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Casting religiously and culturally diverse moms for a new documentary for "NickMom", "Nickelodeon's" new prime time programming block aimed at moms. "My 63 Moms" will follow first-time parent and comedienne Andrea Rosen on her quest to learn everything she can about parenthood with the ultimate goal of raising the best child possible. Cameras will follow Rosen as she explores different communities and cultures, interacting with mothers of all kinds to learn their secrets of parenting through humorous conversations and eye opening experiences.
Though exceptions do apply, we are seeking participants within a 3-hour drive (approximately) from LA and/or NYC.
Contact PR@altmuslimah to receive an application form.


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Lakeside Technologies
"Lakeside technologies required a reliable partner who could help us to establish the local ODC in St-Petersburg, Russia. We chose DataArt - a company with a good track record known for its effective solutions and as it turned out we did the right thing. They provided a complete set of services including legal and accounting services, facilities organization, recruiting, system administration and everything needed for an efficient ODC. As a result we got a great development center for a fair price. "
Boris Kerbikov,
Lakeside Technologies
We'd love to hear from you.

subset: commoncrawl


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JNY - Satin Pajama Set (Lavender)
This variant is currently sold out
SASSY SATIN - Jones New York sleepwear made with 97% Polyester, 3% Spandex - durable fabrics for everlasting comfort and easy care.
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FIND YOUR SIZE - This satin sleepwear set is designed to fit the full bodied down to the petite. Sizes run from Small to X- Large. Refer to sizing chart for exact measurements.
Model is 5'7" and is wearing a size S


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New Construction
New Construction
In addition to a wide variety of pre-owned homes, the Dallas Metroplex offers some of the most appealing new construction in the country! The area is fortunate to have numerous highly rated builders in all price ranges in most cities. Homes range in style, size and amenities to please the tastes of all potential buyers, and offer a building product that provides a level of value and quality above many other areas around the country.
BUILDERS: Our builders offer everything including entry level homes with a range of pre-designed plans, semi-custom homes where plans are available with cosmetic options for the buyer and totally custom homes where an architect can provide a plan for the builder to implement completely to the buyer's taste.
Entry level homes come with several plans and cosmetic choices for items such as carpet, granite, tile, etc. No structural changes can be made. These homes are usually smaller but will be available in one-level and two-level homes.
Semi-custom homes offer plans, but depending on the builder, might allow some structural changes and usually come with several pre-planned structural options for items such as three car garages, media rooms, extra bedrooms and baths, built-ins, etc. There are usually a full range of cosmetic choices to enable buyers to make a home more personal to reflect their lifestyle and tastes. Many features of the home are included, and there is a higher level of quality in items such as trim, appliances, etc.
Custom homes can have a wide range of options. These homes are designed especially for the buyer in most cases - although most custom builders have some designs available to "tweak". Everything can be selected by the buyer, and the home is priced accordingly.
AVAILABILITY OF NEW CONSTRUCTION: In most cases the buyer has the option of selecting a lot and picking the plan they want to build up to homes that are completed and almost ready for move-in...and every stage in between. The area builders try to keep some inventory for the buyer that can not wait to build. There are even a few "spec" custom homes in some communities. Entry level homes and semi-custom usually take from six to eight months to build. Custom takes a year or more in most cases. But, if a buyer wants to move into a new home in a month or two, one can usually be found.
COMMUNITIES: Many parts of the Metroplex have neighborhoods with new construction. Quite a few of these communities are "Master Planned" with amenities such as swimming pools, tennis courts, hiking and biking trails and sometimes fitness centers and other features. They are located in areas that have good schools - and sometimes the elementary schools are located within the neighborhood. Upper level schools are also nearby. The Owner's Associations plan several community-wide functions each year for families, and smaller groups like bunko nights, play groups, etc., flourish as neighbors find common interests. Dues are reasonable and vary according to the number of homes and the extent of the amenities provided.
FEATURES: Most new homes - even entry level homes - have amenities such as granite countertops in the kitchen, stainless appliances and ceramic tile in kitchens, breakfast nooks, utility rooms and baths. The higher priced homes will include items such as built-in planning desks, more elaborate cabinetry, taller baseboards, crown molding and beams and many other nice features. The one thing that all of our new construction includes is a much higher level of energy efficiency than could be found in homes even seven or eight years ago. Higher sear HVAC systems, return air vents in all bedrooms, radiant decking in the attic, vinyl windows, tankless hot water heaters, subterranean drip systems around foundations and in flower beds, tighter insulation systems and many more items can now be found in homes to assure a high level of comfortability while at the same cutting energy costs substantially.


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Go Flyers! I'm not really a hockey fan, but its always nice to be in a city with a winning team at the moment. I remember how crazy the city went when the Flyers won two Stanley cups in a row back in the 70s. I even got to meet legendary goalie Bernie Parent at my parents bank one afternoon and got his autograph. Holy crap...did I just age myself? Wow, feeling a little old posting about this.
Here's a bit of retro goodness from when the Flyers won the Stanley cup in 74 and 75. Dave Schultz had to be the most bad-ass hockey player around! As a kid, he terrified the hell out of me! Would certainly not want to encounter this guy in a dark alleyway!
2 years ago


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Pauline Prior-Pitt's Islay Poetry Challenge!/
If you were writing a poem about Islay, what would you include? Which words spring to mind first? Whisky, waves or willow warblers? Ceilidhs, cows or camper vans?
Well, we're setting a bit of a challenge for award-winning poet Pauline Prior-Pitt. Pauline will be asked to create a real-time poetry composition for Islay over the Book Festival weekend, based on word contributions sent in from the public! Pauline will then read her Islay poem at the end of her Sunday afternoon session.
To contribute a word to the Islay poem, tweet us @IslayBookFest using the hashtag #IslayPoetryChallenge, message us on Facebook, or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com
We will also have a board up over the Festival weekend, so you'll be able to drop in and see how things are taking shape, or just to add another word to the poem!
Thinking caps on please!


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The UK has now embarked on at least two years of complex negotiations with the European Union, which will determine the type of relationship we will have with our biggest single trading partner moving forward.
In the South West and Wales, we have particularly strong trade connection on the continent, with the three UK cities with the highest reliance on European Union (EU) exports being based here in the South West: 70 per cent of exports from Exeter, 68 per cent from Plymouth and 66 per cent from Bristol go to the EU. Two thirds (67 per cent) of Welsh exports also went to the EU in the final quarter of 2016.
While it's clear that the UK's position following its departure from the EU will change the way firms operate here, it highlights the ambition of businesses across the South West and Wales to grow internationally.
Our recent survey demonstrated that almost two thirds of the region's business leaders are executing their corporate strategy undeterred, despite ongoing political and economic uncertainties. Compared to a national average of less than half, this is promising to see.
ADEY, the Cheltenham-based heating systems specialist that LDC backed in 2016, is a prime example of a UK business that is striving for growth, with a particular focus overseas. Since our investment it has expanded its export operations beyond Europe, and is now also operating in the US and China.
Similarly, our partnership with Ministry of Cake saw its export sales grow by over 10 per cent following new contract wins in markets including Europe, Turkey, Russia and the Middle East, all while it continued to grow its scale in the UK. Its international presence attracted French buyer Mademoiselle Desserts, who bought the business in December 2016.
LDC also supported the international ambition of portfolio company A-Gas, which it backed in 2011. During the investment period, the Bristol-based company made six acquisitions to drive its international expansion in Australia and the US.
Revenues grew 79 per cent and profits (EBITDA) 103 per cent over the five-year partnership, and LDC sold the business to global investment firm KKR in 2017.
LDC also invests in businesses which already have substantial international presence, helping to further solidify their positions in overseas markets. Like Dorset-based global ID cards business, Magicard, where we backed a £22million management buyout in May 2016.
Magicard already sells into more than 100 countries, generating over 70 per cent of revenues, and is continually striving to further its international scale.
All four businesses now have a firm foothold in a number of international markets, enabling them to grow revenues by expanding their reach while building in a level of robustness that protects against a downturn in any one market.
At LDC, we partner with ambitious businesses as they work to build a secure and prosperous future.


