, for being such a high-performing design, the SR17 is remarkably easy to live with.

The Sound

The first thing my wife, a professional oboist, noticed about music through the SR17 is how dynamically alive it was. I had just wrapped up my review of the Silverline Minuet Grand, a superb $2k speaker that is no dynamic slouch itself. And even though the SR17 was fresh out of the box and Alan warned me it would take some time to run in, the very first notes from the SR17 sung with expressiveness and vibrance. I think it took all of 15 minutes of listening to Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra streaming radio for her to remark, “I like this speaker.” She’s normally nonchalant about hi-fi, and yet has ears that can pick apart sonic deficiencies in about 90 seconds, so that amounts to a rave! And what made it so immediately engaging wasn't some artificial emphasis or hype; it was a feeling of unimpeded dynamic flow that makes most other speakers sound a bit drab. The SR17 lets music breath freely, carrying you with the ebb and flow of a tune and conveying every turn of a phrase with a sense of ease and conviction.

The next thing we noticed is how natural and palpable everything sounds through the SR17. Tonally, the SR17 is on the very slightly warm side of neutral; it combines reassuring solidity and density from the mid-bass through the midrange with an open, extended top end and fine harmonic resolution. Its ability to paint with a wide palette of tonal colors brings out the distinctive character of instruments and voices, making orchestral music a delight - just put on a Living Stereo recording such as Debussy’s Iberia [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify] and the front of your room will explode with the virtuosity of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s playing. Scale it down to smaller stuff like a Beethoven string quartet, and you’ll savor the finer gradations of timbre between the cello, viola and violin.

What you won’t notice is any discontinuity between the woofer and tweeter. These Dynaudio drivers were made to work together, and the minimal crossover mating them is superbly executed. The upper midrange around the crossover point is seamless, and I can’t remember a single moment over the course of hundreds of hours of listening when I noticed the tweeter sticking out on the face of the speaker, something that ails even the finest, most expensive dynamic speakers from time to time. In this respect the SR17 is up there with the very best and is utterly free of listening fatiguing.

As a violinist, I feel obliged to point out the Silverline’s superb reproduction of the violin G string. If you ever want to test out a speaker’s tonal truthfulness in the lower midrange (right around middle C, 262Hz), put on the 2nd movement of the Glazunov violin concerto performed by Jascha Heifetz [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify], or the 2nd movement of the Sibelius concerto performed by Lisa Batiashvili [Tidal, Spotify]. This is oh-so-tricky to get right; as the lowest string on the instrument, it’s the richest and deepest; and yet the violin is not a viola or cello - it’s a more subtle and delicate richness. Speakers that lack body will sound thin and washed out and minimize the difference in timbre vs. the D string above; woolly or bloated speakers will thicken it or blow the instrument out of proportion. The SR17 performs this balancing act better than anything I’ve heard in my living room, or in most any system for that matter. It rides the line between warmth and clarity in that register, lending tangible realism to piano, male vocals and low brass instruments as well.

Going down the frequency range, the SR17’s extra cabinet volume vs. a typical mini monitor gives it power and scale more akin to a floorstander. My room is a 17 x 19 x 8.5 ft. open layout living/kitchen area with floor-to-ceiling windows and an offset listening point along the long wall, so while not huge, it presents a bit of an acoustic challenge that smaller speakers have struggled to fill. The SR17 had no trouble projecting a big, bold sonic image, and can cleanly play as loud as you’d reasonably want in such a space. It has sufficient body and power down to 60Hz or so to give music real foundation, with meaningful output down to 40Hz. I think Silverline’s quoted 32Hz bottom limit is a bit optimistic (or perhaps you just need the right room), and I preferred the speaker with my REL T-9 subwoofer providing a little extra oomph. But for a great many listeners in moderately-sized spaces, this will be all the speaker you ever need. Listening to “The Elephant” from Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify], a track I’ve heard on some very full-range speakers (e.g. Focal Grande Utopia EM Evo), the double bass is big and present, lacking a bit of rumble that was easily provided by flipping on the REL sub. Piano left hand similarly has nice weight, never sounding diminished in scale as typically happens on small monitors. Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées song cycle from the album Paysages by soprano Susanna Phillips and pianist Myra Huang [Tidal, Spotify] is a lovely test of colors, with ethereal vocals floating above dark undertones from the piano’s lower register. The Silverline possesses suficient extension and body to bring out these contrasts with depth and balance.

At the opposite end, the old-school Esotar tweeter is still one of the most musical high frequency transducers around. It balances detail with smoothness, extends low enough to mate perfectly with the woofer, and never sounds strained - a substantial upgrade in resolution and realism over the typical metal or silk domes in lesser speakers. In top-end extension and speed it might be bettered by some of the newfangled devices like Focal’s beryllium or B&W’s diamond domes, Scanspeak’s latest Revelator or the fantastic AMT in the Audiovector SR 1, but it’s a relatively small sin of omission and a worthwhile trade off to avoid any hint of unnatural edge or ringing. And it still has plenty of sharpness and sparkle, lending nice bite to trumpets and sheen to triangles and cymbals.

Last but not least, there’s that soundstage - present and tactile, but never in-your-face. Particularly when coupled with gear with sufficient resolution to relay subtle ambient information, e.g. the Pass XP10 preamp, there’s a real sense of the layout and layers of a symphony orchestra. The hi-res LSO Live recording of Mendelssohn’s "Reformation" Symphony with the London Symphony/Gardiner [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify] paints a vivid picture of the stage of the Barbican, with brass fanfares anchored closer to the back wall of the fan-shaped stage, and the smaller string section sounding up front and intimate. An interesting twist in this performance is Sir Gardiner had the violinists standing to emphasize the virtuosity of Mendelssohn’s writing, and while I can’t say I would have been able to tell this from listening alone, the Silverline does convey a subtle sense of freedom and space to the violin section that I’ve missed when listening to the recording on other systems. And it has no trouble imaging well outside the bounds of the speaker, with percussion and harp on the extreme left of the stage floating eerily behind and beyond the left speaker.

I think my wife put it best when I asked her one day how the system sounded with the Silverlines: “this is what I imagine it sounded like in the concert hall.” While I’ve broken down a bunch of its strengths in audiophile terms above, it’s the way it puts everything together into a musically vivid whole that makes it special. There’s an evenness of tone, a naturalness of perspective, an ease of dynamic expression, a consistency of refinement from top to bottom that gives music a sense of rightness that allows one to forget the hi-fi aspects and focus on the musical performance. In this respect, Alan Yun has crafted something truly masterful in the SR17 Supreme.

Caveats & Comparisons

I’ll nitpick a few things that were relatively minor deficiencies to my ears, but may weigh more heavily for people with different tastes. These were highlighted in my own home by direct comparison with another very fine monitor speaker, the Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté ($6,200 in premium finish). I also have my long-term reference, the Merlin TSM-MXe (around $6k several years ago) as a baseline.

First off, I suspect the Silverline’s hint of lower midrange warmth, while sounding natural and consonant with much of my favored acoustic music, may come from a bit of otherwise well-controlled cabinet resonance. It gently highlights the woody quality of acoustic instruments, but with electronic music it comes across as a slight coloration - a bit like wearing orange-tinted sunglasses that make everything look a little less cool. It’s very subtle, and not enough to sound overtly “boxy” or throw voices off, but it’s not transcendentally-clean like the Audiovector or, say, a Magico. My sense is Alan wisely tuned the SR17 cabinet for this response, as additional bracing would just make the resonance peakier and higher in frequency where the ear is more sensitive; as it is, it’s a gentle and diffuse coloration. Part of this may also be the sonic signature of the Esotec woofer’s magnesium silicate polymer cone, which I’ve heard in a number of speakers and to my ears trades better damping for a hair less crispness vs. some of the fancier treated paper or composite cones out there. On the plus side, it never sounds dry as some of those drivers can, but with Erlend Øye’s Unrest [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify] or Carley Rae Jepsen’s Emotion [Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify] I found the Audiovector conveyed more of hard-wired immediacy and edge suitable for those albums. 

