#acclivities

[themewarinn]

[sampannamayapvt]

ॐ त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् ।

उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनान् मृत्योर्मुक्षीय मामृतात् ॥

पूजा सामग्री के लिए #संपन्नमाया अगरबत्ती के द्वारा बताई हुए समस्त सामग्रियाँ आसानी से हर जगह उपलब्ध हैं | www.sampannamaya.com पर अवश्य जाकर देखें | यह अत्यंत शुद्ध है और आपके जीवन को सुगंध-मय बना देता है|

#sampannamaya #sampannamayapvt #india #sampannamayaprivetlimited #agarbatti #dhoop #dhoopbatti #incensesticks #fragrance #bhagwan #iskcon #dhoopsticks #eksachhiprarthana #msme #makeinindia #ADMA #acclivity

[amitdasvenom]

#Acclivity #withGalaxy (at Kasauli Hills, Himachal Pradesh) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoM4AECpE6t/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[qvrcll]

no smooth roads for us

Summary: Clive tries to keep his strength at bay. You admonish him for it. Warnings: explicit content / NSFW, rough sex, female reader anatomy, use of the word ‘minx’, dirty talk. A/N: My first time writing for Clive! This was a journey. I want to keep writing for him — reblog’s / comments are always appreciated! :)

You discover quickly that Clive fucks you like he fights.

It starts with the gentlest of kisses, searing hot like a burn from the sun itself. Shy, but he doesn’t mean for it to be. He remedies that by driving you against him till there is no space to give, only his chest that beats with some gratifying noise when you’re bare and naked for him to witness every inch of it.

You don’t tell him, but you like it when you holds you close and fucks you rough. His fingers, calloused with the fatal semblance of war, prove your excitement as they prod and grope at your skin experimentally. He’d fucked you rough once before and refrained from it again — a fear of breaking you, he thinks. He plays it soft now.

When you moan, shudder against the splay of his fingers against the share of your muscle, the pebbled crest of your nipples, he leads his fingers further. Deeper. He tries to ignore the burning heat curdling at his hip, for you, but the intrusion against your thigh is so hard to miss.

Clive — please, touch me, comes your plea.

The madness in your voice makes the blood rush to his cock. It ruins him, makes him want to consume you whole right here, from the heat of his lap. He fights it, though, still, and his jaw bulges from the effort of it.

He begins again, tries to create and follow a slower acclivity. Maybe he could finger you, eat you out, pleasure you delicately beneath the weight of his hot, heavy fingers.

There — there you go, my love.

He splits you open deliciously slow and his remaining fingers swim against the wetness collecting on your clit. There’s a familiar rhythm amped by the joint effort of his fingers on and in your cunt but you want more of something different. A fuck thoroughly rough that you know he can manage.

It’s you who wrenches his hand from your cunt with a disappointing pop — he thinks he’s upset you in some shape or form, that he’s pleasured you too dully or too hard, but soon comes to learn that you’re acting like brat.

Come, now, my love — don’t be like that, he warns. His voice is addictively firm and set, which in turn fuels your need for more. You attempt to wiggle out his grip, piss him off further, but the flux presses against his throbbing, oozing cock, which has already spilt some of its seed against his stomach with the wait.

Don’t — his resolves works no more. His voice is more shout than reason, as he delivers your arms with a bruising feeling from the steely grip they have on them. He’s lost his patience, and his mind, pushing you into the ground with none of the prior promise of tenuity. You’ve angered him, gotten what you want finally.

Is this what you wanted, you minx? Are you happy?

He drives your ass into the floor, kneads it within the roughness of his palm like dough. On regular days, he would work you open till you were gushing and open to a guaranteed degree. Now, he primes his intrusion of your cunt with an animalistic growl, his cock pushing in till you’ve had your fill.

Rough enough?

He mocks you. Gives you no room to recover. Batters your cunt again and again with the rough slap of his hips. He grins wickedly when you cry hot, fat tears and goes to mock you once more.

Why are you crying? Isn’t this what you wanted? Could’ve sat still while I worked you open but you wanted it rough — I’m giving you rough.

You’d never thought it would be this good, this illusive. He flips you till your back faces him, and ploughs into you like none before, delivers messy and violent shocks across your body. There’s barely any touch to his ministrations, just push, as he drives your head against the floor — in the name of take it, take it, I know you can take it.

He suffocates your senses — you clamp harshly against his cock with a loud cry, unsure of your bearings. Your body spasms underneath the weight of his and when he finished with his business, taken his fill as he shatters inside you, he’s quick to smother the quickness of this violence.

I’m — I’m sorry — are you hurt? I got ahead of myself — I’m sorry, my love.

You hush him with shaking hands, and as much as your fingers reject motion, you cradle his cheeks in your palm. The reflective heat from them comforts Clive, leaves him with the blatant truth that this is what you had wanted — and now that you had it, you weren’t in it to stop.

There’s a strange curl to his lips, with the knowledge that comes to him softly in the after-burn.

He liked playing rough.

© 2023 qvrcll. Do not repost any of my works on any platform.

[schismusic]

THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 1: Autechre - or, Into Battle with the Art of Noise

The discography principle may be defined as an objective way to determine whether or not you're worthy of calling a band or artist "your favorite" or "one of your favorites". A possible enunciation of it goes as follows:

"Let u ≝ some asshole, B ≝ {b|b is a band}, n ≝ #({x|x is a record by b}); let p = #({y|y is a record by b in u's possession}) = p1 + p2 wherein p1 ≝ number of physical records by b you own in any format and p2 ≝ number of records by b you have downloaded. If p ≥ n ∨ p2 = n (for n → +∞), then ∃b∈B such that b is one of u's favorite bands."

When u = me, this subset of B (which we might call Bf) is comprised of six bands, off the top of my head: Autechre, Godflesh, Shellac, Kraftwerk, Fugazi and Coil, listed in no particular order.

If you want to read the prologue to this series, go here. Otherwise, let's get going.

The concept of usefulness in the context of art criticism is very slippery and, one could argue, absolutely toxic and painful to the development of artistic expressions of all kinds. I have, in the past, been one of the leading proponents of it, but you have to understand: I routinely dealt with people who would add Arctic Monkeys and late-era Caparezza to their end-of-year lists. Drastic measures were in order, I'm sure you guys get it. In virtually all other instances, defining a record "useless" falls into one of the earliest trappings of retrograde art criticism, which is the supposed non-functionality of bad art, or more punctually the quality of non-functionality as inherently bad - wherein I am rather ready to assure you all that most of my favourite records of the past six or seven years fall into the category of absolutely unapproachable crocks of shit OR are records absolutely no one felt the need for except me (and even then, sometimes I didn't even know I'd love them, see Yellow Eyes' recent neofolk foray Master's Murmur).

A similar argument could be made for the concept of incomprehensibility. There are records that are just cryptic for the hell of it - and it would be unfair to label power electronics as such, in that power electronics is usually very direct with what it is about and how it takes it across, but early Brandt Brauer Frick records might very easily fit the bill: who, really, feels the need for live-played techno with classically trained interpreters except for people who like to groove but also have to pretend they know their shit about music and don't want any of that fake computer shit? Or even, why would anyone legitimately give a shit about a Stephen O'Malley record without guitars? - but Autechre I think are simply a different beast. Wherein the vulgata concerning their production essentially revolves around the idea that their first three are the best, then it's all noises and "self-serving experimentation", whatever the fuck that means, and for as many autism jokes people like to make about their music because they simply don't want to even try to give their music a fair chance to stand on its own and just pretend like "wow these guys sure are making computer farts haha", one of the best conversations about music I've had in a while revolves around something that binds Autechre and another dearly-beloved of all obnoxious music people, and later also featured in this series: Coil. And I'm not talking about the (very openly stated) relationship of most-likely-mutual influence between the two groups, but it does stem from that, or more specifically from the aborted collaborative record they toyed with in the early 2000s. This aforementioned collaborative record (which, in the early 2000s, would have probably sold like pre-sliced and pre-Nutella-coated bread to the admittedly very specific audiences the two projects had, regardless of its actual outcome) was shelved, and I quote verbatim, for "not being good enough", which is simply something that you do not do in electronic music unless you are really, really good at what you do - the best at what you do, even. Which would explain why no one ever shuts the fuck up in that particular world and everyone has like a full record and three splits/EPs out every year.