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This episode is a little later than usual as we wanted to bring you a report from Allison's roadtrip into Devon to visit the John Arbon Textiles Mill as part of their Open Weekend. We've also got some other exciting roadtrip news to share with you too!
Shout outs, News and Events
A HUGE shout out to Rachel G. and Lucy O. who invited Allison to tag along with them to the John Arbon Open Weekend. Also to @anelalei in Hawaii, who Tweeted at us about enjoying the podcast - we're glad to hear it!
Congratulations to I Knit London who celebrated their 10th anniversary this past weekend!
1 June – join us for the London Craft Guide KAL! Knit or sew whatever project you'd like from the London Craft Guide. Or can be more than one project!
4 June - Leeds Wool Festival
4-5th June: Wool Fair, Ickworth
7 June - Allison will be hanging out at knit night at The Purple Purl in Toronto on her way to TNNA!
18 June - WWKIP Day! We also hope you'll join us at the Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park from 1:30-4:30pm. Please give us a shout and let us know if you're going to be joining us on the day so we can keep an eye out for you!
25-26 June - Woolfest, Cumbria,
GLYC 2016 update
Route info will be published on June 1st and tickets will go on sale on July 1st. We're adding a few new shops this year, including Stag & Bow, the iconic Liberty and Ray Stitch. Stay tuned for the routes for more details!
What we're working on
Rachel has been dyeing. A lot. And slowly working on the Incredible Hullk shawl from Episode 35 which is ginormous and...hulk-like.
Instead of a knitting FO, this episode Allison has a sewing FO - woot! It's gorgeous, and matches her Lush cardigan perfectly. She's also working on the Twist Pullover by Cecily Glowik MacDonald from knit.wear Spring 2012, in SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Cherry. Hoping to finish for TNNA...
In which Allison takes a drive down to Devon, gets audio of Frankie and John, and ends up with a Mill Membership and some yarny presents.
We also announce our upcoming autumn retreat, also in Devon! In collaboration with Made on Holiday, we are hosting Knitting in the Country with Yarn in the City, a weekend-long event on 30 September - 2 October. The venue is fabulous (really!) and we will be teaching some dyeing classes and colourwork classes and how to fix your mistakes classes. Check out the website for more details and we hope you can join us in October!
Thanks so much for listening! Please leave us a comment or send us an email at email@example.com with your thoughts, or let us know what you think viaTwitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also find us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio (and please consider leaving a review for us!), or download us directly from the Yarn in the City website.
On Wednesday nights you can find us at knit night at The Goat on the Rise pub on Battersea Rise, close to Clapham Junction station in SW London. We meet from 7pm to around 10pm. The food is great and the knitters are friendly. Join us!
Music (all available on NoiseTrade):
You're My Friend - Midnight Pilot
Charmer - Aimee Mann


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Room Facilities
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Hi-definition TV, DVD player, CD and DVD library, DirecTV receiver, and Netflix in both rooms
- Access to indoor swimming pool, sauna, and hot tub (moved outdoors during warmer weather)
Bathtub, shower, and Asian toilet seats
- Mini-fridge stocked with your choice of non-alcoholic beveages
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Full suite $575/night for up to 2 guests,
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2 night minimum stay on weekends and holidays.
Optional one dinner event per stay.


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21 March 2009
This is another of my current projects . . . Joe and Cindy ordered Tudor ensembles. Her outfit is primarily red with gold accents. His is a lovely black and tan brocade (always makes me think beer thoughts!) with red and gold accents. This photo shows the front of his under-doublet, with all its slash and poof and trim. And here's a detail shot. I think it came out very well. I'll assemble the doublet on Sunday.


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NEW YORK » Stocks surged yesterday on signs of resilience in the housing market and the U.S. consumer, with falling oil prices giving investors an extra reason to rally.
The Dow Jones industrials gained more than 120 points to reach a five-week high.
The National Association of Realtors' index for pending sales of existing homes rose in February at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.7 percent. The index is well below where it was a year ago but stronger than investors expected, reassuring them that the housing sector, while weak, is not being pummeled by the struggling subprime mortgage sector.
Fears that lending problems will spill over into the rest of the economy have been a major factor behind the market's volatility of the past several weeks. The uptick in home sales was slight but came as a pleasant surprise to investors who had been bracing for the worst.
"That says people are getting mortgages, people are buying houses, people have incomes, jobs, all that good stuff," said Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "You'd never go out and buy a house if you think you're going to get laid off. Consumers are optimistic about the future, and as we all know, the consumer drives this economy."
Other data yesterday also suggested the American consumer is strong: A report from Redbook Research showed consumers spent more at chain stores in March than they did in February, while Toyota Motor Corp. reported a steep increase in U.S. sales in March.
A decline in crude oil prices, waning as tensions eased between Britain and Iran, also encouraged investors. High energy prices contribute to inflation, which can crimp spending and hurt the chance of lower interest rates.
The Dow rose 128.00, or 1.03 percent, to 12,510.30 -- its highest close since Feb. 26, the day before it made its 416-point plunge. The blue chip index is back in positive territory for the year, and 276 points below its record close of 12,786.64, reached Feb. 20.
Broader stock indicators also soared. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 13.22, or 0.93 percent, to 1,437.77, and the Nasdaq composite index added 28.07, or 1.16 percent, to 2,450.33.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 8.55, or 1.06 percent, to 811.77.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 2.90 billion shares, up from 2.80 billion shares Monday.
Bonds were lower after the home sales data, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note at 4.67 percent, up from 4.65 percent late Monday. The dollar rose against other major currencies and gold prices slipped.
Light sweet crude dropped more than a dollar to $64.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Prices had surged when 15 British sailors and marines were detained March 23 by Iran, but the two nations are in negotiations that appeared to be bringing the captives closer to release.


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This Month At Redmen Hall/
Redmen Hall
What started out as a small schoolhouse in 1894 has become a museum highlighting the history of Skamokawa and also features a fabulous Lewis and Clarke display.
On display this month at Redmen Hall are the works of several very talented local artists.
Ruth Doumit with her mosaics and stained glass
Mike Rees and Mike Swift
Mike Rees has an amazing display of black and white photography from all over the world and Mike Swift is displaying his beautiful landscape paintings and vintage cars.
The exhibit also includes work by photogaraphers David Vik and Ruby Murray.
Redmen Hall is open Thursday-Sunday from Noon to 4. If you happen to be staying with us on a different day than that, Kitty can probably get you in since she is a docent there.


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In our ongoing blog series on data mining for policy, we've been trying to synthesize a lot of information into short, bite-sized chunks for our audience. Invariably, well-intentioned as such efforts are, something valuable always ends up on the cutting room floor. In this case, we were a bit too hasty in providing the definition of data mining itself, which one of our readers followed up to ask about. Our initial definition was put together through literature review and our earliest experiences with data mining, but the opportunity to revisit that definition more recently has enabled us to uncover some further nuances that we hadn't yet appreciated.
Our full report defines data mining as the "integrated use of data extraction, storage, pre-processing & analytical tools" to derive novel findings. We usually follow up that definition with one for big data, based on the four Vs: Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity. These methods emerge at the intersections of computer science, statistics and econometrics, making them inherently interdisciplinary. What I want to focus on here is the triumvirate of data collection, processing and analysis. Our definitions here present data mining as an integrated approach to processing and analysis, whereas big data adds in the integration of the data collection component.
Thus, big data and data mining pull together these three pieces, which can be visualized in the following diagram:
The essence of data mining and big data are that they are integrated approaches to these three components—integration is supposed to be the distinctive feature. But in reflecting on this definition, I realized that there was a substantial problem: these components are integrated in every approach to analysis, not just these new ones that we're trying to define.
Similarly, the revolutions in physics in the early twentieth century (specifically the moves towards relativity theory and towards quantum mechanics) demonstrate more clearly than ever before that—even in that most pure of sciences—the context in which the measurement is taken cannot be disregarded in interpreting the meaning of that measurement. En passant, Ernst Cassirer offers wonderful, if dense, explorations of the significance of measurement: for relativity theory and for quantum mechanics. My own work on the subject is deeply indebted to his ideas.
If all approaches are integrated, then what is novel and unique about data mining and big data? It's the velocity of iteration. Changes to official statistical collection processes take place over very long time frames, passing through processes of peer review, painstaking inspection of results and interactions between many stakeholders (including those who collect the raw data, those who collate it into official statistics and those who use them). These processes are incredibly time-consuming, but they also date from an era when data collection, processing and analysis were much more labour intensive. Conducting surveys and censuses are extremely expensive endeavours—their cost being an important driver of interest in big data, in fact—and one therefore cannot afford to be too haphazard in one's approach.
By contrast, data mining and big data are incredibly fast and nimble, in virtue of their deployment of computing power and data sources never before available to humankind. These new resources make it possible to run lots of experiments, within a time frame that would have been unthinkable even short decades ago. Because data collection, processing and analysis are always integrated, these rapid iterations call each of these pieces to be constantly considered with regard to their fit with the others. As any piece of the puzzle evolves, the others must accommodate to retain fit. When that process slows down enough, involving long timelines, large groups of stakeholders and structured decision-making procedures, we can lose sight of their interdependence. However, once we speed up the process, their interdependence once again resurfaces and we can no longer fail to notice it.
At the end of the day, what are data mining and big data? They are integrated approaches to data collection, processing and analysis, just like all the rest. However, they are highly iterative, and these short cycle times mean that collection, processing and analysis tools are in much more dynamic states of flux, causing their interdependence to resurface. These short cycle times are enabled by the ubiquity of computing power and data to which to apply it, which are pushing our notions of analysis and of knowledge to evolve.
Science-Metrix's final report for this data mining project is available from the Publications Office of the European Union.
Data Mining. Knowledge and technology flows in priority domains within the private sector and between the public and private sectors. (2017). Prepared by Science-Metrix for the European Commission. ISBN978-92-79-68029-8; DOI 10.2777/089
All views expressed are those of the individual author and are not necessarily those of Science-Metrix or 1science.


