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(Chinese versions coming soon)
I should've known that I've been an all-around, bonafide crust-person since the beginning. I mean there were signs… moments when I found myself eyeing the crust others left behind from their pizza and seconds later realizing frantically that I've stared too long. Or moments when I stood by the pastry counter and parents thought I was fixated on the glistening strawberries on the tart, but in fact I was secretly lusting over the pastry shell with all its beauty and luscious, buttery flaky-ness. But it wasn't until I started making my own crusts-of-any-kinds that I had the final epiphany. It was at the particular moment when I found myself crouching by the kitchen counter and scavenging on pie-crust scraps that I finally came out of self-denial and made peace with the fact – I'm a crust person.
And among the stars in The Hall of All Crusts, Thomas Keller's quiche shell is I'd say the best. Easily adapted for salty or sweet and only takes a few turns in the mixer, his recipe will deliver a buttery crust so flaky and full of layers that it can practically disguise as puff pastry. My admiration for his ingenuity is well documented in previous posts, alongside the 20+ steps that came with it… which admittedly I didn't enjoy much. But then I realized that the most hated steps of all time – the pre-baking procedure – is an oppressive act against the pie dough. Pre-bake procedure is when you place something heavy (usually beans) on the dough to prevent it from puffing up in the oven…
Now, this is where I feel a bit sorry. Pie doughs have rights. It is built inside their DNA to puff and rise… all those butter bits cut into it screaming "Push! Push!". Trying to kill it would be like trying to stop cats from scaring me, and to ban dogs from making me laugh. It isn't right. So as a crust activist, I'm going to initiate a little Operation Freedom Crust here. I propose a place where pie crusts are allowed to puff freely and be what they want to be. A place where they can rise tall and say, "We are more interesting than what we were made to hold." And given the chance, they'll prove that they have more to offer puffed-up than weighed-down…
That they can be satisfying treats all on their own. In this case, kind of half cookie half cracker, and come out of the oven ready to eat. But if you feel like dressing them up a bit, I understand too. For example, chocoed-up, sliced in half and become a custard sandwich. Yes a Napoleon, but without the need of puff pastry! Before I completely lose it, go insane and attempt my own puff pastry at home, I'm gonna say that this flaky, buttery pie crust is good enough to replace it.
Servings: 16 ~ 18 sandwiches
Pie Dough:
- 1 3/4 cups of flour
- 1/4 cup of coco powder
- 3 tbsp of sugar
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
- 200 g of frozen butter (use 225 g if you want it to be extra buttery)
- 4 ~ 5 tbsp of iced water
Vanilla Custard: adapted from Smitten Kitchen
- 2 cups of milk
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 6 tbsp of tapioca flour/starch
- 4 tbsp of unsalted butter
Your Favorite Jam: I'm using black cherry jam
To make the custard:
The custard needs to be chilled overnight in order to reach a certain thickness. This recipe is adapted from the Smitten Kitchen.
Slice the vanilla bean in half and scrape off all the seeds. Add the vanilla pods, seeds and milk in a sauce pot and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat and let it sit for 10 min then discard the pods. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and sugar in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment until they are fluffy and airy, then add the tapioca starch and mix until combined. Keep the mixer on low, add the warm milk 1 ladle at a time into the egg yolks mixture and you will have what is now a custard mixture. Pour everything back into the sauce pot and set it over very low heat. Keep whisking until the custard starts to thicken and bubbles ever so slightly. Take it off the heat immediately at this point and keep whisking for another minute (to prevent the custard from curdling at the bottom where the pot is still hot). Chill in the fridge overnight before using.
To make pie dough:
Cube the unsalted butter and freeze them for 20 min. Sift flour, coco powder, sugar, salt and ground cinnamon into a bowl then divide it into 2 portions.
In a stand mixer with pedal attachment, mix 1/2 of the flour mixture and all the frozen butter together on low until they are COMPLETELY blended together (no visible butter bits). Get the iced water ready during this time. When the butter is completely blended into the flour, add the other 1/2 of the flour mixture in and start mixing again. Add the iced water 1 tbsp at a time until a dough forms. This will take approximately 4 ~ 6 tbsp. Stop the mixer at this point and transfer the dough and all the loose bits onto the counter. Knead slightly JUST TO incorporate all the loose pieces, then pad it into a flat disk. Return the dough back to the fridge to chill for 30 min, or the freezer (for the impatient like me) for 15~20 min. The dough can be made the day before and be kept in the fridge.
Flour the working surface and the rolling pin. Roll the dough out into a 5 mm thick rectangle (as rectangular as possible). The dough can be quite hard in the beginning but keep working at it. It'll give. Use a sharp knife and slice the dough into 3 cm x 10 cm rectangles (approx 1″ x 4″). Gather the scraps again into a ball and repeat the steps. Stack these rectangular pieces together and put them back into the freezer for 20 min.
Preheat the oven on 375ºF/190ºC. Lay the rectangular pie dough onto a sheet pan and brush the top with egg wash (beat 1 egg + 1 tbsp of water together). Bake in the oven until puffed and golden. Approx 20 min.
Let them cool on a cooling rack then you can eat them like cookies. But if you want to go the extra miles:
Use a sharp knife and slice the pie crust in half. The crust is VERY flaky and fragile so you may want to take it slow. Stuff the layers with custard and your favorite jam and dust with powder sugar.
I think they are even better after chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours.


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Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth): Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we often find not a lack of understanding, but a lack of skill to implement risk assessment and risk management across the Departments? We do not oppose risk, but we do oppose the inability to carry out a proper risk assessment and put in place adequate management strategies at the start of a project.
Mr. Leigh: That is absolutely clear and we shall continue our work on it. We believe that risk taking and innovation are wholly consistent with careful and proper control of public money. To follow on from that intervention, if Departments have sound control systems they are more likely to have the confidence to innovate, because they will be able to take account of adverse circumstances. In the game of politics, we all know that policies, Ministers and requirements change all the time. Risk management will become an integral part of how Departments operate. Their civil servants have the skills to identify and assess risks and take the action to manage them. Having the right skills to manage risky projects is a salient issue.
I want to make as an individual a point that I put to the Treasury permanent secretary. It is worth reminding the House that those in the highest echelons of the civil service have, without exception, a background in policy rather than project management. Perhaps for that reason, those people of honesty and integrity, who have brilliant minds, sometimes fail to get a grip on major projects. Time and again, they are called to our Committee to explain themselves.
No project directorno one who has ever attempted to run a Government projecthas ever become a permanent secretary in the history of the civil service. That says something about the culture, which needs to change. There is now a culture of delivery and the public expect first-rate public services across the nation. We expect our senior civil servants to have hands-on experience of how to deliver a successful project. We found that one project was run by seven people over its lifetime. Some lasted just a few months before being shuffled off to another part of the management structure.
Geraint Davies: Many people might find it unbelievable that no permanent secretary has run a project in his entire career. Can the hon. Gentleman explain what he means? Do not those who join the civil service run projects and work their way up or is he suggesting that all such people are parachuted in at senior level?
Mr. Leigh: No. Project director is a term of art and no person responsible over months and years for delivering a major IT project such as the benefit payment cardthe one in the hot seathas risen to the top of the civil service. I put that to Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Treasury permanent secretary, and he could not deny it. To be fair to him, and as he said, permanent secretaries need many other skills. They have to advise Ministers, which may require a particular ability that does not arise from running projects, but the civil service culture is changing and many people will expect a different type of person to rise to the top.
We welcome the Cabinet Office and Treasury initiatives to improve risk management by Departments, but they need to monitor how Departments implement their plans to ensure that they are underpinned by effective action to manage risks. I also welcome the decision that the public sector should apply the Turnbull requirements on corporate governance being adopted in the private sector. The Government must get to grips with finding ways to reward, encourage, promote and retain good project managers.
My final theme is accountability, which is vital. Last February, Lord Sharman published a valuable review of audit and accountability in central Government and the momentum behind his recommendations must not be lost. Opportunities for Parliament to consider and legislate on issues of financial accountability are few and far between. Believe it or not, the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 represents one of the few opportunities to do so since Gladstone's time. My predecessor and the Committee were disappointed that the Government did not take the opportunity to iron out anomalies in the financial accountability arrangements, although they were pleased to contribute to the Sharman review, which they established in response to our concerns.
The Sharman report made a series of welcome recommendations designed to strengthen central Government audit and accountability arrangements. The Committee endorsed that report in our sixth report in 2000-01. It recommended that, as a matter of principle, the Comptroller and Auditor General should audit all executive, non-departmental public bodies, that his access rights should be on a statutory basis, and that if a Department has a substantial stake or influence or if a company has a public interest role, he should be eligible for appointment as auditor of companies.
The report went on to recommend that external validation of performance information for central Government should be progressively developed. It also made a number of recommendations to bring central Government corporate governance arrangements into line with best practice in the private sector to address issues of audit burden and the effect of audit or risk taking, and to ensure that best use is made of audit work.
We are still waiting for the Government's response. The report was produced almost a year ago, and the Government have still to respond, but I think that they will fairly soon. The report covers important matters of direct concern to Members of the House, and further delay would be unacceptable. I know that the Treasury has been in close contact with the CAG and his team on the practical issues of implementation, and encouraging progress has been made. IfI use the word advisedlythe Sharman recommendations are implemented in full, that will be a significant step forward for accountability to Parliament.
Two issues may cause difficulty. In our report on the Sharman review, the Committee raised the issue of access to the civil list, which is the one area of royal spending outside our remit. Since 1988, the National Audit Office has had access to relevant information held by the royal household relating to the use made of the grants paid by Departments to meet the costs of royal travel and the royal
Two other bodies are currently outside the scope of our remit, the first of which is the BBC. It is essential and right that there should be improved accountability to Parliament for the funds spent by the BBC. The sums are large: some £2 billion each year. Believe it or not, Gavyn Davies, now the chairman of the BBC, recommended when he chaired the review on the future funding of the corporation that the CAG should have access to the BBC. That was before he became chairman. That is the same man who recommended that Parliament should have some access to the BBC. That view was supported by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and by Lord Sharman.
All those parties failed to be convinced by the corporation's linein my view, it is a linethat parliamentary accountability would impair editorial independence. Examinations of the value that the BBC gets from the way in which it uses our money could be completely separate from editorial decisions. We would not get involved in who should be on programmes and who should run the corporation. We, on behalf of the people, merely want some idea of what the BBC is doing with £2 billion each year.
I should be pleased to hear from the Chief Secretary whether he has consulted the chairman of the BBC on this point. I know that the Financial Secretary will reply to the debate, but the Chief Secretary will be writing to me on this matter. Has Gavyn Davies changed his mind? Why should he change his mind?
A similar point was made in the 1960s about the CAG's access to universities. It was said that there would be difficulties with academic freedom and independence, but no one would now suggest that his involvement in that sector has compromised academic freedom. The NAO spends its time examining implementation of policy across government without the need to question the policies in the first instance.
If every family in the country is compelled to pay the licence feethey are not compelled, but we all know that they do soit is a poll tax by another name. I believe that that large sum of money should be subject to the same scrutiny as all other taxes, and we will pursue that point.
Mr. Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) rose
Geraint Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is a discussion of the BBC's finances in order? I would welcome a report on the BBC, but we have not had one, and I do not think that we should discuss the matter. I bow to your wider wisdom, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): We are hearing a report from the Chairman of the Select Committee. He is alluding to something that might be, so
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subset: commoncrawl