Autechre is something you have to want to waste a lot of time (and money, if you're an obsessive like me) into. There's a number of very cute cheat codes to getting Autechre but the gist of it is that just about nobody I know actually followed the advice literally everyone hands out - i.e. to start with Incunabula. I know I absolutely didn't. The first Autechre record I listened to was Confield, which I later purchased at a certain particularly well-known record shop in my city: my first thought was I really didn't know what to make of it. In retrospect, it's no surprise: literally any other Autechre record would have been better. There are more accessible ones and more inaccessible ones, but either of these options probably would have given me a different shock that would probably have hit me harder. Had I picked up a record like Amber, or Tri Repetae, I probably would have been like "damn this is very '90s but at the same time it still sounds very futuristic in terms of approach and arrangement choices, there's like a billion albums-of-the-month on Pitchfork that sound exactly like any one of these tracks but stretched to forty minutes to one hour" and maybe give it another listen, and then two, and then before I know it Rsdio becomes my most played track of the year (unfortunately, as you might have guessed, this isn't autobiographical, but that's because I ultimately got Tri Repetae on vinyl and mostly play it from there - it's "incomplete without surface noise", after all). If I had picked elseq, or - God forbid - the NTS Sessions, which at that point had been out for like a year or something, you know for a fact I would have tried to get absolutely fucked up by listening to the full four-hour thing while doing something really stupid, like taking a walk around in a blizzard or while in sleep deprivation or while studying linear algebra hoping that my brain would increase in mass all of a sudden. I would not have gotten it, obviously, because I was and to a massive extent still am an idiot who got lucky. Anyway, the point is that Confield felt and in part still feels to me like it's unexpressed potential, but not in the way a record like Radioactivity by Kraftwerk is: Confield looks at you, the listener, and goes "there's a whole other world where we already are. Too bad you can't see any of this shit, because we most definitely do!". Its second half gets noticeably more focused if you listen to the whole thing in sequence, though.

My second attempt was with Oversteps, bought on the same day as Confield, and again - at that point I was already kind of expecting Autechre to just fucking smoke me right then and there. Of course it did not happen, because Oversteps is a fundamentally easier record to approach than Confield is - and in buying it, I also missed the chance to buy Exai, which promptly disappeared from the record shop the very second I managed to go back there, and which would have probably gotten me in a whole ass elseq loop, but let's not dwell on the past, what the fuck did I know then? It's not like anyone has the idea to start with a two-hour-and-a-half impenetrable wall of glitching after all. Whatever. Oversteps is pretty cool though, because it gave me a pretty neat access into a number of other Autechre factory-seals like their stark sense of melody and a style of compositionl development recalling more the idea of a place than it would an actual track (and not even in the Ambient 4: On Land way, where it's "music that describes environments" inspired by the anything-goes bombastic mnemonic approach of Federico Fellini's Amarcord, but rather in its own way of "music that is the environment it describes": spatially organized arrangements, something meant for you to explore, and as such something that you need to spend time in, perhaps repeatedly). Obviously articulating this train of thought was absolutely out of the question and I therefore kept saying "damn, I need to get to this record and listen to it in full", which I later found out doesn't fly more often than not. Autechre is something you want to get back to and waste a shit ton of time on, every track approached like a little world or some sort of escape room even, where all the clues are there and everything you need to do is look (listen) more intently than you did before. I like to think of Autechre as a challenge and I'm assuming that Sean Booth and Rob Brown kinda see it like that too, but not as a challenge to the listener as much as they do it to challenge themselves.

There are absolutely going to be Autechre records you like more than others, some are not gonna speak to you at all, some might be more approachable or just more stylistically in line with what you do (and the best part is that you're gonna find it changes from person to person), but the best part is that there is never an Autechre record that feels thrown out for a quick buck or rushed or forced to develop old ideas and intuitions - for better or for worse, that is. At the same time there definitely is a form of continuity that makes it especially rewarding to listen to Autechre sequentially, the way some people like to watch and rank a director's filmography.

After the pandemic ended, and as people were beginning to go out again albeit maybe wearing masks and gloves, I dropped out of Mathematics and started watching a ton of movies. I fell in love with Nicolas Winding Refn, a director that makes it really easy to put on a movie and let it slide over your skin bathing you in thrills and aesthetics, but is pretentious enough to make that stuff at least try to have something to say (some people argue that it's detrimental to Refn's work, and to an extent I agree; I, for one, simply can't help but appreciate a man who very gleefully declares that the female experience is a mystery to him and at the same time that there's a sixteen-year-old girl within him and that he plays dolls with his daughters and that he never had a girlfriend until he met his current wife Lia Corfixen. The Neon Demon feels like it'd be just one step away from being a male-gaze-glorifying flick if it wasn't for its inherent absurdity and absolute lack of understanding of human relationships that makes it that bit less relatable and more forcefully estranging). Anyway as I was fixating on Refn's movies and downloaded all of them to watch and rewatch them, I also found myself back onto Autechre and decided to take a step back. This time I picked Amber - Incunabula being described as their masterpiece still sort of intimidated me. In retrospect, if I had heard Incunabula without a clear picture of what Autechre would evolve into, I'd have had a hearty laugh and thought something like "man, this aged horribly". Amber has a bit of an edge to it, despite what Booth & Brown say about it, and the elements left over from Incunabula are turned into a less rigid, more impalpable version of themselves that isn't afraid to, for instance, remove all drums and toy with the listener's sense of rhythm in a way something like Kalpol Introl never really did (see: Nine) or face a horrifying creeping darkness that Incunabula's more clearly urban/cyberpunk sensitivities more swiftly dealt with, for instance on tracks like Teartear.

Not one to be easily discouraged (at least when I feel like it), at the first opportunity I decided to buy a record I didn't already know: the choice fell on Tri Repetae, in that it was the next step in the Autechre canon (EPs notwithstanding) and I knew it'd be a step closer to Confield. I wanted to see what the story went like, on its own terms, because the key to this whole ordeal was that I needed to let the record do the talking before I had an opinion on it. And Tri Repetae really did talk to me, because it was exactly what I expected: it had the more discernible elements of early Autechre but also, again, an edge. It's that edge for me: that's the point of interest I end up into, the sort of liminal in-fieri elements that all Autechre releases imply to an extent, and the fact that something as fundamentally ungraspable as C/Pach or Rsdio feeling like it got back home after a whole sleepless night out walking in the cold could coexist with a veritable banger like Eutow (still the one track from Tri Repetae that elicits the most powerful emotional/elated reactions from me) simply blew my mind. Dancing to Eutow in my room and immediately finding myself bobbing my head to, of course, C/Pach and then Gnit led to the next realization in a long series: after everything that's been said about them, the being a four-dimensional object, the being famously impenetrable to all but the most dedicated nerds, the truth about Autechre is that they are a band about rhythm.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be surprised by this, really, but the conscious realization that what I had read on Wikipedia in passing (that Sean and Rob actually met up in the '80s while in the tagging/hip-hop/electro scene in London) actually had bearing on the duo's production was the key to unlocking the rest of their music. Every single thing Autechre have ever done has a form of pulse in it and it takes movement for it to be fully tapped into. Some hacks have recommended listening to Autechre on headphones (deep cuts on YouTube, I see you!) but as for me, I recommend speakers, possibly big, possibly hi-fi, possibly equalized for techno/dance music, and I recommend listening to them with a lot of free space around you. The inherent exploration of space that dancing entails very easily translates into an exploration of the underlying structures in Autechre's (whatchamacallit) songwriting, and from there the rest follows. Even Incunabula, which I finally tackled in summer 2023 and appreciated for what it is: provided you can deal with outdated sound palettes, an excellent record that stands as a true high mark in the exploration of analog instrumentation possibilities, a true forward-looking and forward-pushing debut outing on whose shoulders all future Autechre releases stand, even the most radical. But Autechre could never stand still and simply replicate Incunabula all over n billion times; that's simply not the cloth they're cut from, and if that was the case I'd be very hard-pressed to think they'd feel as relevant as they do with every subsequent release. That they could drop, in sequence, Exai, the whole five records of elseq and the NTS Sessions boxset and still elicit the electrified reactions they did, both positive and negative.