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What if the Image Seven were Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns, Chester Brown and so on, instead of dudes who made their bones drawing Spider-Man and Wolverine? The result would probably look a lot like L'Association.
Founded in 1991 by French alternative-comics titans David B., Killoffer, Mattt Konture, Jean-Christophe Menu, Mokeït, Stanislas, and Lewis Trondheim, L'Association was formed as a response to the lack of opportunity for avant-garde comics provided by France's mainstream comics publishers. But L'Asso quickly became a sales forced to be reckoned with on its own, thanks in large part to its breakout hit, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Over the years, the publisher's lineup took on "everybody who's anybody" proportions in the Francophone comics world, with Julie Doucet, Joann Sfar, Blutch, Dupuy & Berberian, Emmanuel Guibert, and Guy Delisle all releasing work through the collective.
But as was the case here in the States with the makers of Spawn, Youngblood, WildC.A.T.s et al, L'Asso became a house divided. A combination of personal rivalries, diverging interests, and outside opportunities elsewhere soon saw the seven founders go their separate ways, leaving Jean-Christophe Menu as the publisher's head honcho. What happened next — hidden financial records, unexpected layoffs, an employee strike, accusations of alcoholism and paranoia, tumultuous meetings involving hundreds of people, and a team-up between the departed founders to wrest control of their former company away from Menu's allegedly dictatorial hands — became the stuff of comics legend.
Now the Comics Journal's Matthias Wivel is telling the story of the L'Asso War — and getting participants on both sides on the record. In part one of his fascinating report, he takes us from the founding of the group to the eve of the company-wide strike in protest of Menu-directed layoffs that rocked Angoulême, France's biggest comic con. In part two, he chronicles the strike and the resulting legal wranglings and wild-sounding general assembly meetings that eventually led to the co-founders' return and Menu (and Satrapi)'s departure. Filled with juicy quotes from Menu, Trondheim, David B. and other leading players, the whole sordid saga reads like a movie, or more appropriately a comic, which, thanks to a team of cartoonists led by Trondheim, it's about to become. Take a break and read the whole thing — it's one of the most compelling collisions of art, commerce, and clashing cartoonists that comics on either side of the Atlantic has ever seen.


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The Restless by Gerty Dambury (The Feminist Press, 2018). Translated by Judith G. Miller
Gerty Dambury's The Restless, translated from the French by Judith G. Miller, takes place in her native Guadeloupe, a Caribbean island that has been an overseas department of France since just after the second World War. Guadeloupeans of different ages, genders, and social statuses narrate the events surrounding the violent confrontation between the construction workers' union and the French prefecture that took place on May 26th, 1967. On this day, as workers gathered outside the building where the union negotiated wage raises with business owners, the French prefect ordered troops to fire on the crowd, and the situation degenerated from there. The lynchpin of the novel is a little girl, Émilienne, who's waiting for her father to come home so he can explain to her why her teacher has disappeared. While she waits in the courtyard of her home, a chorus of her family members and neighbors (both living and dead) contextualize the two absences and how they relate to the broader experiences of the island.
Though Émilienne acts as the focalizer, the chief narrators are her eight brothers and sisters, who speak with a more-or-less undifferentiated voice. They proclaim themselves the "callers" of the story, which they structure after the Caribbean quadrille, a sort of creolized version of a French square-dance. The caller of the quadrille is conventionally singular and male, but Émilienne's siblings are happy to innovate. They often hand over the reins to guest narrators, who act as temporary callers. Each section of the narrative has a primary caller, though others often chime in, and corresponds to one of the four quadrille figures in rhythm and mood. Émilienne's siblings helpfully guide the unfamiliar reader's expectations of the musical conventions at the beginning of each figure/chapter. The multivocality and musicality of the text, two of its most distinguishing features, could have posed a challenge to Miller's translation. The differences between the figures and the characters' voices are discussed more than demonstrated.


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Thursday, April 10, 2014
QODT Chait on Corn
Chait wrote "David Corn, who appears to possess incriminating video of everybody in America" I hasten to add that Corn obtains these videos by honorable means and has thereby provided a great service to his country and the world. So please please David don't release the video of me ... well you know the one. Wait what's that little two letter word "in". Ohhh not all US citizens, but all US residents. Well in that case I denounce David Corn as the big brother of the 21st century from the safety of Rome.
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Ronald G. Roberson, C.S.P., holds a doctorate from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. From 1988 to 1992, he was a staff member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, serving as a liaison to the Orthodox churches. Father Roberson now lives in Washington, D.C., and is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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The Vatican, 25 January 1997
At the end of their official meeting, His Holiness Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, give thanks to God who has enabled them to deepen their spiritual brotherhood in Jesus Christ and their pastoral and evangelizing vocation in the world. It was a privileged occasion to pray and reflect together, to renew their commitment to and their joint efforts for Christian unity.
The meeting between the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia and the Pope of the Catholic Church marks an important stage in their relationship. These relations, which date to the beginning of Christianity in Armenia, took on particular importance in Cilicia from the 11th to the 14th centuries, and continued after the Catholicosate of Sis was exiled from its see and established in 1930 in Antelias, Lebanon.
Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Aram I rejoice at their meeting in the context of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It recalls the urgent need for full communion between Christians, for the sake of carrying out their essential mission which is first and foremost the witness to Christ who died and rose for humanitys salvation. For two millenniums, unity of faith in Jesus Christ, Gods gift, was maintained as essential, despite Christological and ecclesiological controversies which were frequently based on historical, political, or sociocultural factors. This communion of faith, already affirmed in recent decades by their predecessors during their meetings, was solemnly reaffirmed recently at the meeting of His Holiness John Paul II with His Holiness Catholicos Karekin I. Today the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Peter, and the Catholicos of Cilicia pray that their communion of faith in Jesus Christ may progress because of the blood of the martyrs and the fidelity of the Fathers to the Gospel and the apostolic Tradition, manifesting itself in the rich diversity of their respective ecclesial traditions. Such a community of faith must be concretely expressed in the life of the faithful and must lead us towards full communion.
Thus the two spiritual leaders stress the vital importance of sincere dialogue bearing on theological and pastoral areas, as well as on other dimensions of the life and witness of believers. The relations already existing are an experience that encourages direct and fruitful collaboration between them. Their Holinesses are firmly convinced that in this century, when Christian communities are more deeply engaged in ecumenical dialogue, a serious rapprochement supported by mutual respect and understanding is the only sound and reliable way to full communion.


