#german institutes near me

[macabresymphonies]

Who are the major players in The Magnus Protocol?

The more we delve into the season, the more it, becomes apparent that alchemy is a big theme this season. If you haven't already, read more on my theory how The Magnus Protocol is about a race between alchemists if you want more context on what I will be talking about in the post.

It's all speculation, but cross referencing the Klaus sheet from the ARG, which is an excel sheet containing other incidents we don't know much about (it's also all in german, so that's fun), there seems to be three major "named" players in the sheet Lady M., Mr M. and Mr B.

They are only attributed few incidents, but combining historical data and few times location is mentioned we can speculate on their identity assuming they are all supposed to be famous alchemists.

I will also mention, the idea that alchemists gainied immortality and are living up to today is not new, Nicolas Flamel and John Dee are both told to have gained immortality and hiding among us today.

Lady M.

There isn't many female achemists throughout history (because if men play with chemicals it's called "alchemical pursuit" while if a woman does so it's suddenly "witchcraft" am I right?), but one of the most prominent ones is also one of the oldest ones out there: Mary the Prophetess.

She's basically the grandmother of all alchemy. Ancient, as even in the oldest sources of alchemy from the 4th century she's described as have been living in the past. Her being involved in an incident in London is not as weird considering that her home is probably long gone anyway. She's also only one where date of incident was mentioned and it's only few months before the events of the podcast begun.

Mr M.

Involved in an incident in Berlin he's to be assumed of German origin and crossreferencing famous alchemists I think I've got an absolutely perfect fit: Albertus Magnus.

Literally named "Doctor universalis" for being a German scholar knowledgable about and cataloguing basically everything. Many people think Magnus Institue is related to Jonah Magnus, but let's remember this universe is much more similar to ours. Maybe Magnus Institute and Magnus Protocol aren't about Jonah Magnus, but relate to Albertus Magnus instead. Category number in the incident is 2, which by my previous theory would mean it involved the matters of The Mind.

Mr B.

Based on Somerset and the fact this person deals with The Soul (1) and to less of a degree The Mind (2) I think the pick is pretty apparent: Roger Bacon

Named Doctor Mirabilis, "the wonderful teacher", born near Ilchester, Somerset, outside of being one the great English alchemists he's well known for two things - he has placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism (and many experiments) and that he was involved in creation of the brazen head, a necromantic device that would answear questions, supposedly through an entraped human soul. Both of these align well and to me, him being born in Somerset basically confirms it.

It's worth mentioning, Mr B. was the only person mentioned to have created a project with a rank S, meaing he's probably in posession of the most powerful item in The Magnus Protocol universe.

[thoughtportal]

The Congo’s role in creating the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was kept secret for decades, but the legacy of its involvement is still being felt today.

“The word Shinkolobwe fills me with grief and sorrow,” says Susan Williams, a historian at the UK Institute of Commonwealth Studies. “It’s not a happy word, it’s one I associate with terrible grief and suffering.”

Few people know what, or even where, Shinkolobwe is. But this small mine in the southern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), played a part in one of the most violent and devastating events in history.

More than 7,500 miles away, on 6 August, bells will toll across Hiroshima, Japan, to mark 75 years since the atomic bomb fell on the city. Dignitaries and survivors will gather to remember those who died in the blast and resulting radioactive fallout. Thousands of lanterns carrying messages of peace will be set afloat on the Motoyasu River. Three days later, similar commemorations will be held in Nagasaki.

No such ceremony will take place in the DRC. Yet both nations are inextricably linked by the atomic bomb, the effects of which are still being felt to this day.

The Shinkolobwe mine – named after a kind of boiled apple that would leave a burn if squeezed – was the source for nearly all of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project, culminating with the construction of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

But the story of the mine didn’t end with the bombs. Its contribution to the Little Boy and Fat Man has shaped the DRC’s ruinous political history and civil wars over the decades that followed. Even today the mine’s legacy can still be seen in the health of the communities who live near it.

“It’s an ongoing tragedy,” says Williams, who has examined the role of Shinkolobwe in her book Spies in the Congo. She believes there needs to be greater recognition of how the exploitation and desire to control the mine’s contents by Western powers played a role in the country’s troubles.

Mombilo too is campaigning to raise awareness of the role played by the Congo in deciding the outcome of World War Two, as well as the burden it still carries because of this. In 2016, the CCSSA’s Missing Link forum brought together activists, historians, analysts, and children of those affected by the atomic bomb, both from Japan and from the DR Congo. “We are planning to bring back the history of Shinkolobwe, so we can make the world know,” says Mombilo.

Out of Africa

The story of Shinkolobwe began when a rich seam of uranium was discovered there in 1915, while the Congo was under colonial rule by Belgium. There was little demand for uranium back then: its mineral form is known as pitchblende, from a German phrase describing it as a worthless rock. Instead, the land was mined by the Belgian company Union Minière for its traces of radium, a valuable element that had been recently isolated by Marie and Pierre Curie.  

In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found – Tom Zoellner

It was only when nuclear fission was discovered in 1938 that the potential of uranium became apparent. After hearing about the discovery, Albert Einstein immediately wrote to US president Franklin D Roosevelt, advising him that the element could be used to generate a colossal amount of energy – even to construct powerful bombs. In 1942, US military strategists decided to buy as much uranium as they could to pursue what became known as the Manhattan Project. And while mines existed in Colorado and Canada, nowhere in the world had as much uranium as the Congo.