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shattered veil
Shattered Veil
Tracy E. Banghart
(The Diatous Was #1)
Published: February 28th, 2014
Genres: YA/NA, Dystopian
Tracy E. Banghart
(The Diatous Was #1)
Published: February 28th, 2014
Genres: YA/NA, Dystopian
When everything that defines you is stripped away, who do you become?
War has come to Atalanta, infecting its quiet villages and lush woodlands, igniting whispered worries in its glittering capitol.
All across the dominion, young men are being Selected for Military and sent to the front lines…and eighteen-year-old Aris Haan's childhood sweetheart is one of them.
Pyralis Nekkos, Atalanta's leader, has kept the truth from his people, that their dominion will fall…and much sooner than anyone could guess.
Galena Vadim, his reluctant ally, wishes she could forget their shared past...until her future seems to depend on it.
And for the boy she loves, Aris, a talented wingjet pilot, will give up everything - her home, her name, even her face...
...only to become the key to her dominion's survival.
{Amazon} {Barnes & Noble}
Top 10 Favorite Books/Authors OR Authors That Inspired You To Want To Become A Writer?
Top 10 Favorite Books/Authors OR Authors That Inspired You To Want To Become A Writer?
1. On Fortune's Wheel, Cynthia Voigt
2. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
3. The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
4. The Secret Circle trilogy, L. J. Smith
5. The Near Witch, Victoria Schwab
6. Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins
7. Fire in the Mist, Holly Lisle
8. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
9. Sunshine, Robin McKinley
10. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Some of these books, like A Tale of Two Cities and The Blue Sword, inspired me to want to be a writer. Others, like The Near Witch and Anna and the French Kiss, showed me how beautifully written YA novels could be, and a couple, like The Secret Circle and Fire in the Mist, are just plain fun reads that I can read over and over and still love. I'd say On Fortune's Wheel does all of these things for me - it inspired me when I was young, and it's a book I come back to often now as an adult, because it's such an incredibly imaginative, well-written story.
--$50 Amazon gift card (INTL)
--3x "swag packs" which will include: a notebook, magnet, button, 2 signed bookmarks, and Shattered Veil-themed temporary tattoos - picture attached. (US/CAN)
a Rafflecopter giveaway


text:
Since the start of the century, it has become more dangerous to have a baby in rural America. Pregnancy-related complications are rising across the U.S., and many require specialized care. For some women, the time and distance from hospitals with the resources and specialists to handle an obstetric emergency can be fatal.In 2015, women in rural areas died from pregnancy-related complications at a rate 64% higher than the rate in large cities, a reversal from 2000, when cities suffered a higher rate of such maternal deaths.
The reasons reflect shrinking resources, worsening health and social ills. Most rural hospitals don't have high-risk pregnancy specialists who can treat sudden complications. Many don't have cardiologists or anesthesiologists on staff. Making matters worse, rates of obesity, a major risk factor for pregnancy complications, are higher in rural than urban areas.
Many rural hospitals have eliminated labor and delivery services, creating maternity deserts where women must travel, sometimes hours, for prenatal care and to give birth.Over the decade between 2004 and 2014, the number of rural hospitals offering such services declined by 15%, compared to a 5% decline among suburban and urban facilities. Among the reasons for the decline: the closure of hospitals, a decline in birthrates, and challenges securing malpractice insurance. The story notes that some women in rural Tennessee get no pre-natal care whatsoever.
The personal face of this story is Whitney Brown, a young woman who died after giving birth by emergency C-section. She died, at least in part, because she could not be transported quickly enough from the rural hospital in McMinnville, Tennessee, population 13,605, to Chattanooga for specialist care. One reason: only two of Warren County's five ambulances were allowed out of the county at any given time, leading to a 3-hour delay in the transfer of Brown, whose heart stopped shortly before she reached Chattanooga.
Incidentally, The Economist has a story this week about the high U.S. maternal mortality rate, compared to other developed countries.


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Men are invariably described as "visual creatures" and while it's true that most women use a full spectrum of qualifications to determine whether she'll commit, visual appeal factors heavily if she's going to be tempted to indulge in more short-term gratification.
So, yes, dress to be desired. A suit and tie says you're trying to hard, instead, ditch the formality and wear a casual cool ensemble that shows your have some style.
Grooming wise, make sure your scent game is on point. Don't douse yourself in cologne (no matter how good you think it smells), spray just enough that she'll want to get closer for a better whiff. Also, be sure to pay extra attention to your hands, because she will. If you nails are all gnarly and crusty, she's not going to want them on her soft skin.


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Europcar car rental Australia is a leading rental car provider to the commercial segment serving business travelers at major airports around the world, and to leisure travelers at off-airport locations. In Australia you can find Europcar and choose rental cars from Europcar in the following cities:
You can use various forms for contacting Europcar rent a car Australia: Europcar Free Phone, Europcar Email, Cancel or Modify Europcar reservations for your car rental in Australia.
Also easy read & understand Europcar Terms and Conditions for Australia car rental you can find on our Europcar Australia web page section. Key facts about Europcar, FAQ, Europcar Affiliate program information, Business programs and other Europcar information you can find in US-RentACar.com car rental Europcar main web page.


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Hey, everyone! I hope you are all having an amazing weekend, so far! I have a fun little card to share with you today that is actually a sneak peek of a set that will be in the store on Sunday or Monday. It features one of my favorite tropical drinks (the sneak peek) and a sentiment from one of my favorite good time songs:
Are you singing it, yet? SUCH a great song! I created the card base for this using the PPPR Sunburst Shapes Cutting Files. I decided to to a print and cut for the base, just to save a little time. I cut the little Pina Coladas in 3 print and cut layers...the base with the umbrella and pineapple, the cherry, and the glass with the drink. Then, I layered the together and added a couple of faces from the Peachy Keen Happy Lashes Face Assortment. I created the sentiment in Silhouette Studio. I added some doodles, ribbon, and enamel dots, and my fun little card was all done.
Check out the Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons Store during the next few days, or so, to see this entire new set. Oh, and don't forget to come back tomorrow for some more PPPR inspiration. Have a great Easter!


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Last week I finally got a chance to go to a CCO! it was marvelous! My bf restrained me and only let me get one eyeshadow though...=/
I got neutral pink, which is a muted pink thats a few shades darker than my skin tone. I loooves it!
It's simple and non-shimmery, just what I'm in the kick for.
I also walked a few doors down to the Fragrance Outlet to look at NYX stuff! =) Sans shipping! It was a happy day!
I got Flamingo and Champagne eyeshadow and barely restrained myself from 2193293 other stuff there too...
(Pictures uploaded later)
Anywhoooo I recently had to buy a new mascara (since I haven't had the chance since before the spring semester started) and I decided to get ALMAYS One Coat thickening mascara after seeing Julieg713's review on it. It's a nice seriously hard to clump mascara! Which makes it LOVE for me! Cuz Mascara is probably my least favorite thing.
I also found that I really like Avons Ultra Color Rich lipsticks, not because they're actually all that "color rich" (in my opinion) but more that they're really smooth and creamy with a sheer to medium coverage with a hint of shimmer. It would beat my Jubilee lustre lipstick except I can't seem to find *my* perfect nude shade in their color palette. But oh well, I walked away with a golden beige and a rosy lipstick.
I believe that's all I've gotten into lately. That is, at least for me. My LOVELY dear friend Alex has FINALLY started to really touch makeup! I used to wear some types of cover up for the occasional acne, and maybe a bit of liner. BUT TODAY! we went into different types of liners, eyeshadows, placement and applications, mascara, blush and bronzer application! I was in a special sort of nirvana opening her to makeup! I even bought her her first starter set of brushes from eco-tools (safe for the environment and the purse!) and gave her tips on application. She walked away a new woman and I'm incredibly proud of her.
On another note, I think that I *may* want to start either doing FotD's or mini tutorials on makeup looks...I think mainly out of boredom, or I might start trying to replicate looks by various makeup guru's to see how far my *skills* (if you can call them that yet) have progressed. But alas, it's getting close to my bed time. I'm leaving home for my apartment in the morning and must needs my beauty sleep!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Updates! Updates!
Posted by InnocentDeath at 9:35 PM
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265mm in length. July release, 4,725 Yen (inclusive of tax).
Image is from Kotobukiya.
Welcome to my Blog. I don't use this blog as in how a blog is normally used, which is to talk about one's life and all the tit-bits happened in one day. Rather, I would like to share about some of my interests, mainly on my Gundam collection, movies, books and music.