Taking turns with the Audiovector SR 1 Avantgarde Arreté

Another area where the Audiovector came out slightly ahead of the Silverlines was in resolution during loud dynamic peaks. The Audiovector is truly special in this regard, being designed for minimal signal compression and sounding incredibly collected the louder you play them. The Silverline also plays loudly with ease, but vs. the über-clean Audiovector it’s very slightly thicker and more congested. Case in point are the fortissimo climaxes and interruptions in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri overture [Tidal, Spotify] - when the orchestra comes crashing in after the pianissimo pizzicato opening, both speakers are clean and explosive, but the Audiovector sorts out the different instruments playing in unison for that brief moment a hair better, while the Silverline has more low-end oomph.

As mentioned prior, the Silverline’s superb Esotar tweeter isn’t the state-of-the-art in extension. It has plenty of resolution, but if you favor extremely extended and airy highs, e.g. the 52kHz-rated AMT tweeter in the Audiovector will give you more of that. I don’t think that ultimately matters so much for musical enjoyment (and many people can’t hear very well above 10kHz anyway), but it does make a subtle difference in realism. It also makes the Silverline’s treble a bit more forgiving of poor recordings and upstream components (silver cables could work) - it’ll never, ever burn your ears off.

The $7,500 price tag of the Silverline puts it squarely above the very crowded $5k-and-under monitor crowd, but short of the $10k+ “super monitor” category. Comparisons with other speakers are more conjecture on my part as I haven’t heard them in my own room... but I’ll mention a few things I’ve gotten a good listen to at shows, dealers, and other people’s systems.

Paradigm’s Persona series seems to be mentioned quite frequently in audio forums these days, and I heard the Persona B monitor ($7,000) briefly at RMAF. I’ve also listened to the floorstanding Persona 3F a bit, and there’s definitely a common house sound - fast, crisp, detailed and dynamic. I’ve never warmed up to either of them - they’ve struck me as rather strident, with instrumental interplays like oboes and clarinets playing in harmony tending to sound compressed. The Silverline by comparison may sound a bit thicker, but it has far more natural instrumental timbre to my ears, is less bright and thus easier to match to more systems, throws a more dimensional and properly-placed soundstage, and is very nearly as “fast” without sounding edgy. I’m honestly at a loss as to why the Personas are garnering so much praise, so maybe it’s just me? A similar argument could be made for the B&W 805 S3 ($6,000) - while I haven’t auditioned them specifically, I’m pretty familiar with the 800-series sound and again, it’s not my cup of tea. The Silverline’s balance and openness just strike me as much more natural than anything I’ve heard from B&W. So if the likes of B&W and Paradigm leave you a bit cold, the SR17 Supreme might be a step in the right direction.

An obvious comparison is to Dynaudio’s own bookshelves, specifically the Contour 20 ($5,000) and Special Forty ($2,995). You can read about them in my quick review from a dealer audition, and while I haven’t heard them head-to-head, I posit that the Silverline a worthwhile step up in coherence and musicality. If you can’t stretch the budget for the Silverline I think the Special Forty would be a good alternative, but it does not have the near-reference level neutrality of the Silverline. In the past Dynaudio had a bit of a reputation for not being as good at implementing their own drivers in complete loudspeakers as other companies were, and while I think their latest efforts are much improved, Alan Yun still seems to be squeezing more out of the old Esotar/Esotec drivers in the SR17... methinks this is a reflection of Alan’s sharp ear and painstaking hand-tuning.

A few more offhandish observations based on extremely limited auditions, so take with a block of salt: I heard the Wilson Audio TuneTot ($9,800) at a dealer shortly after its release. With the caveats that it’s designed for a totally different use case, it was in an unfamiliar setup and this pair wasn’t fully run in, I didn’t find it nearly as compelling or expressive. I got a good listen to the TAD Micro Evolution One ($12,495) with a couple different amps and found its midrange rather dry, upper midrange a bit peaky and its bass lacking fullness and extension vs. the Silverline. The Artist Cloner Rebel Reference ($16k w/stands) wowed me at RMAF - it seemed to have more speed and resolution than the Silverline, though the upper midrange was a hair pronounced. It would be an interesting comparison, even at twice the price. Another interesting monitor at RMAF was the Stenheim Alumine Two ($13k) which was super clean and detailed, but perhaps not as liquid. A more logical competitor/upgrade could be the Sonus faber Electa Amator III ($10k) that I also heard at RMAF. That speaker absolutely blew me away with its expressiveness, natural richness, insane dynamics and huge presentation in the show setup. It’s the speaker that I’m most dying to compare to the Silverline.

And to wrap up the comparison to my Merlins and the Audiovectors - I sold my beloved Merlins shortly after receiving the Silverlines, and wound up purchasing both the Silverlines and the Audiovectors as I just couldn’t decide between the two. That should give you an idea of just how much I like them both; I’ll have more to say about the Audiovector in a forthcoming review.

Verdict

It's been said speakers mirror the personality of their designers, and if you've met the talented and affable Alan Yun no doubt you’ll feel his influence. Much like the man behind it, the SR17 Supreme is sharp, earnest and engaging, yet easy-going, with an unforced warmth and great attention to detail. There’s something grounded and unfussy about the way it allows music to flow forth, feeling like it's taken an expressive limiter off of a recording without hyping it in any way. It checks off many of the audiophile boxes too - imaging, tonal balance, bass power and extension, etc. etc. - but focusing on those mechanical aspects, as excellent as they are, would be selling Alan’s accomplishment short. The SR17 Supreme is first and foremost a faithful and thoroughly enjoyable reproducer of music, one capable of strongly evoking the beauty of the original musical event. There are countless 2-way monitors superficially like this one, but few that I know that are so meticulously and lovingly tuned to such great effect.

I've spent a lot of words espousing this speaker, but I think it's deserving of it, not just because of the obvious quality of the product, but because Silverline is a small manufacturer flying under the radar without a big dealer network or advertising budget. While Alan continues to develop his entry-level Minuet and Prelude lines at a more rapid pace to keep up with market demands, he doesn’t pen up new versions of his reference models every couple years to generate hype. He’s instead chosen his design fundamentals wisely and focused on perfecting their execution through years of painstaking refinement, much as the late Bobby Palkovic @ Merlin Music did. Like Bobby, he has a great ear for music, does a lot of the production work himself, and gains most of his sales through word of mouth. This does make it trickier to find than the big brands at a typical shop, but I strongly encourage seeking out an opportunity to hear it. The SR17 Supreme is a special speaker, and it won't be leaving my living room any time soon.

Silverline Audio P.O. Box 30574 Walnut Creek, CA 94598 USA

[nataliej-animation]

British Women in Animation

Sarah Kennedy is doing a documentary on female animators. I am doing some research and finding it so interesting. Back in the day, women weren’t really valued. They weren’t even classed as artists, they were degraded and looked down upon. They rarely even got credited for the work they did. It appals me to think that this was acceptable. 

In this blog I will research British female animators.

Suzanah (Suzie) Clare Templeton (born 1967 in Hampshire, England) is an award-winning British animator. Her film Peter and the Wolf has won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2008.

Stanley (1999) is the winner of the 2001 Golden Sun Award, the 2000 Best College Student Animation Award of the Nashville Independent Film Festival, the 2000 Best Animation Award for the International Short Film Festival of Berlin, and many others.