“The geology of Shinkolobwe is described as a freak of nature,” says Tom Zoellner, who visited Shinkolobwe in the course of writing Uranium – War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. “In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found.”

In a deal with Union Minière – negotiated by the British, who owned a 30% interest in the company – the US secured 1,200 tonnes of Congolese uranium, which was stockpiled on Staten Island, US, and an additional 3,000 tonnes that was stored above ground at the mine in Shinkolobwe. But it was not enough. US Army engineers were dispatched to drain the mine, which had fallen into disuse, and bring it back into production.

Under Belgian rule, Congolese workers toiled day and night in the open pit, sending hundreds of tonnes of uranium ore to the US every month. “Shinkolobwe decided who would be the next leader of the world,” says Mombilo. “Everything started there.”

All of this was carried out under a blanket of secrecy, so as not to alert Axis powers about the existence of the Manhattan Project. Shinkolobwe was erased from maps, and spies sent to the region to sow deliberate disinformation about what was taking place there. Uranium was referred to as “gems”, or simply “raw material”. The word Shinkolobwe was never to be uttered.

This secrecy was maintained long after the end of the war. “Efforts were made to give the message that the uranium came from Canada, as a way of deflecting attention away from the Congo,” says Williams. The effort was so thorough, she says, that the belief the atomic bombs were built with Canadian uranium persists to this day. Although some of the uranium came from Bear Lake in Canada – about 907 tonnes (1,000 tons) are thought to have been supplied by the Eldorado mining company – and a mine in Colorado, the majority came from the Congo. Some of the uranium from the Congo was also refined in Canada before being shipped to the US.

Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests

After the war, however, Shinkolobwe emerged as a proxy ground in the Cold War. Improved enrichment techniques made Western powers less dependent on the uranium at Shinkolobwe. But in order to curtail other nations’ nuclear ambitions, the mine had to be controlled. “Even though the US did not need the uranium at Shinkolobwe, it didn’t want the Soviet Union to get access to the mine,” explains Williams.

When the Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, the mine was closed and the entrance filled with concrete. But Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests.

So important was stopping the Communist threat, says Zoellner, that these powers were willing to help depose the democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba and install the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965 for a decades-long reign of ruinous plutocracy.

Attempts by the Congolese people to negotiate better conditions for themselves were attacked as Communist-fuelled sedition. “The idealism, hope, and vision of the Congolese for a Congo free of occupation by an external power was devastated by the military and political interests of the Western powers,” says Williams.

A wound unhealed

Mobutu was eventually toppled in 1997, but the spectre of Shinkolobwe continues to haunt the DRC. Drawn by rich deposits of copper and cobalt, Congolese miners began digging informally at the site, working around the sealed mineshafts. By the end of the century, an estimated 15,000 miners and their families were present at Shinkolobwe, operating clandestine pits with no protection against the radioactive ore.

Accidents were commonplace: in 2004, eight miners were killed and more than a dozen injured when a passage collapsed. Fears that uranium was being smuggled from the site to terrorist groups or hostile states vexed Western nations, leading the Congolese army to raze the miners’ village that same year.

Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept

Despite the mineral wealth present at Shinkolobwe, since Union Minière withdrew in the early 1960s there has never been an industrial mine that could safely and efficiently extract the ores and return the proceeds to the Congolese people. After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, any interest in extracting the uranium for civilian use withered away. “Uranium, even in its natural condition, resists control,” says Zoellner. “Right now Shinkolobwe exists in a limbo, a symbol for the inherent geopolitical instability of uranium.”

The ongoing secrecy around Shinkolobwe (many official US, British and Belgian records on the subject are still classified) has stymied efforts to recognise the Congolese contribution to the Allied victory, as well as hampering investigation into the environmental and health impacts of the mine.

“The effects are medical, political, economic, so many things,” says Mombilo. “We’re not able to know the negative effects of radiation because of this secrecy.” Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept. “I had a witness who died with his brain coming out of his head, because of the radiation,” says Mombilo. “In all these years, there is not even a special hospital, there is no scientific study or treatment.”

Many of those affected by Shinkolobwe are now campaigning for recognition and reparation, but knowing who should receive them – and who should pay – is compounded by the lack of information made available about the mine and what took place there.

“Shinkolobwe is a curse on the Congo,” says Mombilo.

But he adds that for over a century, the country’s rich resources have made possible one global revolution after another: rubber for tyres made automobiles possible, uranium fuelled nuclear reactors, coltan built the computers of the information age, and cobalt powers the batteries of mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“Our world is moved by the minerals of the Congo,” says Mombilo. “The positive thing I can say is that in all these advanced technologies, you’re talking about the Congo.”

The Congo’s impact on the world has been immeasurable. Recognising the name Shinkolobwe alongside Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be the first step to repaying that debt. {read}

[germanpostwarmodern]

Her‘s was a(n) (after)life of firsts: Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). She painted the first nude self-portraits in art history and in 1927 was the first woman to have a museum named in her honor. And, in all honesty, the latter was well-deserved: in the 14 years she actively worked as an artists Modernsohn-Becker created some 700 paintings, almost 1,400 drawings and 11 prints. In her prolific output she broke new ground by focusing on such topics as childhood, old age, motherhood and her own bodily experience as a becoming mother. Bearing in mind that all of this took place at the turn of the 20th century one cannot help but acknowledge her bravery to stand up for herself and her artistic vision.

