tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58428630432583239562024-03-19T09:47:39.973+01:00UNITED PHOTO PRESS | MagazineUNITED PHOTO PRESS CELEBRATING GLORIOUS 34 YEARS | 1990.2024Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-22433555052843438992024-01-28T04:36:00.006+01:002024-01-28T04:37:56.673+01:00From Greek to Latin: Visualizing the Evolution of the Alphabet<p><b style="text-align: justify;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7EZLxqJLPcRrU1w7dcO4kKI9dDGLNyWUf4dla1bDmDOhvZpKaL8xjwi5SjtE2pNXMAbLFzn11jVxqWLB5wZl-7baw3Map-Vzyr-6Wgn_e5ILBIamcMpMqMBuRrdrFxVC-jajV-cCVwWMk_RWQ16oItTUR74-640MSu9Jmz01iKEMqJ6NJSYj5sliiPXw/s1200/Screen%20Shot%2001-15-22%20at%2007.25%20PM.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7EZLxqJLPcRrU1w7dcO4kKI9dDGLNyWUf4dla1bDmDOhvZpKaL8xjwi5SjtE2pNXMAbLFzn11jVxqWLB5wZl-7baw3Map-Vzyr-6Wgn_e5ILBIamcMpMqMBuRrdrFxVC-jajV-cCVwWMk_RWQ16oItTUR74-640MSu9Jmz01iKEMqJ6NJSYj5sliiPXw/s16000/Screen%20Shot%2001-15-22%20at%2007.25%20PM.PNG" /></a></b></div><b style="text-align: justify;"><br />Over the course of 2021, the Greek alphabet was a major part of the news cycle.</b><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">COVID-19 variants, which are labeled with Greek letters when becoming a variant of concern, normalized their usage. From the Alpha variant in the UK, to the Delta variant that spread from India to become the dominant global strain, the Greek alphabet was everywhere. Seemingly overnight, the Omicron variant discovered in South Africa has now taken the mantle as the most discussed variant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the Greek alphabet is used in other parts of our lives as well. For example, Greek letters are commonly used in mathematics and science, like Sigma (Σ) denoting a sum or Lambda (λ) used to represent the half-life of radioactive material.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And the study of linguistics shows us why using Greek letters in English isn’t completely farfetched. This visualization from Matt Baker at <a href="https://usefulcharts.com/blogs/charts/evolution-of-the-english-alphabet">UsefulCharts.com</a> demonstrates how the modern Latin script used in English evolved from Greek, and other, alphabets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s All Proto-Sinaitic to Me</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before there was English, or Latin, or even Greek, there was Proto-Sinaitic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Considered the first alphabet ever used, the Proto-Sinaitic script was derived in Canaan, around the biblical Land of Israel. It was repurposed from Egyptian hieroglyphs that were commonly seen in the area (its name comes from Mount Sinai), and used to describe sounds instead of meanings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the first Semitic script, Proto-Sinaitic soon influenced other Semitic languages. It was the precursor to the Phoenician alphabet, which was used in the area of modern-day Lebanon and spread across the Mediterranean and became the basis for Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and of course, Greek.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Evolving into the Greek, Roman, and Latin Alphabets</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over time, the alphabet continued to become adopted and evolve across different languages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first forms of the Archaic Greek script are dated circa 750 BCE. Many of the letters remained in Modern Greek, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, and even Omicron, despite first appearing more than 2,500 years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soon the Greek alphabet (and much of its culture) was borrowed into Latin, with Archaic Latin script appearing circa 500 BCE. The evolution into Roman script, with the same recognizable letters used in modern English, occurred 500 years later in 1 CE.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many of the letters which first came from Egyptian hieroglyphs made their way into modern English, but they took a long and convoluted journey. As the graphic above highlights, some letters evolved into multiple forms, while others fell out of use entirely.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And this is just a snapshot of the many scripts and languages that the modern English alphabet evolved from. Lowercase letters came from Roman cursive, which evolved into the Insular and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kGuN8WIGNc">Carolingian scripts</a> before becoming modern lowercase English.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like many things in the long arc of human culture, alphabets are not as far removed from each other as you might think.</div><br />Omri WallachUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-7372504489821730082024-01-14T05:22:00.005+01:002024-01-14T05:40:04.841+01:00"RECONNECTED by United Photo Press at Ingo Seufert Gallery, Munich, Germany"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtN5dPCkr2_gSig33nLV0aqkm4Hca12CaEbS3FEjMAk3ol6qCevR1DMZN_IJdKFflQbFTCRer0hgwR4zNScI-cuETw6Y4UbgkYreZkihDJITVW-Tq6HrOqlg9qlwSV9QtURLEiCfJA5Yenm36NqLFM9U1pwcQH-LBKuI4Mnz-Cti7I9Mi7Nov020pXMcE/s793/R0%20INTRO.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtN5dPCkr2_gSig33nLV0aqkm4Hca12CaEbS3FEjMAk3ol6qCevR1DMZN_IJdKFflQbFTCRer0hgwR4zNScI-cuETw6Y4UbgkYreZkihDJITVW-Tq6HrOqlg9qlwSV9QtURLEiCfJA5Yenm36NqLFM9U1pwcQH-LBKuI4Mnz-Cti7I9Mi7Nov020pXMcE/s16000/R0%20INTRO.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"RECONNECTED: An International Photographic Exhibition by United Photo Press at Ingo Seufert Gallery, Munich, Germany".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ingo Seufert Gallery, situated in the picturesque city of Munich, is set to host an international photographic exhibition that is poised to captivate enthusiasts of visual art. The United Photo Press, a distinguished association of photographers, will showcase its latest collection titled "RECONNECTED," a celebration of the diversity and talent within its membership and among its guests.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Scheduled to run from March 13th to March 31st, 2024, the exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to explore the world through the lenses of both seasoned and emerging photographers. The name "RECONNECTED" implies a rediscovery, an immersion into narratives and perspectives that transcend borders and cultures.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Having reached its 34th year, United Photo Press has curated an impressive selection of works spanning various themes, from breathtaking landscapes to emotive portraits, capturing moments that transcend time and space. The exhibition stands as a testament to the compelling ability of imagery to narrate stories and evoke emotions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ingo Seufert Gallery, known for its commitment to promoting contemporary visual artists, provides the perfect backdrop for this photographic journey. Organizers are enthusiastic about bringing this international exhibition to Munich, offering local residents and visitors a unique cultural experience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The vernissage, scheduled for March 13th, will be an opportunity for photography enthusiasts to meet the artists behind the works and delve into the stories that inspired each image. Throughout the exhibition period, Ingo Seufert Gallery will be open to the public, inviting art lovers to explore the extraordinary world of contemporary photography.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"RECONNECTED" promises to be an enriching and inspiring experience, fostering connections among people from different backgrounds through the universal power of imagery. Don't miss the chance to embark on this unique journey at Ingo Seufert Gallery in Munich, Germany, from March 13th to March 31st, 2024.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unitedphotopressworld.org%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2_Msk982lu4M5EADBUX9fFVIB56KIMQUpc5rmtLffyJt5IAIqY1M5dhFs&h=AT3zEsfNor3JNXlDGtBKgYFaVvdkdb1SAX2asbA2IDIq3TajRgC7jXFcaYUwxrEk-XENxz5ABrKAxtfgZHl3fQusHictEltwMA1v4CJ36AkW6CUlj-QONzRAPIJC3niK-zJ9&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0pCxmut5lLv8WBN4lMNgBnBC3whYUp5CXw4-GMg5Oxenp0a5LlsvC2G6CGfq5CH_5dSVQYWtQKtDhsC3ORmgtIH_UpNc-5_pcJP50sK0cnAdR6alzC4cpWG87gdeKBIZG7wEWua4w8cccG0d0kEy_nr1iM3ogF9aySimZ9pLSSJG01aU_2S8KJrK0Pl7oUNUb7JYRTRjST">www.unitedphotopressworld.org</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unitedphotopress.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0KhDcmThXwvS_6KysC0zfUTzC7WZ5kDMEOFHKGIiAHGm47e_8ybV4eUec&h=AT2Ug7XtHRatUonvXp38e_XxsghDGL9hGLOmLRjalqDbxUi1LO3QMbEyoYU_Bgl21A1-ZxPQccVqPS5hFkldRXS_zjULwinPMTLS4jv8qpwlhv8VcG2IHB-dp0NLk8DRf-zu&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0pCxmut5lLv8WBN4lMNgBnBC3whYUp5CXw4-GMg5Oxenp0a5LlsvC2G6CGfq5CH_5dSVQYWtQKtDhsC3ORmgtIH_UpNc-5_pcJP50sK0cnAdR6alzC4cpWG87gdeKBIZG7wEWua4w8cccG0d0kEy_nr1iM3ogF9aySimZ9pLSSJG01aU_2S8KJrK0Pl7oUNUb7JYRTRjST">www.unitedphotopress.com</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/unitedphotopress?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZXGSdDd5XbKtElF_EElL8asxao_kYVCAfj-1tBLtG64kcHDpzd4CE3X-SVbng2CCRTsn-dowLKsSllLrXg7S7qYTB1tWIMKBpAgG82kYLWr6lWxEZchFqeKX98TAFi-arBGhXqZmbXg5qrzHdfKthQHnAe7A9OqMY5LQmX9fJdRFQOs0Ck5XKA7i2TGox28BHw&__tn__=*NK-R">#unitedphotopress</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Z1pd0R9XFRjjvGUi10Ebdzupjg9mJH2OzcV1Y81_MQDnACEfLDzKh_ygHo26wUCvsJPD8CelCLLSqhrabAigf0Tnxvhm4iWj1psu5HD_GE7Zsq5HF4MTe9DynSKsQd-wcN1Z3KoHAnxf13D1mc23Nw3yOZBemlkpzo04Vck_bCwNgF-oEK0PZPymxCU/s4146/R1%20eng.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4146" data-original-width="2965" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Z1pd0R9XFRjjvGUi10Ebdzupjg9mJH2OzcV1Y81_MQDnACEfLDzKh_ygHo26wUCvsJPD8CelCLLSqhrabAigf0Tnxvhm4iWj1psu5HD_GE7Zsq5HF4MTe9DynSKsQd-wcN1Z3KoHAnxf13D1mc23Nw3yOZBemlkpzo04Vck_bCwNgF-oEK0PZPymxCU/s16000/R1%20eng.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comSchleißheimer Str. 44, 80333 München, Alemanha48.1509132 11.560154848.127986605013923 11.525822524609374 48.173839794986073 11.594487075390624tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-61879913939649397952024-01-07T00:00:00.000+01:002024-01-14T05:01:35.172+01:00This Company is Making Wholly Original, Affordable, Customizable Medium Format Film Cameras<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihB8CV4KsMfzRLWbjUzx6MkJoc2Uqahgnd6_RFMFPpbysZI0ukoCIRKo7xKdgSl2ygGNx2-VYfxMdIGKKlsHhyQNHHUG6WxkHGnx1FSB2ziwIIE1JUpC1niA0QZ_PZ9MjqPnEJI6V6hTM/s800/This-Company-is-Making-Wholly-Original-Custom-Affordable-Medium-Format-Cameras-800x420.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihB8CV4KsMfzRLWbjUzx6MkJoc2Uqahgnd6_RFMFPpbysZI0ukoCIRKo7xKdgSl2ygGNx2-VYfxMdIGKKlsHhyQNHHUG6WxkHGnx1FSB2ziwIIE1JUpC1niA0QZ_PZ9MjqPnEJI6V6hTM/s16000/This-Company-is-Making-Wholly-Original-Custom-Affordable-Medium-Format-Cameras-800x420.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2016 and again in 2018, PetaPixel featured the work of Dora Goodman, a woman who was adding hand-crafted elements to analog cameras. Fast forward to 2021, and Goodman has gone steps further and finally created cameras of her own design.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Goodman started her project almost five years ago the business was built around reskinning cameras with wood, leather, or any special material. Though a handcrafted process, the cameras were still Nikon, Pentacon, Hasselblad, or whichever brand but were just redesigned aesthetically.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Goodman and her team always dreamt of being more than a reskin service.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We always had the dream to leave a mark in the analog photo industry and we really wanted to create actually our own cameras,” she tells PetaPixel. “Our first trials were the wooden cameras (I mean totally made out of wood), which we still love, but then we realized that is a huge amount of work and very slow, so we could not build a business only on this, even if our community loved it.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In recent years, 3D printing has become more accessible at a low cost, and Goodman decided to look into that as a possible way to expand her business.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We started to experiment and it turned out that this technology is working great for us! It resulted for us in cameras that function perfectly and also look great,” she says, smiling. “It is a continuously developing technology and we love that it is so flexible, it almost has no boundaries – people are printing everything from organs to houses.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Using 3D printing has allowed Goodman and her team additional advantages over building everything from wood by hand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Thanks to this method, we can continuously upgrade our cameras, anytime we have a new idea we make a design, print it and in a few hours we see if it is working or if it looks good,” she explains. “It’s easy to tweak and fine-tune our products.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_030-800x552.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No longer is it a challenge to find specific parts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We love that when we have an idea that we need something special accessory for a camera, we do not need to hunt for that, but we can design and print it. It is so cool! The process is fast, effective, and cost-efficient, which can result in the affordable cameras we sell.