Category: gay photography

Calendar: August 25

A Year: Day to Day Men: 25th of August

Marrakesh Delicacy

Beginning on August 25, 1835, six articles about the discovery of life on the Moon are published in the New York Sun newspaper.

The Great Moon Hoax refers to the series of articles published by the Sun, describing the discovery of life and possibly civilization on the Moon. The article was attributed to Sir John Herschel, one of the best known astronomers of that period, and written down by Dr. Andrew Grant, the personal secretary of Herschel.  The discoveries were made with an immense telescope based on an entirely new principle. Fantastic animals, including goats and bison, as well as bat-like winged humanoids were described. Ultimately, the observations were terminated with the destruction of the telescope and the observatory by the intense heat of the sun focusing through the lens of the telescope.

Authorship of the articles has been attributed to Richard Adams Locke, a reporter working for the New York Sun. Locke admitted it years later in an letter to the weekly paper “New World”. Rumors persisted that others were involved; but no evidence could be found to support that theory. Locke never gave any reasons for writing the series. His intentions were probably first to create a sensational story which would increase sales of The Sun, and, second, to ridicule some astronomical theories recently published.

In 1824, Franz von Paula Gruithuisen, Professor of Astronomy at Munich University, published a paper titled “Discovery of Many Distinct Traces of Lunar Inhabitants,  Especially of One Their Colossal Buildings”. Gruithuisen claimed to have observed color on the lunar surface, indicating climate and vegetation zones, and lines and geometric shapes, indicating the existence of walls, roads, fortifications, and cities.  Reverend Thomas Dick, minister and science teacher, wrote a book that computed the number of inhabitants of the solar system; the moon by his count would contain four billion inhabitants. Reverend Dick’s writings were very popular in the United States; Ralph Waldo Emerson was a fan of his book.

The story was not discovered to be a hoax for several weeks after its publication; even then, the New York Sun did not issue a retraction. Sir John Herschel was initially amused by the hoax, but grew annoyed when he had to answer questions by people who really believed the story was true. The Sun’s circulation increased dramatically because of the hoax and remained greater than before, establishing The Sun as a successful paper. The Great Moon Hoax is mentioned by characters in Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon”, published in 1865 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

Calendar: August 24

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 24th of August

The Lone Butterfly

August 24, 1957 is the birthdate of comedian and actor Stephen John Fry.

Stephen Fry’s television career began with the 1982 broadcast of “The Cellar Tapes”, a revue written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Tony Slattery. This caught the attention of the ITV Granada television studio which  hired Fry, Laurie, and Thompson for the 1982 sketch comedy show, “There is Nothing to Worry About!”.  A second series, retitles “Alfresco”, helped establish Fry and Laurie’s reputation as a comedy double act.

The BBC in 1986 commissioned a sketch show that became “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”, which ran for 26 episodes and spanned four successful series between 1986 and 1995. During this time period, Fry starred in “Blackadder II” as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in “Blackadder the Third”, and then starred in “Blackadder Goes Forth” as General Melchett again. Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves, alongside Hugh Laurie’s Bertie Wooster character, in “Jeeves and Wooster”, 23 hour-long adaptions of P. G. Wodehouse’s novels.

Stephen Fry has appeared in a number of BBC adaptions of plays and books. He played the lead role and was the executive producer for the legal drama “Kingdom”, which ran for three series. Fry also took up the recurring role of doctor /chief Gordon Wyatt on the popular televison drama “Bones. The 2011 Monty Python film “Holy Flying Circus” saw Stephen Fry in the role of God.

Starting in 2006, Stephen Fry began appearing in documentaries and other fact-based programs. His first was the Emmy Award-winning 2006 “Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive”. The same year, he appeared on the BBC’s genealogy series “Who Do You Think You Are?”.  In 2007, Fry presented a documentary on the subject of HIV and AIDS entitled “HIV and Me”. He followed these up with many nature series, a six-part travel series through each section of the United States, a two-part documentary on people’s attitudes to gay people in different parts of the world, and portrayed Oscar Wilde in the 1997 film “Wilde”, earning a nomination for a Golden Globe Best Actor in a Drama.

Stephen Fry married his partner, comedian Elliott Spencer on January 17, 2015, in the town of Dereham in Norfolk, England. Throughout his life, Fry has been and still is very active in social issues; he was listed number two in 2016 and number twelve in 2017 on the World Pride Power list. In August 2013, Fry published an “Open Letter to David Cameron and the IOC” calling for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, due to concerns over the state-sanctioned persecution of LGBT people in Russia. Along with Gina Carter and Sandi Toksvig, he is a co-owner of Sprout Pictures, an independent film and television company which works across all genres.

Christopher Fowler: “Filled with Mistifying Figures”

Phtographers Unknown, A Collection: Faces of Eleven Man

“It was true that the city could still throw shadows filled with mystifying figures from its past, whose grip on the present could be felt on certain strange days, when the streets were dark with rain and harmful ideas.”

― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase 

Calendar: August 23

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of August

The Aquamarine Armchair

August 23, 1846 was the birthdate of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder.

Alexander Calder, the third-generation of artists in the Calder family, is widely considered to be one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic.

Calder enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1915 to study engineering and excelled in mathematics. He received his degree in 1919 and worked as a draughtsman for the New York Edison Company. After several years of traveling the country and working in various jobs, Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, and John Sloan.