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NEW YORK Citing the ongoing economic crisis, 38 percent of New Yorkers say they are eating out less, according to the latest Zagat Survey for the city's restaurants.
The survey, released Tuesday, indicated that diners also are saving money by eating in less-expensive restaurants, being more attentive to menu prices, skipping appetizers and desserts, and cutting back on alcohol. The 2009 survey, which marks the 30th annual guide for
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Wellcome, Britain's second largest drug company, is famed for its ability to bring together lateral thinking boffins and foot-in-the-door salesmen. When the company is floated on the stock market next month the City seems bound to unroll a red carpet, inscribed with an eponymous but fairly obvious message of greeting.
But the drugs group has been even cleverer. In order to guarantee a good reception for the shares, it has arranged for trading to start on February 14, St Valentine's Day. It is hoping for love at first sight.
Even though the stock market has fallen recently, there seems little doubt that investors will be queuing up, cheque books in hand, to subscribe for shares. After the flotation the group will probably be valued at comfortably over pounds 1 billion.
A special poignancy attaches itself to the whole idea of a Wellcome flotation. Underlying its undoubted commercial success there is a hard core of traditional philanthropy, not unlike the Quaker traditions which are part and parcel of Rowntree Mackintosh. It is the commitment to human well-being, as well as a keen eye for the market opportunity, which has led Wellcome to plough huge chunks of its research and development budget into work on treatments for herpes and Aids.
Until now Wellcome's only shareholder has been a charity, the Wellcome Trust. It was the trust's decision to sell some of its shares, so it could spread its investment portfolio, that has led to the flotation.
According to Sir David Steel, chairman of the trustees, there was concern about having 'all our eggs in one basket, notwithstanding the excellence of that basket'.
The relationship between the trust and the company dates back to 1936, the year Sir Henry Wellcome died. Sir Henry, a pharmacist and collector, founded Wellcome in 1880, together with Mr Silas Burroughs, a fellow American and a keen salesman.
From the start there was a tension between Sir Henry's strong commercial instincts and his religious background. When he was 21 he wrote to his parents: 'I have always had a desire for wealth and still have ..but I want to live a life devoted to the true God and to mankind'.
The trust was set up under the terms of Sir Henry's will. It was to own the company, then called Wellcome Foundation, so it could use the profits for medical research. In the 50 years of its existence the trust has received pounds 150 million from Wellcome. It was able to spend pounds 22 million last year, making it the largest medical research charity in Britain.
Wellcome, the company, has an almost unrivalled reputation for producing new drugs. Historically it has attracted some of the brightest and best researchers available and, until last year, it had what many in the scientific community regarded as the best pharmacological department in the country.
It was led by Sir John Vane, a Nobel prize winner, and Sir James Black, another world renowned scientist. Their time saw the development of both Septrin, an important anti-bacterial, and Zyloric, a treatment for gout which still accounts for 10 per cent of Wellcome's sales.
But their main contribution to Wellcome was their work on anti-virals, a field where Wellcome now has a commanding lead. Zovirax, a treatment for herpes, was forst launched in 1981, when many Americans feared an outbreak of epidemic proportions.
Wellcome is currently carrying out clinical trials on a new anti-Aids drug but, as the company is the first to admit, it could be years before the drug reaches the market.
The time lapse between discovering a drug and launching it on the market makes it difficult to assess the contribution of individuals. It is clear, however, that the presence of Sir John Vane and Sir James Black attracted other brilliant researchers, who seem to have been undeterred by rivalry between the two great men.
Whether or not it was as the result of a power struggle or on the advice of Arthur D. Little, the consultants brought in to report on the management of Wellcome's research, both Sir James and Sir John left the company last year. As one academic put it 'Morals was shattered. The two big names had gone and, as if to add insult to injury, the Trust gave a vote of no confidence by announcing its decision to sell some of its shares.'
Earlier this month Dr. Pedro Cuatrecasas, the head of American research, announced plans to join Glaxo, Britain's largest pharmaceutical company. Wellcome's public relations team did its best to play down the importance of the departure but its task was made by more difficult by subsequent events.
With only two weeks to go before the prospectus was due out, Mr Bill Sullivan, the head of Burroughs Wellcome, the American subsidiary, resigned very suddenly on January 13.
Wellcome's chairman and chief executive, Mr. Alfred Shepperd denied there had been a dispute about who would be heir apparent, but Mr. Sullivan's unexpected loss nevertheless underlines the tension between the American and British ends of the operation.
The United States has powered Wellcome's growth in the past five years, when sales have doubled from pounds 500 million to pounds 1 billion and profits have risen from pounds 50 million to pounds 122 million.
The loss of four key figures in less than 12 months is particularly unfortunate in view of the imminent flotation.
Wellcome is doing its best to dispel the cloud hanging over it with roadshows and presentations to financial institutions. But there is no British Telecom style appeal to private investors.
Great play is being made of the company's future plans, in which the anti-Aids drug clearly plays an important part. Other new drugs include Wellbrutin, an anti-depressant which will be launched in the US this year and a new antihistamine, and research continues on treatments for glandular fever and further uses of existing products. Wellcome is also trying to break in to the Japanese market.
These projects should keep Wellcome's profits moving firmly forward over the next two or three years. This year, however, is proving more problematic, thanks to the vagaries of the exchange rates. The fall in the dollar has hit Wellcome hard so that it is not expected to push up profits very far in the year to end August. The flotation could have been better timed.
The shares will not be finally priced until January 29, when the prospectus is published. Unlike the Government, which has an interest in sponsoring people's capitalism, Wellcome Trust only has an interest in raising as much money for research as possible. This means the margin for error is small. This time it is science and not the Treasury that benefits.