Dog (2001) is the winner of the 2002 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in Short Animation and many others.

Peter and the Wolf (2006) is the winner of the 2008 Academy Award for Best Short Film, the 2006 British Animation Award for Best TV Special, the 2007 Pulcinella Ward for Best European Programme, the 2007 Grand Prix and Audience Award Annecy at the French Animation Festival, the 2007 Golden Rose for Performing Arts at the Rose D'or Festival in Switzerland, the 2007 Special Prize at the Ukraine Animated Film Festival, and the 2008 Special Jury Award of the Lucca Animation Festival in Italy.

Joy Batchelor (12 May 1914 – 14 May 1991) was an English animator, director, screenwriter, and producer. She married John Halas in 1940 and subsequently co-established Halas and Batchelor cartoons, whose best known production is the animated feature film Animal Farm (1954), which made her the first woman director of an animated feature since Lotte Reiniger. Together they created over 2000 shorts/films, and produced roughly 70 propaganda pieces during World War II for the British government. She helped co-write, write, animate, produce, and direct many of their productions.

One of her projects as an art director was Cinerama Holiday (1955). Joy directed and wrote Ruddigore (1967), a television-film adaptation of W.S. Gilbert's opera of the same name, which became the first opera to be adapted into an animated film. She later worked in television, directing series, including animated shows like The Jackson 5ive (1971). Batchelor died on 14 May 1991, just two days after her 77th birthday.

Between 1975 and 1980, Sheila Graber created a selection of animated shorts which were shown worldwide. One animation, Mondrian, about the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was screened at the Tate Gallery, Mondrian’s own house in the Netherlands, the Open University and British Broadcasting Corporation's children's television series Blue Peter.[2]

By 1975, Graber was working for Filmfair, and created the animation for Paddington Bear and Mr and Mrs Brown for the television series Paddington.[1] She also animated the 1983 BBC series Just So Stories, adapted from a collection of children's stories of the same name, written by Rudyard Kipling.[3]

In 1980, newly divorced, Sheila left her role as head of Creative Studies at a large comprehensive school to begin teaching animation classes in Tunisia and Caracas, and pursue a career as a full-time professional artist and animator.

I love the fact that Sheila became an animation teacher. That is amazing!

Joanna Quinn was born in Birmingham, England in 1962 and grew up in North London. Quinn's first film Girls Night Out was completed in 1987 and won three awards at the Annecy Film Festival. Quinn has won over 90 international awards, including 2 Emmy awards, 4 Bafta awards and Jury prizes at all the major animation festivals. One of her films, Famous Fred (1997), received an Academy Award nomination. Quinn was awarded the Leonardo da Vinci International Art Award in 1996. In 2006 her film Dreams and Desires won Grand Prix at World Festival of Animated Film

Alison de Vere (16 September 1927 – 2 January 2001), while married also known as Alison Weschke, was a British animator, known for her animated short films The Black Dog and Psyche and Eros. Born in Peshawar into a British military family, de Vere studied art in Brighton and at the Royal Academy. She worked as a background designer at Halas and Batchelor studio beginning in 1951, at a time when women were unheard of in creative leadership roles in British animation. Nonetheless she took the leadership of the animation unit of Guild Television Services in 1957. During the 1960s, she worked as a freelancer, but joined TVC in 1967 to work as design director on the Beatles film Yellow Submarine, in which she had a cameo.

Jackie Cockle, born 1950 in Portsmouth, is a British stop frame animation specialist. She is the creator and creative producer of the pre-school animation Timmy Time, creative producer of Bob the Builder and Brambly Hedge, director of The Wind in the Willows and more. Cockle, a graduate of the Manchester College of Art and Design, has won 3 Bafta awards: one in the best animation category for Bob the Builder 30 minute special (2002) and two in the pre-school animation for Timmy Time (2010, 2013) - a production of the Bristol-based Aardman Animations.

Eunice Macaulay (nee Eunice Bagley) (1923 – 2013) was a British-born Academy Award–winning animator whose credits range from animation to writing, directing, and producing. She shifted into animation when a Christmas card she had designed got her a job with Gaumont British Animation (later part of the Rank Organisation) in 1948. Starting out as a tracer, she went on to hold nearly every position in animation, including background artist, ink and paint supervisor, rendering supervisor, writer, animator, producer, and director.

Dianne Jackson (July 28, 1941 – December 31, 1992) was an English animation director, best known for The Snowman, made in 1982 and subsequently repeated every Christmas on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

She had a long career as an animator, and her earliest credit was for The Beatles' Yellow Submarine in 1968. She is particularly noted for recreating the style of the original artists in her animations, for example of Raymond Briggs's picture book, The Snowman.

She also directed Granpa by John Burningham in 1989 and was due to direct Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas in 1991, having completed storyboarding for the film, although due to her illness this was directed by Dave Unwin. She also planned the first series of animated adaptations of the tales of Beatrix Potter as The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends. However, she died of cancer on New Year's Eve 1992 at the age of 51. The series episode "The Tailor of Gloucester" is dedicated to her memory

Jodie Mack (born 1983 in London, England) is an English-born American experimental filmmaker and animator. She attended the University of Florida and earned her MFA in film, video, and new media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches at Dartmouth College. Mack's works have screened at the Viennale, the New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Locarno Festival. Mack is currently a 2017–2018 Radcliffe-Harvard Film Study Center Fellow/David and Roberta Logie Fellow. Mack primarily produces her films using a 16 millimeter Bolex camera. Mack stated in an interview that "[She] chose to work in film because the material renders color and texture in a way that resonates with a lot of [her] work”.

Many of Jodie Mack's films are stop motion animations that feature everyday fabrics and textiles or recycled materials like magazine clippings or newspaper scraps.

Alison Snowden (born 4 April 1958) is an English animator, voice actress, producer, and screenwriter best known for Bob and Margaret alongside her Oscar-winning short Bob's Birthday which was also co-directed by her partner David Fine. Bob's Birthday serves as the pilot for the Alison Snowden and David Fine's animated TV show Bob and Margaret.

[grad603-maiihoa]

Photographs Used & Research

Joseph Churchward

Joseph established Churchward International Typefaces in 1969 and this was at one point New Zealand’s largest typesetting firm. With international clients such as Germany’s Berthold Fototype, Mecanorma-Polyvroom, and D.Stempel, Dr Böger Photosatz Linotype and Zipatone, Churchward Typefaces were soon in use around the globe.

Even in his late 70s Joseph continued to design typefaces by hand, and these are digitally distributed via MyFonts.com. In 2009 Joseph was the recipient of the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand John Britten Award for lifetime achievement and in 2010 he received the Queens Services medal.

Tobias Frere Jones

Mr. Frere-Jones received his B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design in 1992. In 2000 he began work with Jonathan Hoefler in New York. He has designed more than 500 typefaces for retail publication, custom clients, and experimental purposes. His clients include Martha Stewart Living, GQ, Wired, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Grand Central Terminal, the U.S. Census Bureau, Tibor Kalman, and Neville Brody. He has lectured throughout North America, Europe, and Australia, and his work has been featured in How, I.D., Page, Print, Communication Arts, Metropolis, Esquire, and Time. In 2006 he became the first American to receive the Gerrit Noordzij Award, presented by the Royal Academy of The Hague in honor of his special contributions to typography. He was appointed critic in graphic design in 1996.