One of the first serious conversations about music that I had with my old band's bassist was about electronic music, which was actually somewhat foundational to my appreciation of this particular art form (I was a die-hard Daft Punk/Justice guy, Waters of Nazareth and Genesis were to me what Metallica or System of a Down to a number of other people I know: a show of force that made me conscious of the physical impact of sound on a human's body, not just pleasant vibrations to the ears). She told me - and I'm willing to bet that was an old idea that she has since discarded - that she really didn't feel like electronic music was alive, and with music being "life" to her that was a true oxymoron that rendered her incapable of objectively judging electronica. At the time I would have never showed her Autechre, if anything because I did not know them if not by name, but my current understanding of them makes them the most serious counterargument to that affirmation. Autechre's music doesn't try to measure up to the feel of live band jamming because it doesn't need to, despite it often being (according to Booth and Brown) the result of lengthy, additive improvisations that the duo trade back and forth. It simply takes a step sideways, making all analysis on those terms essentially unserviceable and useless. And if it wasn't as massively pretentious as it is, this shit simply wouldn't fly: any tension to a conventionally-imaginable sense of humanity would make it clear that the duo aren't into it really, and ironically it ends up feeling less believable; it starts breathing weird, it turns into a captatio benevolentiae to the listener. And Autechre is meant to challenge us, or rather it's meant to challenge me, and Sean Booth and Rob Brown.

Ironically enough, Autechre's records feel more and more rewarding the more you get familiar with them, and therefore it turns into its own peculiar brand of process music, so to speak. And it's a hell of a process, granted, but it definitely has something to say to you as a listener, if you're willing to give it a shot. Autechre's music is incomprehensible and useless, if you don't know what to make of it, but the only way to know what to make of it is engage in it and make up your own mind about it.

[blacklotus-bloog]

La durezza e la dolcezza camminano fianco a fianco: il coraggio, l'onere delle scelte, i desideri e le aspettative troppe volte disattese. I solchi di alcune rocce non sono poi così diverse dalle rughe sul viso di un uomo sempre attento. Ho visto cose destinate a "passare" e cose che un "giorno sono diventate". Ho visto un tempo in cui una roccia mi sembrava solo una pietra, senza anima, capace di trasmettere diffidenza nell'ostinazione della sua freddezza e ho visto un tempo in cui quella stessa diffidenza è riuscita ad ammutolirmi davanti allo spettacolo della sua fioritura. Resto incantato davanti al coraggio di chi affronta il più acclive dei pendii per godersi il più coraggioso dei fiori. Ti somiglia.

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.

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G.P. - Navelli aprile 2004

[missedstations]

“Lapses” - Sun Tzu-ping

Who keeps looping simplicity like a song? The last slanting light has declared solitude A rope is still missing to perfect the binding Blurt out your sodium-high prayers They almost get pan-fried on the tongue's plateau A symbolic acclivity is delivered To time's address, but no one lives there A goalkeeper, quietly blindfolded Scenes with bittersweet subtitles You finally feel nothing about them Who put the left heart atrium on the lease? In succession, decrepit furniture grows skulls The light responsible for haulage is unacknowledged Planets become self-employers We lost the magic of being kind Translated from the Taiwanese Mandarin by Nicholas Wong

[hellsitesonlybookclub]

20k Leagues under the sea, Jules Verne

part 2, chapter 14-15

CHAPTER XIV THE SOUTH POLE

I rushed on to the platform. Yes! the open sea, with but a few scattered pieces of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea; a world of birds in the air, and myriads of fishes under those waters, which varied from intense blue to olive green, according to the bottom. The thermometer marked 3° C. above zero. It was comparatively spring, shut up as we were behind this iceberg, whose lengthened mass was dimly seen on our northern horizon.

“Are we at the pole?” I asked the Captain, with a beating heart.

“I do not know,” he replied. “At noon I will take our bearings.”

“But will the sun show himself through this fog?” said I, looking at the leaden sky.

“However little it shows, it will be enough,” replied the Captain.

About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height of one hundred and four yards. We made for it, but carefully, for the sea might be strewn with banks. One hour afterwards we had reached it, two hours later we had made the round of it. It measured four or five miles in circumference. A narrow canal separated it from a considerable stretch of land, perhaps a continent, for we could not see its limits. The existence of this land seemed to give some colour to Maury’s theory. The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South Pole and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice of enormous size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic. From this fact he has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encloses considerable continents, as icebergs cannot form in open sea, but only on the coasts. According to these calculations, the mass of ice surrounding the southern pole forms a vast cap, the circumference of which must be, at least, 2,500 miles. But the Nautilus, for fear of running aground, had stopped about three cable-lengths from a strand over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat was launched; the Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and myself were in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the sand, where we ran ashore. Conseil was going to jump on to the land, when I held him back.

“Sir,” said I to Captain Nemo, “to you belongs the honour of first setting foot on this land.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this South Pole, it is because, up to this time, no human being has left a trace there.”

Saying this, he jumped lightly on to the sand. His heart beat with emotion. He climbed a rock, sloping to a little promontory, and there, with his arms crossed, mute and motionless, and with an eager look, he seemed to take possession of these southern regions. After five minutes passed in this ecstasy, he turned to us.

“When you like, sir.”

I landed, followed by Conseil, leaving the two men in the boat. For a long way the soil was composed of a reddish sandy stone, something like crushed brick, scoriae, streams of lava, and pumice-stones. One could not mistake its volcanic origin. In some parts, slight curls of smoke emitted a sulphurous smell, proving that the internal fires had lost nothing of their expansive powers, though, having climbed a high acclivity, I could see no volcano for a radius of several miles. We know that in those Antarctic countries, James Ross found two craters, the Erebus and Terror, in full activity, on the 167th meridian, latitude 77° 32′. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me much restricted. Some lichens lay upon the black rocks; some microscopic plants, rudimentary diatomas, a kind of cells placed between two quartz shells; long purple and scarlet weed, supported on little swimming bladders, which the breaking of the waves brought to the shore. These constituted the meagre flora of this region. The shore was strewn with molluscs, little mussels, and limpets. I also saw myriads of northern clios, one-and-a-quarter inches long, of which a whale would swallow a whole world at a mouthful; and some perfect sea-butterflies, animating the waters on the skirts of the shore.

There appeared on the high bottoms some coral shrubs, of the kind which, according to James Ross, live in the Antarctic seas to the depth of more than 1,000 yards. Then there were little kingfishers and starfish studding the soil. But where life abounded most was in the air. There thousands of birds fluttered and flew of all kinds, deafening us with their cries; others crowded the rock, looking at us as we passed by without fear, and pressing familiarly close by our feet. There were penguins, so agile in the water, heavy and awkward as they are on the ground; they were uttering harsh cries, a large assembly, sober in gesture, but extravagant in clamour. Albatrosses passed in the air, the expanse of their wings being at least four yards and a half, and justly called the vultures of the ocean; some gigantic petrels, and some damiers, a kind of small duck, the underpart of whose body is black and white; then there were a whole series of petrels, some whitish, with brown-bordered wings, others blue, peculiar to the Antarctic seas, and so oily, as I told Conseil, that the inhabitants of the Ferroe Islands had nothing to do before lighting them but to put a wick in.

“A little more,” said Conseil, “and they would be perfect lamps! After that, we cannot expect Nature to have previously furnished them with wicks!”

About half a mile farther on the soil was riddled with ruffs’ nests, a sort of laying-ground, out of which many birds were issuing. Captain Nemo had some hundreds hunted. They uttered a cry like the braying of an ass, were about the size of a goose, slate-colour on the body, white beneath, with a yellow line round their throats; they allowed themselves to be killed with a stone, never trying to escape. But the fog did not lift, and at eleven the sun had not yet shown itself. Its absence made me uneasy. Without it no observations were possible. How, then, could we decide whether we had reached the pole? When I rejoined Captain Nemo, I found him leaning on a piece of rock, silently watching the sky. He seemed impatient and vexed. But what was to be done? This rash and powerful man could not command the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived without the orb of day showing itself for an instant. We could not even tell its position behind the curtain of fog; and soon the fog turned to snow.

“Till to-morrow,” said the Captain, quietly, and we returned to the Nautilus amid these atmospheric disturbances.