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Latest News
Administration kept mum about unapproved modified corn sold
WASHINGTON—The federal government kept it secret for three months that genetically modified corn seed was sold accidentally to some U.S. farms for four years and may have gotten into the American food supply.
The accidental use of unapproved seed became public when the scientific journal Nature published a story about it Tuesday.
The corn seed was probably safe. America's food supply and plant and animal stocks weren't harmed and remain safe to eat, according to officials of the seed company and the federal government.
But the government's secrecy about the mistake—one affecting the public food supply—raises serious concerns, according to independent experts.
Spokesmen for the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency said there was no need to notify the public because the government had determined that Bt 10 was safe. In addition, the USDA is investigating the whole incident involving the seed company, which faces up to $500,000 in fines, Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Rogers said.
"We're gathering evidence that we may need in front of a judge," Rogers said. "If there was a health risk, you would have heard about it and there would have been a recall."
Syngenta, a Swiss-based company, distributed the unapproved genetically altered corn seed, called
Bt 10. It mixed the Bt 10 with a near-identical and approved corn seed called Bt 11, company officials said Tuesday afternoon in a hastily called news conference. The Bt 10 was modified with a gene from the pesticide-like bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.
"Most of the corn is used for industrial and animal use," Syngenta spokeswoman Sarah Hull said. "It may have gotten into the food supply, but regardless, the proteins are deemed safe and there's no food concern."
Remaining seeds have been destroyed or isolated, Hull said.
The unapproved seeds grew into 37,000 U.S. acres of corn over four years. That involves one-one-hundredth of 1 percent of the corn acreage in America, Hull said.
Sygenta's U.S. headquarters is in Greensboro, N.C. It runs its seed operation out of Golden Valley, Minn.
"I personally don't see it would be a major issue," said Kendall Lamkey, the head of Iowa State University's plant-breeding center.
But the way the federal government kept the mistake secret is alarming, Lamkey said, and may undermine public confidence in the growing field of genetically modified crops.
"The whole GMO (genetically modified organism) controversy surrounds a lack of transparency on both (the part of) the companies and regulatory agencies," said Lamkey, who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel in 2002 on the environmental impact of genetically modified crops. "There's too much secrecy."
In mid-December, Syngenta told the EPA, the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration about the mistake, Hull said.
EPA scientists reviewed seven packets of information from Syngenta from Jan. 7 to March 10, and "as more data came in, the confidence of our scientific determination (of no risk) increased," EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said in an e-mail. "Had there been a human health concern, we would have alerted the public immediately."
That's not acceptable, said Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University environmental-policy professor who's a longtime foe of genetically modified crops.
"They have both a moral and legal obligation to reveal violations," Krimsky said. "This is a government that's operating in a stealth manner that wants to keep bad news from the public."
(c) 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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(1,764 words) – Roxie is being a tease.
© 2009 Lily Graison. All Rights Reserved
Roxy slipped on one of Luke's button-up shirts and looked in the bathroom mirror. Her skin was still pink from the shower and she debated on whether to leave her hair up or to let it down. Not that it mattered. Luke didn't seem to mind either way, although he did like grabbing handfuls of it while he pounded into her from behind. She grinned and reached up, pulling the clips holding it off her shoulders out and letting the strands fall down her back.
She walked into the bedroom, looking at the empty room. She would have bet money on Luke being laid out on the bed, naked and hard, waiting for her. When he wasn't, she only had a brief moment to wonder where he was until she got her answer. The rough grinding screech of a guitar being plugged into an amplifier echoed through the apartment and she smiled before heading to the door. The first chords of the bands new song drifted into the hall as she made her way to the music room. When she reached the door, she stopped to watch.
He was leaning back against the desk, one ankle crossed over the other. He wore nothing but faded blue jeans and his guitar. His hair was slung over one shoulder, his head bent as he watched what he was doing and she wanted to lick him up like cream. He looked amazing.
Walking into the room, she sat in the only chair available, a high-backed wing chair. He glanced up at her, half his face obscured by his hair but she could see enough to catch the glint of something in his eyes. He watched her, his fingers gliding over the strings, his gaze traveling from her face to her legs. When he did nothing but stare, she grinned and leaned back.
The shirt she had on slid up her thighs, his fingers moving faster and the chords he played grew in tempo. Raising her left leg and draping it over the arm of the chair had a much more profound effect. He never missed a note but his hot gaze grew more intent, his chest rising quickly. She smiled at him and ran her hand over her thigh, pausing as her fingers reached the edge of her panties. He looked up at her face then and smiled.
He continued to play, the vibrations of the noise reverberating through her ribs and she felt the pulse of the beat in her stomach. Watching him play was damn near orgasmic as it was, watching him do it wearing next to nothing, and only for her, made things low in her belly ache and caused her pussy to throb.
Roxy lifted the shirt, giving him a glimpse of her panties and shifted her ass on the seat so she was angled toward him. She rubbed her palm over her stomach, her fingertips brushing the edge of the silk covering her and he watched her intently. Raising her other leg and hooking it over the chair arm, she was spread wide-open for him, nothing obstructing his view of her wet folds but the red panties she'd put on.
Slipping her hand inside the front of her underwear, she leaned her head back, watching his face. She slipped a finger between her folds; her breath caught in her throat as she flicked her clit and Luke's eyes glistened. Reaching deeper and finding herself wet, she grinned before closing her eyes and spreading the moisture between her legs. She imagined him there, his fingers touching her as she rubbed small circles around her swollen nub and within minutes she heard the first missed chord.
She opened her eyes. The look on his face was primal… hungry. He missed another note but kept playing as she rubbed herself faster. A small gasp eased past her lips and she arched her back as the tingles started racing up her spine. She raised her free hand, sliding it to the top of her shirt and unbuttoning the first few buttons. When she'd freed one breasts, she massaged it, pinched her nipple into a hard peek before bending her head and licking it.
The screech of the guitar strings blasted through the room before Luke snatched the guitar strap over his head and dropped the instrument to the floor. He crossed the room in four long strides and fell to his knees between her legs, pulling the top of her panties down before lowering his head. She pulled her hand free and that wonderfully hot tongue of his swiped at her clit before he jerked on her panties. The sound of ripping threads as he pulled them down sent a chill up her spine as he sucked her flesh into his mouth.
He looked up at her, his gaze locking with her own, and she watched as he licked her clit, lapping at her flesh before closing his lips around it. Another yank on her panties and the tiny strap on one side broke free, revealing all of her to his hungry perusal. He licked her from top to bottom, his tongue dipping into her center and his gaze never left hers. He penetrated her, dipping into her heat while rubbing her clit with his thumb. Reaching up with his free hand, he grabbed her breast, his fingers pinching her nipple to this side of pain and she arched her back, trying to bring him closer to the throbbing heat between her legs. He mumbled something against her, his hot breath singeing her with wisps of air and she closed her eyes, hissing his name.
Grabbing her ass with both hands, he lifted her hips and feasted on her flesh, kissing and sucking her into his mouth until a harsh sob burst from her throat. She grabbed the top of his head, her nails digging into his scalp and she felt his teeth scrape against her moments before he penetrated her with two fingers.
"Luke…" He dug deeper, finding the soft fleshy spot that caused her back to stiffen, her fingers to dig deeper into his hair and the flick of his tongue to her clit sent her roaring to climax. She screamed, held his head to her as she rocked her hips and saw stars by the time the sensation dulled and left only small waves of tingles lapping at her spine.
He let go of her and stood, staring at her as he unfastened his pants and slid his jeans down over his hips. He was hard and thick and her mouth watered just looking at him. When he kicked his jeans away and took a step closer to her, she sat up and grabbed him, sliding his cock into her mouth without being asked. He hissed under his breath as she scrapped her teeth over him lightly. The mans tolerance to pain was a turn on and when she felt his hand in her hair, his fingers fisting around the strands she knew he wanted more. She sucked him in deeper, her cheeks hollowing as she slid her head down his length and back up again. She cupped his balls in her free hand, felling them already pulling in toward his body and knew he wouldn't last much longer.
Looking up at him she smiled around his cock and leaned back, pulling him with her as she went. He reached out, holding his weight up with a hand on the back of the chair while the other held her head to him.
She licked him from tip to root, kissing down the length and back up again before taking him back into her mouth. She grabbed his ass with one hand, guiding his hips forward and it only took a second for him to set a forward rhythm. She held his cock at the base, only allowing what she could take into her mouth as he continued to push between her lips. His fingers tightened in her hair, his breaths panted out harshly as he fucked her mouth with increasing speed. She dug her nails into his ass and gripped his cock with her other hand, squeezing him the way she knew he liked and within minutes she heard his breathing change, smalls moans and grunts mingling with the wet sounds of his cock sliding past her lips before he let go of her hair and jerked the front of her shirt open.
He pulled from her mouth and she angled him toward her breast moments before the first hot jet of come hit her skin. She jerked him in her fist, milking every drop from him as his body tensed, his back bowing and a harsh cry was forced past his lips. When she rung every drop from him and heard him sigh, she looked up.
Luke stared at her and grinned before leaning down. "If you don't stop playing with yourself in front of me, Roxy, I'm going to start thinking you're a tease."
"Only a tease for you," she said, leaning up to kiss him. "No one else."
"Mmm," he moaned, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth. "What other little treats do you have in store for me tonight?"
"Come into the bedroom with me and I'll show you."
He stood up straight and reached for her hands, pulling her to her feet. Sliding the shirt she wore off, he wiped her chest clean and tossed the soiled garment to the floor before he kissed her again, his tongue sliding into her mouth and she went limp against him, her arms wrapping around his waist. "You might want to turn some music on," she said.
"Why's that?"
"Hard to dance around a stripper pole without music."
He stilled and stared down at her, the smile that curved his lips, and the twinkle in his eyes were enough to let her know she'd said the magic words. She felt his cock twitch against her thigh and grinned. "I take it you like that idea?"
"Oh, I love that idea," he said. "But I want you fully dressed before you start."
She laughed. "I just got undressed."
"True, but I want to see you strip, Roxy. There's nothing finer in the world than watching every delicious inch of you being revealed one tiny piece at a time."
"And what will my reward be for giving you so much tonight?"
"Put on a good show for me Ms. Carlisle and I'll give you a ride you'll never forget."
"I can hardly wait."
The End
The four men who make up the rock band, Wicked, the hottest act to hit the scene in years, have earned their wicked status without much help. They're bad, sinfully delicious, and a temptation to every woman they meet.
Gearing up for a worldwide tour, the guys are about to come face to face with the only women strong enough to tame them. But it'll take more than a few smooth words to win the hearts of these ladies. When you can have any woman you want, how do you convince the one you can't live without her?
Book 1 – Wicked: Tempt Me Not (Devin and Holly)
Book 2 – Wicked: Leather and Lace (Luke and Roxy)
Book 3 – Wicked: Jade Butterfly (Christian and Jessi)
Book 4 – Wicked: Sweet Temptation ( Mick and Faith)
Boxset – Wicked: The Complete Series All 4 books in one hot volume!
Copyright © 2009 Lily Graison
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.
The right of Lily Graison to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


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Old Home Day Ends with Contemporary Concert
The finishing touch to the annual Old Home Day celebration in Londonderry will be held tomorrow, Sunday, August 18, 2013, on the Town Common. The Contemporary Christian Concert has ended the five day celebration for many years and features a community church service and free picnic for people of all faiths.
The church service will begin at 11 AM and will be followed by a picnic and choir concert. Grab your blankets, chairs and families and join several of Londonderry's churches on the Common for this fun, free event!
Participating churches this year include the Londonderry United Methodist Church, Orchard Christian Fellowship, Church of the King, Zion Christian Fellowship, Londonderry Christian Church, and Journey Church of the Nazarene.