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_034-800x430.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Goodman is focusing her business on 3D printed cameras now, and has released two custom, unique Goodman originals that she hopes will let them leave their mark on the analog photography world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Goodman Zone Medium Format Camera</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_008-800x533.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Launched in October of 2019, <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/goodman-zone-diy-camera-kit">the Goodman Zone Camera</a> is <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/goodmanzone">available open-source</a> but also it is possible to order from Goodman’s online store.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Goodman says that she and her team understand that it is not always easy to find new or used medium format film cameras in good condition and also at a good price, so when they designed this camera the goal was to provide a professional and affordable medium format camera an entry-level price to give everyone the opportunity to try out medium format photography.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_001-800x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Processed with VSCO with c8 preset</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_007-800x533.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Processed with VSCO with c8 preset</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Originally, we designed it to work with the Mamiya RB67 back and Mamiya Press Lenses. In the first year it was available only in a DIY kit, meaning that all the parts are pre-printed and all the necessary hardware, tools, etc are included in the package, and you just need to sit down, take some time for yourself and assemble your own camera,” she explains.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_013-800x483.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Building your own camera is such a special process, we definitely recommend to every photographer to experience this joy it gives, and that special bond you will have with this camera.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_016-793x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As Goodman alluded to, thanks to the process of how they make their cameras, building out a design never has to be a “finished” process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Since then we are always developing the Zone, we launched a lot of small accessories, and in the last few months, the biggest development was a helical lens adapter with ground glass (also 3d printed) that makes it possible to attach a wider variety of lenses now to the Zone. Also now in January we are launching the Goodman 6×6 Magazine, a 3D printed back that fits our Zone, so from now it will have an alternative to the Mamiya rb67 back.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just in the last month, Goodman launched the ability for customers to order pre-assembled cameras, as they realized not everyone has the time and patience to build their own.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Scura 3D Printed Pinhole Camera</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Scura_pinhole_camera_026-800x534.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Goodman’s second camera offering is available <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/product-page/scura-the-pinhole-camera">in 35mm</a> or <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/product-page/scura-6x6-pinhole-camera">6×6</a> formats and was launched in March of 2020. Just like with the Zone, the Scura is available <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/scura">as open-source so you can build it yourself</a>, a DIY kit or, now, as a fully assembled camera and is recommended for both beginners and advanced photographers who are looking to experience the unique world of pinhole photography.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Scura_pinhole_camera_023-800x533.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Scura_pinhole_camera_013-800x444.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tiny camera obscura was designed with a special curved back, so the light can reach the film evenly, which results in distortion-free images. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, it has a laser-drilled pinhole plate with a microscopic accuracy that is a perfectly even and smooth cut,” Goodman says. “It is a fun yet powerful pocket camera for capturing moments. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A camera with a simple, easily manageable mechanism and minimalist design. The Scura pocket camera is tiny and super lightweight (only 0.2 kg) so it easily fits into your pocket in any condition.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Scura_pinhole_camera_008-800x534.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Custom Cameras</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For 2021, Goodman says their goal is to create custom cameras based on the Goodman Zone body.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We get a lot of requests from our community to build them a whole setup so they do not need to hunt lenses and backs. We want to make each of these requests special with our ideas like a special accessory, color, wooden inlay, etc, so all will be different and there will be only one from these custom editions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Below are a few examples of custom cameras Goodman and her team have already completed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Custom_Goodman_Zone_002-800x526.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Custom_Goodman_Zone_004-800x534.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Custom_Goodman_Zone_014-800x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Custom_Goodman_Zone_016-800x543.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Goodman_Zone_Riot_Edition_001-800x534.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone_Japan_Camera_Hunter_Edition_003-800x534.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We love combining different materials and also we love to experience with the endless possibility of 3D printing,” she says.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to the cameras, Goodman says they enjoy tinkering with other interesting gadget ideas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“On the side, we always experiment with 3D printing and we love to create any kind of gadget that actually comes into our mind. For example, we developed <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/product-page/not-a-bottle-gimbal">a 3D printed gimbal</a> that you can use with your smartphone and with a plastic bottle, or our recent innovation is a cold brew coffee maker (that is not launched yet but will be in a month), that is such a cool thing, and does actually make really great coffee!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Goodman’s choice to not only offer cameras as a DIY or fully-assembled but also as open-source for anyone to build shows a dedication to making photography available to anyone, anywhere, simply for the love of the craft.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Below, Goodman provided a set of images taken with the Goodman Zone camera:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_001-800x649.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_006-800x646.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_010-800x641.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_014-800x567.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_015-610x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_016-800x573.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_017-800x644.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_018-800x644.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_021-602x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_022-800x632.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_028-603x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_036-800x654.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/01/Zone-shot_Dora_Goodman_045-599x800.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To look at the full Goodman camera offerings, check out their <a href="https://www.doragoodman.com/store">online store here</a>. You can also follow Dora and her work on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/doragoodman/">Instagram</a>.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-64078875784360450942024-01-03T17:26:00.000+01:002024-01-14T05:01:12.133+01:0012 Best Uses For Old Laptops<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_dQh79WN5QVybaVBQewIVO_NEvb7wJAfJLeJ_cw5IKiuR50wETOh0dOIv718HigXm88Pbn-Zi5lgTECCYTZUhpXeaUM1uHaBme9nP-y_yi9jfxq4IKevLxEO3wwoylSHRd96LGVx7HRHNhHpFAlH2KnzwiQfR2EcEHS1sHiXbUIai6rJZmO_W03ms/s1100/AdobeStock_291516930.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_dQh79WN5QVybaVBQewIVO_NEvb7wJAfJLeJ_cw5IKiuR50wETOh0dOIv718HigXm88Pbn-Zi5lgTECCYTZUhpXeaUM1uHaBme9nP-y_yi9jfxq4IKevLxEO3wwoylSHRd96LGVx7HRHNhHpFAlH2KnzwiQfR2EcEHS1sHiXbUIai6rJZmO_W03ms/s16000/AdobeStock_291516930.jpeg" /></a></div><br />As much as we wish they would, laptops don't last forever. With every software or technological advancement, the demands on your laptop computer increase until, eventually, it just can't keep up. What's fresh out of the box today will leave you yearning for an upgrade in just a few years. Suddenly, your previously treasured laptop is destined for the trash or a box in the closet or attic, next to the discarded toys of your youth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you're the kind of person who just can't seem to let go of old tech, don't despair, but do check on your closet-dwelling laptop. There's a chance that the chemical reactions in the battery have gone rogue, resulting in an explosion or a fire just waiting to happen. Multiple manufacturers have experienced swelling batteries over recent years and that's a concern, even if your laptop hasn't been plugged in for some time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once you've ensured your old laptop isn't plotting your imminent demise, you can start considering what you want to do with it. Your older laptop need not die of old age or spend its twilight years in a garbage heap. Instead, it can enjoy a fruitful second life with a renewed purpose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Turn it into a Chromebook or Android computer</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You probably shelved your old laptop not because it was broken but because it started slowing down and no longer suited your needs. Years' worth of use coupled with increasing demand eventually takes a toll on a computer, bogging it down beneath layers of digital sludge. Eventually, even running the operating system, let alone using it to do anything, becomes cumbersome. It might be that all you need is a lighter operating system to breathe new life into your old laptop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As long as it meets some minimum requirements, you can upload a new OS like Neverware's CloudReady or PrimeOS quickly and easily. For CloudReady, your laptop needs to have 2 GB of RAM or more, 16GB of available storage space, administrative access, and suitable graphics and processor, (via Neverware). To make things easier, Neverware has a list of certified models which they guarantee will work. If your laptop was manufactured after 2007, it's likely to work just fine, (via PCWorld). You're also going to need a flash drive with at least 8GB of storage space, for installation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Use your existing computer to load the installer onto your flash drive, then connect that to your old laptop. You'll have to bypass the automated boot when you turn on your laptop so that it accesses the USB drive as the boot device. Then install CloudReady and you're off to the races. Refer to Neverware's install guide for complete instructions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Use it as a game server</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you've ever wanted to set up a private game server, there's no better place to get your feet wet than Minecraft. It's only the highest selling game of all time and it's not even close. Grand Theft Auto comes in at second place with 150 million sales, compared to Minecraft's 238 million, (via HP).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you've been resistant to using your regular computer to set up a server, a spare laptop might be the right answer for you. The process is relatively simple, if you're comfortable fiddling with Notepad files and copying a couple lines of characters. Minecraft has a series of instructions outlined in their Help Center, but we can walk through the basics here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As explained by Tech Radar, the first thing you're going to want to do is make sure you're running the current version of Java and, if not, update it. Once that's done, you'll snag the Minecraft Java Edition server file. It helps to move those new files into a dedicated folder where they'll be easy to find.