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Saturday, July 28, 2012
This week I made these fresh tacos every day for lunch. Honey mustard and cheese on the bottom. Then whatever veggies I could get my hands on: cukes, tomatoes, green and black olives, roasted red peppers, bell peppers, lettuce, avocado. Maybe not all at once, but some combination.
Yum. Let me say it again: Yum.
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USA Today Sports Images
Stephen Strasburg makes his first career start at Petco Park.
The Nationals' struggling lineup could get a jolt with Bryce Harper back after missing the last two games following his collision with the fence in L.A. (He did come off the bench last night to pinch-hit late.) The Nats could certainly use their best hitter again, though of course only if he's healthy enough to perform at his peak level.
Speaking of health, Wilson Ramos has officially been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a recurrence of his hamstring strain. That means Kurt Suzuki will once again become the everyday catcher, with Jhonatan Solano returning from Class AAA Syracuse to serve as his backup.
I'm not on the West Coast, but I will be talking Nats tonight on the latest edition of "The Baseball Show" on CSN. Note the delayed 11:30 p.m. EDT start time, which should fall somewhere around the fifth or sixth inning of the Nats game...
WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: WJFK (106.7 FM), WFED (1500), XM 186
Weather: Partly cloudy, 63 degrees, Wind 6 mph out to RF
CF Denard Span
2B Steve Lombardozzi
LF Bryce Harper
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Adam LaRoche
SS Ian Desmond
RF Roger Bernadina
C Kurt Suzuki
RHP Stephen Strasburg
SS Everth Cabrera
RF Will Venable
3B Chase Headley
1B Yonder Alonso
LF Chris Denorfia
2B Jedd Gyorko
CF Alexi Amarista
C Nick Hundley
RHP Edinson Volquez
HP Lance Barksdale
1B Vic Carapazza
2B Jeff Nelson (cc)
3B D.J. Reyburn


text:
(Written December 12, 2010)
As I sit on an incredible spot in the world - a home about an hour west of San Jose, Costa Rica, looking out over the mountains to the distant bay and sea - listening to the breeze and the birds, knowing that 17 dogs are all quiet, I am slowing down from the pace of life that we have set for ourselves in the US, in particular in the northeast. There are many ex-pats living down here; the majority of these folks are retired, and many that I have spoken with say they have retired here because they cannot afford to live in the US where they spent their careers. (The irony of this is that, as more folks from the States come here to retire, the cost of living goes up here, but that's for another day.)
I have asked folks how they like living down here. To a person, so far, everyone has stated they love it. Sure, there are issues they face (bad roads in some areas, for example, crime in cities – especially pick-pockets, and a somewhat chaotic government system), but one thing many say they appreciate is the simplicity of life. One person commented to me that many of the houses owned by "Tikos" (native Costa Ricans) are small, but this is not necessarily a reflection of wealth as it is priorities. He said that the culture here is much more about living simply. As I have experienced in just about every place I have been outside the US, I see much the same thing. People live at a more casual pace, seeming a bit more content with what they have rather than constantly pursuing what they don't have.
As I was leaving for vacation, the idea of patience and taking time was very much on my mind. In the month prior to leaving, I had had a few experiences of Friends expressing an interest and desire in exploring peacemaking, social justice and hospitality in what seems to be an increasingly divided and hostile world, and what we as Friends can and should do to bring about change. In both cases in which I facilitated either a workshop or presentation, there was limited time, and in both cases, after the workshop/presentation, it was clear that not having enough time was a problem. Then, just before leaving for vacation, we had a board retreat at William Penn House that was all-about story-telling. We spent the day telling stories – individual as well as collective, as we learned the art of storytelling. We were gently guided through an awakening process – external as well as internal. It was a great day, and something we want to continue. In some ways, it was a transformational experience in terms of self-awareness and in knowing about others. I also know that there are folks within Baltimore Yearly Meeting who want to explore singing and story-telling as part of our spiritual and community development. So I floated this idea to folks, with the proposal of a two-day workshop. Time was quickly raised as a barrier. People want to engage in, experience and learn tools for transformation, but don't want to take the time.
I understand the pressures of time, and how full our calendars are. And yet, as Friends, if we are truly to be a part of a broader community in which we bring a greater sense of peace, and we want to see a transformation take place in our community, we are going to somehow have to learn to take time. That in itself is a part of the transformation. We need to take time to let things sink in, see what sticks, and come together after a good sleep and "non-task" time. But when we don't allow for time, we do great disservice and perhaps even harm to the work. Things become hurried. Comments are made without the time for understanding and listening. Instead of healing, people can leave feeling unheard and perhaps discounted. It's like making a cake. You can have all the ingredients, mix them together, put them in the pan and put the pan in the oven. You may then do other things, but your primary task is still tending to the cake. If you let it slip completely from your consciousness and drift too far either physically or, say, by falling asleep, the cake is ruined and all that work is for naught. This is why I am increasingly convinced that, if Friends are serious about wanting to make something beautiful with all the gifts of the people in our midst – including the transformational workshops – we are going to have to learn to attend to the importance of allowing time to do its transformational work.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friends and Patience: Rushing Transformation
2 comments:
- Konnie said...
I have not traveled much out of the States. But when I have, mainly Spain, I enjoy the slower pace and a definite appreciation of the simple things. Family and community are traditions firmly in place in Spanish Culture. It becomes contagious. It has been 2 yrs since my Spain trip but still the people influence my choice to make simplicity an ongoing goal.
- December 21, 2010 at 11:32 AM
- kerry dexter said...
music is a good way to learn about such patience as you've described, I think -- both creating it and listening to it
- December 22, 2010 at 3:48 AM
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text:
"It is not just the West's material primacy that is at stake today but also the allure of its version of modernity.
"Unless liberal democracies can restore their political and economic solvency, the politics, as well as the geopolitics, of the twenty-first century may well be up for grabs."
This revealing essay just appeared in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 2012).
The ruling classes can see and prepare for major escalating "threats." And we can learn from their predictions. Consider this post "reconnaissance on the enemy."
This "crisis of governability" is deeply rooted in the very structure of worldwide production — and it frames the official politics of this system. Think through this coming election in this framework. Think through stage two of the occupations. Think through our regroupment of serious revolutionaries. The momentary and superficial is illusion, these are the deep movements marking the future of the system and its choices (and in a certain real sense the future of the people and their choices).
Monday, January 9, 2012
A system's crisis of governability, a revolution's opening
"It is not just the West's material primacy that is at stake today but also the allure of its version of modernity.
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- The Bollywood star who nearly became Pakistan's First Lady
- Belgian Police brutality in action! Warning- this is upsetting
- Gregg Braden - A Field Exists That Connects Everything Together - The Ether Field
- Noble Gas Engine
- Hopi and Tibetan Buddhist Prophecies - The Connection


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Upon researching facts on Frank Catalanotto - a free agent utility man signed by the Mets last week - two pieces of information stood out.
1. Frank Catalanotto's nickname is "Little Cat". Me-yow.
2. Last year, every time Frank Catalanotto would stride from the on-deck circle to the batter's box, "Your Love" by The Outfield would blare over the PA system.
Which is weird.
Usually the songs that baseball players choose to come up to bat to are loud, in your face and possibly misogynistic. But "Your Love" is certainly not in your face. It's an innocuous sounding pop song. An innocuous sounding pop song (in the key of E, the prettiest sounding key) from 1985. An innocuous sounding pop song from 1985 that is actually about an affair.
Josie's on a vacation far away
Come around and talk it over
So many things that I wanna say
You know I like my girls a little bit older
I just wanna use your love tonight
I don't wanna lose your love tonight
The line, "You know I like my girls a little bit older" is the most intriguing. Is the protagonist talking/singing to a prostitute? If you take out this one line the song would obviously be about a close female friend or former lover the protagonist uses as a booty call, for when his current girlfriend/spouse isn't around. This leads me to believe that "You know I like my girls a little bit older" is a line that the singer/songwriter John Spinks says in a teasing manner, because his girlfriend/wife has a few years on the lady in his bed. John Spinks is kind of a jerk, and that's why we love him.
I ain't got many friends left to talk to
No one's around when I'm in trouble
You know I'd do anything for you
Stay the night but keep it undercover
I just wanna use your love tonight
I don't wanna lose your love tonight
Despite the singer's pleading heartfelt tones, I doubt the woman would be pleased with being told her love is being used. But there it is. Take it or leave it.
And then there's the video.
It's brilliant: it tells a poignant tale of Dostoyevskian tragedy with palpability to the casual 80's MTV viewer.
This is John Spinks, the guitar player for The Outfield and writer of the song. He doesn't sing the song however.
Tony flirts with her.
For the next minute the video is exclusively of the band playing. Eventually, the camera pans out to the street, and we see the woman walk away.
For good?
"Your Love" remained on the radio throughout the nineties and the early naughts on adult contemporary stations. With the exception of the punk-ska band Less Than Jake in 2002, no band had bothered to cover the song. Cue Adam Sandler.
Sandler, who features almost exclusively eighties pop songs in the soundtracks to his feature movies, starred in the 2004 comedy 50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore. One of the songs on the soundtrack was a cover of "Your Love" with Wyclef Jean featuring Eve. Combined with this exposure and the mid to late 2000's fondness for anything eighties, "Your Love" became relevant again. The list of bands/musicians that have covered or "remixed" the song in the last few years includes The Decemberists, Coheed and Cambria and Katy Perry. Bon Iver, a well-respected melancholic indie rock crooner, has sung morose versions of "Your Love" in concerts that come off to some people, including myself, as very funny.
So why does Frank Catalanotto, and Eric Byrnes and Gordon Beckham and Kelly Johnson for that matter, use "Your Love" as their at-bat music? Is Catalanotto cheating on his wife and three children? I certainly hope not. Is Catalanotto completely unaware of the subtext? Possible. Does he simply enjoy the fact that the band is called "The Outfield", and that the album that features "Your Love" is called "Play Deep", and that another album in their discography is "Diamond Days", and that two of their compilations were titled "Playing The Field" and "Big Innings: The Best Of The Outfield"? Does he just do everything Eric Byrnes does? Does he just like the way it sounds? We might as well be asking, "Who is Frank Catalanotto?"