Up until September 9 Modersohn-Becker’s groundbreaking oeuvre is the subject of her first ever museum retrospective at Neue Galerie New York (and later at Art Institute of Chicago) that gathers significant works from all phases of her short career. With the exhibition’s title „Ich bin ich / I am Me“ the exhibition makers quote from a letter Modersohn-Becker wrote to her friend and confidant Rainer Maria-Rilke in 1906 in which she happily reports that she has finally come into her own artistically and as an individual. Since 1898 Modersohn-Becker lived in Worpswede, the artist village near Bremen, Germany, first as pupil of painter Fritz Mackensen and from 1901 onwards as wife of Otto Modersohn. Mackensen’s truthful depiction of people and landscape in and around Worpswede had a profound impact on Modersohn as demonstrate her portraits: they are in no way idealized but emphatically portray the sitters and display the manifold influences the artist processed. On her frequent stays in Paris she visited both museums and fellow artists and one can sense not only the example of Cézanne, Gauguin or Matisse but also the influence of Byzantine and Egyptian portraits and busts.

In the accompanying catalogue, published by Prestel, curators Jill Lloyd and Jay A. Clarke provide two truly eye-opening essays, one dedicated to Modersohn-Becker’s life, artistic formation and influences, the other dealing with her long overlooked Worpswede drawings from 1898/99 in which she depicts, mainly female, inhabitants of the village. In contrast to her male peers Modersohn drew her models not as anonymous figures but as emotive individuals. Although they don’t fit into the artist’s general reception as painter of colorful (self) portraits, they offer deep insights into her soulful awareness of the world around her. This awareness surely pervades her entire oeuvre but becomes strongly evident in the roughly 50 Worpswede drawings that round out this very insightful catalogue and its fresh perspective on an eminent artist of early German Expressionism.

[mrbensonmum]

TV Show - Dr. House | House M.D. VII

Unstoppably we are approaching the end of the third season (currently at S3E20, House Training), and I'm wondering, as my memory refuses to reveal, what major event occurs that causes House to reform his team or leads to drastic changes. Yes, I admit, I'm really looking forward to seeing Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) and also Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn), although I think Masters might take a little longer to appear.

It's quite exciting when you've seen everything already, can remember a lot, but a rewatch helps to put all the puzzle pieces back in the right order. Yes, one could think about it, but I enjoy the suspense.

One of the scenes that made me laugh a lot back then has already come up, namely when House compares a patient's body to the German railway system. Back then, the comparison might have been somewhat accurate, and yes, even in the original, he makes the same comparison with the same cities (Berlin & Düsseldorf), but unfortunately, the German trains, whether regional or long-distance, are nowhere near as good and punctual anymore. I've been wondering the whole time if it was like that back then, but no, today it's definitely worse. Just thinking about how many times I got stranded at a train station last year, BIG UFF!

Otherwise, after the Tritter thing, things are moving rather slowly, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all. The highlight, of course, is the romance between Chase and Cameron, although it's almost over by now. I vaguely remember a wedding in the future and maybe even a divorce? No, I'm sure about the wedding, but I don't think there was a divorce. Oh, I also remember the big bus accident involving Wilson's girlfriend. There's a lot more to come!

Speaking of which, I think the dynamic between Wilson and House has changed a lot since the incident with the prescription pad. At first, it seemed like everything was over and they had no future, but now the connection seems stronger than ever. We also saw that in the story with Cuddy, when they both tested each other to see how far they would go. And then just saying "Night House!" "Night Wilson!" to each other, that's a true bromance, ladies and gentlemen! (I know, I'm late to that party!)

But now there's a very heavy episode on, as once again, an important topic is being addressed, one that often unfortunately gets overlooked in every society, Alzheimer's & dementia. Foreman's mother suffers from Alzheimer's, and I know, it really affected me back then because my grandmother died of Alzheimer's, and my mother is showing the first signs of it now. This disease steals the mind first, then the body, and we should talk about it much more and do much more against it. I know what it's like to watch a person lose themselves in the darkness of this disease, and believe me, you wouldn't wish it on anyone. Once again, a topic highlighted by the series and one that should continue to be addressed. I'm currently wondering if House is airing anywhere on regular TV in Germany, but I don't think so at the moment. That should change because yes, it can be fun and enjoyable for about 45 minutes, but it's also a topic of conversation that might find resonance in the workplace or similar institutions, and suddenly a disease is lifted from its obscurity and brought into the real world. THAT'S IMPORTANT! However, there is another important aspect in this episode that must not be overlooked. Doctors make mistakes, and these mistakes can end up being deadly! Of course, nobody wants to talk about it in the real world, and doctors usually don't admit to such things. It's another issue that's hushed up, but the series brings it back to light, brilliantly! Also, the fact that House performs an autopsy afterward for research purposes may seem strange and odd at first, but it's also about finding out where things went wrong. Yes, it's also to stroke one's own ego, but it's also to prevent such things from happening again.

I won't manage to finish the end of the third season today, but there was another remarkable appearance. In the last episode (S3E19, Act your Age), part of the supporting cast of Bones made an appearance. We saw Joel David Moore and Carla Gallo. And in the episode before that (S3E18, Airborne), Pej Vahdat was one of the passengers or Foreman's substitute.