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You'll need to open the eula.txt file and change the line that says "eula=false" to "eula=true" in order to accept the EULA terms and get everything working. You'll also need to update the directory to point to the folder where you saved your server files. The process can be a little laborious but if you follow the instructions in the Help Center you should be fine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Your own personal megaplex</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even if your old laptop doesn't run very well, it should be able to play stored video files without too much trouble. Using its onboard hard drive or a connected external drive, you can store any movies and TV shows you own. If you're not using the laptop for anything else, clearing it of any extraneous software opens up more space for popcorn fodder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, you could use the laptop to watch movies directly, but who wants to do that when you've got a fancy flatscreen mounted to your wall? Since you're no longer using your laptop for games, email, or internet browsing, you can connect it to your TV and leave it there permanently.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The easiest way to do this is using one of your TVs HDMI ports. If your laptop doesn't have HDMI out, a VGA-to-HDMI, DVI-to-HDMI, or USB-to-HDMI adapter should do the job, (via Lifewire). A non-HDMI output, however, could cause some trouble with capturing audio from your laptop. You'll need to connect the audio output to your TV or sound system with the available ports and any needed adapters. If your laptop isn't too old, it should have HDMI and none of that will be a concern.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As explained by How To Geek, you can also expand your library beyond what you have downloaded by connecting the laptop to a Plex server, giving it remote access to any media you have saved there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The ultimate retro gaming machine</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We've talked before about how to scratch your retro gaming itch either using a dedicated device or a repurposed phone. Those solutions work, and they have the benefit of being even more portable than a laptop, but they're really borrowing from technology that was pioneered on computers. Turning your laptop into a retro gaming machine is perhaps the best way to relive the early days of computer gaming.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As explained by Laptop, getting your hands on emulators and ROMs is super easy and the files are so small that you can easily house just about every retro game file ever made on a single machine. That turns your old laptop from a dust-gathering piece of molded plastic to the fully stocked arcade you always wish you had. No quarters required. Of course, as we've mentioned elsewhere, the legality of game ROMs is nebulous so proceed at your own risk.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Emulated games can be played using your laptop's native keyboard, by way of the direction keys or the WASD keys, and you can even play multiplayer on many games if you split up the keyboard, but that can feel like juggling with one hand behind your back. A compatible USB or wireless game controller lets you play your endless library of games the way they were intended.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Make a wireless at-home file server</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Are your files eating up hard drive space on your everyday computer? You could get an external hard drive or a series of flash drives to store your files and free up space on your computer, or you could turn your old laptop into a remote file server and access your files anywhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turning your laptop into a file server is like having your own personal mini cloud for housing all of your digital possessions. TrueNAS CORE (previously FreeNAS) is a free, open-source solution for converting your old laptop's operating system to a network-associated file server. Installing TrueNAS CORE on a flash drive connected to your laptop will leave more room available for storage, (via How To Geek).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, you'll be provided with a URL to access the web interface and it will ask you to set up a password with you'll need to access the server from another machine. Once that's done, you'll be able to access the server remotely to set up shared folders as well as store and retrieve files over the air.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Donate its computing power to science</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Science proceeds in two stages. The first stage involves gathering data and the second stage involvesfiguring out what that data means. At present, the first stage is wildly outstripping the second stage. Gathering data is like sweeping loose puzzle pieces into a box, you've got a lot of information, but it isn't providing a coherent picture. In order to do that, you have to go through the laborious process of sorting your pieces and putting them in the right order.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Scientists are limited by how quickly their minds, or their computers can parse the data, which is why they've asked the public for assistance. The latent computing power we're all holding in our handheld devices and resting computers is staggering, and it can be put to good use doing science without any real effort from us.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As explained by Vice, distributed computing in science got its start in 1996 with a program which used volunteer computers to look for Mersenne prime numbers. Later, SETI got in on the action and since then hundreds of programs have spun up, borrowing computer power from citizen scientists.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A discarded laptop can join countless others to work on searching for alien signals, computing potential new disease therapies, calculating the orientation and spin of objects in space, and so much more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Home security system</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All you really need for a rudimentary security system is a camera, some software, and somewhere to store your recordings. If your old laptop has a webcam built in, or a USB port to connect one, you have everything you need to finally find out what your dogs are up to when you're not home. It's probably something adorable!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While you could set up a webcam to continuously record, you'd eat up your storage pretty quickly and finding notable footage would be a huge pain. What you really want is software that's capable of kicking on when it detects motion. That way you're not left with several hours of an empty living room every time you're away.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As explained by Engadget, the steps are going to be slightly different depending on if you're running a Mac or Windows machine, but the overall process is more or less the same. On a Mac, software like Evocam will trigger when it detects motion, send you a still photo, and start recording. On a Windows PC, something like TinCam can do the same.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both applications also have the ability to add additional cameras, so if you have multiple old laptops or other independent webcams, you could feasibly setup a system to monitor every room in your house.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Set up a Wi-Fi hotspot</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Increasingly, being connected is an absolute requirement for daily life. Whether you're working from home, trying to watch streaming content, or play video games online with your friends, a loss of connection is a recipe for a bad time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More often than not, unless you happen to be next to your modem, your devices connect to the network through Wi-Fi, and depending on the size or construction of your home, that can limit where you can set up shop. Too far away from the signal source or on the other side of a thick wall and you connection might drop off at the worst possible time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You could pick up a Wi-Fi extender to boost the signal beyond its native range, but why do that when you've got an old laptop sitting around? Provided, of course, that your laptop is running Windows 10. Navigate to Settings, then Network & Internet, then Mobile hotspot. If you have the right OS, and if your laptop has the necessary Wi-Fi hardware, you should see the option to create a hotspot, (via Tech Advisor).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You'll see a toggle switch under a header which reads "Share my internet connection with other devices." You'll also see a network name and password, which you'll need to connect other devices. Finally, you can watch YouTube in your basement without being disturbed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Make a low-def projector</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There's something magical about watching a movie or playing games on a projector. Even if you could get the same size picture with better quality on television, nothing really captures the mystique of a projector. It conjures feelings of visiting a movie theater, even if you're in your own bedroom. The major hurdle is they can be expensive and require a little more setup than the plug-and-play design of a television.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That said, if you've got an old laptop, an empty cardboard box, some tape, and the loose change from your couch cushions, you can rig up a low-definition projector in about half an hour. YouTuber The King of Random put together a tutorial that is pretty simple and promises to work no matter what sort of laptop you have, as long as it can play video, (via Lifehacker).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The key to this cobbled-together movie projector is a Fresnel lens, which you can pick up online for a few dollars. They're often used to gather light and focus it into a narrow beam, but if used from the opposite direction, they can magnify an image as long as you're comfortable with some distortion, (via Edmund Optics).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Use your cardboard box to create housing for the lens, then prop your laptop upside down with the monitor pointing through the lens. Investing in a higher-quality lens should net you a better picture, depending on how much you're willing to spend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Make a second monitor</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Provided your old laptop is still mostly functional and it's running Windows 10, you can set it up as a second monitor in just a few clicks. Microsoft's Miracast feature allows you to broadcast the signal from your primary computer to your laptop wirelessly. All you have to do is go into Settings on your spare laptop, select System, then Projecting to this PC, and choose what level of permissions you want to apply. On your primary computer press the Windows key+P, click Extend, and choose your laptop's computer name, (via HP).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are a couple of downsides to this solution. First, there can be considerable lag on the secondary display because it's being sent over the air, instead of through a cabled connection. Second, it doesn't provide you the option to tear your laptop apart and look at its insides. If you want more complicated but more satisfying results, you're going to have to break some stuff.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bear in mind that once you open your laptop you've probably voided the warranty. The steps for liberating your LCD from the laptop vary by model so you might need to experiment, but we're sure you'll figure it out. Find the model number of your LCD panel and obtain the appropriate controller board. Hook them together, and now you have an independent LCD monitor, (via Instructables). It's going to look like you cobbled it together from pieces you found after the collapse of civilization, but it'll work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Turn that monitor into a screen only you can see</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you truly value your privacy and you don't mind looking a little weird, a few modifications and a little crafting ability can turn your DIY LCD monitor into the ultimate privacy display.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">LDC screens use a polarizing film to filter the light from the display and make it readable to the viewer. Without that film, all you'll see when you look at your screen is a rectangle of white light, (via The Verge). That will get you the privacy you desire, but it's not very useful. The trick is putting the removed polarizing film where only you can see it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you've already removed the LCD from your laptop to make a second monitor, you're halfway done. If not, you'll need to do that. Once it's free from the casing, carefully peel away the polarizing film from the surface and set it aside. If your polarizing film also has a layer of anti-glare film, you'll want to remove that, (via Instructables). Now you're going to need a spare pair of glasses. Cheap reading glasses from the grocery store will do. All you really need is the frames. Cut out pieces of the polarizing film in the shape of the lenses and slap them in, making sure they are oriented correctly, and you'll be able to see what no one else can.