The tempest of snow continued till the next day. It was impossible to remain on the platform. From the saloon, where I was taking notes of incidents happening during this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the cries of petrels and albatrosses sporting in the midst of this violent storm. The Nautilus did not remain motionless, but skirted the coast, advancing ten miles more to the south in the half-light left by the sun as it skirted the edge of the horizon. The next day, the 20th of March, the snow had ceased. The cold was a little greater, the thermometer showing 2° below zero. The fog was rising, and I hoped that that day our observations might be taken. Captain Nemo not having yet appeared, the boat took Conseil and myself to land. The soil was still of the same volcanic nature; everywhere were traces of lava, scoriae, and basalt; but the crater which had vomited them I could not see. Here, as lower down, this continent was alive with myriads of birds. But their rule was now divided with large troops of sea-mammals, looking at us with their soft eyes. There were several kinds of seals, some stretched on the earth, some on flakes of ice, many going in and out of the sea. They did not flee at our approach, never having had anything to do with man; and I reckoned that there were provisions there for hundreds of vessels.

“Sir,” said Conseil, “will you tell me the names of these creatures?”

“They are seals and morses.”

It was now eight in the morning. Four hours remained to us before the sun could be observed with advantage. I directed our steps towards a vast bay cut in the steep granite shore. There, I can aver that earth and ice were lost to sight by the numbers of sea-mammals covering them, and I involuntarily sought for old Proteus, the mythological shepherd who watched these immense flocks of Neptune. There were more seals than anything else, forming distinct groups, male and female, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little ones, some already strong enough to go a few steps. When they wished to change their place, they took little jumps, made by the contraction of their bodies, and helped awkwardly enough by their imperfect fin, which, as with the lamantin, their cousins, forms a perfect forearm. I should say that, in the water, which is their element—the spine of these creatures is flexible; with smooth and close skin and webbed feet—they swim admirably. In resting on the earth they take the most graceful attitudes. Thus the ancients, observing their soft and expressive looks, which cannot be surpassed by the most beautiful look a woman can give, their clear voluptuous eyes, their charming positions, and the poetry of their manners, metamorphosed them, the male into a triton and the female into a mermaid. I made Conseil notice the considerable development of the lobes of the brain in these interesting cetaceans. No mammal, except man, has such a quantity of brain matter; they are also capable of receiving a certain amount of education, are easily domesticated, and I think, with other naturalists, that if properly taught they would be of great service as fishing-dogs. The greater part of them slept on the rocks or on the sand. Amongst these seals, properly so called, which have no external ears (in which they differ from the otter, whose ears are prominent), I noticed several varieties of seals about three yards long, with a white coat, bulldog heads, armed with teeth in both jaws, four incisors at the top and four at the bottom, and two large canine teeth in the shape of a fleur-de-lis. Amongst them glided sea-elephants, a kind of seal, with short, flexible trunks. The giants of this species measured twenty feet round and ten yards and a half in length; but they did not move as we approached.

“These creatures are not dangerous?” asked Conseil.

“No; not unless you attack them. When they have to defend their young their rage is terrible, and it is not uncommon for them to break the fishing-boats to pieces.”

“They are quite right,” said Conseil.

“I do not say they are not.”

Two miles farther on we were stopped by the promontory which shelters the bay from the southerly winds. Beyond it we heard loud bellowings such as a troop of ruminants would produce.

“Good!” said Conseil; “a concert of bulls!”

“No; a concert of morses.”

“They are fighting!”

“They are either fighting or playing.”

We now began to climb the blackish rocks, amid unforeseen stumbles, and over stones which the ice made slippery. More than once I rolled over at the expense of my loins. Conseil, more prudent or more steady, did not stumble, and helped me up, saying:

“If, sir, you would have the kindness to take wider steps, you would preserve your equilibrium better.”

Arrived at the upper ridge of the promontory, I saw a vast white plain covered with morses. They were playing amongst themselves, and what we heard were bellowings of pleasure, not of anger.

As I passed these curious animals I could examine them leisurely, for they did not move. Their skins were thick and rugged, of a yellowish tint, approaching to red; their hair was short and scant. Some of them were four yards and a quarter long. Quieter and less timid than their cousins of the north, they did not, like them, place sentinels round the outskirts of their encampment. After examining this city of morses, I began to think of returning. It was eleven o’clock, and, if Captain Nemo found the conditions favourable for observations, I wished to be present at the operation. We followed a narrow pathway running along the summit of the steep shore. At half-past eleven we had reached the place where we landed. The boat had run aground, bringing the Captain. I saw him standing on a block of basalt, his instruments near him, his eyes fixed on the northern horizon, near which the sun was then describing a lengthened curve. I took my place beside him, and waited without speaking. Noon arrived, and, as before, the sun did not appear. It was a fatality. Observations were still wanting. If not accomplished to-morrow, we must give up all idea of taking any. We were indeed exactly at the 20th of March. To-morrow, the 21st, would be the equinox; the sun would disappear behind the horizon for six months, and with its disappearance the long polar night would begin. Since the September equinox it had emerged from the northern horizon, rising by lengthened spirals up to the 21st of December. At this period, the summer solstice of the northern regions, it had begun to descend; and to-morrow was to shed its last rays upon them. I communicated my fears and observations to Captain Nemo.

“You are right, M. Aronnax,” said he; “if to-morrow I cannot take the altitude of the sun, I shall not be able to do it for six months. But precisely because chance has led me into these seas on the 21st of March, my bearings will be easy to take, if at twelve we can see the sun.”

“Why, Captain?”

“Because then the orb of day described such lengthened curves that it is difficult to measure exactly its height above the horizon, and grave errors may be made with instruments.”

“What will you do then?”

“I shall only use my chronometer,” replied Captain Nemo. “If to-morrow, the 21st of March, the disc of the sun, allowing for refraction, is exactly cut by the northern horizon, it will show that I am at the South Pole.”

“Just so,” said I. “But this statement is not mathematically correct, because the equinox does not necessarily begin at noon.”

“Very likely, sir; but the error will not be a hundred yards and we do not want more. Till to-morrow, then!”

Captain Nemo returned on board. Conseil and I remained to survey the shore, observing and studying until five o’clock. Then I went to bed, not, however, without invoking, like the Indian, the favour of the radiant orb. The next day, the 21st of March, at five in the morning, I mounted the platform. I found Captain Nemo there.

“The weather is lightening a little,” said he. “I have some hope. After breakfast we will go on shore and choose a post for observation.”

That point settled, I sought Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. But the obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw that his taciturnity and his bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore, and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting fisherman’s way. Breakfast over, we went on shore. The Nautilus had gone some miles further up in the night. It was a whole league from the coast, above which reared a sharp peak about five hundred yards high. The boat took with me Captain Nemo, two men of the crew, and the instruments, which consisted of a chronometer, a telescope, and a barometer. While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds peculiar to the southern seas; the whale, or the English “right whale,” which has no dorsal fin; the “humpback,” with reeved chest and large, whitish fins, which, in spite of its name, do not form wings; and the fin-back, of a yellowish brown, the liveliest of all the cetacea. This powerful creature is heard a long way off when he throws to a great height columns of air and vapour, which look like whirlwinds of smoke. These different mammals were disporting themselves in troops in the quiet waters; and I could see that this basin of the Antarctic Pole serves as a place of refuge to the cetacea too closely tracked by the hunters. I also noticed large medusæ floating between the reeds.

At nine we landed; the sky was brightening, the clouds were flying to the south, and the fog seemed to be leaving the cold surface of the waters. Captain Nemo went towards the peak, which he doubtless meant to be his observatory. It was a painful ascent over the sharp lava and the pumice-stones, in an atmosphere often impregnated with a sulphurous smell from the smoking cracks. For a man unaccustomed to walk on land, the Captain climbed the steep slopes with an agility I never saw equalled and which a hunter would have envied. We were two hours getting to the summit of this peak, which was half porphyry and half basalt. From thence we looked upon a vast sea which, towards the north, distinctly traced its boundary line upon the sky. At our feet lay fields of dazzling whiteness. Over our heads a pale azure, free from fog. To the north the disc of the sun seemed like a ball of fire, already horned by the cutting of the horizon. From the bosom of the water rose sheaves of liquid jets by hundreds. In the distance lay the Nautilus like a cetacean asleep on the water. Behind us, to the south and east, an immense country and a chaotic heap of rocks and ice, the limits of which were not visible. On arriving at the summit Captain Nemo carefully took the mean height of the barometer, for he would have to consider that in taking his observations. At a quarter to twelve the sun, then seen only by refraction, looked like a golden disc shedding its last rays upon this deserted continent and seas which never man had yet ploughed. Captain Nemo, furnished with a lenticular glass which, by means of a mirror, corrected the refraction, watched the orb sinking below the horizon by degrees, following a lengthened diagonal. I held the chronometer. My heart beat fast. If the disappearance of the half-disc of the sun coincided with twelve o’clock on the chronometer, we were at the pole itself.