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The 3.11 disaster, as the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami is known in Japan, was immensely traumatic to the country and its people. The combined catastrophes of the earthquake, tsunami, and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant killed more than twenty thousand people and more than three hundred thousand people were evacuated. It was the biggest national crisis since World War II, one that has led the Japanese people into a period of fundamental reconstruction of their lives.
In November 2013, when this interview was conducted, more than two hundred and eighty thousand people were still displaced and many problems in the disaster-stricken area remain unresolved. 'Yet,' as Hideo Furukawa, a Fukushima-born writer, cautiously says during the course of this interview, 'the incident is about to be forgotten, or they pretend nothing has happened.'
In the past three years, the country has apparently recovered well from the disaster. But the 'recovery' or sense of recovery promoted by the government and media may have conversely blinded people to lingering issues and painful lessons that have yet to be considered. The effects of the deep trauma worry Furukawa on many levels: He observed the disaster and the problems it created, and warns that if left unexamined they could continue to harm the nation and its people in a real sense. Out of this deep concern, he has written his latest story, 'Footprints,' for Asymptote, and conducted this interview.
Initially, Asymptote requested Furukawa be interviewed himself to talk about his work, and his new story. He declined, and suggested that he instead conduct an interview with another artist: he asked that it be Yoshitomo Nara.
Yoshitomo Nara, an Aomori-born artist, is yet another influential figure who has visited and been active in the disaster-stricken area. In this casual-but-sincere dialogue-styled interview held in Shincho-sha, Tokyo, the two Tohoku-born artists intensely talked about their art, as well as many concerns they share, from the effects of getting older to the effects of 3.11.
Here, Asymptote presents an excerpt from their two-hour-long intimate conversation.
—Sayuri Okamoto
Topic 1: The Artist and Aging
Furukawa: Let me begin the interview with a question about aging. We were chatting about your eyesight changing with age. Does that affect your work?
Nara: My physical power and ability have decayed, of course, but I've obtained new, far-sighted eyes in exchange. Aging does my work good in this sense. I see a big picture, instead of the details I used to focus on with my younger eyes. I enjoy the bird's-eye view of being an older man. And I don't need reading glasses yet!
Furukawa: Has your work changed as your eyesight has changed with age?
Nara: It has, in a good sense. I care now for the core of the work. When I was young, I used to split hairs when I was drawing. Now I know it's best to work in a way that befits your faculties at the time. Henri Matisse is a good example. He used to make small tableaus when he was young. When he was older, however, he started painting on big canvases, so big you couldn't grasp the whole picture unless you saw them from afar. By contrast, Salvador Dali kept drawing the same kind of intricate painting, which he had characteristically produced in his youth, as he aged―even wearing reading glasses. They aren't good at all.
Furukawa: I guess he tried to replicate his younger self and work.
Nara: Yes, and that's why his later works don't appeal to me as much. It's no use trying to draw the same kind of work you made in your youth, especially if you need reading glasses to do so.
Furukawa: Speaking of the eyes, critics say that the eyes of your characters have changed. Does it have something to do with your own far-sightedness?
Nara: Now I see myself in relation to my paintings as a creator and part of the audience at the same time. I used to work as both a painter and 'the' only member of the audience, in a kind of one-to-one manner. Having lost my perfect eyesight—or having gained new sight—I started regarding myself just as one part of my audience. I feel my eyes among the other hundreds looking at me. They say human eyes are the mirror of the soul, and I used to draw them too carelessly. Say, to express the anger, I just drew some triangular eyes. I drew obviously-angry eyes, projected my anger there, and somehow released my pent-up emotions. About ten years ago, however, I became more interested in expressing complex feelings in a more complex way. I began to stop and think, to take a breath before letting everything out. That might be another effect of aging.
Furukawa: I guess I know what you mean. I've equated speediness with creativity up until a couple years ago, but I don't rush to make quick decisions nowadays. I'm less inclined to judge things by intuition.
Nara: Intuition has its own weakness. I enjoyed my intuitive power when I was young, too, though.
Furukawa: Now that I'm older I feel my period of rebelliousness is over, at last. I enjoy being immersed in someone's world. I even enjoy reading the old masterpieces, which I couldn't have empathized with when I was young.
Nara: I know what you mean. I've become more and more aware of the power of art produced in a time when all that mattered was immediate human relations. In comparison, contemporary works seem to have little power because they are made too instantly.
Okamoto: Can you say more about what you mean by 'all that mattered was immediate human relations'?
Nara: I mean, when our ancestors didn't have electricity, when they didn't even know where Europe was, or what's going on in the U.S., what's happening in Egypt. In short, a small world.
Okamoto: A small world within your reach.
Nara: Yes. There shouldn't be any difference between people from earlier times and us when it comes to the amount of information your brain can process. They lived in a small world without any broader, worldwide concerns, such as international politics and economy; they must have had plenty of room in their brains to care more about the things that were close to them. For example, when I examine Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, I always feel he was able to produce those works because of the time. Ancient Greek art makes me feel the same. Regardless of the genre, whether it's writing or painting, the most perfect and universal art emerges when the form is first established.
Furukawa: The very first form is natural and just so apt to survive.
Nara: Right. I feel all the more keenly the need for my approach to have the natural simplicity of a painter living in our complex world. I know I can't draw like ancient painters or Leonardo, but I mustn't forget those pioneering painters' spirits and their ways of approaching the world.
Furukawa: I guess it's a kind of destiny for an artist to feel that way. Painting has a long history, and the very history of the genre urges you always to bear in mind its history and origins. I know the feeling as a writer, too. The more you work, the more you feel the need to approach the origins with a fundamental question: 'What is painting?'
Nara: The older the work is, the more it appeals to me. The power of old works might owe to their 'naturalness.' Painters must have naturally breathed in the air and the wants of their time, then breathed out the reply through their work; again, naturally. We can't tell what our time wants because of the noise surrounding us. To make matters worse, there is a system pushing artists to produce false 'wants' in our time. That's one of the factors that make more of what I call noise.
Furukawa: With too much noise and focused, micro-scoped concerns, we might have lost the big picture of our time and world. We all need to be a bit far-sighted like you, don't we?
Nara: (laughs)
Furukawa: You are known for big projects that involve hundreds of volunteers and staff. When you paint on a smaller scale do you tend to seclude yourself from the outside world? Or do you prefer to have input from others, as you do in your big projects?
Nara: No matter the size of the project, you can't achieve a satisfying result unless you really work hard all by yourself, in the end. I enjoyed my past big projects and collaborations, but there have always been gaps between me and the volunteers or staff gathered for 'my' project. They work on a plan and timetable. They know what to do today and when to call it a day. It's easy to be at their pace, in a way. But I'm the type of person who wants to work as much as possible in a day when I'm in a working mood. When I feel I can make something more, I want to work more no matter the time, no matter the schedule. In the end, I'm not a teamwork type of person. I have no 'real or personal life' outside of my working life, like other people may have. Or at least, I'm not good at 'enjoying my life' after I've finished the work.
Topic 2: The Self and the Power of Imagination.
Furukawa: You studied and lived in Germany for 12 years. Did you have an idea of what would happen during your time there before you went?
Nara: Not at all! I went there when I was 28 years old. I was in my last year of art college, and was teaching art to high school students. As I did, I gradually felt that it was not them but me who must be taught art. I chose Germany just by chance. In fact, I could have gone to London instead. I can't imagine what my life would be had I gone to London at that time, when the city was a mecca of young, energetic artists. For one reason or another, I ended up living in Germany for 12 years. I became literally 'alone' there. It strongly reminded me of the memory of my lonely childhood. I felt the city's (Düsseldorf) cold and darkness, just like my hometown, and the atmosphere there reinforced my tendency to seclude myself from the outer world. It helped me to remember the boy-me's feelings from back in my hometown, too. So I started talking with the 7- or 8-year-old boy-me in Aomori and the 28-year-old current-me in Germany, beyond the time-gap of 20 years, and the thousands of kilometers of distance between the countries. The result of the conversation was so obvious: what I drew changed drastically.
Furukawa: Only after a real conversation with her or himself can an artist establish their style, an original way of expression.
Nara: Maybe so. To be an artist, one might need to be deprived a bit of what he or she has taken for granted: accessibility to things and people, including language and a means of communication. At least, I needed a setting which would allow me to isolate myself from others to have a real conversation with the inner-me, in my case. I found my style only after living in solitude. I couldn't have achieved my style without a good setting, without the help of the place and circumstances.