Verena Gerlach

Verena Gerlach was born in Berlin West, and studied Visual Communication at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee. Shortly after graduating in 1998, she founded her own studio (www.fraugerlach.de) for graphic design, type design and typography. Between 2000 and 2006, Verena also art-directed several video clips and worked on the typographic production for international, contemporary artists. Since 2006, she has been working as a freelance book designer for the Germany-based art book publisher Hatje Cantz. She started lecturing in type design, graphic design and typography in Berlin in 2003, and she now gives lectures and workshops all over the globe.

Nadine Chahine

Dr. Nadine Chahine is a renowned Lebanese type designer, presently working as the Arabic specialist at Linotype and Monotype Imaging in Germany. Motivated by her love for her native Beirut and a desire to improve typographic design, she was recently named as one of Fast Company Magazine’s ‘100 Most Creative People in Business’. Nadine studied graphic design at the American University of Beirut and has a Master’s Degree in typeface design from the University of Reading, UK. During her studies at Reading, she focused on the relationship between Arabic and Latin scripts and the possibilities of creating a harmonious relationship between the two.

Through her PhD research, Nadine focused on legibility studies for the Arabic script, with an eye to improving literacy in the Arab world. Her typeface Koufiya was the first to include matching Arabic and Latin parts. She has won numerous awards, including the Dean’s Award for Creative Achievement from the American University of Beirut in 2000, and the Award for Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club of New York in 2008 and 2011. Other typefaces designed by Nadine include the best-selling Frutiger Arabic, Neue Helvetica Arabic, Univers Next Arabic, Palatino and Palatino Sans Arabic, Janna, Badiya and BigVesta Arabic.

Carol Twombly

Carol Twombly is an American type designer, and calligrapher. She was born in Concord,  Massachusetts, USA on June 13 in the year of 1959. In her earlier years, she went to the Rhode Island School of Design, originally for sculpture, but later graduated for graphic design. She also went to Stanford University, where she graduated with Masters of Science degrees in computer science and typographic design.  About this decision Carol says, according to Adobe.com, “I discovered that communicating through graphics – by placing black shapes on a white page – offered a welcome balance between freedom and structure.” Though graphic design became her career focus, Carol hasn’t abandoned her other artistic pursuits, which include basket-weaving, drawing, painting, and jewelry making. In 1988, Twombly joined Adobe and designed Adobe’s first original display typefaces (Trajan, Charlemagne and Lithos), among several others. But in 1999, she retired and is currently an independent artist, specializing in drawing, painting on textiles, beading and basket-making.

Paula Scher

Paula Scher is a contemporary American artist and graphic designer best known for her posters, logo designs, and album covers. In her paintings, Scher portrays large-scale maps filled with intricate lettering that indicate political and societal connections between countries and regional borders. “The job of the designer is to make things understandable, usable, accessible, enjoyable, and important to a public, that involves the public,” she has explained. Born on October 6, 1948 in Washington, D.C., she went on to study at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia before moving to New York, where she worked as a layout artist for Random House. In the years that followed, Scher held positions at both Atlantic Records and CBS Records, during which time she received four Grammy nominations for her album designs. The artist later joined Pentagram, a design consulting firm in New York, where she continues to live and work. Today, Scher’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.

Jessica Hische

Jessica Nicole Hische (born April 4, 1984) is an American lettering artist, illustrator, author, and type designer. She was one of the first of a new generation of letterers and the present-day flourishing of the lettering arts can in part be traced back to her emergence.

She published In Progress: See Inside a Lettering Artist's Sketchbook and Process, from Pencil to Vector in September 2015, which gives insight to her creative process and work she has completed as a hand-lettering artist. She has written and illustrated two New York Times best-selling children's books: Tomorrow I'll be Brave (2018) and Tomorrow I'll be Kind (2019). She has spoken at over 100 conferences worldwide.

Johnson Witehira

Dr. Johnson Witehira is recognized as an expert on Māori design. His practice focuses on how customary Māori knowledge and ways of thinking can be applied in contemporary settings. His writings on Māori design have been published in world-leading design journals and books including; Visible Language (University of Cincinnati), The Graphic Design Reader (Bloomsbury), Novum (Munich) and Monocle (London). As a practising designer Witehira has worked with Māori tribal groups, community organizations and Government agencies to instigate design solutions that effect positive change in people, practice and place. Within academia Witehira’s research focuses on decolonizing design education. He is at the forefront of developing bi-cultural and Māori responses to teaching design. As an artist Witehira’s practice combines three areas of interest; technology, identity and post-colonial theory. His digitally-focused artworks have been shown globally through a number of exhibitions, the most prominent being his Toi Māori x Times Square project which was displayed simultaneously on 36 screens in Times Square, New York. See some of Johnson's art and design projects at

www.johnsonwitehira.studio | www.idia.nz and www.waahiwairua.com

[thaissa1918]

This is, Vladyko Theodore. He grew up in, Tsar Nicholas II Romanov's Palace and grew up as a young playmate to Tsavich Alexis. His father was a physicist for the Tsar. After the Romanov's were taken prisoners before they were executed at point blank range, HRH Alexandra Romanov possessed the beard of, Saint Sarofov of Sarov and she snuck it to him. This is a photograph of me on the left of him in the Russian Monastery. I gave this photograph to the Romanov Historical Society because it was the last photograph of him alive. He fled and studied at a secret monastery called, Valam for years. He was a miracle worker and the President of Renault Oil Company in, France, put him in his Will when he died to conduct his funeral. He came to conduct the funeral and after the man being dead for over 48 hours, Vladyko Theodore went into the room with him dead and the rest of the persons present saw a bright uncreated light and after 24 hours, the dead man walked out perfectly healthy with, Vladyko. It is documented and well known in the Russian Church. People around the world including the Romanov's have asked me for his last photos. He is the only person that has raised a man from the dead since Lazarus in the New Testament. He was my Spiritual Father for over 20 years and recently died about one decade ago and is buried in, West Milford New Jersey, USA.

All About My Spiritual Father (+) Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves

The Noetic Pilgrim, A Kenotic Soul November 21, 2008, 3:32 am Filed under: Patristic Vita Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves

Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov CavesElder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves, myself and Gregory (Cantor) (+November 8, 1996)

On this day according to the traditional Church Calendar, on the vigil of the Martyr St. Theodore of Amasea, we commemorate the falling asleep of schema-Bishop Theodore (Irtel) at the Abbey of the Holy Name in West Milford, New Jersey in America. Elder Theodore’s repose at the Abbey was in fulfillment of staretz Justinian of Valaam’s prophesy regarding major future events in our Elder’s earthly life. Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves The year following the canonization of St Seraphim of Sarov, Elder Theodore was born George Irtel in 1904. His father had been a renowned physicist in the Russian Royal Court and a friend of St Tsar Nicholas II. His Sketch of George Irtel from Orthodox Word

Sketch of George Irtel from Orthodox Word

father’s connections permitted young George to be one of Tsarević Alexei Romanov’s playmate. During the Bolshevik Revolution, George fled across Siberia on foot to Irkutsk. Then learning his mother still in Justinian of Valaam

Justinian of Valaam

Moscow, he walked back across Siberia. He had been arrested in 1920; afterwards, in 1924 he entered Valaam Monastery as a novice. It was there that Novice George came under the spiritual care of the staretz Justinian. Due to godless incursion into the vicinity of Valaam, Novice George moved on to the Pskov Caves Monastery in Estonia.