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Make a magic mirror</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you really want to feel like you're brushing your teeth in the 22nd century, you're going to need a smart mirror. Unfortunately, the cost is a barrier. They can run anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on their size and functionality. If you've got an old laptop, however, you can build one for much cheaper.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We don't want to oversell this, it's going to take some work, but the result is pretty astonishing. To get started, you're going to need a mirror. Specifically, you need a two-way mirror that will show a reflection while letting light in from behind. If you're on a budget, mirrored plexiglass will also work, but it won't look as clean, (via Make Use Of). Try to find a mirror that closely matches the size of the monitor from your laptop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once again, you're going to have to remove the monitor from the laptop and get a compatible control board using the model number. Once you have that, you can attach it to the back of the mirror and connect a Raspberry Pi running the open-source Magic Mirror software. Refer to this handy Instructables guide with an accompanying video for full instructions. Package everything inside a frame and you're done. Now your old laptop can feed you the weather, news, and affirmations before you're even fully awake.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">CASSIDY WARD</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">UNITED PHOTO PRESS</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-48889157917885534852024-01-02T04:04:00.000+01:002024-01-14T05:00:29.300+01:00This AI imagery tool can transform famous paintings into different styles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicssoN_-mpXvEl_tvZ2KiIeJfzqjn1ijEpzXOTZ92AWQkQSG8mTDT8yifVfyPNHPlPAheZBFusWsUFyXIJEoe1IR_fEoG_iVbfyYlZ9z9n2lRPIAVDYw6arWsNJF6fSx9hmtRdr2YH49X_wqxMcHYbs9ZVuYHoo8bFy_mYW9SEfWtK4GeDhVahJ4AT/s850/Screen%20Shot%2007-02-22%20at%2003.02%20AM.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="607" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicssoN_-mpXvEl_tvZ2KiIeJfzqjn1ijEpzXOTZ92AWQkQSG8mTDT8yifVfyPNHPlPAheZBFusWsUFyXIJEoe1IR_fEoG_iVbfyYlZ9z9n2lRPIAVDYw6arWsNJF6fSx9hmtRdr2YH49X_wqxMcHYbs9ZVuYHoo8bFy_mYW9SEfWtK4GeDhVahJ4AT/s16000/Screen%20Shot%2007-02-22%20at%2003.02%20AM.PNG" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">GIVE MONA LISA A MOHAWK WITH DALL·E 2</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">A couple of weeks ago, we reported on Google’s AI tool that can turn any text into a photorealistic image. Well, it turns out <a href="https://www.designboom.com/tag/google/">Google</a> isn’t the only tech company vying for a slice of the <a href="https://www.designboom.com/tag/artificial-intelligence/">AI</a> image generator pie. Meet OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company that created its first text-to-image system back in January 2021. Now, the team has unveiled its latest system, called ‘DALL·E 2’, which generates more realistic and accurate images with 4x greater resolution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both Imagen and DALL·E 2 are tools that use artificial intelligence to transform simple text prompts into photorealistic images that have never existed before. As explained in the video above, DALL·E 2 can also make realistic edits to existing images, meaning you can give famous paintings different styles or even give Mona Lisa a mohawk. The AI system was created by training a neural network on images and their text descriptions. Through deep learning, DALL·E 2 can identify individual objects and understand the relationships between them. OpenAI explains, ‘DALL·E 2 has learned the relationship between images and the text used to describe them. It uses a process called ‘diffusion’, which starts with a pattern of random dots and gradually alters that pattern towards an image when it recognizes specific aspects of that image.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">OpenAI says its mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The <a href="https://openai.com/">company</a> says, ‘Our hope is that DALL·E 2 will empower people to express themselves creatively. DALL·E 2 also helps us understand how advanced AI systems see and understand our world, which is critical to our mission of creating AI that benefits humanity.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">However, despite the company’s intentions, this kind of technology is a tricky one to deploy responsibly. With this in mind, OpenAI says it is currently studying the system’s limitations and capabilities with a select group of users. The company has already removed explicit content from the training data to avoid violent, hate, or adult images being generated. They also say that DALL·E 2 cannot generate photorealistic AI versions of real individuals’ faces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">design: <a href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-46143264466986396872023-12-31T01:00:00.001+01:002024-01-14T05:27:48.696+01:00Happy New Year 2024 to all, especially to our esteemed members of United Photo Press!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEe-3iJyBJxaRaq7j-R4gkm0U5mrgi7qjdu9dylQOKpUJ_O3AnvgFukRdTXOpg6l2FqEv7Gi2hFE9O7C-I4QgAo6ZeOC_UzSsl7Z0svwJGNgjPezmfaSLKdiuxchVgs7vUNnE7zlSKMMl2pn-mbSGGiwZRxJC8iabSeurLtVlDtc45JgYR194bGl80hE/s910/413940033_761037399397673_5430686116182439446_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="910" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEe-3iJyBJxaRaq7j-R4gkm0U5mrgi7qjdu9dylQOKpUJ_O3AnvgFukRdTXOpg6l2FqEv7Gi2hFE9O7C-I4QgAo6ZeOC_UzSsl7Z0svwJGNgjPezmfaSLKdiuxchVgs7vUNnE7zlSKMMl2pn-mbSGGiwZRxJC8iabSeurLtVlDtc45JgYR194bGl80hE/s16000/413940033_761037399397673_5430686116182439446_n.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Happy New Year 2024 to all, especially to our esteemed members of United Photo Press!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Good evening to everyone gathered here tonight. We express our gratitude for your presence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Within the diverse community of United Photo Press, each member brings unique values and norms, collectively forming a rich tapestry of humanity—a topic we'd like to explore tonight.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let's delve into the concept of welfare. What does prosperity mean to each of you? Often, welfare is tied to material aspects, and traditional welfare states are intricately linked to economic conditions. When the economy faces challenges, so does welfare. These conventional welfare models, rooted in materialism, are becoming increasingly fragile. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has underscored the interdependence of people worldwide and exposed the vulnerabilities of systems built solely on material wealth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The pandemic has demonstrated that the current economic model and norms are susceptible to disruptions. The first fissures are already evident. In this era of uncertainty, predictions are unreliable, and the foundations of welfare are shifting. It's time to reconsider the values that underpin our welfare systems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The crisis has revealed the need for a new form of solidarity—one that extends beyond borders and includes a global collaboration of all forces on Earth. The youth, in particular, are expressing their discontent. Their actions often reflect a sense of being undervalued and misunderstood. This dissatisfaction may lead to conflict or even participation in groups with harmful ideologies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Solidarity is the key. It's not about mass production or suppressing the masses for the sake of health and the economy. Rather, it's about prioritizing individual well-being and investing in personal growth. If we redefine welfare to include essentials like food, water, clean air, and personal development, each individual can contribute more meaningfully to society.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the upcoming year, let's focus on our individual values and norms. Invest in yourself and discover your unique qualities. By doing so, you become a more valuable member of society, fostering a sense of belonging for everyone on Earth. Let us strive for a world where each person feels valuable, eliminating conflicts and promoting harmony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new age children emerging today and those to come are more sensitive and powerful. Investing in their well-being is an investment in a harmonious future. Let's set an example for them by embracing our individuality and encouraging them to do the same.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As we move forward, forgiveness and understanding will play a crucial role in resolving conflicts globally. The shift towards what some may consider 'paranormal' will be a privilege, as intuition and higher guidance become increasingly valuable in navigating uncertain times. The normal will become paranormal, and a new society based on different norms and values will emerge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the grandeur of the Universe, each individual is important. Embrace your uniqueness, invest in your personal values, and live authentically. Smile at a stranger daily, creating a ripple effect of harmony.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's to a prosperous and harmonious 2024!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carlos Alves de Sousa </div><div style="text-align: justify;">President of United Photo Press</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.unitedphotopress.com/">www.unitedphotopress.com</a> <a href="http://www.unitedphotopressworld.org/">www.unitedphotopressworld.org</a> #unitedphotopress</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-43216618772464656612023-12-26T18:08:00.000+01:002024-01-14T05:32:50.194+01:00The Rise of Pablo Picasso<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7WxENG-WHKI4fPlYRlYXieQF3UYQhQslv8S-H58rNlT2B3j4oEpr1ugNt6WngMewP-hFq1XHuCCbpik_olICzNoDxE-pKv-djmv3DrQJ8e-lZZ1GHCz04oD5N-iouf2pDoth-ykInMv1Cni68f-jxoeSMlHjviD0FWNTvCgCyQk__N8Y0PGdGfeHIhM/s1917/ra1164.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1860" data-original-width="1917" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7WxENG-WHKI4fPlYRlYXieQF3UYQhQslv8S-H58rNlT2B3j4oEpr1ugNt6WngMewP-hFq1XHuCCbpik_olICzNoDxE-pKv-djmv3DrQJ8e-lZZ1GHCz04oD5N-iouf2pDoth-ykInMv1Cni68f-jxoeSMlHjviD0FWNTvCgCyQk__N8Y0PGdGfeHIhM/s16000/ra1164.webp" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><b><div><b><br /></b></div>How a young man from Málaga became one of the costliest painters on earth.</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Pablo Ruiz y Picasso has been the most talked-of and written-about artist on earth. Commercially he has become the costliest painter alive and aesthetically he has remained the most influential. His pictures, like hand-painted gilt-edged stocks, have followed a rising graph of their own; he has influenced a generation of painters who copied what they understood of him and he has influenced a public which has bought him without always understanding any part of him. When he first came to Paris, as a Spanish youth of nineteen, he dressed as a laboring man because of poverty and a preference for the picturesque. Even in recent years, when seen sitting prosperous and unoccupied in a Left Bank café, he has retained a look of sombre isolation and of a man devoted to work. Miss Gertrude Stein’s friend, Miss Alice B. Toklas, says a friend of hers said Picasso looks like a handsome bootblack.