A little thank you to everyone who diligently reads and shares my Dr. House posts. I'm just doing this for fun, but it's cool that it's well-received and my little analyses are being shared. Thank you very much!

[athis333]

Remembering Arno Breker - artnet Magazine

The Schleswig-Holstein Haus in Schwerin, Germany, northeast of Berlin, has mounted a survey exhibition of 70 works by Arno Breker (1900-91), the German artist who is widely known as "Hitler’s favorite sculptor." Schwerin deputy mayor Hermann Junghans has denied that the show, which is on view July 22-Oct. 22, 2006, is "any kind of rehabilitation," characterizing it as "absolutely necessary to a discussion about Breker." German culture minister Bernd Neumann also argued that the event would prevent Breker’s works from gaining seductiveness due to an "aura of the forbidden." But a coalition of 30 local artists, dealers and art historians have urged that the exhibition be called off, and the noted artist Klaus Staeck, who is head of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, has canceled a forthcoming show of his own in Schwerin in protest.

All this controversy brings back to memory a visit I paid to Breker in 1985 at his home in Düsseldorf, where I flew for the day.

"Will you bring photographers?" Breker asked me in fluent French, when I called him to confirm my visit.

I was living in Paris on a fellowship, writing my Ph.D. thesis on the visual arts in France during the Occupation. Breker figured in my research for several reasons. First, because of that famous picture of Hitler flanked by Breker and Albert Speer in front of the Eiffel Tower, a photo taken shortly after Paris had been occupied by the Nazis in June 1940. It turned out that Breker had lived and worked in Paris in the 1920s, and his knowledge of the city made him a natural guide for Hitler. Second, because of the show of his bombastic sculpture at the Jeu de Paume in occupied Paris in 1942. Third, because Breker had sculpted portrait heads of at least three well-known French artists, all of whom were later tagged as collaborators -- Aristide Maillol, Jean Cocteau and Andre Derain. And fourth, because of a memoir he had recently published in which he spoke of having intervened with Hitler to save certain French personalities in danger during the Occupation.

I answered Breker’s question about photographers in the negative, and showed up at his doorstep with a tape recorder and my own camera dangling from around my neck. Perhaps out of a sense of hospitality toward a French native, Cocteau’s sculpted portrait was placed near the entrance of his home. The house was large, and had a large garden. No sooner had I come in than I was greeted by two not-very-young women -- his wife and his personal secretary -- followed by the master himself, who was dressed in his working outfit, a white coat. To me, this baldish old man in his 80s, middle-sized and slightly stooped, looked less like a sculptor than a doctor in an institution. His manner, on the other hand, was friendly, charming and talkative. Unaware that I had already activated my tape recorder, he was assuring his wife -- speaking in German -- who was advising great caution when talking to this Franco-American stranger, that he could handle the likes of me.

It was agreed that the conversation would first take place as we walked around in his garden, or rather his sculpture park, for that is what the garden looked like. Paths through formal gardens led from one piece of Breker statuary to another. The works, though quite large, were bronze replicas of sculptures from the ‘30s and early ‘40s, works that had been destroyed, or so I was told. In reproduction, the original pieces had seemed intimidating, but here the sculptures of tall naked men carrying symbolic accoutrements, or just posing, struck me as somewhat comical. It seemed that they had suffered as perches for birds, which had defecated on them, leaving here and there a greenish stain. The bronzes were, the artist told me, in the process of acquiring their permanent patina.

One piece, a head of Richard Wagner, stood out from the rest by its enormous size, at least ten times as large as a person’s head, an indication of the original large scale that was Breker’s signature, which had made him so popular with Adolf Hitler.

The conversation was pleasant and polite. I asked him when he learned his French, which was quite good, and he confirmed that he had lived in Paris in the ‘20s, and as a young artist had fallen under the spell of Auguste Rodin. You would not believe it now, I said, and he explained how his work changed when, after having returned to Germany, he began to mold the bodies of young athletes in plaster, seeking a never-before achieved smoothness of surface. That way of working made his work different from academic statuary, he claimed.

I noted that Hitler, who did not like academic art and loathed avant-garde art, had liked his work, to which he replied as expected, that he had never been an anti-Semite. I don’t remember at what point in the conversation he told me that he had never made a portrait of Hitler, and I confounded him by pulling out of my briefcase a copy of an article in an early post-war issue of ARTnews magazine featuring his bronze head of Hitler. He asked me if he could borrow this copy to make his own duplicate, and promised that he would send it back to me. He never did send me my copy, as if keeping the Xerox would be enough to eliminate the evidence. What a burden to have to live with!

That incident marked one of the few moments when I sensed I had the upper hand. Much rehearsed over the years, Breker certainly knew how to handle interviewers and give his side of history. He said he preferred American art historians to French ones, because in the U.S., people know that he helped the CIA. He even gave me the name of the American officer who came to thank him after the war.

As for his sculpture, it has nothing to do with politics, he said, for good art is above politics. Asked about those whom he had protected during the war, he mentioned Picasso vaguely, and most emphatically Maillol’s girlfriend Dina Vierny, who had been arrested and was awaiting deportation. It was hard to push her cause with Hitler, he said, because of her resistance work against the Germans, but the "chief le chef," as he referred to the Chancellor of the Third Reich, was a great admirer of Maillol, and Breker told Hitler that Maillol could not produce any work without the model in front of him.