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Sunday, September 27, 2009
Pass No Past (Japanese Post-Punk)
Until recently, Japan's 80's underground scene was a big black hole in my quest to unearth every fucked-up noise ever spewed from the Far-East. I'd previously thought they were late entries to the punk scene, but thanks to the wonder of the internets, I've discovered that there were in fact plenty smoking '77 era punk bands (check out the live footage from the psycho sci-fi flick Burst City) as well as angular post-punk on par with New York No-Wave. In fact, members of Friction pop up in that legendary scene's story, doing time in Teenage Jesus and the Contortions before returning home to cook up their own brand of six stringed havoc. I picked this up knowing only the Friction tracks, but was blissfully blown away by the rest of it. Did some digging to find some live Tsunematsu Masatoshi as well as his incredible first single. I also can't believe that I missed this Gunjogacrayon EP until now. Recommendations on further listening would be most welcome.
1-1 Friction - Crazy Dream
1-2 Friction - Kagayaki
1-3 Friction - Big-S
1-4 Friction - Pistol
1-5 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - Grinning In Your Face
1-6 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - Gears
1-7 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - E.D.P.S.
1-8 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - にがした・はじまり
1-9 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - E.D.P.S. (Industrial Version)
2-1 Phew with Ryuichi Sakamoto - 終曲
2-2 Phew with Ryuichi Sakamoto - うらはら
2-3 Boys Boys- Monkey Monkey
2-4 Boys Boys- Control Tower
2-5 Totsuzen Danball - ホワイト・マン
2-6 Totsuzen Danball - 変なパーマネント
2-7 Totsuzen Danball - 感覚が記号なら
2-8 Totsuzen Danball - 思惟の提案
2-9 Totsuzen Danball - 走れ
2-10 Totsuzen Danball - 理想的な幼稚園
2-11 Totsuzen Danball - 走り幅とび
2-12 Gunjogacrayon - ムキ
2-13 Gunjogacrayon - L
Pass No Past
Need more convincing? Check out some live Friction.
Posted by lo-fi jr. at 7:47 AM 4 comments:
Labels: no-wave, pass records, post-punk
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text: MEXICO CITY — Mexico has about 7,000 scientists. The director of the National Science and Technology Council: The nation needs five times that number. In an interview in El Nacional newspaper, Hector Mayagoitia Dominguez called Mexico's number of scientists ''a minuscule figure, far below that of other countries.'' He said 35,000 scientists, or five for every 10,000 people, are needed. Council's action: More scholarships have been awarded.


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Sadly, Italian civil protection authorities report that five bodies were found yesterday outside the wrecked hull of Costa Concordia. The Associated Press and other wire services say the bodies were discovered outside the ship, between the hull and the rocks.
While recovery of the bodies is expected to take several days, their discovery bring the confirmed death toll to 30 with two people still missing.


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The recent release of "Love the Way You Lie," Eminem's new collaboration with Rihanna, has generated a heated debate over whether Rihanna is sending the wrong message to victims of domestic violence. The song's graphic music video, which stars Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan, has garnered nearly 20 million hits on you-tube and depicts a couple caught in a vicious, abusive relationship. The song has been both criticized and praised: for glamorizing domestic violence, and for shedding light on the issue.
Both Rihanna and Eminem have personal experience with abusive relationships, although from radically different perspectives. Eminem has been investigated for domestic violence and criticized for songs that glorify violence against women. Rihanna, on the other hand, was the victim of a high-profile assault in 2009 by then-boyfriend Chris Brown, and has since become an unwitting spokesperson for domestic abuse victims.
Rihanna sings the refrain "Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/that's alright because I like the way it hurts." Many people feel that these lyrics endorse the cycle of domestic abuse, rather than condemn it, sending a disempowering message to victims of abuse. Others feel that the song is attempting to convey the psychological difficulties faced by those trying to leave abusive relationships.
Rihanna justified her decision to participate in this song by saying, "It's something that [Eminem and I have] both experienced on different sides, different ends of the table…It was authentic. It was real. He [Eminem] pretty much just broke down the cycle of domestic violence and it's something that a lot of people don't have a lot of insight on, so this song is really powerful."
If you or someone you know is trying to leave an abusive relationship, visit WomensLaw.org for information on how to stay safe.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
"Love the Way You Lie" sending what kind of message?
Posted by WomensLaw.org at 2:17 PM
2 comments:
Really nice and honest advice! I love it, Absolutely Brilliant!ReplyDelete
That song came out just as things between me and my husband were starting to get scary. Every time I hear it, I hear a voice in my head screaming "Why haven't you left yet!" I think the song speaks to the real experience of being caught, of being paralyzed by love and fear.ReplyDelete
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A Georgia eye doctor pleads no contest in Lancaster County Court to nine counts of perjury. Dr. Joseph Citron, of Atlanta, lied about his credentials as a drunk driving expert in DUI trials in Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, Centre and Clinton counties between March 10, 2010 and March 16, 2012.
During questioning concerning his qualifications, Dr. Citron, who is an ophthalmologist, testified that he was an instructor at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, training police officers in the area of first responder and SFST for approximately 10 years. He also testified that in 2000 Georgia Governor's Officer of Highway Safety appointed him to a program called "Drunk Busters." He also testified that as part of the "Drunk Buster" program he went around the state reviewing SFSTs with various police departments.
The Lancaster County District Attorney's Office began an investigation in Dr. Citron's alleged credentials. County detectives requested the assistance of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in determining what if any affiliation Dr. Citron had with GPSTC and the alleged "Drunk Buster" program. It was determined that Dr. Citron was never part of the faculty at GPSTC in the area of SFST. Rather Dr. Citron was a guest lecturer at the GPSTC Fire Academy with respect to eye injuries as part of a first responder course. He was also never used to teach SFST to police officers at GPSTC.
During a recorded interview, Dr. Citron admitted that he inflated his credentials in the area of SFST because it "sounds good." He further admitted that the Governor never contacted him to be part of a "Drunk Busters" Program, but did provide a contact to verify the program's existence. That individual informed investigators that the two speeches he did invite Dr. Citron to assist in were never referred to as "Drunk Busters," and it was never presented as part of a Governor's Office program.
At the conclusion of the joint investigation it was determined that Dr. Citron testified falsely to his involvement with GPSTC and the "Drunk Busters" Program in order to qualify as an expert in SFST and bolster his credibility on that topic. Both portions of testimony were material to his qualifications to render an opinion regarding SFST, as well as his potential defense bias. As a result, officials in Dauphin, Centre, Clinton, Franklin, Lancaster, and Lebanon Counties all charged Dr. Citron with Perjury and related offenses.
In Lancaster County Court this morning, Dr. Citron plead no contest to nine counts of Perjury, nine counts of False Swearing, and one cojnt of Unsworn Falsification. Dr. Citron was sentenced to the Intermediate Punishment Program for a period of 7 years, with the first 60 days to be served on house arrest with electronic monitoring. He was also ordered to pay fines totaling $1,000.00 and the costs of prosecution.