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He is a Spanish bourgeois. He was born in Málaga, October 25, 1881. His mother’s people were silversmiths, originally from Genoa; his father, of Basque origin, became drawing teacher at the estimable Barcelona Academy of Fine Arts, which, had it known what the son was in future to paint, would not have thought it fine or art. Young Pablo’s connection with his father’s institution was that of a passing prodigy who at the age of fifteen completed in one day the competitive art examination which older students were given a month for. A few months later he was received at the Madrid Academy for a year; then, three years later, in 1900, he went to Paris, centre of European art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Impressionism, the great nineteenth century iconoclastic art movement, which the public had greeted with jeers, was then on its highly respectable way out. Cubism, the twentieth century’s new revolutionary art formula, which the public was also to hoot at, was almost on its way in, though Picasso, who was to lead Cubism, didn’t know it yet. He was still busy painting like the Impressionist Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso finally settled in Montmartre at 13 Rue Ravignan in a ramshackle edifice resembling a Seine laundry boat and nicknamed Le Bateau-Lavoir. Those were heroic Montmartre days, since a handful of imaginative, important artists were, in poverty, hatching their fabulous future. Though he was unsociable, Picasso’s talent eventually placed him with the other talented unknowns with whom he belonged—with the minor poet Max Jacob, first to discover and make a cult of Picasso; the major poet (then editor of a physical-culture magazine) Guillaume Apollinaire, first to write of Picasso; the struggling painters Derain, Braque, Matisse, Modigliani, Juan Gris, Van Dongen, and Marie Laurencin. Other friends were Frédé, art-loving innkeeper of the uproarious Lapin Agile, who used to bring his pet donkey to parties; innocent Douanier Rousseau, about to marry for the third time; and Picasso’s model, the beautiful Fernande Olivier. Everybody was, or acted, young; everybody borrowed money from everybody else, and owed money for paint and rent; everybody quarrelled, made love, drank, ate risotto because it was cheap, and worked like a steam engine. Picasso carried a revolver, kept a tame white mouse in a table drawer, couldn’t afford even the luxury of painting on his walls—as he had when a student in Spain—pictures of the furniture he lacked. When he didn’t have white paint for his pictures, he painted with blue; when he ran out of new canvas, over the portrait of a crippled flower-seller he painted the big red harlequin that later figured in the Rouart collection; when he lacked linseed oil, he painted with lamp oil. He always kept on hand a supply of lamp oil because he worked at night so people couldn’t bother him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At one time he was so poor that he and Max Jacob occupied the same bed in turns. Jacob, who besides being a cultivated poet was an impoverished novelty-shop clerk, slept at night while Picasso worked; when Jacob got up in the morning to let Picasso go to bed, the floor would be carpeted with drawings, which Jacob had to walk on and from which his footprints later had to be cleaned by art experts, since every early Picasso fragment eventually became so valuable that it could be sold. These first few Paris years in Picasso’s young twenties were viewed as a period of art, partially happy and entirely human, and were thus rare for him. At this time he painted his sad groups of the blue-colored Blue Period (after pleasant trips home to Spain) and his precious, romantic, rosy-tinted Rose Period figures (after a journey to Holland, which he found gloomy and didn’t like). This was also the feverishly fecund Harlequin Period, during which he painted the tumblers, harlequins, and jugglers whom he admired at the Médrano Circus; when he sympathetically painted the beautiful thin skulls of the poor, topped by gay clowns’ hats; when he portrayed the spangled acrobat, his wife, and male child, posed like a new Holy Family in lovely disguise. This was Picasso’s only art period of sentimental and sociological sensibility, and he probably didn’t mean it to be either. He was simply a young painter who was painting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first picture Picasso ever sold was bought the day after he arrived in Paris in 1900 by a Mademoiselle Berthe Weill, who ran a bric-a-brac shop and bought anybody’s first picture at any time. The next year, Vollard, the great eccentric art merchant, gave Picasso an obscure little exhibition called “Scènes des Courses et des Cabarets” and bought some pictures which, as was his habit, he hid in his cellar, where they brought Picasso no renown. Soulié, a mattress dealer on the Rue des Martyrs, also bought Picassos, apparently for a horse dealer with leanings toward art speculation. The art merchant Sagot, who kept his pictures in an old pharmacy and gave artists handouts of stale medicines, also purchased Picassos—at cruelly low prices. Once, when Picasso refused 700 francs (then $140) for three big paintings, Sagot offered 500 francs and, to Picasso’s helpless, hungry fury, got them the day after for 300. Picasso was then alone in his spirited resistance to the art merchants’ racket. As a chorus girl traditionally hopes for a butter-and-egg man, so in France the poor, unknown artist must hope to be kept by an art merchant, to whom he cedes a long term contract for his future at a low price. Even when a beginner, Picasso refused to do this, as he also refused to manifest group solidarity and show his pictures at the Salon des Indépendants. In purchasing Picasso as a discovery, Russian, German, and American collectors were ahead of the French, who had also been slow in taking to Impressionism. The first collector to buy Picasso was Shchukin, the rich Russian industrialist whose Picassos now hang in the Soviet Museum of Modern Western Art in Moscow. The expatriate German collector-merchant Kahnweiler was another early buyer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, just before this time, Gertrude Stein, rich in enthusiasm but modest in means and then about as unknown as a writer as Picasso was as a painter, began her famous and eclectic Picasso collection and her friendship with him, which, through squabbles and over years, have been two of the most important personal elements in the Picasso legend. For her first Picasso, she and her brother Leo paid Sagot 150 francs and all three quarrelled about the picture’s merits. It was the early, exquisite, conventional nude, “A Little Girl with Basket of Flowers.” Miss Stein, who was already ripe to prefer stranger sights in art, thought the girl looked classically flat-footed; Sagot suggested they guillotine the girl and keep only the head. After Miss Stein became friends with Picasso she bought directly from him; she says that from 1906 to 1909 the Stein family controlled the Picasso output, since no one else wanted it. By 1919 she could no longer offer to buy at 100 francs pictures that were worth thousands, so Picasso gave them to her. In 1906, she posed eighty times for his portrait of her, after which he wiped the face off, saying he couldn’t “see” her any more, and then finished the likeness in Spain, where he couldn’t see her at all. He also gave her this portrait because, as he later said, at that time in his career the difference between a gift and a sale was, after all, negligible. He also said, when friends complained that the portrait didn’t look like her, that someday she’d look like the portrait. This has never happened, and became less likely than ever to happen when she cut her hair, which upset Picasso more than any of her other friends because his portrait showed her with her hair long. The 1906 Stein portrait was a boundary mark; it showed that the gay, romantic period was definitely at an end, that the intellectual, serious search for Cubism was now on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why Cubism had to be invented still puzzles a large public. At the time, the poet Apollinaire, in his famous essay on the subject, said that Cubism was “a search for a new composition with formal elements borrowed not from the reality of vision but from the reality of conception”—words which bewildered Parisians no less than the paintings themselves. More bluntly defined, Cubism was apparently an effort scientifically to give painting not two but three dimensions, these to be attained, in theory anyhow, by depicting the subject—whether an apple or a man—as if it or he consisted of visible geometric facets. Thus, in practice, the Cubist portrait of a handsome man looked like a still life of beautiful building blocks. Cubism also was probably an early prophetic Zeitgeist reflection of the non-naturalistic machine-age civilization. In any case, Cubism marked the point in modern art where the artist and public no longer saw eye to eye no matter what both were looking at; when the artist, indeed, began deliberately painting what he did not see and what no one else could check up on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who, from what source, at what date, and with what picture, invented Cubism, which Picasso at any rate was to dominate, is still a delicate dispute. The first authentic example of Cubism, modern museum men say, was done in 1907 by Picasso—his big painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Miss Stein says Picasso’s three 1908 pictures of some cubelike cottages in Spain were “the real beginning of Cubism.” She also says that some African Negro masks (whose exotic angularity also reportedly aided in formulating Cubism) were perhaps shown by the sculptor Maillol to the painter Matisse, who then showed them to the painter Picasso, though there was also the tradition that Picasso first saw the masks through the painter Derain. She says still further that probably the name “Cubism” was invented by Apollinaire. Jean Cocteau says Cubism was a name invented by Matisse to deride a south-of-France picture by Braque in the 1908 Indépendants show; Apollinaire says that the Negro sculpture “which was destined to influence new French art” was discovered by Vlaminck and that the friendship between Picasso and Derain in 1905 “gave birth to Cubism, which at first was, above all, a sort of impressionism of the forms which Cézanne had envisioned toward the end of his life.” Picasso himself simply and plurally says, “When we made Cubism we didn’t mean to make Cubism but to express what was in us.” Although the French public at first said only that Cubism was crazy, a leading art merchant added, “I am now buying Picasso not because I have any taste for him but because he will be worth a lot of money someday.” By 1910, Cubism was a regular French studio school, with Jean Metzinger as its first academic theorician and Gleizes, Delaunay, and Léger as faithful exponents. Picasso’s precise early version of Cubism was so much copied that he called one of his best impersonators “the louse that lives on my head.” One night, at the beginning of the World War, Picasso and Miss Stein were taking a walk when they saw a camouflaged truck for the first time. He was amazed by its resemblance to Cubist art, and, in the tone of a man who has just been plagiarized, said, “Why, it is we who invented that!” Later, when a new field uniform for the French army was being discussed, he told Cocteau, “If they want to make an army invisible at a distance, all they have to do is dress the men as harlequins.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the war, when the alien Kahnweiler’s scholarly Cubist collection, which had been seized by the French government, was sold for low prices by an anti-Cubist auctioneer (whose head Braque punched, to teach him about modern art), Cubist paintings, like any commodity in a bear market, slumped. Now the New York Museum of Modern Art’s recent Cubist acquisition, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” has just been valued by art experts at $20,000, the highest figure any contemporary canvas, even by Picasso, has reached. When, years ago, the collector Shchukin first saw the picture, he wailed that its ugliness marked the end of modern French art. Many people still think the historic young ladies from Avignon are a frightening lot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By 1912, for those painters who had struggled in Paris to create the new art, the big moment had passed, because prosperity was creeping up on them. Poverty had united Picasso and his comrades; success separated them. He moved from Montmartre to the nicer Left Bank, and they, too, went their more comfortable ways.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From 1896 down through 1939 (according to experts, when they can agree), Picasso’s pictures fall into about twenty-six styles, most of them such typical Picassos that they look as if they had been painted by twenty-six different men. No other painter of his stature has ever offered so many completely differentiated versions of himself as Picasso. For forty years he has been in a constant fit of metamorphosis. Starting in his youth as the most gifted graphic artist of his time—i.e., the one most able to delineate likenesses of things or people in the grand manner—he has spent his years detailing unlikenesses in an increasingly varied and cerebral manner. He has also, his classicist enemies maintain, debauched the aesthetic tradition of Europe by the power of his painting personality and has made ugliness the style. When a painter fails to settle down into one matured mood, critics usually figure he hasn’t found himself. Picasso is deemed to have found himself two dozen times over and, among his special public, has made much of his reputation precisely on his restless, drastic mutations—which he silently invents in his own seasons and which only his devotees garrulously explain throughout the years. Assuming that Picasso (or anyhow part of Picasso) will be considered a master two hundred years from now, collectors and experts in the twenty-second century will have a hard time identifying a Picasso as easily as they identify, for instance, a Titian today, except for the fact that Picasso usually carefully and legibly signs his pictures with his name, often adding the year in roman numbers, plus the month and day on which the picture was completed. However, modern French experts say that all Picasso’s styles, no matter how different, and whether autographed or not, have one recognizable entity, a thing they call le signe, meaning the graphic “line” peculiar to him which they count as a signature in itself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To the public, out of his twenty odd periods the most intelligible and appreciated are the melancholy Blue (1901-04); the picturesque Harlequins, Clowns, and Saltimbanques (1905); the sentimental Rose (1905-06); the Analytical Cubism, especially because of the fine, fertile, popular compositions featuring bits of guitars and newspapers (1909-12); and the Classic Figures (first part of the 1918-25 style). The faces and eyes of three women also date and differentiate some of his works. The almond-eyed French Fernande Olivier is visible through the romantic Rose Period. The second feminine, straight-eyed face is that of the Russian ballet dancer Olga Koklova, whom Picasso married in the Paris Russian Church in 1917. Through her, the Spaniard in Picasso was temporarily exotically influenced by the new popularity of anything Slavic; Picasso was the first of the big painters to shock aesthetes by descending to the task of making some of Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet stage sets—for “Parade,” “Tricorne,” “Pulcinella”—and the cruel, truncated décors for the ballet “Cuadro Flamenco.” The enlarging domestic influence of Madame Picasso marked the early 1920 period of gigantic female nudes, sometimes also attributed to the influence of Greek sculptures or just to big French women bathing on the Juan-les-Pins beach. A typical and tender 1923 line-edged classic portrait of Picasso’s wife eventually won the Carnegie Institute art prize in 1930. In 1927, when some experts consider Picasso terminated his many experiments with Cubism, he painted a final Cubist portrait of his son, Pavlo, dressed as a harlequin. Picasso’s marriage was ended by divorce in 1937. Since then the profile of Dora Maar—a profile usually painted with two handsome sloe eyes and both handsome nostrils visible—as marked Picasso’s recent deliberately deformed and decorative curvilinear portrait work. Dora Maar is a Yugoslav of good family who shortened her name from Markovitch and is now a well-known professional photographer in Paris.