I tried to corner him by asking why he had never made statues of older men. He replied by telling me that Stalin, or as he called him, "Shtalin," had offered to hire him after the war. He had declined, he said, for he could not envisage making statues of fully dressed people, and that was what Shtalin wanted.

We had tea and biscuits on a lovely shaded terrace, and then went inside, where I saw examples of the kind of work that he should have dedicated himself to all his life -- bronze heads. On the moment of leaving, I noted a table holding little booklets about him, and a revolving postcard holder containing images of his work. So his place was a tourist attraction.

No doubt many of the visitors to Breker's current show in Schwerin -- like those who used to and maybe still visit his mansion -- share a certain nostalgia for the days when the concept of degenerate art held sway in Germany, the Hitler years. A better way of reevaluating Breker’s work, both on historical and esthetic grounds, would be an exhibition that confronted his sculpture with art by the German artists whom Hitler condemned as degenerate. That approach would provide the context necessary to an intelligent debate. 

[jessaerys]

So those tags about Near's ethnicity...what if you posted about that some more 👀

okay it's almost 2 am (<- an hour at which insane behavior does not count) and this ask enabled me to go on a research rabbithole so thank you for indulging the disproportionately passionate fleshing out of a silly little anime boy

i've talked about near’s ethnicity in my personal canonverse here, but long story short (<- me when i lie), to me the tragedy of near's character and the axis on which his characterization spins is his lack of connection to anything outside of wammy’s and his role as L; unmoored from community, no one, from nowhere, belonging to nothing, a perfect human blank slate for the wammy institution to groom into their sharp little child detective tool. 

hence the obfuscation of his ethnicity — he is racially ambiguous but decidedly nonwhite, though his albinism, i think, would enable him to distance himself from even the basic human experience of belonging to a specific race, which would mean he’s someone with history beyond becoming L’s successor, which would mean something has been fundamentally stolen from him, which would mean grief, and well. he does not have time to unpack any of that, thank you very much. 

ANYWAY, all of this is to say that i love faceclaims and to put my money where my mouth is i picked four grandparents for near that are historically likely to have immigrated to the UK, where eventually near was conceived and shortly thereafter given up for adoption, and named nate river by roger just to have something on file.

maternal grandparents fc: indian actor dharmendra, somali model ugbad abdi (he takes after his maternal grandmother the most specially the TOOTH GAP!)

paternal grandparents fc: , german sinti boxer johann rukeli trollmannm, and bangladeshi fashion legend bibi russell :')

except, you know, with a tragic lack of melanin

[a-mag-a-day]

MAG 33 - I think I accidentally skipped this episode during my first run because when I heard it on my second listen I didn't remember any of it, not Tim and not the statement. I think that's also why I totally missed the Lukas family until Peter Lukas himself stepped into the Institute. So… When I first listened to this episode, I was on my way home from the dentist.

"Boatswain" - one of many English words, of which I don't understand why it's pronounced the way it is.

Ha Tim, back when he was still a cheery character.

Oh someone's pissy when they realize they made mistakes…

You hear voices in the background, like the door is open and we can hear all the commotion of a workday in the Institute.

"Ohhh… okay… Alright, so what happens if more than one statement is given on the same day?" - Well, if it's intentional like MAG 39 and 40 it just gets the suffix A and B. But if it's… probably unintentional? (like MAG 15 and MAG 150… though the 1 and 5 coincident is funny…) nothing, just the same statement number.

God, hearing Jon spiraling into the stress of the chaotic Archive pluuuus him feeling that there's something very wrong with some of those statements is really sad to hear…

"It’s getting bad. I mean, Martin keeps showing me his tongue (uncomfortable laugh) and asking if it “looks infested”." - hehehehe

05:06 "container ship", thump… Is some of this intentional? With 4 of these in the previous episode and now again and the statement hasn't even started yet…

"Well, that and my bad Spanish." - ok, the majority in Brazil speaks Portuguese and not Spanish. I tried to google Spanish-speaking regions but all I can find is like, close to borders with Spanish-speaking countries. Porto do Itaqui is not near a border. I thiiiink, I remember them talking about this in a Q&A or something? That this region is Spanish-speaking? However, I did also google Itaqui (without the "Porto do"), which actually is near a border, but it's not the same as Porto do Itaqui!!! XD Porto do Itaqui is in the north of Brazil and Itaqui is in the south bordering to Argentina, which would probably make sense for this region to speak Spanish xDD

Just the nature of this statement, having a work place requiring a group with a secretly creepy boss… Having one space, which will be occupied by another "victim", only to then purposefully get rid of one member to do it all again… It reminds me of Krabat, a German fantasy book by Otfried Preußler (Haaa, get a load of this letter! ß!). It's really cool, if anyone wants to check it out, it's been translated into English and by googling this I found out it's apparently one of Neil Gaiman's favorite scary stories for children! Cool, didn't know that. I grew up with Krabat, so there's that.

"Hell, not being too comfortable around people is a damn fine reason to go to sea." - Yeah but… What if the crew is like reaaaally shitty and then I'm stuck on a fucking boat with them for God knows how long, having to work with them…

21:31 "interesting", thump.

22:27 "Elias", thump (understandable xD).