Under the care of the Elder Schema-Archimandrite Simeon, Monk George was clothed in the small schema and renamed Sergei (Sergius). Starezt Simeon of Pskov Caves

Starezt Simeon of Pskov Caves

Stavrophore-monk Sergei was among the many Russian émigrés to Paris in the 1930s. At the Sorbonne he earned an advanced degree in Philosophy and was ordained to the priesthood in 1934. It has been said that there were three men consecrated to the episcopacy in secret. Fr Sergei was one of the three. Secret consecrations are outside the norm in Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, these elevations were conducted because there was suspicion that the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) had targeted certain Russian hierarchs in Europe for assassination. While in France, Fr Sergei had frequent fellowship with St. Archbishop John Maximovitć during his tenure there. Elder Schema-Bishop Theodore of Valaam and Pskov Caves Throughout his youth Fr Sergei had various spiritual experiences which provided him guidance in his life. Now his sanctity began to be a benefit to others. Following an incident that began to bring much attention and fame to him, Fr Sergei desired to return to Russia.

True to his monastic vow of obedience he refused to act on his own will. Rather, he had written to Fr Sergei Irtel

Fr Sergei Irtel

St Silouan on Mt Athos. In reply, Fr Sergei was forbidden to return to Russia, “for there you will certainly die. You must go to America where God has much for you to do”. In 1946 Hieromonk Sergei arrived in New York City. It has been reported that he taught at St. Tikhon Orthodox Pastoral Seminary in South Canaan for two years. Thereafter labored in Canada with St Nikolai Velimirović. In 1950 he was sent to Spruce Island, Alaska. According to Orthodox Word magazine (St. Herman Brotherhood: 1996, No. 187-188): “They lived in a large, rotting storage house on the very shores of Monks’ Lagoon, while in the dense spruce forest, on the site of St. Herman’s cell, Archimandrite Gerasim lived in solitude. The gusty wind off the open sea and the constantly overcast, rainy weather stirred up sorrowful thoughts linked with the woeful state of 20th century monasticism. In total solitude, more cut off than in any hermitage on old Valaam, which was at that time swallowed up by the communist hell, the new monks of New Valaam were naturally carried in thought to Valaam, and, remembering their past instructors, they lived by their instructions.”

While in Alaska he was clothed in the Great Schema and given the name of St. Theodore. Apparently due to health, Hiero-schemamonk Theodore was forced to leave Alaska where from he arrived in El Paso, Texas. We know that he had been utilized by the Russian Metropolia as a “supply priest” and was often “on loan” to other jurisdictions where there was a need for a priest. It has been documented that Fr Sergei Irtel had served the fledgling Greek Mission in Los Vegas having Divine Liturgy in a local Episcopalian Church in 1958. The Russian Patriarchal parish of St. John Chrysostom in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan was served by Fr Sergei in December 1961 and again in 1964.

From El Paso, Texas, Elder Theodore made his way to Juarez, Mexico. There he was not a bishop, enjoyed neither status nor glory. Much like Bolshevik Russia, Elder Theodore had to avoid getting Elder Theodore

Elder Theodore

arrested by the anti-clerical Mexican police. There in Juarez he shared the poverty of the village folks. He labored to house and feed them. As a simple priest-monk he evangelized and ministered to the people. Gathered a small monastic following, never ceased praying and interceding for those who came to visit or sent letters begging for his prayers on their behalf. We could speak of the many miracles of healing, resurrecting the dead, the gifts of clairvoyance and bi-location attributed to our Elder. But it is the charism of monastic obedience, humility, unceasing prayer and service (love) towards those in need that greatly marked Elder Theodore’s holiness. Vladyka was buried, unembalmed according to Orthodox tradition, three days after his repose. On this third day his body showed no sign of corruption.

The Hermitage Cell of St. John the Theologian has been given the monastic obedience to gather what information is available on Schema-Bishop Theodore (Irtel). As we gather and discern such information regarding his life, ministry, fellowship, miracles and various other wonder-workings we shall then make them known for the edification and upbuilding of the Church. If YOU knew Elder Theodore at one time or another, please share with us your experience and knowledge of him.

Write to us via e-mail or by postal mail:

Theodore Irtel Research Project Hermitage of St. John the Theologian 110 Griffiths Street No.9 Syracuse, New York 13208

Blessed Elder Theodore, pray for us! Blessed Elder Theodore, pray for us! Like · Reply · November 24 at 1:35pm

[tvcord5-blog]

The Militant's Epic Militant CicLAvia Tour XXI!!

Interactive map! Click and drag to navigate. To view larger version, click here.

The 21st iteration of CicLAvia (and the second one of 2017) brings us the first all-new alignment since the Southeast Cities route from May, 2016. Which means...it's time for another Militant Angeleno Epic CicLAvia Tour guide!

[cue fanfare music]

This time around, we're on the second route not served by Metro Rail (though it is Metrolink-accessible), and visit the Los Angeles community of Atwater Village and the Jewel City of Glendale. Even though this route is a mini-CicLAvia route of just a little over three miles, there's tons of historical and notable points of interest along this route, and in fact, The Militant had to pare down the list just so he doesn't stay up until 5 a.m. like he usually does when he does these posts (ya, really)! So, without any delay...let's get it started!

1. Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct 1928 Hyperion Avenue, Silver Lake/Atwater Village

This 400 foot-long concrete arch bridge links the community of Silver Lake in the south with Atwater Village in the north, traversing the Los Angeles River below. Designed by Merrill Butler, who also designed another iconic Los Angeles River bridge downstream, the Sixth Street Viaduct (R.I.P.), the bridge replaced an old 1910 wooden crossing that was severely damaged during a 1927 flood. The current bridge was built later that year and opened in September 1928, which was also dedicated to World War I veterans and honorarily dubbed "Victory Memorial." In 1988, the bridge appeared in the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (and thus a smaller replica of the bridge was later built at Disney's California Adventure theme park in Anaheim, paying homage to the original Walt Disney Studios' neighborhood (located where the Gelson's supermarket stands today)). Recently, the bridge was Ground Zero in a 2013-2015 controversy over whether the eventual renovation of the bridge should be designed in a more bicycle/pedestrian-friendly manner vs. a more automobile-centric design.

The Militant visited this bridge in July of 2007 in a very early MA blog post.

2. Pacific Electric Bridge Abutments and Red Car Mural 1929 (dismantled 1955); 2004 Los Angeles River at Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

If you follow The Militant, you should know by now that his legendary epic Pacific Electric Archaeology Map from 2015 features a set of seven concrete bridge abutments across the Los Angeles River as one of the remnant traces of Red Car infrastructure. A bridge once rested on these abutments from 1929 to 1955 that carried the beloved trolleys between Downtown Los Angeles to Burbank.  In 2004, local Atwater Village muralist Rafael Escamilla painted a mural on one of the abutments, which faces Red Car River Park, which was part of the old trolley's right-of-way. The line continued up Glendale Blvd and on to Brand Blvd in Glendale, before veering west on Glenoaks Blvd to Burbank.

3. Black Eyed Peas Recording Studio Opened 1996 3101 Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

This nondescript brown two-story building on the corner of Glendale Blvd and Glenfeliz Ave features a recording studio (on the 2nd floor) owned by Los Angeles hip-hop/pop group Black Eyed Peas. Their first few albums were recorded here, including this '90s-era jam. Though the group uses more high-end recording facilities around the world, and will.i.am now has his own home studio in his Los Feliz residence, the facility is still used by members of the band and their extended musical family.

4. G-Son Studios/Beastie Boys Recording Studio Opened 1991 3208 1/2 Glendale Blvd, Atwater Village

The Peas aren't the only hip-hop influence on da AWV.  Groundbreaking NY rap trio the Beastie Boys transplanted themselves to this part of Los Angeles during the 1990s (influenced by their producer and musical collaborator, the Los Angeles-raised Mario Caldato, Jr.) and recorded the albums, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty here in this loft space, known as G-Son Studios,  located above today's State Farm insurance office. The facility was also the headquarters of the Beasties' record label and magazine, Grand Royal. The studio was sold in 2006.