“Twelve!” I exclaimed.

“The South Pole!” replied Captain Nemo, in a grave voice, handing me the glass, which showed the orb cut in exactly equal parts by the horizon.

I looked at the last rays crowning the peak, and the shadows mounting by degrees up its slopes. At that moment Captain Nemo, resting with his hand on my shoulder, said:

“I, Captain Nemo, on this 21st day of March, 1868, have reached the South Pole on the ninetieth degree; and I take possession of this part of the globe, equal to one-sixth of the known continents.”

“In whose name, Captain?”

“In my own, sir!”

Saying which, Captain Nemo unfurled a black banner, bearing an “N” in gold quartered on its bunting. Then, turning towards the orb of day, whose last rays lapped the horizon of the sea, he exclaimed:

“Adieu, sun! Disappear, thou radiant orb! rest beneath this open sea, and let a night of six months spread its shadows over my new domains!”

CHAPTER XV ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT?

The next day, the 22nd of March, at six in the morning, preparations for departure were begun. The last gleams of twilight were melting into night. The cold was great, the constellations shone with wonderful intensity. In the zenith glittered that wondrous Southern Cross—the polar bear of Antarctic regions. The thermometer showed 120 below zero, and when the wind freshened it was most biting. Flakes of ice increased on the open water. The sea seemed everywhere alike. Numerous blackish patches spread on the surface, showing the formation of fresh ice. Evidently the southern basin, frozen during the six winter months, was absolutely inaccessible. What became of the whales in that time? Doubtless they went beneath the icebergs, seeking more practicable seas. As to the seals and morses, accustomed to live in a hard climate, they remained on these icy shores. These creatures have the instinct to break holes in the ice-field and to keep them open. To these holes they come for breath; when the birds, driven away by the cold, have emigrated to the north, these sea mammals remain sole masters of the polar continent. But the reservoirs were filling with water, and the Nautilus was slowly descending. At 1,000 feet deep it stopped; its screw beat the waves, and it advanced straight towards the north at a speed of fifteen miles an hour. Towards night it was already floating under the immense body of the iceberg. At three in the morning I was awakened by a violent shock. I sat up in my bed and listened in the darkness, when I was thrown into the middle of the room. The Nautilus, after having struck, had rebounded violently. I groped along the partition, and by the staircase to the saloon, which was lit by the luminous ceiling. The furniture was upset. Fortunately the windows were firmly set, and had held fast. The pictures on the starboard side, from being no longer vertical, were clinging to the paper, whilst those of the port side were hanging at least a foot from the wall. The Nautilus was lying on its starboard side perfectly motionless. I heard footsteps, and a confusion of voices; but Captain Nemo did not appear. As I was leaving the saloon, Ned Land and Conseil entered.

“What is the matter?” said I, at once.

“I came to ask you, sir,” replied Conseil.

“Confound it!” exclaimed the Canadian, “I know well enough! The Nautilus has struck; and, judging by the way she lies, I do not think she will right herself as she did the first time in Torres Straits.”

“But,” I asked, “has she at least come to the surface of the sea?”

“We do not know,” said Conseil.

“It is easy to decide,” I answered. I consulted the manometer. To my great surprise, it showed a depth of more than 180 fathoms. “What does that mean?” I exclaimed.

“We must ask Captain Nemo,” said Conseil.

“But where shall we find him?” said Ned Land.

“Follow me,” said I, to my companions.

We left the saloon. There was no one in the library. At the centre staircase, by the berths of the ship’s crew, there was no one. I thought that Captain Nemo must be in the pilot’s cage. It was best to wait. We all returned to the saloon. For twenty minutes we remained thus, trying to hear the slightest noise which might be made on board the Nautilus, when Captain Nemo entered. He seemed not to see us; his face, generally so impassive, showed signs of uneasiness. He watched the compass silently, then the manometer; and, going to the planisphere, placed his finger on a spot representing the southern seas. I would not interrupt him; but, some minutes later, when he turned towards me, I said, using one of his own expressions in the Torres Straits:

“An incident, Captain?”

“No, sir; an accident this time.”

“Serious?”

“Perhaps.”

“Is the danger immediate?”

“No.”

“The Nautilus has stranded?”

“Yes.”

“And this has happened—how?”

“From a caprice of nature, not from the ignorance of man. Not a mistake has been made in the working. But we cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”

Captain Nemo had chosen a strange moment for uttering this philosophical reflection. On the whole, his answer helped me little.

“May I ask, sir, the cause of this accident?”

“An enormous block of ice, a whole mountain, has turned over,” he replied. “When icebergs are undermined at their base by warmer water or reiterated shocks their centre of gravity rises, and the whole thing turns over. This is what has happened; one of these blocks, as it fell, struck the Nautilus, then, gliding under its hull, raised it with irresistible force, bringing it into beds which are not so thick, where it is lying on its side.”

“But can we not get the Nautilus off by emptying its reservoirs, that it might regain its equilibrium?”

“That, sir, is being done at this moment. You can hear the pump working. Look at the needle of the manometer; it shows that the Nautilus is rising, but the block of ice is floating with it; and, until some obstacle stops its ascending motion, our position cannot be altered.”

Indeed, the Nautilus still held the same position to starboard; doubtless it would right itself when the block stopped. But at this moment who knows if we may not be frightfully crushed between the two glassy surfaces? I reflected on all the consequences of our position. Captain Nemo never took his eyes off the manometer. Since the fall of the iceberg, the Nautilus had risen about a hundred and fifty feet, but it still made the same angle with the perpendicular. Suddenly a slight movement was felt in the hold. Evidently it was righting a little. Things hanging in the saloon were sensibly returning to their normal position. The partitions were nearing the upright. No one spoke. With beating hearts we watched and felt the straightening. The boards became horizontal under our feet. Ten minutes passed.

“At last we have righted!” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” said Captain Nemo, going to the door of the saloon.

“But are we floating?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he replied; “since the reservoirs are not empty; and, when empty, the Nautilus must rise to the surface of the sea.”

We were in open sea; but at a distance of about ten yards, on either side of the Nautilus, rose a dazzling wall of ice. Above and beneath the same wall. Above, because the lower surface of the iceberg stretched over us like an immense ceiling. Beneath, because the overturned block, having slid by degrees, had found a resting-place on the lateral walls, which kept it in that position. The Nautilus was really imprisoned in a perfect tunnel of ice more than twenty yards in breadth, filled with quiet water. It was easy to get out of it by going either forward or backward, and then make a free passage under the iceberg, some hundreds of yards deeper. The luminous ceiling had been extinguished, but the saloon was still resplendent with intense light. It was the powerful reflection from the glass partition sent violently back to the sheets of the lantern. I cannot describe the effect of the voltaic rays upon the great blocks so capriciously cut; upon every angle, every ridge, every facet was thrown a different light, according to the nature of the veins running through the ice; a dazzling mine of gems, particularly of sapphires, their blue rays crossing with the green of the emerald. Here and there were opal shades of wonderful softness, running through bright spots like diamonds of fire, the brilliancy of which the eye could not bear. The power of the lantern seemed increased a hundredfold, like a lamp through the lenticular plates of a first-class lighthouse.

“How beautiful! how beautiful!” cried Conseil.

“Yes,” I said, “it is a wonderful sight. Is it not, Ned?”

“Yes, confound it! Yes,” answered Ned Land, “it is superb! I am mad at being obliged to admit it. No one has ever seen anything like it; but the sight may cost us dear. And, if I must say all, I think we are seeing here things which God never intended man to see.”

Ned was right, it was too beautiful. Suddenly a cry from Conseil made me turn.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Shut your eyes, sir! Do not look, sir!” Saying which, Conseil clapped his hands over his eyes.

“But what is the matter, my boy?”

“I am dazzled, blinded.”