22:39 "this", thump

22:52 "UK" and "even", thump thump, the hell??

22:58 (twothousandand)"ten", thump…

I propose a new Magnus drinking game: Every time you hear a thump, drink!

It's the eyes surrounding Jon bouncing off the walls

[nearlydark]

Damn I was looking up German classes near me just to see and there’s actually a Goethe institut but classes are like $700+ yea no

[d0ntw0rrybehappy]

On my last day in Berlin went to a lake near Teufelsberg (Teufelssee, devil’s lake lol) where about a hundred people were bathing and sunning themselves in the buff. It’s kinda an institution around Europe. So I’m like cool and I join them, get nakey in nature and swim around in a nice cool lake. Definitely fewer full frontal women than men, and being young as well, felt very conscious of gaze, but also wanna get naked like everybody else and felt it was my right. Suss the towel spot for weird dudes, spot a few — just guys with gazes that aren’t quite right — but on second glance they’re, like, fine. Not actionable level creepy. There’s one man nearby who gives me some solace, an old-ish guy in cool glasses and long hair for whom it is just clearly nonsexual chillin’. Exchange a wordless hello.

Swim, come back, blah blah. I’m stoned and had spent the afternoon in the forest gazing at bloated Nazi oil tanks hidden off the main path. The tanks with which I’d had an almost religious interaction turned out to be American, supplying the spy station atop Teufelsberg during the Cold War. The Nazi part is the unfinished university underneath Teufelsberg, which is an artificial hill formed of rubble because the Americans found this strategy easier than using dynamite. Truth isn’t always stranger than fiction but it does have a way of being unsentimental. So I’m ready to go at this point, had had a nice time swimming, knock the kickstand to my Lime app bike, when I look up to see a sort of ageless nude man (young face, salt-pepper hair) has materialized among the the trees. Wasn’t the water really cold? He asks me.

I shrug. It was fine. He squats down next to me as I kneel to tie my shoes. His long, coltlike legs sort of cross over his penis. He has been watching me swim and sun, he says. He thought I was a refugee, a Syrian immigrant! Ha ha. He noticed I’m alone. Yes, I’m alone. Traveling alone! Wow!

Ah — I remember him. One of the guys scattered around my way when I put my towel down. A quick exchange of glances, not the best vibe, and then he made himself forgotten.

I ask him what he does for work. He says he’s an investor. Inexplicably the idea of him investing in my art flashes through my brain and I become so conscious of appearing opportunistic I almost knock over my bike. And me? Social media, I tell him. His brother has a media agency, he says. Mostly the money in Germany is shit, but it’s pretty good in media, advertising. Germany has a great train that goes unlimited over the summer for 50€. I can explore the Germanic countryside unhindered. His name is Mark. He would love if I might take down his contact info. It’s too bad he caught me right as I was about to go. I am about to ask him for his last name so I can, like, google him but something stops me. Why google?

It’s not until I leave it dawns on me how weird that was. Every day here, a new man wants to be friends. I tell them about my boyfriend. Doesn’t matter. Not necessarily weirdos — a married writer, an IT guy from Damascus, a ballroom dancer from Toulouse, a composer at the Louvre. A guy at an ambient show, a friend of a friend — could feel the energy running through his finger, his hand casually placed near mine. I’m practically folded into the corner seething, I think he’s flirting, but not sure if I’m making it up. I told him I had a boyfriend already. Later he says “not to be too forward but you can stay at my place if your hostel is too far.” I’m trying to think of what to say to this.“What do you mean by forward?” Beat. “but I told you I have a boyfriend.” “Oh, I didn’t know what that meant since you’re backpacking through Europe and all.” By the end I’m practically screaming at the IT guy. “I HAVE A BOYFRIEND. I AM NOT INTERESTED. WE ARE WALKING TO THE CLUB AS FRIENDS. PLEASE SIGN HERE.” Still, little things. Hearts. An offer to share a bed.

Women never approach me. I had felt men watching me, yes, when I had been swimming. But you couldn’t tell that I was naked. I’m a damn good swimmer! Ugh. Sometimes I pretend to be stupid.

[underthecitysky]

Alan Durband, Paul’s Favorite Teacher

“Sir Paul credited his own English teacher at school, Alan Durband, for sparking his interest in literature and the arts back in the 1950s. And he said he wouldn’t have been “too bad” at the job himself.

The former Beatle was responding to a question from presenter John Wilson on the BBC Radio 4 programme This Cultural Life, which airs tomorrow evening. Wilson asked McCartney how his life would have panned out had he never left Liverpool.

“The only thing I was really any good at, or had the qualifications for, was teaching. So I could have taught. And I think I might not have been too bad at it,” McCartney said. “For me, it would have been English. Low level English literature. I’d have to swat up if I was going to get the high level stuff.”

The 79-year-old credited the “brilliant” Durband for introducing him to Chaucer while at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys. Durband had been taught by FR Leavis, the scholar and literary critic, whilst at Cambridge, and his passion for literature rubbed off on the teenage McCartney.

“He was great, a very good teacher. And he got me to get interested [in Chaucer] by telling me about The Miller’s Tale. When I read it I thought, ‘This is great, it’s really dirty’. It gave me a lot of respect for Chaucer and then it got me interested in other bits of literature. And I became really interested in going to the Royal Court in Liverpool and watching plays and reading plays, because he’d done the thing that great teachers do,” said McCartney.