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(Michael Troughton and Sean Williams holding up the SwanCon costume party sign, with Alan Baxter keeping an eye on the effervescent crowd.)
SwanCon 42 was held at the Metro Hotel, Perth, doing a heroic job supporting the convention (and feeding a large crowd several times a day). The hotel strained at the seams, but in my view they can be proud of the job they did.
I must say I was also impressed by the dedication of the organising committee, and their ability to fix things and cope when things unexpectedly went wrong.
This is just a short piece to record and share some notes I made as homework for one of the two planned panels I was on. It's a companion piece to a related panel focussed on publishing (and hence, is over on A Toe in the Ocean of Books). (I just intended to type up my notes, but saw they'd be a bit too cryptic if I did literally just that.)
The topic of the panel discussion (organised by Michael Cogan), was "Writing: from Idea to Page":
"Have you had a story in your head for ages you want to tell the world but not sure where to begin? Join our panellists who have been there and done that. Gain some tips and ideas on how to get your story idea down onto paper."
My most excellent fellow panellists were Satima Flavell, Glenda Larke, and Meg Caddy.
I think that collectively we provided good information. Please understand this is not a record of what we all said, but merely some notes I made beforehand as a memory jogger. Some of these points were made by other panellists independently, in their own words. Because we had only an hour and there was a lot of ground to cover, only some of these notes were covered in the talk.
So, in no particular order, these are my notes:
Look for the heart of your story — what is the key thing that is the essence that's driving you to write the story? What is it that is special and unique about your story that's pushing you to bring it to life in other people's minds?
For the above navel-gazing, there are a few ways of looking at your story, through the lens of words, that may help you. They'll help you most if you do it once you've got a good feel for what you want to do; but you can do it at any stage of the writing process. And it's simply to try writing the blurb (the short description designed to tell them readers just enough to intrigue them — maybe 100-200 words); and/or to write down "the elevator pitch" for the story (what you could say in one breath while to someone who asks "What's your story about?"); and the theme of the story (what is it exploring?). I'd add you can also try to create the "tag line" for your story (what might appear on the front cover if it was produced as a book).
People often talk about plotters vs "pantsers", or people who outline and meticulously plan vs those who fly by the seat of their pants and just write and see what happens. Use whatever works for you. You can also mix and match. I'm mostly a "pantser", but I've found that a sketchy outline (just bullet points) often provides a useful anchoring framework that I can work within or ignore as I see fit. You can use one method for the whole story, or different methods for different parts or at different times. E.g. I tend to use outlines when I need to solve some complex plot issue, or work out how on Earth the character could get into, or out of, some tricky situation.
That kind of leads me to the beautiful piece of luck that writing can help you write… When we create stories, we use three parts of our minds: the rational part, the unconscious, and our memory. Now, imagine trying to construct an entire novel in your head: working it all out and then just sitting down and start typing it up. Crazy, right? But you can paralyse your creative writing by trying to do that same kind of thing for much shorter things than a novel. It might be just a scene, or even just a piece of description.
Sure, spend some thought and try to work things out in your head: it's far faster and less effort than writing it down. But if you find you're not getting anywhere, or going around in loops, then just sit down and start writing.
You write stuff down so you don't spend 90% or 99% of your mental capacity just remembering everything. The blank page is not your enemy, it's your friend. It's an external part of your memory that can hold your thoughts and ideas effortlessly to free the rest of your mind to work on everything else that will go into your story. So, write stuff down that will be or may be useful: ideas of all sorts, bits of the story, sections of dialogue, possible bits of plot, a cool situation or setting… whatever you like. Once it's written down on your "external memory surface", it won't be distracting you at inopportune times saying "Don't forget me!"
And here's a related secret: once an idea is written down, you've basically put some very well-behaved modelling clay down that's ready and willing for you to shape it and improve it. It doesn't have to be anywhere near perfect when you write it down. There's an excellent quote from Terry Pratchett: "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story."
Read a lot. Write.
Always be looking for ways to improve what you write. Read about writing; read advice from others (Google searches will tend to find you stuff that is popular with other people); get reviews from other writers. But most of all, write.
Writing is a very learnable skill: you learn it by writing, while consciously trying to improve. (I don't mind literally all the time: that would be distracting and unhelpful when you're "in the flow" and creating!) But be open to learning new stuff, and finding weaknesses in your own work. It's very learnable, but it's also one of those skills that requires thousands of hours of practice.
Know your characters. Know your world. You can learn about them by writing down whatever you dream up for them! Don't write this stuff down thinking it needs to go into your story: it doesn't. It's so that you, the author, gains a deeper understanding of some of the key things in your story. For your characters, the personality is more important than their appearance. So make sure you pose yourself some fun questions about them that will give you a deeper understanding of what drives them. What music do they like? What food? What clothes do they love or hate? What do they spend money on? What piece of clothing would they put on first in the morning? What thing did they love most as a child?
Likewise, pose yourself some suitable (and helpful) questions regarding the setting.
Write these things down in some kind of background notes file. Use enough organisation so that you don't lose them, so you can find them if you need to remind yourself of them later. Write them down: it will help you remember, and it's more practice in writing.
Look for a writer's group and participate. But bail out and find another or form your own if you're not getting what you need from the group. I highly recommend the
Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror — reviews by other writers are the DNA of the site/community, and the site itself is wonderfully powerful and helpful in sharing and reviewing among the members. It costs US$50/year, which is super cheap for what you'll get from it (because 99% of the value comes from the members themselves writing and receiving reviews), and you can even try it for a month for free. I feel sorry for other genres that they don't have a site as good as this available to them.
Accept criticism and try to learn from it — if you sense it's been given honestly, i.e. with good intentions. But keep in mind that no piece of writing will please everybody. Just because one person doesn't like or 'get' what you're saying, is not a reason to change it. But if two people tell you that a specific thing didn't work for them, it probably means there's something odd there. But if they tell you how to fix it, they're probably wrong: only you can know how to alter that piece to avoid that reaction. (Paraphrasing Neil Gaiman, I think.)
On the subject of improving your writing, go back to some of the stories you love. Actively study them and try to work out why. The consider whether something like that would be something you'd like to do, and start practising doing it.
Look for your own writing style — every writer has their own distinct style. 'Different' can be good. But to get a feel for how other writers work, and the range of literary devices that are available for you to use as you see fit, try some exercises of writing a something in the style of an author you admire. Something reasonably short, just so you get a feel for how that technique works. Stretch your writing muscles.
Less is often more. If you can express something in fewer words, without changing the feeling or the meaning, then those words will have greater impact. (I think of poetry as like distilled alcohol: it's strings of words that have been super-concentrated so they pack a powerful punch.) Pretend you have a word budget: you kind of do. The reader will appreciate you using only the words you need to achieve the effect you want. Omit details which the reader can fill in for themselves.
Trust your readers' intelligence. You don't need to spell everything out for them. They will enjoy figuring stuff out and piecing things together for themselves. Don't spoon feed them, or lead them buy the nose. Leave them room to exercise their own imagination, too.
If you write something odd, readers (especially if you're little known), are likely to think "Oh, look, there's a mistake." and be thrown out of the story. So, when you are doing something deliberately odd, make sure you also provide some subtle hint, some indication, that lets the reader know that you know it was odd. Then they won't think "Mistake", they'll think "Ooh, weird, what's going on here, I must read on."
It's less effort to learn the writing craft by writing short stories, simply because when you find problems in your writing style and go back to fix them, there's proportionately less to fix. But if you are not interested in writing short stories, or don't like them, then don't!
Do have a go at writing poetry. It's hard! But valuable. Learn about poetic devices, too. Sometimes they're useful to use in prose, a little.
Keep a pen and pencil beside your bed in case you have a great idea as you're falling asleep or waking up. Write it down. Ideally, with some light on, even if it's just enough to make sure your sentences don't run over the top of each other.
Think about flow. I see books as made from lots of interleaving flows operating across a range of levels. At the bottom level are the words of a sentence, which give you both the flow of the sounds but also a flow of meaning, and emotion. The rise and fall of these flows lead to a rhythm in each. Very similarly, when the sentences are showing a dialogue, or just letting us see the flow of ideas inside someone's head, the ideas should usually flow smoothly, each one connecting somehow to the next. Until, of course, you signal that that thread has stopped. Mostly, these flows will connect smoothly: but you can get a lot of impact from jarring or breaking the flow, provided you have done it consciously for that purpose.
The next level up are paragraphs, and then pages, and scenes, and chapters, and the whole book, or books. There are flows in pace, in density of writing, in emotion, in intensity, … any sort of quality you want to imbue in your story. Gradually learn to be aware of these flows.
You do need to vary the rhythm. Monotony gets boring pretty quickly. But don't just vary the rhythm randomly: be aware of the flows, and build and release the rhythms to create the effects you want in your story. This applies across all the levels.
Unlike literary fiction, other stories must have a plot, not just a story. (A story = "this happens, then this, and this". A plot = "this happens, and because of that, this happens, and that leads to this.)
Trust your unconscious. You can set it working on a creative problem by thinking about your problem, feeding in or refreshing your mind by consciously going over the information relevant, that may include all the requirements that the solution must satisfy. Consciously be aware that you're doling this to feed the raw data to your unconscious so it can get to work on the problem. Then do something else that will distract your conscious mind. And every now and then, do a little revisit to the problem so to keep things bubbling along. Sooner or later, the solution will pop into your head.
None of these are rules. Even if they are, if you know you're breaking a rule, but you're doing so for a good reason, then that's almost always going to be fine.
So there are lots of things to learn about writing, but it is a very learnable skill. But the work you put into learning about writing should be small compared to just writing your stories. You learn writing mainly by doing it. Don't think that you have to learn everything before you can "start to write". Just write.


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A clash of expectations could leave two people broken hearted in this film about sex and love. Joon-young is a college lecturer with a penchant for no-commitment relations with women he seldom sees more than once. Yon-hee is a fun-loving girl with dreams of marrying a successful doctor. When their blind date ends in a motel room, the two come away with different ideas of how their relationship will proceed. Can two such different people find common ground enough to make each other happy? ~ Cammila...more
All Marriage Is a Crazy Thing cast + crew photos
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On Sunday, Nov. 1, National Geographic aired a new episode "Life on Mars: The Amazing Rovers". For some reason, the video link no longer works.
Wikipedia has an interesting comparison on the "careers" of both Opportunity (still active) and Spirit (which "died" in 2011), here
Opportunity has lasted much longer than expected.
The one hour episode presented commentary by Stephen Squyres and "driver" Scott Maxwell.
The lives of the robotic rovers were extended by carefully placing them to get maximum solar power, and to rest them in winter when sunlight was weak. A day on Mars is called a "Sol".
NatGeo has some slightly older footage of the rovers on YouTube.
Mars is a lonely place with a uniform general landscape, but with the highest mountains and deepest and longest canyons in the Solar System.