My eyes turned involuntarily towards the glass, but I could not stand the fire which seemed to devour them. I understood what had happened. The Nautilus had put on full speed. All the quiet lustre of the ice-walls was at once changed into flashes of lightning. The fire from these myriads of diamonds was blinding. It required some time to calm our troubled looks. At last the hands were taken down.

“Faith, I should never have believed it,” said Conseil.

It was then five in the morning; and at that moment a shock was felt at the bows of the Nautilus. I knew that its spur had struck a block of ice. It must have been a false manœuvre, for this submarine tunnel, obstructed by blocks, was not very easy navigation. I thought that Captain Nemo, by changing his course, would either turn these obstacles or else follow the windings of the tunnel. In any case, the road before us could not be entirely blocked. But, contrary to my expectations, the Nautilus took a decided retrograde motion.

“We are going backwards?” said Conseil.

“Yes,” I replied. “This end of the tunnel can have no egress.”

“And then?”

“Then,” said I, “the working is easy. We must go back again, and go out at the southern opening. That is all.”

In speaking thus, I wished to appear more confident than I really was. But the retrograde motion of the Nautilus was increasing; and, reversing the screw, it carried us at great speed.

“It will be a hindrance,” said Ned.

“What does it matter, some hours more or less, provided we get out at last?”

“Yes,” repeated Ned Land, “provided we do get out at last!”

For a short time I walked from the saloon to the library. My companions were silent. I soon threw myself on an ottoman, and took a book, which my eyes overran mechanically. A quarter of an hour after, Conseil, approaching me, said, “Is what you are reading very interesting, sir?”

“Very interesting!” I replied.

“I should think so, sir. It is your own book you are reading.”

“My book?”

And indeed I was holding in my hand the work on the Great Submarine Depths. I did not even dream of it. I closed the book and returned to my walk. Ned and Conseil rose to go.

“Stay here, my friends,” said I, detaining them. “Let us remain together until we are out of this block.”

“As you please, sir,” Conseil replied.

Some hours passed. I often looked at the instruments hanging from the partition. The manometer showed that the Nautilus kept at a constant depth of more than three hundred yards; the compass still pointed to south; the log indicated a speed of twenty miles an hour, which, in such a cramped space, was very great. But Captain Nemo knew that he could not hasten too much, and that minutes were worth ages to us. At twenty-five minutes past eight a second shock took place, this time from behind. I turned pale. My companions were close by my side. I seized Conseil’s hand. Our looks expressed our feelings better than words. At this moment the Captain entered the saloon. I went up to him.

“Our course is barred southward?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. The iceberg has shifted and closed every outlet.”

“We are blocked up then?”

“Yes.”

[putschki1969]

Dear Sarah, what do you think about the members of kalafina singing kalafina song alone?

Hello there lovely anon!

Hmmmm...I'd say I am pretty neutral about it? 

I am certainly not one of those obsessed fans who DEMAND that they sing a ton of their old Kala-songs at every event. We are talking about their solo acclivities here, it would defeat the purpose of becoming a solo artist if they kept sticking to the old group stuff. The focus should definitely be on their solo work. Of course they are very much aware that a majority of their fanbase is made up of YK/Kalafina fans so to a certain degree, the girls are trying to honour that but it shouldn’t be the main goal to cater to these fan wishes.

I am also not one of those crazy fans who believe they should NOT be allowed to sing Kalafina songs AT ALL just because they are solo artists now. That’s honestly ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense. As members of Kalafina, it is their prerogative to sing these songs whenever and however they want. Why ignore something that has been an integral part of their lives for over ten years? Kalafina is important to all three of them, they love and respect this music so there is generally nothing wrong with them paying tribute to that legacy by covering a song once in a while. Provided of course that they are actually WILLING to sing these songs. All three of them seem to have certain reservations towards performing Kala-songs by themselves which is understandable since it is somewhat challenging to tackle these songs alone. On an emotional level it is kinda tricky too because it probably brings back all sorts of memories.

In conclusion, I am always happy to hear their Kala-self-covers [although I will openly admit that I don’t always love them] but I 100% respect if they would rather not include those songs in their setlist. Let’s just say that I am A-Okay with whatever they feel is best 🤷 Whether that will lead to success in the long-run is another story for another day...

[lmstella]

@arcaeda

Swordsmasters of Elyos and Hoshido have long inspired people with their signature finishing move: the ability to cut through an opponent with dazzling speed, so fast that one can’t even perceive the blade leaving its sheath. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion reignites interest in learning these techniques. Determined students have made some progress but haven’t quite mastered the move. Think you can help them? [ Grants Sword +1 ]

In truth, Limstella’s greatest advantage lies in their magical prowess — their sharp reason skill, bolstering the power they wield magic with. But that is not to say that Limstella has never carried a blade. In fact, there is a small curved dagger, always at their side, married to their hip as though a natural companion. It has served them well, and claimed more than a few lives; not due, however, to acclivity to swordplay, but rather, talent in stealth. (Daggers, after all, were incredibly close combat weapons. Once you had been discovered, they were nigh useless.)

Today, Limstella stands with a sword, wielding it in a manner that does not immediately give the impression that they are unskilled with it. (Then again, perhaps unskilled is unkind — they can wield it, and use it, all well enough.) They face a student, blue eyes dazzling and focused in a way Limstella’s never are. She hopes, perhaps, to learn from them, and whether or not either of them are terribly acclimated with the weapon, there is much to learn by doing. Limstella knows that well. Even a clash between two relative novices can prove fruitful — far more than struggling uselessly against too strong opponent, or doing nothing at all.

Wordless, they shoot forward, movement like lightning, sword swinging to the right of the blue-haired student’s, as though to cut at her arm.

[themewarinn]

[ticiie]

week 26: "say that again!"

prompt from the off-season winter sport challenge

characters: Marco Odermatt, Gino Caviezel, Justin Murisier, Renzo Valsecchi

lenght: 732 words

author's note: i think it was Justin who had the inspiring picture in his story on ig so i'd very much like to thank him for that inspo

The sun was only just rising behind the Chilean mountains, a fresh wind came sweeping across the uneven site. Marco let his gaze wander. The morning was clear, almost peaceful with barely a sound disturbing the quiet. No cloud was in sight and thanks to that, the snow beneath Marcos’s skis was as hard as rock, giving him and his fellow teammates the best conditions for the training that was scheduled for today. Camp was already reaching it’s end again and the first race of the new season was getting closer and closer with each day. For the past weeks, excitement and fear had taken their turns in getting a grasp on Marcos’s sleep. He hadn’t told any of the other athletes or coaches about it, the only one that knew was Gabriel. Marco had figured telling him would cause the least amount of drama. And it had felt good to hear encouraging words from someone who knew Marco so well like Gabriel did but still had a more neutral view on things than for example Renzo or Hannes did. According to Gabriel, Marco had nothing to be worried about, at least not for now. But somehow, Marco felt as if a storm was brewing up inside of him, one of the bad kinds that tore down walls and every stability possible and left nothing behind than broken pieces and his life in ruins.

“You’ll get wrinkles from frowning so much.” Gino’s voice pulled Marco back to the surface and into reality again. He was standing to his right, leaning on his ski poles with the racing suit still hanging low on his hip.

“I wasn’t frowning”, Marco replied and Gino made a disapproving sound before following him down the first acclivity to where Renzo had set up the starting gate. Since the Swiss team wasn’t the only one taking benefits from the good conditions in South America, a line had already formed behind the gate and it was still early enough into the season that the good mood wasn’t affected by it. No one was eager to be living in competitive spirit already again, they would get plenty of time to do so later this year.

“Took you long enough”, Justin said when he recognised Marco and Gino. They queued behind him and Marco resisted the urge to throw a nasty word at him and instead showed him the middle finger. Not very impressive considering he was wearing thick gloves but it was the thought that mattered.

“Why’s the line moving so slowly anyways?”, Gino asked after he had zipped up his suit. Marco craned his neck and caught a glimpse of what he assumed was a very good reason for the delay. Elmo, the Australian Shepard that belonged to one of the American athletes, had made himself comfortable in the middle of the slope, in a spot where the sun could warm his fur and every athlete had to pass by to get to the gate, increasing the number of strokes possible by a hundred percent. No one could resist Elmo’s charm, he had been the star of the camp ever since the Americans had arrived and it seemed as if he wasn’t willing to give up neither that position, nor the one he had claimed on the slope. The only person not smitten by the dog was Renzo. He urged them all to a hurry. “Come on guys, we don’t have all day!”