Prior to being taught by Durband, the musician described himself as “a bit of a skiver” at school. “Teachers were pretty brutal in those days, and they were allowed to whack you, so they did. [But] there was a period where I was getting very near exams; those couple of years I paid attention a bit more,” he said. McCartney left the Liverpool Institute – known by pupils as The Inny – in 1960 having sat A-Levels in art and English. He failed the former and passed the latter, according to biographer Philip Norman. While this would have been enough to get McCartney into teacher training college, his fledgling band decided to go and play music in Hamburg instead. The rest is history. (X) The Telegraph 10/21

McCartney received an excellent education at his school and developed a love for books and poetry at school. In an interview with Barnes & Noble’s James Daunt, McCartney discussed his early education at the institution. “It was a really good free education where the first year, I was learning Latin and Spanish and all the other subjects,” McCartney recalled. “Second year, it was Latin, Spanish, and German. So, you know, just in two years, I’m engaged…And then I’m finding books because I had a really good teacher, Alan Durband.”

Everyone has read Shakespeare in school, and whether his words are understood, it is undeniable how his rhyming couplets influenced poetry and songwriting moving forward. McCartney was impressed by Shakespeare’s techniques and didn’t realize how they influenced his songwriting until years later. “Unwittingly, you know, because I didn’t really know I was going to do much with my songwriting. That was just a little hobby,” McCartney told Daunt. “I do think that is true that the meter of some of these things, I mean, one of the things I learned was that Shakespeare often uses rhyming couplets, and I always thought that was kind of an interesting idea…Unconsciously, I ended up ending one of my songs, “and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make,” not realizing that that’s where I picked it up.”

Paul McCartney has often said that the inspiration for “Let it Be” came from a dream where his mother came to visit him. He was in a state of worry in his life, and his mother, who died when he was young, told him not to worry and to “let it be.” However, in his 2021 book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, McCartney says that a speech from Shakespeare’s Hamlet was also an inspiration for the title. “One interesting thing about ‘Let It Be’ that I was reminded of only recently is that, while I was studying English literature at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys with my favorite teacher, Alan Durband, I read Hamlet,” Paul recalled. “In those days you had to learn speeches by heart because you had to be able to carry them into the exam and quote them. There are a couple of lines from late in the play: ‘O, I could tell you — But let it be. Horatio, I am dead.’ I suspect those lines had subconsciously planted themselves in my memory.” (x)

[bujorulgalben]

hc: of the pure emotion of opera

ah, the opera headcanon. one i’ve tip-toed around for the longest time, although i can’t really say why! it’s a headcanon i’ve had knocking about in my noggin for nearly as long as i’ve had anica, and i reckon it might be about time to share it! so! let’s talk opera:

the history of opera in romania coincides with the history of romania itself, as a modern-day nation; needing to assert and construct itself not only in romania itself, but also the social elites. the german king. onlookers romania based much of its modern infrastructure on, in paris, berlin, and vienna.

opera first arrived in romania in the late 18th century, and by the second half of the 19th century - indeed, when romanian revolutionary thought blossomed and triumphed - local opera works with their dramatic, local flair, were being produced. before then, french, italian and german touring companies controlled the sway of opera. the first performance in a purpose-built opera house in romania was indeed in italian! bellini’s ‘norma’! 

so what does this all mean in anica’s character development? well:

the adoption of strong pro-latinisation, pro-western notions going forward with the construction of the romanian state gave anica strong inclinations to continue reading in italian and french. her proficiency then provided a good foundation to her understanding and quick love for the touring operas she saw. the drama, explosive emotion, decadent stagecraft and music, all of it only solidified that love. from there, it wasn’t long until she was learning opera herself. already having knowledge of the language and a good (and loud) singing voice, vocal stamina (have you SEEN how much this woman talks! and how quickly!) meant she could start formal training quickly. 

she established a powerful soprano performing style; the highest adult female voice. richly dramatic, as is she with all things. serghei was just as quick to ask her to do the glass-shattering trick.

romania’s national opera society became a state institution under the patronage of one queen maria... and we wonder why anica loved her so much. i can imagine her wanting to sing for her late queen and her romance family cousins a lot ;v;

the national opera building in bucharest is also located near the cotroceni neighbourhood, where anica resides. i love connecting the dots like this.

but now that i’ve justified it, i can talk about the reason why i’ve been sitting on this headcanon for so long: one of my big introductions to romania and it’s musical history is angela gheorghiu; one of the greatest operatic sopranos and a personal favourite of mine. i got to see her perform in tosca for her 30th anniversary with the royal opera house in london and got very emotional in doing so. it’s so powerful, and i believe anica takes a great deal of pride in her reputation, and in turn, romania’s reputation as a ‘dark horse’ in the opera world. not necessarily your first thought when you think ‘opera’, but absolutely incredible in its own right.

seeing angela perform live, and having her music and style play such foundational parts in anica’s development and sustained character (dramatic diva mannerisms, her overall look and fashion sense,) made me adamant about making anica a soprano, also. so here we are!

[laurentgudel]

Suoni svaniti, inudibili e immaginari - at La Rada, Locarno

For «Sound Echoes, Listening Spaces», a duo at La Rada in Locarno with Juliette Henrioud, I chose three places that are emblematic of Ticino’s sound culture to create an electroacoustic composition. First, I went to the Monte Ceneri and Isone regions to listen to and record the radio, because the altitude allows better reception of short-wave broadcasts, which make it possible to listen to stations from all over the world.