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I while ago I was asked if I could make a felted darts player, Raymond Van Barneveld for an avid fans 40th birthday.
Well I'm always up for a challenge, so I said yes. I must admit there were times where I thought I'd bitten off more I could chew, with a few complications along the way.
After looking at photos of 'Barney' for the last few months I must say I feel like I've got to know him and when I delivered him today I actually felt quite sad letting him go!
I would say he is my best face to date but I'm still learning and have a long way to go and now, well I'm ready for my next challenge....
I enjoyed doing the details on the shirt


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Soft delete, is the process when the user deletes an entity, its deactivated or hidden, but not actually deleted. Its a fairly common use case, and comes in various flavors. In the most common case, a delete/active flag is flipped to signal that the row or entity has been deleted or inactivated. In other cases, the row is moved to another table, or some other action is taken in response to a deletion. In ADF most of these requirements can be met with ease. Lets look at the most common situation where a flag is flipped.
There are a couple of approaches I found by googling, some more involved than the others.
Jobinesh's Post on soft delete with undo.
Hussain's post on soft delete that sets up standard history column for the active flag and enables tooling
Jobinesh's method is particularly useful for implementing an Undo functionality, and it does not commit the transaction. Hussain's method needs quite a bit of setup and when you have existing tables that don't follow standards, it may be difficult to implement. My own approach, based on Jobinesh's method, seems to me, is the most simplistic, and I think its the most generic and offers most flexibility. It basically abstracts the method Jobinesh describes in to a base class that can be selectively extended by EOs that need SoftDelete.
I will create a new base VOImpl calss that can be extended by all VOs that I want to support soft delete for. Not all VOs need to extend this. If a VO extends it, the VO is forced to implement a method that updates the value of one of its columns. This also does away with standardizing a column name for the "Active flag" and also different VOs can use different standards. This may be useful when the DataModel already exists and the existing tables have different column names for the flag column.
The crux of this method is overriding the remove() method on the EntityImpl , and converting a delete in to an update in the doDML() method of the EntityImpl both of which are now abstracted by the base class and the actual entities simply implement the logic of that column to use as the flag column and what sort of flag to set. Allowing the Entity to decide this helps when different entities need to use different flags.
The relevant code is below.
public abstract void setActiveFlagColumn(boolean isActive); @Override protected void doDML(int operation, TransactionEvent transactionEvent) { if (operation == EntityImpl.DML_DELETE){ operation = EntityImpl.DML_UPDATE; } super.doDML(operation, transactionEvent); } @Override public void remove() { setActiveFlagColumn(false); super.remove(); }
The method setActiveFlagColumn(boolean) is implemented by the actual EntityImpl class and it should be implemented based on the spacific table. In the example application to keep things simple, I chose to just update the PhoneNumber field with the value 'false'. A setter method for the actual Flag column will be available in the actual EntityImpl.
public void setActiveFlagColumn(boolean isActive) { // Make appropriate conversion to represent this value (0/1,Y/N,T/F,A/I... etc.) setPhoneNumber(String.valueOf(isActive)); }Example application
The example application is based on the HR schema, but since the HR schema does not contain any tables with a flag column, and I wanted to keep the work required to run the example to a minimum, I chose to use one of the existing columns as my flag column. Its the "Phone" number column in the EMPLOYEES table. When a record is deleted, the example application updates that record with phoneNumber=false. The VO in the example is setup to ignore records with "false" as the value for phone number. Again, this is just so that I want to avoid making you alter your schema just to run an example application. This also goes to demonstrate how generic the approach is. The example can be downloaded here :
To run the example, just open the ViewController Project and run the page empView.jspx.
In the example you will notice that the delete does not commit the transaction and I have a separate commit button. In many cases you'll want to delete and commit in the same action. Check out Shay's blog post on performing two declarative operations on one button to achieve that.


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|Cerebus #16 (May 1980)
Art by Dave Sim
(from a review posted at TCJ.com, 15 June 2012)
This issue includes Dave Sim getting worked up in the letters column about Ronald Reagan earning the Republican presidential nomination and a plug for a distributor's final copies of the first five issues of Cerebus, of which only 2000 copies were printed. The story is about a ball where a bunch of assassins show up to murder the Julius character, and Cerebus successfully fends them off with a similar trick to the one that Bruce Wayne uses in that first Christopher Nolan movie to get all the people out before Liam Neeson burns his house down. There's also a lot of cross-hatching. Sometimes you look at cross-hatching and wonder if the person responsible only got into comics to cover for the fact that they were into compulsively drawing intricate lines over and over again, and this is pretty much the only place you get to do that outside of when architects add a little flair to a blueprint. But then you realize that's a stupid thing to think, it's not funny or mean or even interesting, you're just an asshole for bringing it up, the same way your mother is being sort of an asshole for not calling you back even though you left really explicit details on when you were going to be available, and fuck it, it's a 32-year-old Cerebus comic, why not just pad things out with a reference to how the guy feels about women, even if you've never actually read any of that stuff and honestly don't care about it anyway, because it ain't like he just sent in his resume for babysitting detail? But that's what everybody wants when you bring up a Sim comic anyway, it's what they're waiting for the entire time. It's like that thing Chekhov always said about the gun, that if you show a gun in the first arc, then you should spend intermission using that gun to murder everybody in the audience, because really, anyone with the gall to even show up for live theater at this point is pretty much openly admitting that they think they're better than you, that they think you're stupid for watching the Avengers movie and thinking that maybe contemporary porn has started going too far too often, and I'll bet you haven't even read the new Bechdel book yet, you sanctimonious Void-worshipping cretin, you'll never understand how professional wrestling really works, classic professional wrestling, the kind that had real characters and real people, and also real struggles. Cerebus!
(Submitted by Rea Giner-Sorolla. Thanks!)


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The Jungle Book has taken very good start at box office on opening Friday (1st day). Film has collected an estimated 9.75-10 crore nett. This is excellent considering all factors. Plus, film is carrying good positive report and hence expect business to grow on Saturday (2nd day) and Sunday (3rd day). Film registered an occupancy in the region of 55% for day one which is also fantastic considering it was normal working Friday.
The Jungle Book will chase above 30 crore nett mark for opening weekend. Film might even challenge 35 crore mark and that will depend on how film folds on day 2. Also, it will be interesting to see, whether film can challenge to be the highest Hollywood grosser in India or not and eventually touch 100 crore mark. Film is dubbed in Hindi version and is released in big numbers. So, big business should come from that also.


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While most advertisers love turning the volume up to 11 on their TV commercials, few realize that the practice actually makes us hate TV commercials and the companies in the more, making us less likely to buy their products and more likely to skip the ads entirely. Counterproductive, isn't it?
Well, more progress has been made toward quieting down TV commercials to a reasonable level as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM has now passed the House Communications Committee.
I'm sure many will fight it, but in reality, reasonable sound levels on TV commercials will lead to less muting, less skipping and less hating, which one can only assume would lead to greater ad effectiveness.
Read more about the CALM Act here.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Inching closer to quieter commercials
Posted by Spork in the Road at 5:21 PM
Labels: advertising, CALM Act, Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, Congress, House Communications Committee, loud, regulation, TV
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|Native Americans celebrate their new saint
Kateri Tekakwitha was a young Mohawk woman who lived in the 17th century. The story of her conversion to Christianity, her courage in the face of suffering and her extraordinary holiness is an inspiration to all Christians.
Kateri was born in 1656 of an Algonquin mother and a Mohawk Chief in the Mohawk fortified village of Canaouaga or Ossernenon (modern day Auriesville) in upstate New York. When she was only 4 years old her parents and brother died of smallpox. Kateri survived the disease, but it left her face badly scarred and her eyesight impaired. Because of her poor vision, Kateri was named "Tekakwitha", which means "she who bumps into things". Kateri was taken in by her uncle who was bitterly opposed to Christianity. Her mother was Christian and had given Tekakwitha a Rosary.
When she was 8 years old, Kateri's foster family, in accordance with Iroquois custom, paired her with a young boy who they expected she would marry. However, Kateri wanted to dedicate her life to God. Her uncle distrusted the settlers because of the way they treated the Indians and who were responsible for introducing smallpox and other deadly diseases into the Indian community.
When Kateri was ten, in 1666, a war party composed of French soldiers and hostile Indians from Canada destroyed her village. After their defeat, the Mohawks were forced into a peace treaty that required them to accept Jesuit missionaries in their villages.
They moved north and rebuilt their village at what they called Caughnawaga near present-day Fonda, New York. In 1667, when Kateri was 11 years old, she met the Jesuits Jacques Fremin, Jacques Bruyas, and Jean Pierron, who had come to the village. Her uncle was against any contact with them because he did not want her to convert to Christianity. One of his older daughters had already left Caughnawaga to go to Kahnawake, the Catholic mission village near Montreal.
In the spring of 1675 at age eighteen, while resting in bed after sustaining a foot injury, Kateri met the Jesuit Father Jacques de Lamberville and started studying the catechism with him. Judging her ready for true conversion, Lamberville baptized Tekakwitha at the age of 20, on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1676. Her uncle gave his consent for her to become a Christian provided that she did not try to leave the Indian village.
For joining the Catholic Church, Kateri was ridiculed and scorned by villagers. She was subjected to unfair accusations and her life was threatened. Nearly two years after her baptism, she escaped to the Mission of St. Francis Xavier, a settlement of Christian Indians in Canada. The village in Canada was also named Caughnawaga (Kahnawake). Here she was known for her gentleness, kindness, and good humour. On Christmas Day 1677 Kateri made her first holy communion and on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1679 made a vow of perpetual virginity. She also offered herself to the Blessed Mother Mary to accept her as a daughter.
During her time in Canada, Kateri taught prayers to children and worked with the elderly and sick. She would often go to Mass both at dawn and sunset. She was known for her great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Cross of Christ.
During the last years of her life, Kateri endured great suffering from a serious illness. She died on April 17th, 1680, shortly before her 24th birthday, and was buried in Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada.
Kateri's final words were: "Jesus — Mary — I love you"
Eyewitnesses reported that within a few minutes of her death, the scars from smallpox completely vanished and her face shone with a radiant beauty.
Before her death, Kateri promised her friends that she would continue to love and pray for them in heaven. Both Native Americans and settlers immediately began praying for her heavenly intercession. Several people, including a priest who attended Kateri during her last illness, reported that Kateri had appeared to them and many healing miracles were attributed to her.
Reputed miracles
One recorded miracle was experienced by Joseph Kellogg, a Protestant child was captured by Natives in a raid, but eventually brought back to his home. Twelve months after he was kidnapped he caught smallpox and failed to be cured by the ordinary means used by the Jesuits. The Jesuits possessed relics from Tekakwitha's grave, but did not want to use them on a non-Catholic. One Jesuit told him that if he would confess and truly embody a Roman Catholic, help would come to him and so Joseph did as asked. The Jesuit gave him rotten wood from Catherine's coffin, which is said to have made him heal. Other alleged miracles attributed to Tekakwitha: Father Rémy recovered his hearing and a nun in Montreal was cured by using items formerly belonging to Kateri.
On December 19, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI approved the second miracle needed for Blessed Kateri's canonization. The authorized miracle dates from 2006, when a young boy in Washington state survived a severe flesh-eating bacterium. Doctors had been unable to stop the progress of the disease by surgery and advised his parents he was likely to die. The boy received the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick from a Catholic priest. As the boy is half Lummi Indian, the parents said they prayed through Tekakwitha for divine intercession, as did their family and friends, and an extended network contacted through their son's classmates. A Catholic nun, Sister Kateri Mitchell visited the boy's bedside and placed a relic of Tekakwitha, a bone fragment, against his body and prayed together with his parents. The next day, the infection stopped its progression.