Furukawa: Solitude. Yes, you must apply yourself closely to your work. In the same sense, you shouldn't think too much about your audience. I always tell myself that I should have, ideally, my own creator's point of view and that of the audience at the same time to keep a kind of well-balanced solitude.
Nara: Ideally, yes. But haven't you ever been flattered and encouraged to go on, especially at the early stage of your creative career? At times, you need others' points of view. In my case, I decided to be a painter when a friend who saw my drawings said, 'You're good, Nara!' (Laughs.)
Furukawa: But being 'good' is not a crucial point when we value an artist. There are hundreds of examples of not-good-but-appealing artists and works in the history of art and literature. Those are the works and people who have something particular only to them, and that very particularity or singularity lets them survive over the centuries.
Nara: I would call the particularity a power of image that the work conveys. In the case of written work, no matter if it's written in Japanese or English or Chinese, it's the power of the image the story evokes in the readers' mind.
Furukawa: You mean the power of something 'beyond the surface'?
Nara: Yes. Otherwise, you can't explain why you're moved when you read a piece in translation. A story imprints on your mind an image that is beyond the language. We say, 'I was moved, though I can't explain how and why,' don't we? That happens often with works that are so-called masterpieces. And that beyond-words appeal is, for me, the power of the imagery that the story delivers.
Furukawa: What about the words you sometimes insert in your drawings?
Nara: I guess they condense and represent all the images I conceive of. When I write 'rock' in my work, I'm speaking to people who might share a part of the images that I have around the word 'rock.' I suppose people in my generation sometimes imagine those who love the same kind of rock music I love are the ones with whom I want to share my imagination underlying that word. It depends. A word is a kind of a key to a door which opens and leads to my world of imagination. I know it reaches some people, but I also know that it doesn't ring a bell with others.
Furukawa: Can you tell a little about the sources of your imagination?
Nara: I remember a lot of the picture books and music records I devoured in my youth. I was born and grew up in a rural area in Aomori. I didn't have much opportunity to see 'real' works of art, especially western art or the works that were made under western influence. I mean, we did have a lot of Buddhist art in my region, but they weren't 'art' to me at that time. So the visual images I enjoyed the most were picture books. Not manga, especially. You wouldn't read manga with much imagination. You'd read them passively, looking forward only to see what might come next. With picture books, on the other hand, you'd work your imagination a lot more starting from a picture, and little words would suddenly come along with it. The more you look into the picture the more you think and the more your imaginary world expands.
As for records, I bought a lot of imported records because they were inexpensive even for someone my age. But, you know, I couldn't read the jacket cover of the thing I'd just purchased! Yet I pulled the record out of the cover and started listening with the cover in my hand. It got my imagination moving a lot and gradually I started picking up words. Little by little, I constructed the world of the record using imagination. I think I trained my imagination through the picture books and records, without knowing I was doing so.
Furukawa: I know what you mean from my own experience. As you know, I was born and grew up in Koriyama, a provincial city in Fukushima prefecture. Looking back, I remember that those 'foreign' things like records and books came without any kind of Japanese 'footnotes' attached. Something 'foreign' came directly into our lives with no filter and left a strong impact on our adolescence, a crucial time for our character-building.
Nara: You are where you were born and grew up! My hometown in Aomori is known for its severe cold and heavy snow. You just endure the depressing season. You wait and wait and wait for a spring to come and when the spring finally comes, you learn that the season of joy comes only if you withstand the hard season. You repeat it every year, and your body remembers the lesson: 'If you endure, spring will certainly come.'
Topic 3: Artist and '3.11' (Tohoku Great Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011)
*Both Nara and Furukawa are from the Tohoku region, Aomori and Fukushima, respectively.
Furukawa: I was shocked by the gigantic bronze sculptures you presented in your exhibition in 2012. It was your first big exhibition after 3.11. What was your initial reaction to the disaster?
Nara: I became unable to draw. I guess everyone in Japan went through the same kind of emotional experience: I was so depressed that I couldn't help feeling that what I'd been doing was totally meaningless and useless. No one needs art in an extreme situation, after all. People don't think of art unless they are living with a certain mental and physical richness. I felt my powerlessness as an artist in an extreme situation and became unable to produce a single picture, no matter how much I struggled. I knew, however, that all I have is art. What I could do a little better than other people was draw. So I decided to prepare a piece for people who would have wanted it when their lives returned to normal: I took that as my role as an artist. I thought I should prepare the work for a future need. I told myself that I should devote myself to that mission. But I couldn't draw, no matter how much I encouraged myself.
Furukawa: Did you start making sculpture as a result of being unable to draw after 3.11? Or did you start it before the incident?
Nara: I'd been working on ceramics before 3.11. You could call it a metaphorical preceding, a 'self-kneading' process before I began working with the bronze. When at a certain point in my career I saw that my position as a certain kind of artist was somewhat fixed and secured, I felt something was wrong. There seemed to be a division between artists who were successful and unsuccessful, and that society had drawn lines that determine what you could do based on this kind of label. I felt uncomfortable with being given a certain label, whether it was positive or negative. And I remembered that I'd long forgotten how I had started my career. I realized that I'd long neglected the 'conversation with myself,' which had been the foundation of my creative activity. So I quit collaboration works and started working with ceramics to restart the conversation.
Furukawa: Why ceramics?
Nara: I can have the material there before me, to begin with. I have a thing to touch and 'knead.' To knead means to think by using the hands. My intuition told me to think by hand. I guess I wanted to go back to a point where I could communicate with my childhood memory again. As a child, I had played with clay and that was my very first hand-craft experience. I had kneaded clay, or sometimes my own droppings too, maybe, before learning to draw and other stuff. I guess I wanted to go back to that 'origin' of the pleasure of using my hands, of making something that escapes evaluation. Having done so, I then washed my hands of ceramics and shifted to bronze. I couldn't concentrate on my thinking-by-hand, after all. You need to learn and acquire a certain technique to make, say, a clay pot, and the idea of learning a new technique disturbed me in a way. I just wanted to put all my energy into hand-thinking, and I began to work on a massive lump of clay to make bronze sculptures. It helped: I accordingly recovered my hands for painting through this process.
Okamoto: What about you, Furukawa-san?
Furukawa: I couldn't write after 3.11 either. I didn't know what to write. You know, one needs time to read a book, but people didn't have time to spare for a book. They didn't need a book. I strongly felt that a writer was a useless being vis-à-vis such a disaster. I knew money was the most immediate need, but I didn't have any, and I didn't have political power to move big money either.
After a while I started doing a couple of experiments to grope for my own way as a person, and then as a writer. For instance, I went to the disaster-stricken area to see whether the immediate, on-the-spot reactions or words of mine there could be a short-story-substitute: a kind of new form of literature. I had three stories in hand around 3.11. I tried to continue and ended up with chaotic results. None of them could stand or be worthy as a piece of work after the disaster. I learned that my previous way of writing wouldn't work anymore.
Just like you Nara-san, I started talking with myself. I thought hard about the fact that I was a Fukushiman, born and bred. I tried to face the very fact that I was born and grew up in Fukushima, and it was my hometown, which now had a big, big problem. It took two years, in the end, till I became able to write again. Your bronze sculptures gave me a punch. I was shocked by the trace of your hands left on the surface of the works. The 'footprints' of your hands, the trace of you. Coincidentally, I started writing by hand, and leaving my footprints on paper, in 2012. I do half of my work by hand now. It feels like 'kneading' something by hand when I write with a pen; I feel a kind of responsibility of creation, more than I do when I write with a computer. It feels completely different from what I feel when I write with a machine. I'd draw a line if I made a mistake, instead of erasing what I've done. The line remains there and starts signaling something: my mistake and the deed and line of crossing-out remain in my sight. I keep writing, with the vestige of what I've done there in the corner of my eye. It affects you, really.
All in all, I struggled a lot after 3.11. I examined myself and my personal history, experimented with a documentary-like, dictation-like way of making a story in the very middle of the stricken area, and returned to the ancient tools of writing with pen and paper. Now after a lot of trial-and-error I can say that this 're-kneading' was a necessary process to recover myself, or to reconstruct my writing. I needed to face and talk with myself, no matter how tough it was.
Nara: I reckon you can't 'say' in a sense what you mean when you write with computer. A computer doesn't answer you. It can't be a conversation-partner substitute.