In those two places, where the transmitters of Radio Monte Ceneri, Radio Svizzera - Rete Uno and Voice of Russia were located, I recorded during military exercises. That’s why the audience could hear mortar, cannon and machine-gun fire, giving them a rather violent perspective on the alpine acoustic environment. And I’m not talking about the four drones and two soldiers that were sent by the army to surveil and control me while I was actually in the public space.

The second place I visit was the village of Gravesano, this village near Lugano was where the first studio for electronic music in Switzerland was built in 1954 by the German conductor Hermann Scherchen. Renowned for its tranquillity, the place was frequented by avant-garde composers and musicians from all over the world. Some composers practiced the then-new practice of field recording. So I wanted to find out what could be heard there today.

To conclude, I collaborated with the Swiss National Sound Archives in Lugano. I set up my microphones in the digitization studios and was able to get my hand on rare and old archives. Including sonic archives of factories and workers on a construction site in Ticino in the 40s, bird songs and dog barks in Gravesano in the 50s, music recorded on acetate, wire, magnetic tape, and even on wax cylinders from the 1910s. I've also incorporated and edited all sorts of radio signals and some excerpts related to the history of Ticino and Swiss broadcasting.

Last but not least, since it was impossible to include all the interesting sonic material in my composition without making it overly indigestible (and for copyright reasons) it’s not possible to listen to all the sources I would have like to share. So, I proposed to the Fonoteca Nazionale to open an "antenna" or a temporary listening station at La Rada and set up a listening point for the duration of the exhibition. Both institutions agreed to play along. I thank them warmly. It was quite exceptional because it was the first collaboration between a sound artist/musician and the Fonoteca. The audience was able to listen to many audio treasures and get lost digging through the database of fonoteca.ch.

Credit: exhibition views by Riccardo Giancola, courtesy of La rada

Other images by me

[kartikrawat]

 Max Muller  is the premier German language institute in India. Renowned for its exceptional teaching standards, it offers comprehensive German courses tailored to all proficiency levels, from beginner to advanced. The institute is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and provides access to a rich library of German literature, films, and resources.  german language institute near me  Experienced native-speaking instructors ensure immersive learning, while cultural events and exchange programs offer practical language usage. The  Max Mueller globally recognized certification adds significant value to learners' academic and professional profiles.

[darkmaga-retard]

An unmanned hellscape.

John Ellis

Aug 20, 2024

1. New flashpoints are emerging in the volatile South China Sea—bringing confrontations involving Beijing closer to the shores of a key U.S. ally in the region. In the dead of the night Monday, between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time, at least three collisions occurred between coast guard ships belonging to China and the Philippines. The first tore a hole 3.6 feet in diameter on the starboard side of a Philippine coast guard vessel, the Philippines said. About 16 minutes later, a Chinese coast guard vessel rammed another Philippine coast guard ship twice, ripping a gap 2.5 feet long and 3 feet wide on the port side, according to the Philippines. Monday’s incidents marked an escalation in tensions that have run high over the past 18 months, at times threatening to spiral into conflict that could draw in the U.S., Manila’s treaty ally. They are especially noteworthy because they unfolded near Sabina Shoal, a location close to the Philippines that is fast becoming a new source of friction. (Source: wsj.com)

2. It has become conventional wisdom among (sic) the halls of the United States government that China will launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan within the next few years. And when that happens, the US military has a relatively straightforward response in mind: Unleash hell. Speaking to The Washington Post on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Shangri-La Dialogue in June, US Indo-Pacific Command chief Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo colorfully described the US military’s contingency plan for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as flooding the narrow Taiwan Strait between the two countries with swarms of thousands upon thousands of drones, by land, sea, and air, to delay a Chinese attack enough for the US and its allies to muster additional military assets in the region. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo said, “so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.” (Sources: defensenews.com, wired.com, washingtonpost.com)

3. The successes Kyiv has announced in its two-week-old incursion into Russia have not stopped the steady drive of Moscow’s forces into the eastern part of Ukraine, threatening a key logistical hub. Officials in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk say they are evacuating the population in case it falls to the Russian advance, which is now less than six miles from the city limits. If the city falls, it will be largest population center taken by the Russians since Bakhmut in May 2023. Russian forces “are moving toward the outskirts of Pokrovsk. We see — it is no secret,” Katerina Yanzhula, head of information policy in the Pokrovsk military administration, said by telephone, adding that the city’s fate was unclear. “Maybe the situation there will somehow change — we hope that the enemy will stop somewhere on the approaches to Pokrovsk, that our troops will repel them.” (Source: washingtonpost.com)

4. The German government has come under attack from politicians across the political spectrum after it emerged that finance minister Christian Lindner has written to colleagues to veto new military aid for Ukraine. In a letter sent to the ministry of defense and foreign office on August 5, Lindner said that new applications for military support would be rejected by his ministry unless additional funds could be found — pointing to frozen Russian assets in Europe as one potential source. Existing aid programmes, which have already been funded, would remain in place, he said. The contents of the letter were first reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Sunday, which said Chancellor Olaf Scholz had asked his finance minister to issue the instruction. (Source: ft.com)