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With a stellar record of protecting consumers for 25 years, including 20 years as an attorney, Tammie believes "an informed consumer is the foundation upon which great relationships are built."
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Tammie has a Certified Financial Specialist (CFS) designation and is also an Accredited Commercial Professional (ACP). In addition, she seeks opportunities to satisfy her yearly continuing legal education requirements with additional real estate training.
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Available: Amazon/B&N/Goodreads
*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. This does not effect my review whatsoever.*
Goodreads Description
"People in the town of Deer Park, Texas are vanishing. There is a strange museum, known as Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault, that appears overnight. Perrie Madeline's best friend and ex-boyfriend are among the missing. Perrie, along with her friend August, go on a pursuit to search for them in the mysterious museum. Could the elusive Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault have anything to do with their disappearances?"
My Review
This book, where to begin, it felt like a mashup of quite a few things I'm nostalgic about. It felt like it could have been an addition to R.L. Stine's Fear Street series despite having nothing to do with the street mashed up with one of my favorite 80s horror films, Waxworks, starring Zach Galligan from Gremlins. It follows a similar plot as to if you go into a mysterious museum, no one hears from you ever again.
Unlike other reviewers, I actually had an issue with the way the main character, Perrie, point of view. Many of her sentences were slight, quips, and often short in a way that made no sense to the plot and there were times where they were often not needed. The writing structure in general needed work. It maybe since the copy I was sent was un unpolished draft, but the writing was weird at times and I'm not even discussing the plot.
The plot itself is genius and executed in such a way, you can't help but keep reading. The thing is, you have to get past Perrie's delivery. The images, other characters, and even the secrets hiding in the dark gave me chills as I continued to read on. It kept me hooked to say the least and the twist was very unexpected.
If you are a horror fan or looking for a quick thriller that will leave you on the edge of your seat, then this is the book for you. I would be happy to read a sequel to this, but I'm strongly hoping Candace Robinson puts more work into how her characters speak and describe settings.
My Rating
Happy Reading,


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We took three day trip down to Corpus since, I had to see a knee specialist. Yep! This chunky ole farmer has a torn meniscus. JOY JOY JOY! When I do something seems like I do it up big like injure myself! :O) I am guessing sometime after the MRI on Monday; I will be scheduled to get it repaired. The thought of surgery doesn't thrill me as much as the idea of being able to move because I have been packing on the pounds after I fell in November. I want to get back in shape something fierce.
So I leave you with a few pics my hubby took of the boys enjoying their mini-vakay.


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Fun, FREE, frugal and affordable health care, pet care, entertainment and activities in Denver. Surviving in Denver on a budget. News of living in Denver's Washington Park/DU communities.
Monday, August 15, 2011
How the Other Half Lives--Parade of Homes FREE
Big dreams of big homes? Check out Denver's 2011 Parade of Homes, which starts today, Aug. 13, and is FREE this year. Instead of being at a single site the homesare scattered across 19 municipalities on the Front Range, including Loveland, Castle Rock and Denver. There are a total of 64 homes as part of the tour this year and they vary in price. If you really want to see how the other half lives, you'll want to check out Heritage Hills, which has seven homes all priced at over $1 million. Cowabunga! The event takes place for the next four weeks. Touring of homes takes place on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11AM to 6PM. More info here.
Posted by Mrs Packer at 11:19 AM
Labels: 2011, Denver, Parade of Homes
1 comment:
- garbanzito said...
the other "half"??
- August 15, 2011 at 12:10 PM
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Saturday, July 8th., Villa des Nefliers, Fontainebleau.
I began to write my little book on Xmas on Wednesday last. On Thursday I went to see the Wellses at Pont de l'Arche. I came back yesterday and found myself in a railway accident at Mantes, six wounded.
There had already been a breakdown in a tunnel. Officials said that a rotule of an attache had got broken. It was repaired and we jolted onwards at, I should say, about 30 or 35 kilometres an hour. Then, just after we passed Mantes station, there was a really terrific jolting. I knew after 4 or 5 jolts that one coach at any rate had let the metals.
I was in a sort of large Pullmanesque compartment at the back of a first-class coach, two or three coaches from the engine. The windows broke. The corridor door sailed into the compartment. My stick flew out of the rack. The table smashed itself. I clung hard to the arms of my seat, and fell against an armchair in front of me. There was a noise of splintering, and there were various other noises. An old woman lay on the floor crying. I wondered: "Shall I remain unharmed until the thing stops?" Immense tension of waiting for the final stoppage. Equilibrium at last and I was unhurt.
I couldn't get out at first. Then someone opened the door. I soothed the old woman. I took my eyeglasses off and put them in their case. I found my hat (under some debris) and my stick. My bag had remained in the rack. I left the train with my belongings but I had forgotten all about the book I was reading, "L'Eve Future". This book was all that I lost. Two wounded women were ahead lying out on the grass at the side of the track.
Up above, from street bordering the cutting, crowds of people were gazing curiously, as at a show. One woman asked if she could do anything, and someone said: "A doctor". I walked round to the other side of the train and a minor official asked me and others to go back. "Ce n'est pas pour vous commander, mais ..." We obeyed. Two coaches lay on their sides. One of them was unwheeled, and partly sticking in the ground. No sound came from an overturned 2nd class coach though there were people in it.
Presently some men began lifting helpless passengers onto cushions which had been laid on the ground. I had no desire of any sort to help. I argued incompassionately that it was the incompetent railway company's affair. I held my bag and stick and I looked around. I didn't want to see any more wounded nor to be any more impressione than I could help. My recollection of appearances quickly became vague. I remember the face of one wounded woman was all over coal dust. We had shaved a short goods train standing on the next line, and the tender of the train was against our coach. A young American said that it was sticking into our coach, but I don't think it was. He said that the front part of our coach was entirely telescoped, but it wasn't entirely telescoped. It was, however, all smashed up. My chief impression is of a total wreck brought about in a few seconds.
I walked off up line towards station and met various groups of employees running towards train. At last two came with a stretcher or ambulance. I passed out of the station into the place, and a collector feebly asked me for my ticket, which I didn't give. I went straight to a garage and demanded an auto for Paris. But all autos had been taken off to the scene of the accident. Having been promised one in due course, I waited some time and then had a wash and took tea. I couldn't help eating and drinking quickly. Then I was told that two Americans wanted an auto. I said that they might share the one promised to me. Agreed. At last my auto came. The price was 100 francs. A Frenchman came up who wanted to get to Paris quickly (he had not been in the accident), and I gave him a place for 20 francs making a mistake in thus dividing 100 by 4. This detail shows I really was upset under my superficial calmness. We went off at 5.30.