Oh yeah, R.I.P. MCA.

5. Atwater Village Redwood Tree 1964 Glendale Blvd median at Larga Ave., Atwater Village

You don't have to travel 203 miles to a national park in the Sierra Nevadas to see a redwood tree -- you can see one right here in Atwater Village during CicLAvia! This lone redwood was planted in the Glendale Blvd median by community members in 1964 and today stands at nearly 90 feet tall. Each December, the redwood is lighted by the Atwater Village Chamber of Commerce as a Christmas tree and the lighting ceremony has been an annual holiday community event for over 20 years.

6. Seeley's Furniture Building 1925/1946 1800 S. Brand Blvd, Glendale

Built in 1925 as a Spanish Baroque bank building by local architect Alfred Priest, the George Seeley Furniture Company took over the building in 1931,  expanded it in 1939, and in 1946 got the Streamline Moderne make-over that remains today. The furniture store with the iconic large red neon sign was in operation until 1994, when the company closed for good. The building underwent an $8 million restoration and re-opened in 2012 as a collection of leased offices and artists' studios now known as Seeley Studios.

7. Forest Lawn Memorial Park Glendale 1906 1712 S. Glendale Ave, Glendale

Past the world's largest wrought iron gates at the entrance is the original location of the Southern California cemetery chain and the final resting place of over 250,000 people, including the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Walt Disney (no, he was not frozen), Michael Jackson and someone you know. Forest Lawn was founded in 1906 by businessman Hubert Eaton, who wanted to re-invent the cemetery by doing away with large tombstones and emphasizing landscaping and art. He also innovated the industry with an on-site mortuary. The large white building at the top of the hill with the cross on top of it (changed to a star during the Christmas holiday season) houses a free museum with rotating exhibitions, as well as the world's largest framed canvas painting, the 195-foot long The Crucifixion, completed in 1896 by Polish artist Jan Styka, who brought it to the U.S. to be displayed at the St. Louis 1904 World's Fair. Too large to be transported back to Poland, it remained in the U.S. and was lost for years until Eaton bought it in 1944 and constructed the building to display it. The Militant once rode his bike here to pay his respects to a departed operative, but was told by security that bikes weren't allowed. He asked the security where in the Forest Lawn's policies were bikes not allowed (it does not appear in any signs in the park) and the security staff couldn't find it. So there.

8. Glendale Train Station 1924 400 W. Cerritos Ave, Glendale

Originally known as the Tropico depot (more on this later), this Spanish Colonial Revival station, designed by MacDonald & Cuchot and opened in 1924, was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad, eventually serving Bay Area-bound trains such as the Daylight and the Lark. Amtrak took over train service in 1971. In 1982-1983, the Glendale station was a stop for the short-lived proto-commuter rail experiment known as CalTrain which ran from Los Angeles to Oxnard for all but 6 months. In 1989, the City of Glendale purchased the station from the Southern Pacific and in 1992, the station found real commuter service in the form of Metrolink, which serves Ventura County and the Antelope Valley. The station was renovated in 1999 and expanded to a multi-modal transportation center.

9. Tropico  1887 Glendale south of Chevy Chase Drive

The southwestern section of Glendale was once an independent town named Tropico. With fertile soil formed by the floodplains of the nearby Los Angeles River, the area was famous for its strawberry farms. It also grew a business district centered at San Fernando Road and Central Avenue (pictured left), and Forest Lawn Memorial Park was born as part of Tropico in 1906. The town became incorporated in 1911, but in 1917 its residents voted to be annexed to Glendale. Not much remains of any reference of Tropico, except for the Tropico Motel (401 W. Chevy Chase Dr) and the Tropico U.S. Post Office (120 E. Chevy Chase Dr).

10. Dinah's Fried Chicken 1967 4106 San Fernando Rd, Glendale

Just a couple blocks west of the CicLAvia route is Glendale's iconic Dinah's Fried Chicken, serving its popular boxes of fried chicken and gizzards since 1967. Established by a group of golfers, the Dinah's soft-of-chain operated a handful of restaurants around Southern California that were independently owned and operated but shared common recipes and branding (the Dinah's Family Restaurant in Culver City is the other remaining establishment). The 2006 motion picture, Little Miss Sunshine made Dinah's world-famous as their brightly-colored fried chicken buckets were featured in the film.

11. Chevy Chase Drive c. 1920s Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale

When The Militant was much younger (known as Lil'Mil), he used to wonder, when the family car drove through Glendale, why that guy from Saturday Night Live had a street named after him. It turns out the street was not named after the comedian born Cornelius Chase of Fletch and Clark Griswold fame (the name was apparently a nickname given to him by his grandmother), but after Scottish folklore, namely a story entitled The Ballad of Chevy Chase. The story refers to an apocryphal battle (the "chase") in the Cheviot Hills (no, not that Cheviot Hills) of Scotland (a.k.a. "Chevy") that thwarted off an invasion of the country. Why the Scottish reference? The Jewel City was developed in the 1880s by Leslie Coombs "L.C." Brand, a Scottish American businessman and real estate dude, whose name adorns the city's main street. And also, if it's noot Scottish, it's crap!

12. Riverdale Roundabout 2008 Riverdale Dr and Columbus Ave, Glendale

Since the last CicLAvia (Culver City meets Venice) in March featured a traffic circle, it's only fitting that you visit Glendale's only traffic circle, where Riverdale Drive intersects with Columbus Avenue, just a few short blocks west of the CicLAvia route. In 2008, Riverdale became Glendale's bike-friendly guinea pig, with the street re-configured with bike lanes to form an east-west corridor linking various parks within Glendale. So yes, you can visit this traffic circle via Glendale's existing bike infrastructure.

13. St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church  1926/1975 500 S. Central Ave, Glendale

Los Angeles might have Little Armenia, but Glendale has Big Armenia, with a population of 40% of all Glendalians being of Armenian descent.  Though Glendale has had an Armenian community dating back to the 1920s, the majority of them arrived in the late 1970s, when the diasporic Armenian community in Lebanon fled that country during its civil war, and when Armenians in Iran likewise left when the Shah fell from power and the current Islamic fundamentalist regime took over.  They settled in Glendale as it was close to the existing Armenian community in East Hollywood (now Little Armenia), yet more affordable to live.  In the 1990s, another wave of Armenians arrived in Glendale, this time from the former Soviet republic of Armenia, after the dissolution of the USSR. The community established its first house of worship in a small building on Carlton Drive in 1975, and in 1988, the growing congregation took over the 1926 Colonial-style former First Church of Christ Scientist on Central Avenue. Although the St. Mary's wanted to build a dome on the structure in the 1990s to match the traditional church architecture of the motherland, the building's historic preservation status prevented them from doing it.

14. Glendale Galleria 1976 100 W. Broadway, Glendale

Built as a means to invigorate the Glendale economy and to fill a regional void for The Broadway department store between Panorama City and Pasadena (the local chain was one of the mall's development partners and the anchor tenant), the Glendale Galleria opened on October 14, 1976. And while its sister shopping center in Sherman Oaks laid claim as the, like, total epicenter of 1980s Valley Girl culture, the more alliterate Glendale Galleria went on to become the fourth largest shopping mall in Southern California and the first location for chains such as Panda Express, The Disney Store and The Apple Store. Designed by architect Jon Jerde, its layout and style became an archetype for indoor shopping malls across the country during the 1970s and 1980s.  The mall was expanded with a new eastern wing across Central Ave in 1983 and underwent a 21st century facelift in 2012 in the wake of the opening of its next-door neighbor, The Americana at Brand.