Furukawa: It can't! The letters that appear on the computer screen don't reflect what I've done. It doesn't show, for instance, the pressure of typing, which is equivalent to the strength of brushstroke when you write with a pen. It doesn't reveal the shape, size, and accent, the characteristics of my handwriting that I'd otherwise subconsciously show on paper.
Nara: With the computer, everything appears the same and flat, whatever you do. You also have the risk of deleting what you've just done by some accident. It'd never happen with a pen and paper.
Furukawa: The only thing I allow myself to expect is that something unexpected will happen or appear through the course of writing. This 'something unexpected,' which underlies the work in a piece of writing, should be independent from the writer, and only then does this 'something' emerge. In this way, the writer is simply a bridge between the piece and the image to be delivered. The writer wouldn't need to claim 'This is MY work. Read MY story.'
Nara: As for me, I don't care much about the audience and their reactions nowadays. It might be another effect of aging. What I wish now is that my works remain for, say, 200 years after my death. I hope they are strong enough, in various senses, to overcome the disappearance and death of the person who's created them. I consciously started thinking in this way after 3.11. I feel I don't need to show what I make now offhand. I don't have to do something 'new' either. Seen from the viewpoint of hundreds of years later, what we do in our life span of 70 or 80 years will not be a big deal. Our generation, even our time, might be categorized under the same name as Picasso's and Matisse's: only a few really strong works among all the others will survive.
Furukawa: It sounds like an objection to current or contemporary art.
Nara: So-called 'contemporary art', roughly speaking, still values immediacy, offhandedness, flexibility, change, up-to-date-ness, of the artist and their work. I feel the span of 'now' has become shorter and shorter, and artists must be very quick to catch up with 'now.' But I don't think it's those works that will survive, though I can't say what might. I'm still groping for my own way.
Furukawa: One positive, unexpected outcome of the 3.11 disaster was that it promoted another, or new, image of Japanese people to other countries. I think this was due simply to the fact that the disaster hit no other region but Tohoku, whose people are known for characteristics that surprised the foreign media: they are patient, extremely well-mannered, unselfish, cooperative, and so forth. Those virtues might not be the first image people in other countries have of 'Japanese' people before 3.11, though these are very Japanese in my view. Media, especially foreign media, had focused on big, peculiar cities such as Tokyo and Osaka and their people, and had a fixed idea of the Japanese. 3.11 managed to change it a bit, at the sacrifice of a great number of lives. It's a pity, though, that the change the incident brought about doesn't seem to have paved the new way for the country's direction.
Nara: It's simple. It's because politicians in power are from somewhere else, not Tohoku.
I was deeply moved too by how people behaved soon after 3.11, although I'd known that they possessed those virtues you've named. Apart from these virtues, there might have been another reason for their unselfish behavior or tolerance, namely, the elder generation who had known the War. I think people had learned the importance of patience, as well as how to behave during an emergency from the war generation. They had known extreme poverty, lack of foods and fuels, and the loss of home and family. Besides, Tohoku has been a poor region, and they have known how to live humbly, accepting the given situation. I don't think it's a 'new' aspect of Japanese people. They have been there, and have lived in that way. It is by chance that this came to light after 3.11.
Furukawa: They are tolerant, and so are you, Nara-san. You've been tolerant with the situation of being unable to paint. You stick to art despite the depression and trauma. We all might have needed to be under an extreme situation that urges us to be tolerant a little longer, so that Japan could change.
Nara: I agree.
Furukawa: We shouldn't have had to utter a word or pretend we were fine so soon. But many began to act 'just like before' in many cases. Many people did not see it as a chance to learn and obtain something really important. They started pretending 'nothing has changed,' and it was too early. The tragedy was doubled or tripled by how and how people reacted without having time to think.
Nara: Indeed. They might have pretended nothing has changed, but apparently there is a new phenomenon that occurred after 3.11. That is the attitude towards the border. You know, my studio in Tochigi is only 100 km from the troubled power plant. It's just next to Shirakawa in Fukushima. But apparently after the accident of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, there seems to be a clear mental division in people's mind: 'They are Fukushima. We are Tochigi,' though the distance from the power plant is the same.
Furukawa: That's labeling.
Nara: Yes, I know we do it and brand apples from my prefecture 'Aomori Ringo.' And although they make completely the same apples in Iwate, Aomori Ringo costs more than the others. We do the same with fish or rice, too. We brand the fish by the name of the port: Oma Tuna, for instance. If the same boat brings the same tuna to a non-famous port, the price of the tuna would be half.
Furukawa: Labeling, branding, or packaging, you name it, is a kind of mind control. It's a shared message or pretext, 'Let's not think about what's inside.' What we must have learned from 3.11 was the very danger of labeling. What we needed to do was not re-label things, not recover the labels we had before, but get rid of the labels and the idea of labeling, and learn to see what's inside with our own eyes. Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy to stop, think, and be free of this old habit. It's always easy to let someone evaluate and label something instead of doing it for yourself. I even feel scared about what feels like an accelerated tendency to begin 're-labeling' after 3.11.
Nara: I think that the most important things in life are those we cannot name or label. What obscures our vision and breaks our concentration on what is 'most important' is the labeling or branding. It's a way to call our attention to appearances, or superficial matters, not the contents or the inside where, and only where, what is 'most important' truly is.
Furukawa: That's the way of things in our time. People often don't bother to see what is 'most important' because it requires a lot of energy to face and then live together.
Nara: I sometimes wonder how life was when people were leading simpler lives with no electricity, cars, mobile phones, and so forth. It must have been inconvenient, but they must have been able to extend more imagination to others and be more creative, more patient, and more 'nature-friendly' in a real sense. It was good for me to experience a couple of days with no electricity or a mobile phone right after 3.11 despite the inconvenience. I remembered the darkness of a stormy night in my childhood. I was waiting in the dark for the power to be restored, hearing the thunder with my mother. I was looking at her profile lit by a candle while she was telling me a story about the war-time, when she heard the bomb attacks in the darkness with her mother. The power of darkness. Without any power in my mobile phone, I also remembered the anxious, but somewhat warm feeling of thinking of someone without being able to talk to them with a convenient gadget. I think our sensitivity to others and nature might be dulled by these tools of convenience. I'd be despised if a person from the Edo period were able to come and see me. They would say, 'How insensitive and self-centered you are!'
Okamoto: I would like to ask one more question before concluding the interview. Furukawa-san why did you invite Nara-san for this interview?
Furukawa: Nara-san is an independent artist. He has always been challenging something very big―that is, the definition of art itself―in a very original, innovative way. It must be tough to keep challenging like this alone, and I wanted to know part of the secret. That's the first reason. Secondly, he is also good at involving an incredible number of people in his projects, or just attracting so many people. He has a kind of magnetic force to which people are drawn. Yet he never works in a combative manner, or a fighting mood. This is the ideal way of creating. Serious, but casual. Haruki Murakami seems the same to me. I want to work like you, but I know I can't. I've just known that your way is ideal to me, and the fact that there is an artist who has been walking in my ideal way has encouraged me to go on. So, when Okamoto-san invited me to be interviewed by Asymptote, I replied that I would rather interview someone myself.
Okamoto: You immediately named Nara-san.
Furukawa: The great thing about Nara-san's artwork is that it appears to cross the border so casually, despite all the effort during the creation process. It's so accessible to everyone, no matter the language or cultural context.
Okamoto: Indeed. It's like Nara-san is creating the work and the translation at the same time all by himself.
Furukawa: Well, I don't agree with that idea. There is something untranslatable in his work, but that 'something' is beyond the idea of 'the border' itself, from the beginning. He has achieved it putting in tremendous effort, how much I can't even imagine. But his work doesn't reveal the struggle very much. Many people are ignorant of the gap between the friendly, kawaii aspects of his work and the struggle behind it. I didn't expect him to name what that 'something' is, but I wanted to listen to him to have a hint of what it might be.
Okamoto: I remember that you, Furukawa-san, said it was obvious that music was indispensable for Nara-san's art.
Nara: It's a pity, but some people can't really tell it. They might see only the surface. Doesn't it happen to you that you sometimes send a signal full of meaning, at least to you, but you worry nobody around you would get it? You feel like a clown. And sometimes I do in fact feel like a clown.
Furukawa: But you aren't afraid of being a clown, being hurt, in a way.
Nara: Not at all.
Furukawa: That's what I admire. I'm not like that. I tend to think that I'd rather stay home than go out in public and be misunderstood. I've tried to overcome this weakness, though.
Nara: How you'd be understood, or misunderstood, is predetermined by the nature of your work.
Furukawa: It might be the golden rule: One is destined to be subordinate to what she or he produces. I must remember it.
Nara: Me, too.