“You’re just jealous no one is telling you what a good guy you are!”, one of the Norwegians (Marco believed it was Lucas) shouted from the back of the line, earning a handful of laughers and an annoyed huff from Renzo.

Once Marco reached Elmo, he crouched down and petted him behind the ears while also looking directly at Gino.

“You know”, he started and got up again. “Once we both are sick of skiing and retire, we could get a dog too?”

Gino exhaled in surprise. He pulled up his goggles, eyes bright in excitement. “Say that again!”

Marco just smirked and left without saying anything. Renzo started the interval and a second later, Marcos’s mind had gotten completely blank from everything apart what was lying directly in front of him and that was the eager to win not only this session but the season, along with a happy future with Gino by his side.

[20k-leagues-speedrun]

CHAPTER XIV THE SOUTH POLE

I rushed on to the platform. Yes! the open sea, with but a few scattered pieces of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea; a world of birds in the air, and myriads of fishes under those waters, which varied from intense blue to olive green, according to the bottom. The thermometer marked 3° C. above zero. It was comparatively spring, shut up as we were behind this iceberg, whose lengthened mass was dimly seen on our northern horizon.

“Are we at the pole?” I asked the Captain, with a beating heart.

“I do not know,” he replied. “At noon I will take our bearings.”

“But will the sun show himself through this fog?” said I, looking at the leaden sky.

“However little it shows, it will be enough,” replied the Captain.

About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height of one hundred and four yards. We made for it, but carefully, for the sea might be strewn with banks. One hour afterwards we had reached it, two hours later we had made the round of it. It measured four or five miles in circumference. A narrow canal separated it from a considerable stretch of land, perhaps a continent, for we could not see its limits. The existence of this land seemed to give some colour to Maury’s theory. The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South Pole and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice of enormous size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic. From this fact he has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encloses considerable continents, as icebergs cannot form in open sea, but only on the coasts. According to these calculations, the mass of ice surrounding the southern pole forms a vast cap, the circumference of which must be, at least, 2,500 miles. But the Nautilus, for fear of running aground, had stopped about three cable-lengths from a strand over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat was launched; the Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and myself were in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the sand, where we ran ashore. Conseil was going to jump on to the land, when I held him back.

“Sir,” said I to Captain Nemo, “to you belongs the honour of first setting foot on this land.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this South Pole, it is because, up to this time, no human being has left a trace there.”

Saying this, he jumped lightly on to the sand. His heart beat with emotion. He climbed a rock, sloping to a little promontory, and there, with his arms crossed, mute and motionless, and with an eager look, he seemed to take possession of these southern regions. After five minutes passed in this ecstasy, he turned to us.

“When you like, sir.”

I landed, followed by Conseil, leaving the two men in the boat. For a long way the soil was composed of a reddish sandy stone, something like crushed brick, scoriae, streams of lava, and pumice-stones. One could not mistake its volcanic origin. In some parts, slight curls of smoke emitted a sulphurous smell, proving that the internal fires had lost nothing of their expansive powers, though, having climbed a high acclivity, I could see no volcano for a radius of several miles. We know that in those Antarctic countries, James Ross found two craters, the Erebus and Terror, in full activity, on the 167th meridian, latitude 77° 32′. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me much restricted. Some lichens lay upon the black rocks; some microscopic plants, rudimentary diatomas, a kind of cells placed between two quartz shells; long purple and scarlet weed, supported on little swimming bladders, which the breaking of the waves brought to the shore. These constituted the meagre flora of this region. The shore was strewn with molluscs, little mussels, and limpets. I also saw myriads of northern clios, one-and-a-quarter inches long, of which a whale would swallow a whole world at a mouthful; and some perfect sea-butterflies, animating the waters on the skirts of the shore.

There appeared on the high bottoms some coral shrubs, of the kind which, according to James Ross, live in the Antarctic seas to the depth of more than 1,000 yards. Then there were little kingfishers and starfish studding the soil. But where life abounded most was in the air. There thousands of birds fluttered and flew of all kinds, deafening us with their cries; others crowded the rock, looking at us as we passed by without fear, and pressing familiarly close by our feet. There were penguins, so agile in the water, heavy and awkward as they are on the ground; they were uttering harsh cries, a large assembly, sober in gesture, but extravagant in clamour. Albatrosses passed in the air, the expanse of their wings being at least four yards and a half, and justly called the vultures of the ocean; some gigantic petrels, and some damiers, a kind of small duck, the underpart of whose body is black and white; then there were a whole series of petrels, some whitish, with brown-bordered wings, others blue, peculiar to the Antarctic seas, and so oily, as I told Conseil, that the inhabitants of the Ferroe Islands had nothing to do before lighting them but to put a wick in.

“A little more,” said Conseil, “and they would be perfect lamps! After that, we cannot expect Nature to have previously furnished them with wicks!”

About half a mile farther on the soil was riddled with ruffs’ nests, a sort of laying-ground, out of which many birds were issuing. Captain Nemo had some hundreds hunted. They uttered a cry like the braying of an ass, were about the size of a goose, slate-colour on the body, white beneath, with a yellow line round their throats; they allowed themselves to be killed with a stone, never trying to escape. But the fog did not lift, and at eleven the sun had not yet shown itself. Its absence made me uneasy. Without it no observations were possible. How, then, could we decide whether we had reached the pole? When I rejoined Captain Nemo, I found him leaning on a piece of rock, silently watching the sky. He seemed impatient and vexed. But what was to be done? This rash and powerful man could not command the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived without the orb of day showing itself for an instant. We could not even tell its position behind the curtain of fog; and soon the fog turned to snow.

“Till to-morrow,” said the Captain, quietly, and we returned to the Nautilus amid these atmospheric disturbances.

The tempest of snow continued till the next day. It was impossible to remain on the platform. From the saloon, where I was taking notes of incidents happening during this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the cries of petrels and albatrosses sporting in the midst of this violent storm. The Nautilus did not remain motionless, but skirted the coast, advancing ten miles more to the south in the half-light left by the sun as it skirted the edge of the horizon. The next day, the 20th of March, the snow had ceased. The cold was a little greater, the thermometer showing 2° below zero. The fog was rising, and I hoped that that day our observations might be taken. Captain Nemo not having yet appeared, the boat took Conseil and myself to land. The soil was still of the same volcanic nature; everywhere were traces of lava, scoriae, and basalt; but the crater which had vomited them I could not see. Here, as lower down, this continent was alive with myriads of birds. But their rule was now divided with large troops of sea-mammals, looking at us with their soft eyes. There were several kinds of seals, some stretched on the earth, some on flakes of ice, many going in and out of the sea. They did not flee at our approach, never having had anything to do with man; and I reckoned that there were provisions there for hundreds of vessels.

“Sir,” said Conseil, “will you tell me the names of these creatures?”

“They are seals and morses.”

It was now eight in the morning. Four hours remained to us before the sun could be observed with advantage. I directed our steps towards a vast bay cut in the steep granite shore. There, I can aver that earth and ice were lost to sight by the numbers of sea-mammals covering them, and I involuntarily sought for old Proteus, the mythological shepherd who watched these immense flocks of Neptune. There were more seals than anything else, forming distinct groups, male and female, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little ones, some already strong enough to go a few steps. When they wished to change their place, they took little jumps, made by the contraction of their bodies, and helped awkwardly enough by their imperfect fin, which, as with the lamantin, their cousins, forms a perfect forearm. I should say that, in the water, which is their element—the spine of these creatures is flexible; with smooth and close skin and webbed feet—they swim admirably. In resting on the earth they take the most graceful attitudes. Thus the ancients, observing their soft and expressive looks, which cannot be surpassed by the most beautiful look a woman can give, their clear voluptuous eyes, their charming positions, and the poetry of their manners, metamorphosed them, the male into a triton and the female into a mermaid. I made Conseil notice the considerable development of the lobes of the brain in these interesting cetaceans. No mammal, except man, has such a quantity of brain matter; they are also capable of receiving a certain amount of education, are easily domesticated, and I think, with other naturalists, that if properly taught they would be of great service as fishing-dogs. The greater part of them slept on the rocks or on the sand. Amongst these seals, properly so called, which have no external ears (in which they differ from the otter, whose ears are prominent), I noticed several varieties of seals about three yards long, with a white coat, bulldog heads, armed with teeth in both jaws, four incisors at the top and four at the bottom, and two large canine teeth in the shape of a fleur-de-lis. Amongst them glided sea-elephants, a kind of seal, with short, flexible trunks. The giants of this species measured twenty feet round and ten yards and a half in length; but they did not move as we approached.