In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Adademie de la Grand Chaumiere, and established a studio in the Montparnasse Quarter. While in Paris, he met and became friends with local avant-garde artists, including Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, and Fernand Leger. At this time Calder created his wire sculptures, or drawings in space, and had his first solo show of these sculptures at Galerie Billiet in Paris. A visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio later in 1930 influenced him into fully embracing abstract art.

It was the mixture of Calder’s experiments to develop purely abstract sculpture following his visit with Mondrian that led to his first truly kinetic sculptures, manipulated by means of cranks and motors, that would become his signature artworks. Calder’s kinetic sculptures are regarded as being amongst the earliest manifestations of an art that consciously departed from the traditional notion of the art work as a static object and integrated the ideas of gesture and immateriality as aesthetic factors.

Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both “motion” and “motive.“ Calder found that the motorized works sometimes became monotonous in their prescribed movements. His solution, arrived at by 1932, was hanging sculptures that derived their motion from touch or air currents. They were followed in 1934 by outdoor pieces which were set in motion by the open air. The wind mobiles featured abstract shapes delicately balanced on pivoting rods that moved with the slightest current of air, allowing for a freer, more natural, shifting play of forms and spatial relationships.

In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals. As Calder’s sculpture moved into the realm of pure abstraction in the early 1930s, so did his prints. The thin lines used to define figures in the earlier prints and drawings began delineating groups of geometric shapes, often in motion.

Mitch Cullen

Mitch Cullin, Title Unknown, (Tiger’s Roar)

Born and raised in the American Southwest, Mitch Cullin is an artist based in Los Angeles. His books have been published internationally, including the novels “A Slight Trick of the Mind” and “Tideland”, both of which were brought to the screen by directors Bill Condon and Terry Gilliam, respectively. With his photographs having appeared as artwork on several book covers, his images have also been exhibited in both New Mexico and Texas.

Having turned his full attention back to photography, Mitch Cullin is currently putting together a series of photo essays that have been developed over the past years, among them “Man Facing Away” and a return to his earlier images from “West Texas Footnotes”. He also continues to work on projects with his partner, the mixed media artist Peter I. Chang.

Reblogged with thanks to https://www.mcullin.com                                     Please credit photographer when reblogging. Thanks.

Calendar: August 22

A Year: Day to Day Men: 22nd of August

Sunlight Through Lace

On this day, August 22, 565, Saint Columba is said to have encountered the Loch Ness Monster.

Saint Columba was an Irish abbot, missionary and scholar who helped spread Christianity in Scotland. He was also a statesman, a diplomat, an historical scholar, an author and a poet. Among Saint Columba’s many  accomplishments is the founding of multiple abbeys and monasteries — including the Abbey at Iona, which remained an important spiritual, academic, social and political institution for many centuries. He is highly regarded by both Scots and the Irish, regardless of their religious persuasion.

Saint Columba’s monstrous encounter is contained in the seventh-century book “The Life of Saint Columba”, written by his contemporary biographer Abbot Adamnan of the Abbey at Iona. This is the first recorded account of the Loch Ness Monster:

“While standing upon the bank of the River Ness which flows out of Loch Ness, in northern Scotland, Columba contemplated the best way to cross to the other side. As he considered the problem before him, he came across a group of heathenish Picts who were busy burying a friend who had been attacked by an enormous “water beast” while swimming in the river.

When Columba heard the story from the assembled mourners, he laid his staff across the dead man’s chest and, miraculously, the man stood up, hale and hearty. Against common sense, Columba ordered Brother Lugne Mocumin, one of his fellow monks, to swim across the loch and bring back a small boat which was moored on the opposite shore. Without hesitation, Lugne stripped off his tunic and immediately jumped into the water.

The monster, alerted by Lugne’s splashing around, surfaced and raced towards the hapless monk, eager for a bite. The monster roared a might roar, darting towards the swimming monk with its mouth wide open, as Lugne was in the middle of the stream. Everyone on the shore cried out hoping to warn the monk of his impending doom. However, Columba was unmoved. Instead, the saint stepped forward boldly to the edge of the loch and, making the sign of the cross while invoking the Name of the Lord, spoke in a commanding voice. ‘You will go no further!’ he demanded of the monster. ‘Do not touch the man! Leave at once!’

Even though the monster was no more than a spear’s length away from the swimming monk, at the sound of the saint’s words, it stopped and immediately fled the scene terrified. The monster quickly absconded to the depths of the loch behind him, allowing Brother Lugne to paddled the boat back unharmed. Everyone was astonished. If the heathens at the funeral weren’t sufficiently impressed with Columba bringing their friend back to life, they were thoroughly impressed with how the monster obeyed the saint.”

Ben Robinson, “Steven di Costa”

Ben Robinson, Photo Shoot of Steven di Costa

“I’ll tell you what kind of red hair he had. I started playing golf when I was only ten years old. I remember once, the summer I was around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that if I turned around all of a sudden, I’d see Allie. So I did, and sure enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the fence–there was this fence that went all around the course–and he was sitting there, about a hundred and fifty yards behind me, watching me tee off. That’s the kind of red hair he had.”
―J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Reblogged with thanks to http://3leapfrogs.com

Source: londfoto