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A complete list of Picasso’s various artistic activities and periods is a lengthy affair, since it also comprises periods classified as Negro, realist, abstract, monochrome, planes, papier collé, pointillism, neo-Impressionism; a period of neo-Renoirism called “Homage to Renoir” (at which old Renoir took umbrage), classicism, heroicism, an adult or second Roseism, imitations of his own Cubism, rectilinear forms, sumptuous still lifes, portraits in which people look like still lifes of machinery, surrealism, sculpture, fantasies molded from wire, tin, or pressed paper, the so-called unheimlich or unpleasant manner, enormous natures mortes, and sleeping women. In 1933 he had a period known as the Relâche Period because during it he did not paint at all. Then came bullfights, extraordinary legendary man-animal figures, and finally the Spanish war and his much-discussed mural of the bombed city of Guernica.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Spanish war profoundly affected Picasso, theretofore politically indifferent. His patriotism, previously visible principally in the nostalgic Spanish shadows of his Blue Period, became passionately republican. He refused to shake Italians by the hand because they were bombing his land; his broadsheet, “Songes et Mensonges de Franco,” he sold in postcard format for charity; he gave “Guernica” for propaganda to the Spanish Pavilion in the Paris Exposition; in optimism, he gave big sums to the Spanish government to buy planes; and finally, in defeat, he gave money to the Spanish refugees in the French border camps. The Spanish war furnished a terrible, trite human tableau which distracted Picasso for the first time from a preoccupation with his own visions. Since the Spanish war ended, the only show of Picasso’s paintings in Paris (at the Galerie Rosenberg, his official merchant since the first World War) displayed nearly nothing but peaceful, pretty flowers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first major retrospective show of his works ever held in Europe took place in Paris in the spring of 1932 at the Galerie Georges Petit. It was followed by an even larger show in the autumn at Zurich. “Picasso, Forty Years of his Art,” the current retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art here, is the biggest Picasso exposition yet assembled, covers work from 1899 through 1939, and includes three hundred and sixty items, of which one hundred and fifty are canvases. About twenty drawings and originals of book illustrations from private European collections failed to arrive at the last minute owing to the difficulties of shipping since the war. Two of the Gobelin tapestries, as well as a rug Picasso designed, are also shown. He has interested himself in modern crafts, thinks an artist should apply himself to anything stimulating that turns up, has made patterns for linoleums and tile mosaics, and at one time experimented with painting pictures in furniture paint.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to correct Spanish usage, Picasso should (and occasionally did in his early days) sign his pictures Pablo Ruiz, which is his real name; his father’s name was Ruiz, his mother’s was the Picasso. In the Spanish formula which combines both parents’ names for the child—i.e., Pablo Ruiz y Picasso—the mother’s name is written last. It was her name that Pablo Picasso chose to be known by.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Being an iconoclast, Picasso believes painters should paint in comfort and that French studios are either too hot in summer or too cold in winter. He paints at his ease in a pair of bourgeois Paris apartments at 23 Rue La Boëtie. He and some selected paintings live in the downstairs flat, his palettes and other canvases live upstairs. Though he no longer paints exclusively at night, he is a restless man, always working at or fiddling with something, and his output is tremendous. There are thousands of Picasso canvases now in collections, private hands, or commercial circulation in Europe and America. He also owns stacks of his work which he has never offered to sell; when war broke out in September he stored some of his most valuable canvases in steel safe-deposit closets in a bank. Because he hates sweeping or having things moved, the dust in his atelier is epic, as is the confusion caused by drawings on chairs, sculpture in the corners, paint tubes on the floor, and an assortment of the pretty rubbish painters, like little girls, pick up—lengths of frayed, colored velvet, odd old boxes, stray pieces of once fine furniture from earlier periods.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because he can never make up his mind what to do with his belongings, Picasso has gradually accumulated five different dwelling places. These he has taken on not as a well-organized man expanding into new forms of life but as somebody irresolute who has hired havens. He has a small weekend house at Le Tremblay; a country property, Boisgeloup, near the medieval Norman town of Gisors; for summer painting he recently acquired his friend Man Ray’s modern penthouse at Antibes. Picasso’s newest Paris dwelling—if he can ever decide to move in—will be on the Rue des Grands-Augustins, where several years ago he rented two floors in the magnificent seventeenth-century mansion which was formerly the town house of the Ducs de Savoie. The place is said to be a noble architectural curiosity, with broken floor levels, nests of small rooms, and sudden great salons. In anticipation of eventual residence, the painter long since installed modern necessities and what he calls his Maginot Line—a grille which cuts across the staircase leading to his front door and would prevent visitors from reaching his doorbell. Friends say he hates hearing his doorbell ring but hates it more when it doesn’t ring at all. Wherever he lives, he lives simply, eats out a lot in small restaurants, and, in the modern intelligentsia French style, as a rule not only entertains his friends but even sometimes writes poetry not at home but in a corner café. His poetry is in the association-surrealist manner.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Picasso’s domestic entourage consists principally of a chauffeur named Marcel and a factotum named Sabartés, who is a friend of long standing and a compatriot. Picasso clings to his well-worn Spanish connections, and has painted portraits of Sabartés, who, in turn, has written articles about the painter. Among those close to Picasso, his despotism, indecisions, hermetically sealed character, and energetic talents arouse a curious loyalty. The painter’s chauffeur can, in a pinch, give the dates of his master’s canvases. Today Picasso’s car, incidentally, has the look of a second-hand elderly Hispano of the kind that seats seven bolt upright, but when he bought it brand-new, at great cost, it seemed like a chariot for Picasso’s brief experiment with luxury.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a man, Picasso is complicated and more confusing to others than he is to himself. He says that if one took the tendency one likes least in oneself and strengthened it, one would probably have one’s true character. He is indecisive and dominant; he makes promises because people seem to like promises, but he never keeps them. By procrastination he lets circumstances overtake him and solve him along with themselves. Because he is a Spaniard, he takes cruelty for granted, either in art or life. Since he is short, physical strength fascinates him. He greatly admires boxers. He himself has boxed, on two isolated occasions, with Derain and Braque, both big men and amateurs of the sport. He’s fond of animals, has owned kittens, a St. Bernard, a Mexican hairless, and an Afghan hound. His pets are run on the principle that they must look after themselves. He suffers from cold, used to wear a coat that hung to his heels, likes only the hot Spanish climate, and formerly complained that the chillier French landscape smelled of mushrooms. He is not a concertgoer; when young he said he knew nothing of music and didn’t understand it. He is kind to young painters, visits their expositions, hears their questions out, and gives no advice. He would rather be praised by them than by the art critics.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In speech he is discursive except on big topics; then he eagerly treats himself and the listener as if they were two problems entitled to a solution. Miss Toklas says his conversation is flabbergasting and that he is invariably willing to be proud, even at a sacrifice. Racially and constitutionally, he is a tragic-minded man, sad, sarcastic, with malice in speech taking the place of wit. His most-quoted phrases are usually too libellous to print. When he quarrels with friends, the reconciliations have to be arranged in the complicated Latin manner. He is a hypochondriac who has a little kidney trouble. He has small, handsome hands and feet which please him, and a rebellious, pendent lock of hair which, as the French say, cuts his forehead like a scar. His eyes are remarkable; he has a wild little right eye like a Spanish bull’s and a kinder, larger, and more human left eye. When he enters a room his brown glance seems to register everything in it in a sudden inclusive flash, like a photographer’s lens taking a group photograph. Once, when he was looking at some Rembrandt etchings, the owner said it was as if Picasso’s stare would pull the lines off the paper, the way the sun’s heat dries up the pattern of moisture on an old leaf.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was a period in the nineteen twenties when, whirled along by the fashionableness of the postwar Russian Ballet, Picasso frequented that mixed artistic, monied, demi-aristocratic, semi-mondain Paris circle called le beau monde, where he was a welcome figure, since personalities were the rage. In the last two years, Picasso has been principally seen in public at the St. Germain-des-Prés café tables of the Flore. The small group most often seen with him include serene Paul Eluard, the surrealist poet; Madame Apollinaire, and the Cahiers d’Art editorial group, who are the painter’s art publishers. Even in a crowded café there is a feeling of dominance, abundance, and experience concentrated in the dark presence of Picasso. In his absence, what he may be doing or has done is a source of apparently stimulating speculation to his devotees. Is he painting or is he only drawing today? Did he wear his new gay tie yesterday? What did he say last week and who wrote it down—for his group first, and for posterity second? For many admirers, and with his multiple professional achievements as warrant, Picasso emanates the aura of genius in which they like to reside, though all they get out of it is proximity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He is generous to his poor friends; he offers them gifts in kind rather than money, perhaps out of respect for Iberian standards of friendship, perhaps out of respect for cold cash. He gives hams, wine, invitations to dinner, and, above all, he gives his valuable drawings, which the friends can sell when they are in distress. Though he once refused to sign a series of new etchings because he wasn’t satisfied with it, for a poor friend with a once-signed old etching which dealers declared was a forgery, Picasso re-signed “Picasso, Picasso, Picasso” all over the margin. Because he asks—and gets—the highest prices, his enemies say he is money-mad. What he says about this is, like everything he says, full of common sense. “I am anti-commercial,” he says, meaning that he is against the merchant-inflated art market, “but I am interested in money because I know what I want to do with it.” When he sells a new picture these days the price is usually around $5,000. If its period becomes popular, the chances are that its value will increase, although not indefinitely, at the rate of a hundred per cent a decade. A good Picasso of the Harlequin or Rose Period, for instance, now brings about $15,000. Since Picasso himself says that he has painted in his lifetime about four thousand pictures, an efficiency expert could compute that he turns out an average of two pictures a week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He says a painting has an integral life of its own when it is being worked on; thus he was not surprised