“These creatures are not dangerous?” asked Conseil.

“No; not unless you attack them. When they have to defend their young their rage is terrible, and it is not uncommon for them to break the fishing-boats to pieces.”

“They are quite right,” said Conseil.

“I do not say they are not.”

Two miles farther on we were stopped by the promontory which shelters the bay from the southerly winds. Beyond it we heard loud bellowings such as a troop of ruminants would produce.

“Good!” said Conseil; “a concert of bulls!”

“No; a concert of morses.”

“They are fighting!”

“They are either fighting or playing.”

We now began to climb the blackish rocks, amid unforeseen stumbles, and over stones which the ice made slippery. More than once I rolled over at the expense of my loins. Conseil, more prudent or more steady, did not stumble, and helped me up, saying:

“If, sir, you would have the kindness to take wider steps, you would preserve your equilibrium better.”

Arrived at the upper ridge of the promontory, I saw a vast white plain covered with morses. They were playing amongst themselves, and what we heard were bellowings of pleasure, not of anger.

As I passed these curious animals I could examine them leisurely, for they did not move. Their skins were thick and rugged, of a yellowish tint, approaching to red; their hair was short and scant. Some of them were four yards and a quarter long. Quieter and less timid than their cousins of the north, they did not, like them, place sentinels round the outskirts of their encampment. After examining this city of morses, I began to think of returning. It was eleven o’clock, and, if Captain Nemo found the conditions favourable for observations, I wished to be present at the operation. We followed a narrow pathway running along the summit of the steep shore. At half-past eleven we had reached the place where we landed. The boat had run aground, bringing the Captain. I saw him standing on a block of basalt, his instruments near him, his eyes fixed on the northern horizon, near which the sun was then describing a lengthened curve. I took my place beside him, and waited without speaking. Noon arrived, and, as before, the sun did not appear. It was a fatality. Observations were still wanting. If not accomplished to-morrow, we must give up all idea of taking any. We were indeed exactly at the 20th of March. To-morrow, the 21st, would be the equinox; the sun would disappear behind the horizon for six months, and with its disappearance the long polar night would begin. Since the September equinox it had emerged from the northern horizon, rising by lengthened spirals up to the 21st of December. At this period, the summer solstice of the northern regions, it had begun to descend; and to-morrow was to shed its last rays upon them. I communicated my fears and observations to Captain Nemo.

“You are right, M. Aronnax,” said he; “if to-morrow I cannot take the altitude of the sun, I shall not be able to do it for six months. But precisely because chance has led me into these seas on the 21st of March, my bearings will be easy to take, if at twelve we can see the sun.”

“Why, Captain?”

“Because then the orb of day described such lengthened curves that it is difficult to measure exactly its height above the horizon, and grave errors may be made with instruments.”

“What will you do then?”

“I shall only use my chronometer,” replied Captain Nemo. “If to-morrow, the 21st of March, the disc of the sun, allowing for refraction, is exactly cut by the northern horizon, it will show that I am at the South Pole.”

“Just so,” said I. “But this statement is not mathematically correct, because the equinox does not necessarily begin at noon.”

“Very likely, sir; but the error will not be a hundred yards and we do not want more. Till to-morrow, then!”

Captain Nemo returned on board. Conseil and I remained to survey the shore, observing and studying until five o’clock. Then I went to bed, not, however, without invoking, like the Indian, the favour of the radiant orb. The next day, the 21st of March, at five in the morning, I mounted the platform. I found Captain Nemo there.

“The weather is lightening a little,” said he. “I have some hope. After breakfast we will go on shore and choose a post for observation.”

That point settled, I sought Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. But the obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw that his taciturnity and his bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore, and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting fisherman’s way. Breakfast over, we went on shore. The Nautilus had gone some miles further up in the night. It was a whole league from the coast, above which reared a sharp peak about five hundred yards high. The boat took with me Captain Nemo, two men of the crew, and the instruments, which consisted of a chronometer, a telescope, and a barometer. While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds peculiar to the southern seas; the whale, or the English “right whale,” which has no dorsal fin; the “humpback,” with reeved chest and large, whitish fins, which, in spite of its name, do not form wings; and the fin-back, of a yellowish brown, the liveliest of all the cetacea. This powerful creature is heard a long way off when he throws to a great height columns of air and vapour, which look like whirlwinds of smoke. These different mammals were disporting themselves in troops in the quiet waters; and I could see that this basin of the Antarctic Pole serves as a place of refuge to the cetacea too closely tracked by the hunters. I also noticed large medusæ floating between the reeds.

At nine we landed; the sky was brightening, the clouds were flying to the south, and the fog seemed to be leaving the cold surface of the waters. Captain Nemo went towards the peak, which he doubtless meant to be his observatory. It was a painful ascent over the sharp lava and the pumice-stones, in an atmosphere often impregnated with a sulphurous smell from the smoking cracks. For a man unaccustomed to walk on land, the Captain climbed the steep slopes with an agility I never saw equalled and which a hunter would have envied. We were two hours getting to the summit of this peak, which was half porphyry and half basalt. From thence we looked upon a vast sea which, towards the north, distinctly traced its boundary line upon the sky. At our feet lay fields of dazzling whiteness. Over our heads a pale azure, free from fog. To the north the disc of the sun seemed like a ball of fire, already horned by the cutting of the horizon. From the bosom of the water rose sheaves of liquid jets by hundreds. In the distance lay the Nautilus like a cetacean asleep on the water. Behind us, to the south and east, an immense country and a chaotic heap of rocks and ice, the limits of which were not visible. On arriving at the summit Captain Nemo carefully took the mean height of the barometer, for he would have to consider that in taking his observations. At a quarter to twelve the sun, then seen only by refraction, looked like a golden disc shedding its last rays upon this deserted continent and seas which never man had yet ploughed. Captain Nemo, furnished with a lenticular glass which, by means of a mirror, corrected the refraction, watched the orb sinking below the horizon by degrees, following a lengthened diagonal. I held the chronometer. My heart beat fast. If the disappearance of the half-disc of the sun coincided with twelve o’clock on the chronometer, we were at the pole itself.

“Twelve!” I exclaimed.

“The South Pole!” replied Captain Nemo, in a grave voice, handing me the glass, which showed the orb cut in exactly equal parts by the horizon.

I looked at the last rays crowning the peak, and the shadows mounting by degrees up its slopes. At that moment Captain Nemo, resting with his hand on my shoulder, said:

“I, Captain Nemo, on this 21st day of March, 1868, have reached the South Pole on the ninetieth degree; and I take possession of this part of the globe, equal to one-sixth of the known continents.”

“In whose name, Captain?”

“In my own, sir!”

Saying which, Captain Nemo unfurled a black banner, bearing an “N” in gold quartered on its bunting. Then, turning towards the orb of day, whose last rays lapped the horizon of the sea, he exclaimed:

“Adieu, sun! Disappear, thou radiant orb! rest beneath this open sea, and let a night of six months spread its shadows over my new domains!”

[flipchild]

May the road rise to meet those along and about the endless acclivity.

May the rain soak your brow.

May the rain hesitate, hesitate only in cold teardrops hung off the edges of lashes & lids.

Not the devil's own luck... but you're on the trail, after all.

EPIPHANY IN TRANSIT

[peteroo]

24.May.24

Let us seal the deal by agreeing that your proclivity for berg bits exhibiting acclivity and my preference for flatter floe shall, henceforth, be sufficient reasons for us presenting to our family and friends under the sobriquets Sledder and Bedder. ; )

[wordofthehour]

Word of The Hour: bank

English: bank 1. a steep acclivity, as the slope of a hill, or the side of a ravine 2. a deposit of ore or coal, worked by excavations above water level 3. a high seat, or seat of distinction or judgment ------------ - Chinese: 银行、河岸 - French: une banque - German: die Bank - Hindi: बैंक - Italian: banca - Portuguese: banco - Spanish: banco ------------ Report an incorrect translation @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/translations