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Saturday, January 23, 2016
February 2
It's coming up. My fifty-eighth birthday. I am getting old. No, I don't really care anymore, I went through that trauma back when I was in my forties and realized that no one would buy or give me anything anymore because they thought I was pretty. That is for young women. I don't mind. I'm looking forward to all the benefits of senior life. Like discounts. This year I'm going to have a cake, too. Last year I didn't, I was trying to lose weight. But I've found out that my problem with losing weight isn't overeating, it's under activity. I'm on the computer most of the day and don't get out much. I have a friend who mountain bikes. He can eat anything that he wants to. So this year, for my fifty-eighth year, I'm going to get more active. It's going to be hard. I have a wrecked left knee and flibitis in my right elbow. I have a back which goes out everytime I do something I'm not used to. This is old age. So I have to try to find something interesting to do that I can do. Soccer is a possibility. All you do is run. I won't be good at the start but maybe I can get better. Of course that's not possible in winter. Another thing is, every year I buy myself a birthday gift. I don't want anything, really, but I am going to buy a really big steak. I'm looking forward to it. Winter birthdays are lots of fun. It's a real nice break in the cold days to celebrate anything, I find. Anyway I'm going to have a good time.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
The Children's Chocolate Bar Strike
It was 1947. The war was over and costs that had been held down by the war were zooming up. A chocolate bar in Canada was five cents. But cost of sugar etc was up. So the chocolate companies decided to raise the price to eight cents. A boy went down to get a bar and noticed the price. He complained and soon he and some friends were on a picket line outside the shop. The idea caught on. More and more boys and girls showed up to picket the high price of chocolate. Newspapers zeroed in on the children and the children's chocolate strike was born. It was country-wide and looked on with some amusement by the adults. The chocolate companies tried to reason with the kids. Tried to tell them about soaring costs of making the candy. Kids didn't listen. Then, on the eve of the biggest strike that was to hit Canada, a telephone call came it. The children, it said, are being used by the communists to derail the capitalist economy. No one knows who made the call. Overnight parents forbade their children to strike, fearing their sons and daughters were pawns of communist sympathizers. It was over as quick and as sudden as it began. The price of chocolate held at eight cents and now is about two dollars. But oh, those were interesting times.
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although, i do not have a car, in fact..takde lesen pon..(hohoo), tetap jugak nak share dengan uolss tips on how to save fuel..haa..mari dekat...mari..
- Tip 1
Only buy or fill up your cars or bike in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all petrol station have their petrol storage tanks buries below ground. The colder the ground, the denser the fuel, when it gets warmer, petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening, your litre is not exactly a litre of petrol.
In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum product play an important role. A one degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this petroleum business. But the petrol station do not have temperature compensation at the petrol pumps.
- Tip 2
When you are filling up petrol, do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look, you will see that the trigger has three stages, low, middle and high. In slow mode, you should be pumping petrol on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the petrol pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your petrol tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you are getting less worth for your money.
- Tip 3
One of the most important tips is to fill up petrol when your tank is half full. The reason for this is, the more petrol you have in your tank, the less air occupying its empty space. Petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal floating roof, this roof serves as zero clearance between the petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.
Unlike petrol station, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated, so that every litre is actually the exact amount.
- Tip 4
Another reminder, if there is a fuel truck pumping into the petrol storage tanks at the petrol station, then you stop to buy, do not fill up. Most likely the petrol is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles at the bottom of the petrol storage tank.
^sharing is caring^


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Netherlands Film Festival (26 September - 5 October 2012) we provide you daily with postcards and bios of Dutch film stars. Lovely Cissy van Bennekom (1911 - 2005) was a Dutch theater, film and radio actress who played in a series of popular Dutch films in the 1930's.
Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Productie. Publicity still for De familie van mijn vrouw/My wife's family (1935).
Promising Talent
Francisca Wilhelmina 'Cissy' van Bennekom was born in Haarlem, the Netherlands, in 1911. Van Bennekom began her career at the end of the 1920's as a linen clerk in department store De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam. In 1928 she entered the theater world at the age of 17, through mediation of a friend. She became a regular actress of the company Nederlandsch Tooneel of Louis Saalborn and Dirk Verbeek, where she debuted as a fairy in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. She continued with a long series of supporting roles, mainly those of maids and nurses in such plays as De familie Schimek (The Schimek family) (1930), De deftige straat (Quality Street) (1931), Oplichters (Crooks) (1931), and a digression with the Ensemble Jacques Sluyters at the open air theater Emmen in Cain (1930). In 1932 she moved to the Vereenigde Schouwspelers, where she acted in Goethe's Faust. Under the direction of Pierre Mols, she played Manuela in Jongedames in uniform (Girls in uniform)(1932), known from the German film Mädchen in Uniform by Leontine Sagan. It was her first major role, opposite the Enny Mols-de Leeuwe as as Fräulein von Bernburg and Julia Cuypers as the director. In 1934 Van Bennekom played the part of Doortje in her first film, the popular folk comedy De Jantjes/The Tars (1934, Jaap Speyer). It was based on a successful popular play by Herman Bouber that already had been released as a silent film in the 1920's. De Jantjes was one of the first Dutch talkies, after a few unfulfilled experiments. The cast was completely Dutch and Dutch sites played important parts. The production of the film got a huge press coverage and De Jantjes became a great public success, although the communist newspaper De Tribune noted: "It will probably stink of chauvinism. Just a film that the Dutch bourgeoisie can use, with the heightened international situation."Undoubtedly this was a hint at the election of Hitler as Chancellor.
Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod./Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: publicity still for De Jantjes (1934).
Dutch postcard by Hollandia Film Prod./Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: publicity still for De Jantjes (1934).
A Difficult Character
After De Jantjes/The Tars, Cissy van Bennekom would act in eight Dutch sound films. Firstly she played in the fisherman drama Op hoop van zegen/The Good Hope (1934, Alex Benno), based on a popular play by Herman Heijermans. Like De Jantjes, Op hoop van zegen had already been filmed before in the silent era. The film press described the film as not a huge artistic innovation from a filmic perspective, but with strong performances by actor Esther de Boer-van Rijk as the old fishermen's widow Kniertje and Cissy van Bennekom as the daughter of Simon the ship's carpenter. Afterwards came De familie van mijn vrouw/My Wife's Family (1935, Jaap Speyer), De vier Müllers/The Four Muller (1935, Rudolph Meinert), 't Was 1 April/It was April First (1936 Detlef Sierck aka Douglas Sirk), Op een nacht in mei/One Night in May (1936, Jaap Speyer), the short film Amsterdam bij nacht/ Amsterdam by Night (1937, Alex Benno) and De spooktrein/The Ghost Train (1939, Carl Lamac). Although she played mainly supporting roles, Van Bennekom became a famous Dutch film star in the 1930's. She had the reputation of being 'a difficult character' because she took no notice of the directors. Later she told an interviewer she "had to fight serious battles in order to be allowed to change the grotesque, in broken Dutch constructed texts and to be able to put the correct accents." She also complained she had to arrange her film costumes herself and sometimes had weekdays of 24 hours making just 15 guilders. From her own oeuvre, Van Bennekom only spoke positively about the films De Jantjes, Op hoop van zegen and De spooktrein. For the multilingual films De vier Mullers (1935) and 't Was 1 april (1936) Van Bennekom travelled to Berlin and Vienna. Privately, Van Bennekom was also a tough cookie. In 1938 she was big news in the newspaper. She had to appear in court for slapping an intrusive man, who then sued her. Outraged by the verdict - she had to pay 5 guilders - she wrote to the newspaper De Telegraaf that the judge was favouring bold men. She only regretted that she had lost her temper. The judge then wrote a rebuttal in the same newspaper. She was pushing in when quitting a tram, after which the man ran after her and called her names. She sold the man such a blow "that he surely heard it if he did not see it", as she said herself. Cissy went on appeal, where the compromise was a penalty of 1 guilder. Due to the jubilee of Queen Wilhelmina in 1938, in the end she did not even had to pay that one guilder.
Dutch postcard by M.B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Dick van Maarseveen, Den Haag/M.H.D. Film. Publicity still for Op Hoop van Zegen (1934).
A Superb Film Actress
Through her busy film schedule, Cissy Van Bennekom worked less on stage. In 1935-1936 she filmed in Loet Barnstijn's studio Filmstad Liefdes-Idylle/Love's Idyll, under direction of Jaap Speyer. Privately, she experienced her own idyll with Clemens Wilde, a Hungarian Jewish sound-engineer at Filmstad, and they married in 1936. Kurt Gerron and Adolphe Engers acted as witnesses. Then, Van Bennekom went to the Ufa studios in Neubabelsberg to act in the comedy 't Was 1 april (1936, Detlef Sierck). In the late 1930's Van Bennekom shifted territory to cabaret and radio and renewed her stage career. From 1937 on, Van Bennekom played with the ABC Cabaret of Wim Kan and Corry Vonk, founded in 1936 and based at the Amsterdam Leidseplein Theater. In 1937-1938 she played at the Amsterdam Tooneelvereeniging of Albert van Dalsum and A. Defresne in plays like Artisten-Ingang/Stage Door. Later in 1938 Van Bennekom followed Van Dalsum and Defresne when they joined the Nederlandsch Toneel, now under the direction of Cor van der Lugt Melsert. The company became the regular player of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg. In 1939 she played in the radio play Spreek met Vlaanderen en het komt in orde, the first Paul Vlaanderen series, based on the British radio play Send for Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge. Van Bennekom played Cora Granders, the niece of the detective. In the summer of 1939 Van Bennekom played in the Amsterdam studio Cinetone her last film role in De spooktrein/The Ghost Train, directed by Carl Lamac. In particular, the performance of Jan Musch as the station manager was widely appreciated, but there was also praise for Van Bennekom's performance. Het Vaderland: "Despite her small role Cissy van Bennekom shows she is a superb film actress". When in May 1940 the Netherlands was occupied by the Germans, Van Bennekom stopped her stage and film career, because of her Jewish husband. However, the pre-war Dutch films in which she had acted were still widely shown in Dutch cinemas. When the south of the Netherlands was liberated already, Adolphe Engers and Van Bennekom presented a New Year's wish on 1 January 1945, in the act Thomasvaer en Pieternel, written by Professor Casimir for the radio station Herrijzend Nederland. After World War II, Van Bennekom joined the cabaret of Wim Sonneveld in the show Vanavond om 8 uur (Tonight at eight) (1947). She also contributed to the first experimental television broadcasts by Philips. In 1948 she retired from public life to focus on her second marriage. She moved to France and became a sculptress. She got an offer from America to play a role in a play in Kansas City, but refused as she wanted to stay with her 4-year-old daughter. After the death of her second husband, she returned to Amsterdam. At the age of 93, Cissy van Bennekom died in 2005 in Amsterdam.
Long scene from De Jantjes (1934). Source: Robin Kalshoven (YouTube).
Sources: kranten.kb.nl/, Filminnederland.nl/, Theaterencyclopedie.nl/, Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.