The Militant may or many not have had his first date at this mall. In November 1992, during his first visit to California after winning the presidential election, then-president-elect Bill Clinton did some Holiday shopping at the Galleria with a crowd of over 30,000 to greet him (The Militant may or may not have been there, and may or may not have caught a glimpse of him in his limo as he left).

15.  Max's Of Manila Restaurant/Cattleman's Ranch 1980 313 W. Broadway, Glendale

In addition to a large Armenian community, Glendale is also home to a notable Filipino immigrant population. This rustic-looking building is the first American location (opened 1980) of a major Philippine restaurant chain, specializing in Filipino-style fried chicken (sounds like a culinary theme for this CicLAvia...). If this building looks familiar, the facade is used as the setting for Louis Huang's Orlando restaurant Cattleman's Ranch in the hit ABC TV series, Fresh Off The Boat.

16. Security Trust and Savings Bank/Site of Glendale Pacific Electric Depot 1923 100 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

The first "high-rise" (as in over two stories) building in Glendale was this Classical style six-story building on the northeast corner of Brand Blvd and Broadway, designed by Alfred Priest (who also designed the Seeley's Furniture building down the street). This was the home of the Security Trust and Savings Bank, which was a popular local bank chain in Southern California at the time. The bank took over the former First National Bank of Glendale (founded by L.C. Brand) in 1921 and eventually became Security Pacific Bank, and is now part of the Bank of America borg. Before the bank building was built, this was the site of the Glendale Pacific Electric depot, built in 1906 to serve the electric railway line that ran up and down Brand Boulevard. L.C. Brand sought the help of his friend and fellow real estate guy Henry Huntington to build his electric trolley line through Glendale to help sell property tracts and to spur development. The rest is history. You can say the place has Brand's brand all over it.  This building  has a historical marker placed by the city recognizing the bank building's history and the PE station that stood here prior to it.

17.  The Alex Theatre 1925 216 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

Designed by the architectural firm of Meyer & Holler (who also designed Grauman's Chinese and Egyptian theatres in Hollywood), The Alexander Theatre (named after Alexander Langley, of the Langley family that operated theatres around Southern California at the time) opened in 1925 as a venue for vaudeville entertainment, silent movies and staged plays. In 1939 the iconic facade and spire was built, designed by Lindley & Selkirk. The theatre also features a Wurlizer pipe organ, which was played by a live organist, which was the typical soundtrack for silent movies. The design of The Alex made it a popular location for world premieres of motion pictures, and from the 1940s to the 1980s, it existed as Glendale's premier movie palace. It was renovated in 1993 and is now owned by the City of Glendale for arts programming (The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra makes its seasonal home here) and special events.

18.  Porto's Bakery 1982 315 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale Three things are absolutely guaranteed at Sunday's CicLAvia: 1) Sunny skies; 2) Smiling faces; and 3) A seriously long-ass line in front of Porto's. The legendary bakery was founded by the Porto family, who fled Fidel Castro's Cuba in the 1960s. The original location was actually in Silver Lake, on Sunset Boulevard and Silver Lake Drive (Los Angeles' Cuban community was once concentrated in the Echo Park-Silver Lake vicinity). In 1982, the family moved the bakery to Glendale where they actually did it and became legends. After over 45 years in business, Porto's sells 1.5 million cheese rolls and about 600,000 potato balls each month, and a little Yelp hype last year didn't hurt either. Porto's now boasts locations in Burbank, Downey, Buena Park and soon in West Covfeve Covina. Soon, places outside of Southern California will be clamoring to have a Porto's in their town, and numerous Porto's imitators will open up, each with lookalike beige, brown and yellow boxes, boasting that they're better than the original. It's good that this CicLAvia route is only three miles, so you can enjoy the route in its entirety while spending most of your day in the Porto's line.

19. Glendale Federal Savings Building 1959 401 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale

All you Mid-Century Modern fetishists, prepare to have an archigasm at CicLAvia! This quirky 10-story building, originally the home of Glendale Federal Savings, was designed by Peruvian-born architect W.A. Sarmiento, who made some bank out of drawing up bank buildings. But this was his most well-known structure, recognized by the Los Angeles Conservancy, which features an external elevator bank. Glendale Federal merged with California Federal in 1998, and today it's part of Citi Bank. The building is now home to the Hollywood Production Center (despite not actually being in Hollywood).

20. Vierendeel Truss Bridges  1937-1938 Verdugo Wash at Geneva Street, Glendale Verdugo Wash at Glenoaks Blvd, Glendale Verdugo Wash at Kenilworth Ave, Glendale

We began our Epic CicLAvia Tour with a bridge, so it's appropo that we end it with a bridge. Verdugo Wash, a 9 1/2-mile tributary of the Los Angeles River, runs south from La Crescenta paralleling the 2 Freeway, and west paralleling the 134 Freeway, where it flows in to the river near the Los Angeles Zoo area. As a part of President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration program, the War Department's U.S. Engineers (the predecessor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) built a series of eight steel bridges (using local steel manufactured by Consolidated Steel Corp. of Los Angeles) traversing Verdugo Wash, all in the Vierendeel Truss design, which was invented in 1896 by Belgian engineer Arthur Vierendeel. Unlike standard truss bridges, there are no diagonal members. Glendale is the home of the only Vierendeel Truss Bridges in the United States, the first of which was built at the Verdugo Wash's Central Avenue crossing. Brand Boulevard had a twin bridge, which had a separate girder bridge for the Pacific Electric in the middle. In the mid-1980s, all but three of the bridges (at Geneva Street, Glenoaks Avenue and Kenilworth Avenue) were torn down by the City of Glendale and replaced with boring concrete bridges (You can say that Glendale had some truss issues). Today you can admire the last remaining Vierendeel Truss bridges in America.

The Militant wants to raise a fist and give massive props to the Tropico Station Glendale blog, which provided an additional source of research info for this post! Happy CicLAvia on Sunday, and see you or not see you on the streets!

Source: http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-militants-epic-militant-ciclavia.html

[omagazineparis]

Offrez des moments de détente avec des cadeaux beauté sensationnels.

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[bountyofbeads]

Fascinating expose on the real estate properties owned by SEXUAL PREDATOR and SEX TRAFFICER #JeffreyEpstein. LOCK HIM UP

Every Property Owned by Sleazy Financier Jeffrey Epstein

By Spencer Peterson  | Published January 9, 2015 12:52 pm | Curbed | Posted July 8, 2019 |

Welcome to What Do They Own?, a new Curbed series where we take someone making headlines and try to figure out how much of the world they own, and by extension, how far they've gone to insulate themselves from the world.

Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epsteinbecame a registered sex offender in 2008, when he was convicted of soliciting and underage girl for prostitution at his Palm Beach Mansion. Often erroneously referred to as a billionaire, Epstein runs a shady money management firm based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he owns a 70-acre island, one of the places named in a recent suit alleging that he forced a minor he kept as a "sex slave" to have sex with Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, on multiple occasions. His portfolio also includes a "stone fortress" in New Mexico and the Herbert N. Straus Mansion in Manhattan, both of which are mentioned in the current round of allegations.

The Herbert N. Straus Mansion

New York, New York

Often referred to as one of the largest townhouses in Manhattan—possessing 21,000 square feet and seven stories, 45,000 square feet and eight stories, or 50,000 square feetand nine stories, depending on who's describing it and when—the stone mansion at 9 East 71st Street was built in 1933. It was designed by society architect Horace Trumbauerfor Herbert N. Straus, one of the heirs to the Macy's department store fortune, who died before it was completed.