when he started painting a portrait of the poet Jean Cocteau and it turned into a picture of some girls rolling hoops. “I act with paintings the way I act with things,” he says. “I make a window the way I look through a window. If the open window isn’t any good in my picture, I paint a curtain and close the window the way I would in a room.” He also says, abstrusely, that before he came along painting had been the sum of additions but his painting is the sum of destructions. When an intrepid American lady asked him what his painting was supposed to mean, he answered, “Madame, on ne parle pas au pilote.” Usually all he will say is that a painting means whatever the person looking at it sees for himself. Picasso can, if he chooses, still draw perfectly in the academic manner. When somebody said he drew better than Raphael, he said that might be all very well but what he would prefer to hear was that he had a right to draw as he pleased even if it was the opposite of Raphael. He has a detached attitude about the future of his work. Of a painting of his which he considered bad but which he had sold, he said calmly, “Time will sort all those things out. . . . A picture lives by its legend, not by anything else.” One of the strangest pictures in the Picasso legend is one belonging to the Spanish painter Zuloaga; it is a Picasso painted in his teens. It is of a pretty Harrison Fisher type of girl with pink cheeks and a stylish hat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Picasso is his own type of genius. “Work,” he says sombrely, “is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Janet Flanner</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-55799126081676924092023-12-25T03:13:00.000+01:002024-01-14T05:32:14.784+01:00Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ10ghnNad9PrxWUbOlCCnuhrP05QXKKtJ4n7iQD1vJVbIXoEnPkfXIcxzr6fyOO4njT19e9Ar8MlyLseK-nPTiOOTMdQM16JB5fTk_itteYD8P-xvvpY4sySOnIbdPqpWCW0z6tRJ3C_6xZlgqsIG0norP6uuvXyqVqkK2bjU5LMwfC8wUgc2_bqM4oU/s1024/pupi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ10ghnNad9PrxWUbOlCCnuhrP05QXKKtJ4n7iQD1vJVbIXoEnPkfXIcxzr6fyOO4njT19e9Ar8MlyLseK-nPTiOOTMdQM16JB5fTk_itteYD8P-xvvpY4sySOnIbdPqpWCW0z6tRJ3C_6xZlgqsIG0norP6uuvXyqVqkK2bjU5LMwfC8wUgc2_bqM4oU/s16000/pupi.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over,” Kyle Chayka writes in a new column. Who’s to blame? Elon Musk? Mark Zuckerberg? Maybe it is all of us, for becoming passive consumers of content rather than participants or creators. Chayka traces the problem to the consolidation and commodification of the Web. “I have been trying to recall the times I’ve had fun online unencumbered by anonymous trolling, automated recommendations, or runaway monetization schemes,” he writes. “It was a long time ago, before social networks became the dominant highways of the Internet.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lately on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, my timeline is filled with vapid posts orbiting the same few topics like water whirlpooling down a drain. Last week, for instance, the chatter was dominated by talk of Taylor Swift’s romance with the football player Travis Kelce. If you tried to talk about anything else, the platform’s algorithmic feed seemed to sweep you into irrelevance. Users who pay for Elon Musk’s blue-check verification system now dominate the platform, often with far-right-wing commentary and outright disinformation; Musk rewards these users monetarily based on the engagement that their posts drive, regardless of their veracity. The decay of the system is apparent in the spread of fake news and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-twitter-war-gaza-b2426241.html">mislabelled videos</a> related to Hamas’s attack on Israel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elsewhere online, things are similarly bleak. Instagram’s feed pushes months-old posts and product ads instead of photos from friends. Google search is cluttered with junky results, and S.E.O. hackers have ruined the <a href="https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1708530123610468854">trick</a> of adding “Reddit” to searches to find human-generated answers. Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, in its latest bid for relevance, is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbot-younger-users-dab6cb32">reportedly developing</a> artificial-intelligence chatbots with various “sassy” personalities that will be added to its apps, including a role-playing D. & D. Dungeon Master based on Snoop Dogg. The prospect of interacting with such a character sounds about as appealing as texting with one of those spam bots that asks you if they have the right number.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over. The precipitous decline of X is the bellwether for a new era of the Internet that simply feels less fun than it used to be. Remember having fun online? It meant stumbling onto a Web site you’d never imagined existed, receiving a meme you hadn’t already seen regurgitated a dozen times, and maybe even playing a little video game in your browser. These experiences don’t seem as readily available now as they were a decade ago. In large part, this is because a handful of giant social networks have taken over the open space of the Internet, centralizing and homogenizing our experiences through their own opaque and shifting content-sorting systems. When those platforms decay, as Twitter has under Elon Musk, there is no other comparable platform in the ecosystem to replace them. A few alternative sites, including Bluesky and Discord, have sought to absorb disaffected Twitter users. But like sproutlings on the rain-forest floor, blocked by the canopy, online spaces that offer fresh experiences lack much room to grow.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One Twitter friend told me, of the platform’s current condition, “I’ve actually experienced quite a lot of grief over it.” It may seem strange to feel such wistfulness about a site that users habitually referred to as a “hellsite.” But I’ve heard the same from many others who once considered Twitter, for all its shortcomings, a vital social landscape. Some of them still tweet regularly, but their messages are less likely to surface in my Swift-heavy feed. Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/sarafischer/status/1709250682211987518">recently tweeted</a> that the company’s algorithm “tries to optimize time spent on X” by, say, boosting reply chains and downplaying links that might send people away from the platform. The new paradigm benefits tech-industry “thread guys,” prompt posts in the “what’s your favorite Marvel movie” vein, and single-topic commentators like Derek Guy, who tweets endlessly about menswear. Algorithmic recommendations make already popular accounts and subjects even more so, shutting out the smaller, more magpie-ish voices that made the old version of Twitter such a lively destination. (Guy, meanwhile, has received so much algorithmic promotion under Musk that he accumulated more than half a million followers.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Internet today feels emptier, like an echoing hallway, even as it is filled with more content than ever. It also feels less casually informative. Twitter in its heyday was a source of real-time information, the first place to catch wind of developments that only later were reported in the press. Blog posts and TV news channels aggregated tweets to demonstrate prevailing cultural trends or debates. Today, they do the same with TikTok posts—see the many local-news reports of dangerous and possibly fake “<a href="https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/teens-may-be-running-away-home-get-likes-tiktok-trend-deputies-say/DRJTW73PDRACHNU5PHTW2L7P7A/">TikTok trends</a>”—but the TikTok feed actively dampens news and political content, in part because its parent company is beholden to the Chinese government’s censorship policies. Instead, the app pushes us to scroll through another dozen videos of cooking demonstrations or funny animals. In the guise of fostering social community and user-generated creativity, it impedes direct interaction and discovery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Eleanor Stern, a TikTok video essayist with nearly a hundred thousand followers, part of the problem is that social media is more hierarchical than it used to be. “There’s this divide that wasn’t there before, between audiences and creators,” Stern said. The platforms that have the most traction with young users today—YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch—function like broadcast stations, with one creator posting a video for her millions of followers; what the followers have to say to one another doesn’t matter the way it did on the old Facebook or Twitter. Social media “used to be more of a place for conversation and reciprocity,” Stern said. Now conversation isn’t strictly necessary, only watching and listening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Posting on social media might be a less casual act these days, as well, because we’ve seen the ramifications of blurring the border between physical and digital lives. Instagram ushered in the age of self-commodification online—it was the platform of the selfie—but TikTok and Twitch have turbocharged it. Selfies are no longer enough; video-based platforms showcase your body, your speech and mannerisms, and the room you’re in, perhaps even in real time. Everyone is forced to perform the role of an influencer. The barrier to entry is higher and the pressure to conform stronger. It’s no surprise, in this environment, that fewer people take the risk of posting and more settle into roles as passive consumers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many newcomers to this field have no idea how the infamous World Wide Web came about. To truly understand what the Internet is, one needs a historical perspective on its origins.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Internet originated in the United States during the Cold War era. The goal was to develop a system for exchanging information between computers so that it would always be possible to receive information, even if one of the networked computers was disconnected or destroyed, or if one of the connections between computers was interrupted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At that time, the objectives were solely military, and for a period of time, this method of connecting computers was exclusive to the American military forces. In 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) developed ARPANET.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Through this information exchange system, it became possible to deliver the intended information to its destination in a short amount of time and without the risk of information exchange being interrupted. The study and development of this network involved packet switching, which means that information is divided into "small packets" and sent via the best available routes, with the information being reassembled at the receiving end, as each packet contains the necessary information to do so. Another problem to be solved was making the information viewable even using different computers and operating systems, among other variables.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to connecting military computers, a network was created between four American universities. ARPANET allowed these university networks to connect and exchange information. This laid the foundation for the Internet as we know it today. Despite this, control of this network remained in the hands of the military, with restricted access.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the late 1970s, protocols were developed to enable communication between computers and networks, regardless of the equipment or software used. In 1983, ARPANET was split into two networks: MILNET and ARPANET.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first was exclusively for military use, while the second was dedicated to research and development. This made the Internet increasingly accessible and expanded its user base. Additionally, the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) were adopted, contributing significantly to its development. IP enabled communication between computers, while TCP ensured greater data transmission security, among other functionalities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From this point on, the Internet continued to grow in terms of users. Although it was initially designed for academic and educational purposes, it has now become an increasingly popular means of communication among users.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Kyle Chayka<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-63610006102146604832023-12-23T05:29:00.013+01:002024-01-14T05:31:26.976+01:00🎄 Season's Greetings from United Photo Press! 📷✨<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1q-yLeXhRaxT9L0LTj_ZMRGdVyM6DkLHyiEOmSOvH0IkVc-vjP9EkfzhUuT5VTGpe3SvoTl3QeR5_LbG5IoY5foV6awCkIKnWBE41LzfP2Ag9TQp2fFcNu91h3ercZ08II4ywkMg2PB5gyCAFbfvU1a1iagWywfl3Ebc-Y0EU76wd2RrssK3_88I9B7Q/s910/413940033_761037399397673_5430686116182439446_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="910" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1q-yLeXhRaxT9L0LTj_ZMRGdVyM6DkLHyiEOmSOvH0IkVc-vjP9EkfzhUuT5VTGpe3SvoTl3QeR5_LbG5IoY5foV6awCkIKnWBE41LzfP2Ag9TQp2fFcNu91h3ercZ08II4ywkMg2PB5gyCAFbfvU1a1iagWywfl3Ebc-Y0EU76wd2RrssK3_88I9B7Q/s16000/413940033_761037399397673_5430686116182439446_n.