It's been said that "entire 18th-century rooms were purchased to be shipped to New York and installed in the new mansion," and the Metropolitan Museum of Art does have a exhibit in its period rooms collection with fixtures from a French hotel acquired by Herbert's wife Therese in a timeline that would fit the mansion's construction. She donated them to the Met in 1943, a year before the mansion was converted into a convalescent home, after the Straus family donated it to the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of New York. These photos offer an interesting picture of the conversion process, which shows much of the interior fixtures stripped away.

In 1961, the mansion became home to the Birch Wathen School, which it remained until Leslie H. Wexner,the founding chairman of the Limited Inc., bought it in 1989 for $13.2M. Wexner hired architect Thierry Despont and interior designer John Stefanidis to help gut-renovate the 40-room home, showing it off in the December 1995 issue of Architectural Digest (sadly, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far). In 1996, the New York Times referred to the sumptuously decorated, expensively renovated pied-à-terre as the latest "puzzling" "status symbol of the ultra rich," when it reported that Wexner never spent more than a few months in the home. This was back when the scarcely used pied-à-terre was a smaller part of the Manhattan real estate makeup.

Back then, according to the Times,

Visitors described a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies: hidden beneath a stairway, lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet beneath the sink. The house also has a heated sidewalk, a luxurious provision that explains why, while snow blankets the rest of the Eastern Seaboard, the Wexner house (and Bill Cosby's house across the street) remains opulently snow-free, much to the delight of neighborhood dogs.in 1995, Wexner turned the home over to Epstein, who was his protege and financial advisor (and much more, if you believe Gawker CEO Nick Denton's argument) because, on the face of it, his new wife "expressed greater enthusiasm for bringing up their two young children in Columbus, Ohio." Some say that Epstein paid just a dollar for the mansion, though it would seem to be well within his means at the time to pay full market value. Epstein then undertook his own renovation, not wanting "to live in another person's house." He is said to have spent $10M redoing the place. In 2007, when model Maximilia Cordero filed suit against Epstein for statutory rape and sexual assault (the suit was later dismissed), her lawyer included a description of what has by now become a legendary piece of puerile decor in chez Epstein: "[The] defendant gave plaintiff a tour of his mansion, showing her a huge crystal staircase with a huge crystal ball by the railing, ceiling chandeliers, a lounge room with red chairs, a statute [sic] of a dog with a statute [sic] of dog feces next to it" (emphasis ours).

Vicky Ward, in her recently elaborated upon 2003 profile of Epstein, very memorably captured the experience of touring the residence:

The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers. Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet … but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior. ...Tea is served in the "leather room," so called because of the cordovan-colored fabric on the walls. The chairs are covered in a leopard print, and on the wall hangs a huge, Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin. Under her gaze, plates of finger sandwiches are delivered to Epstein and guests by the menservants in white gloves.

Upstairs, to the right of a spiral staircase, is the "office," an enormous gallery spanning the width of the house. Strangely, it holds no computer. Computers belong in the "computer room" (a smaller room at the back of the house), Epstein has been known to say. The office features a gilded desk (which Epstein tells people belonged to banker J. P. Morgan), 18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets, and a nine-foot ebony Steinway "D" grand. On the desk, a paperback copy of the Marquis de Sade's The Misfortunes of Virtue was recently spotted. Covering the floor, Epstein has explained, "is the largest Persian rug you'll ever see in a private home—so big, it must have come from a mosque." Amid such splendor, much of which reflects the work of the French decorator Alberto Pinto, who has worked for Jacques Chirac and the royal families of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is one particularly startling oddity: a stuffed black poodle, standing atop the grand piano. "No decorator would ever tell you to do that," Epstein brags to visitors. "But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog." People can't help but feel it's Epstein's way of saying that he always has the last word.

*Shudders.*

In 2001, the New York Post reported that Epstein and Prince Andrew celebrated the registered sex offender's release from jail with a party at the mansion. Virginia Roberts, one of the litigants in a Florida lawsuit against Epstein's prosecutors, alleges that the second time she was coerced into having sex with prince Andrew was at Epstein's Manhattan mansion in 2001.

Little Saint James

U.S. Virgin Islands

Panoramio

Epstein owns the entire 70-acre island of Little Saint James, which has its own Wikipedia page. (The U.S. Virgin islands is also where his money management firm is based.) The Daily Mirror recently flew a helicopter over what they dub the "isle of sin," and came back with some pretty good shots of what Epstein has built there: a colonnaded villa-style compound designed by luxury resort and hotel designer Edward Tuttle, with a large library, a cinema, surrounding cabanas, and a detached Japanese bathhouse. The island is where Epstein's alleged "sex slave" Virginia Roberts claimed he made her take part in orgies, including one where she was allegedly forced to have sex with Prince Andrew. According to the Mirror, the island could at one time be rented for £4K (~$6K) a night. Over the years, it's hosted the conferences held by the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, which have drawn the likes of Stephen Hawking. Roberts claims she met Bill Clinton once on the island, when he was there to dine with Epstein. Court papers claim that at other times, visitors included "prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well known prime minister and other world leaders."

Oddly enough, providing the third instance of a weird non-animate animal on an Epstein property, in 2009, a blogger based on the island of St. John claimed that this imageshowed a "fake lawn ornament cow" that was seen in different locations on Epstein's island throughout the construction process.

Palm Beach Mansion

Palm Beach, Florida

Daily Mail

Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, once valued at $6.8M, was at the center of the undercover investigation that eventually led to Epstein pleading guilty to a single state charge of soliciting prostitution, becoming a registered sex offender, and serving 13 months out of an 18-month sentence. According to a rather lurid Daily Beast article published in 2010, a police search of the property turned up:

large, framed photos of nude young girls, and similar images... stashed in an armoire and on the computers seized at the house (although police found only bare cables where other computers had been). Some bathrooms were stocked with soap in the shape of sex organs, and various sex toys, such as a "twin torpedo" vibrator and creams and lubricants available at erotic specialty shops, were stowed near the massage tables set up in several rooms upstairs.

Zorro Ranch

Stanley, New Mexico

In 1993, Epstein purchased a 7,500-acre ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, from the late former New Mexico governor Bruce King. He named the ranch "Zorro," and proceeded to build a 26,700-square-foot hilltop mansion that was once said to be the largest home in the state, and has been described as a "stone fortress." A 1995 article in The New Mexicansaid that Epstein's initial plans for the residence described a main house that "will be similar to a Mexican hacienda, with an open-air entry into a courtyard with high-ceiling hallways, stone columns and a central fountain. The living room will measure about 2,100-square-feet, larger than the average house in Santa Fe County. The home will have an elevator, eight bathrooms, four fireplaces and three bedrooms." According to more recent report,Epstein recieved a county permit to build a small airplane hangar and air strip on the ranch.

Epstein has been reported as saying his New Mexico home "makes the town house look like a shack." According to records accessed on Property Shark, the structures on the property were last appraised in 2013 at $18,186,406.

In the recent court filing in Florida, Roberts names Zorro Ranch as one of the place she was sexually abused by Epstein, as well as forced to have sex with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. The Last time Epstein made news in New Mexico, it was when it was revealed that he attempted to contribute to the reelection campaign of former Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Gary King in 2006.

Foch Avenue Apartment

Paris, France

Epstein owns an apartment on Paris' ritzy Avenue Foch.

A Boeing 727

Not technically a piece of real estate, but also kind of a flying piece of real estate. Said to be the only reason Bill Clinton was ever friends with Epstein—that and his campaign donations to democrats—though many in the conservative media are surely speculating otherwise. In September of 2002, Clinton had a weeklong tour of South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and Mozambique coming up to promote anti-AIDS efforts, and former Clinton advisor Doug Band encouraged Epstein to come along and provide the ride. Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker were there, too, which sounds like it must have been kind of weird.

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