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><img height="16" src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t7/1/16/1f384.png" width="16" /> Season's Greetings from United Photo Press! <img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t5d/1/16/1f4f7.png" /><img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf4/1/16/2728.png" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the festive spirit envelops us, we, the global community of United Photo Press, come together to celebrate the joy of the season. <img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/te0/1/16/1f31f.png" /> Through the lens and exhibitions of our shared passion for photography, we've captured moments that transcend borders and unite us in a visual tapestry of diversity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This Christmas, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated members and friends who have contributed their talent, vision, and enthusiasm to our international photography ONG United Photo Press. <img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/taa/1/16/1f310.png" /> Your commitment has illuminated the world with stories that transcend language, connecting us through the universal language of imagery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">May the coming year bring new opportunities to frame narratives that inspire, empower, and bridge cultures. Together, let's continue capturing the beauty that surrounds us and sharing it with the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wishing you a Merry Christmas filled with warmth, creativity, and the joy of shared moments. <img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t84/1/16/1f381.png" /><img src="https://z-m-static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tde/1/16/1f4f8.png" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cheers to a picture-perfect holiday season and a New Year brimming with endless possibilities!</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We have big news for our members for new year !</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With gratitude</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carlos Alves de Sousa</div><div style="text-align: justify;">United Photo Press</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Funitedphotopress.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3NjLhUd5yTShUdlAbxd2dLVkIGYm3Rathki_useNYrx2JbuPbXXTf4DRI&h=AT3kdxEaPFO5-Wc1jicCchlGzrADSrPh2VbSBq2QQEvJBkdAKKZwc5AvlrmZcq0ASHC2hc6YtgzdfdhzChPC_fWGuMyEQMOJiXnF4qmgA0zhipw99qe_ViDT4noT06SwQHE3&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3V7ZwPcUgs9iyRHZJrwQSnTpI98BYBSHGZ7xl7kO2jQ5WOc_S4xDBgBdLW9bceAFhjgj2Y58OkieMlsHqTsuQZ1cT0SXPRdxyvXkEgw4nBlqmpci0PKJ7VwiDUL_dM555Vrbn1C99Nk_eijbinKoubby4t1jCNvb7dMC7FIXQvUFlJA4pDtmk0iJB4p4VzI0W7ybmIFmpI">unitedphotopress.com</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/unitedphotopress?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZUfC1obmLcfRhwuQwa9zVZqoqx1QHHE1I41HqFv-Sf-vDrEZUjXTlrlHlP2RAQIDkp64zxgIDWnZoZUV26tmvfIwSUjjdCIhN1WqgH7BxQYJdSlaHqFWzqmdTRRyuY6g7yT_XEWOjTc1WbxKZZCchRRg170Pq571kZRcwrSVsd1ThBGTrAyKlnlnj7gnKp26zQ&__tn__=*NK-R">#unitedphotopress</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-29139366296388261932023-10-10T02:53:00.001+02:002023-10-11T02:59:49.094+02:00Israel’s Calamity—and After<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIHJLi4NZ12U01JJHgo2f6YRnA5nc5lgO2ufS0q_L94qH49JfUkVzw2wTq2WFFnecnESE8G1f3GYvA6b8lnwsW5HQLZyXY7tUBS_YxH8UJ2IW2ENf2LHDyAb42sV2x2SofC-VYl29tE9W0JhmwQEECDtIgPovGikl8uEq-JBPR0yjlOPMF9iZMrrCO8E/s1224/Screen%20Shot%2010-11-23%20at%2001.55%20AM.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiIHJLi4NZ12U01JJHgo2f6YRnA5nc5lgO2ufS0q_L94qH49JfUkVzw2wTq2WFFnecnESE8G1f3GYvA6b8lnwsW5HQLZyXY7tUBS_YxH8UJ2IW2ENf2LHDyAb42sV2x2SofC-VYl29tE9W0JhmwQEECDtIgPovGikl8uEq-JBPR0yjlOPMF9iZMrrCO8E/s16000/Screen%20Shot%2010-11-23%20at%2001.55%20AM.PNG" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">A photo lies in the rubble of a building that was hit by rockets in Ashkelon, in southern Israel. Photograph by Amir Cohen / Reuters</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In Gaza and Israel, the conflict is intimate; everyone is fighting from home. The fear is general. There is no distance, no escape.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All weekend long, in countless commentaries in the media, in painful telephone calls with friends in Israel, came the march of analogies, the inevitable attempts to make sense of the incomprehensible. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the bloody storming of southern Israel that Hamas launched from the Gaza Strip, was, many were saying, the most horrific national tragedy since the Yom Kippur War, in 1973. Others said it was Pearl Harbor. Or the “Israeli 9/11.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The audacity and brutality of the attack were as astonishing as its secrecy. Early on Saturday morning, Hamas fired more than two thousand missiles into Israel, and bulldozers and fighters easily breached the security fence near the Erez Crossing. In part because Israel had sent so many troops north, to the West Bank, to deal with unrest there—provoked by settlement expansion and settler violence—Hamas faced little resistance as they headed toward towns and kibbutzim in southern Israel to slaughter civilians and take as many hostages as possible. My colleague in Israel, Ruth Margalit, reports how, just before dawn, at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Hamas fighters in pickup trucks and motorcycles descended on crowds of young people as police shouted “Color Red!”—the code for incoming rocket fire. More than two hundred people were killed at the festival alone. In just a couple of days, the number of slain Israelis has, according to news reports, risen to more than eight hundred; at least a hundred and fifty Israeli women, men, and children have been captured and brought back to Gaza as hostages. The images of fear and bloodletting, of ecstatic attack and capture, guarantee that October 7, 2023, will become an indelible tragedy in Jewish history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ll weekend long, in countless commentaries in the media, in painful telephone calls with friends in Israel, came the march of analogies, the inevitable attempts to make sense of the incomprehensible. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the bloody storming of southern Israel that Hamas launched from the Gaza Strip, was, many were saying, the most horrific national tragedy since the Yom Kippur War, in 1973. Others said it was Pearl Harbor. Or the “Israeli 9/11.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The audacity and brutality of the attack were as astonishing as its secrecy. Early on Saturday morning, Hamas fired more than two thousand missiles into Israel, and bulldozers and fighters easily breached the security fence near the Erez Crossing. In part because Israel had sent so many troops north, to the West Bank, to deal with unrest there—provoked by settlement expansion and settler violence—Hamas faced little resistance as they headed toward towns and kibbutzim in southern Israel to slaughter civilians and take as many hostages as possible. My colleague in Israel, Ruth Margalit, reports how, just before dawn, at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Hamas fighters in pickup trucks and motorcycles descended on crowds of young people as police shouted “Color Red!”—the code for incoming rocket fire. More than two hundred people were killed at the festival alone. In just a couple of days, the number of slain Israelis has, according to news reports, risen to more than eight hundred; at least a hundred and fifty Israeli women, men, and children have been captured and brought back to Gaza as hostages. The images of fear and bloodletting, of ecstatic attack and capture, guarantee that October 7, 2023, will become an indelible tragedy in Jewish history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anshel Pfeffer, a political columnist and the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bibi-Turbulent-Times-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0465097820?ots=1&tag=thneyo0f-20&linkCode=w50">Bibi</a>,” a biography of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is among the people I talked to who suggested the most apt analogy for the lightning operation was the Tet Offensive, in which Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces executed a surprise attack that did not win the war on the battlefield, but managed to deflate the fighting spirit of the United States and its South Vietnamese allies and undermine support for the war in the U.S. The great difference, of course, is that the Tet Offensive was something that most Americans watched from the safety of their living rooms, on TV, more than eight thousand miles away. In Gaza and Israel, the conflict is intimate; everyone is fighting from home. The fear is general. There is no distance, no escape.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The editor-in-chief of the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, Aluf Benn, reached further back in history. “This is the worst calamity that Israel has faced since the founding, in 1948,” he said, in a hoarse, exhausted voice, from his office in Tel Aviv. Benn recalled the massacre of Russian Jews in Kishinev, in 1903, though, he added, “These are not the Cossacks. This is the firepower of 2023.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Ilana Dayan, one of Israel’s leading investigative journalists and the host of the Channel 12 program “Uvda,” the sense of vulnerability was singular. “Israelis have known so many wars and crises and intifadas, but what we have never experienced is the absence of the state,” she told me. “Even in 1948, there was at least the presence and protection of the mythic yishuv, the community, and, later, there was always the Army. We always had the confidence that this omnipotent Israeli ‘we’ was there. Now we’ve seen people crying for help in this kibbutz or that town. People hiding in closets, crying into their phones for help, and no one coming. People pretending to be dead to save themselves. These are stories from the ghetto. This is the trauma that we haven’t even started to grasp.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many Israelis summoned the memory of the Yom Kippur War. In October, 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, when the entire country was shut down, the streets empty of traffic, and many were in synagogue, Egypt and Syria commenced an attack into Sinai and the Golan Heights. The Israeli Army suffered terrible losses in the first few days of the war before waging a successful counterattack. Though the fighting ended after less than three weeks, that war is recalled in Israel as a disaster, a cautionary tale of vulnerability and unreadiness. With that symbolic weight in mind, Hamas staged its operation almost exactly fifty years later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Still, there is no proper analogy,” a former Israeli national-security official told me. “This is the first time that hostile forces have penetrated Israeli territory and attacked civilian targets, killing women, children, soldiers, elderly people, in a radical way, like isis.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Within hours of the attack, I was on the receiving end of a spray of WhatsApp messages, none with historical analogies, all with reports of loss, uncertainty, and despair. From just one friend:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Daughter of a friend—missing. Still not known if kidnapped to Gaza or killed at the party down south.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Brother of a friend killed at the party.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sister of a friend missing from Kibbutz Be’eri, down south. No one knows yet if kidnapped or killed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The sense of grief and vulnerability is most intense in the south, in the towns and kibbutzim where the attack took place. “People came from Tel Aviv and elsewhere to settle in these southern towns for the quality of life there,” the eminent Israeli historian Anita Shapira told me. “And a place that was the garden of Israel became a scene of horror.” But everyone in the country is now living with rockets, air-raid sirens, nights spent in shelters and safe rooms. Social media is filled with images of fellow-citizens being shot and kidnapped; houses and cars in flames; a white-haired woman in her mid-eighties being driven away in a golf cart by her captors, presumably to Gaza; a much younger woman at a music festival thrown onto a motorcycle as she screams for mercy. “Snuff films,” one Israeli friend called them. And yet, he said, “for some people it’s the only way to discover if their friends or relatives are alive or dead.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The rage and grief will get only worse in the coming days. The death count is rising all the time. There will be funerals, hundreds of them, many televised, rituals of loss in a tiny nation where everyone knows everyone. Michael Sfard, a prominent left-wing lawyer in Israel who has represented Palestinians in the West Bank and various human-rights organizations, was stunned by the savagery of the attacks. “When you see pure evil it is very hard to digest that humans are capable of it,” he wrote on social media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Israeli response, starting with air strikes on Gaza, will be unrelenting. The fatalities there are already in the hundreds and this is just the beginning. More than two million Palestinians live in Gaza. Israel’s defense minister has announced that the area’s electricity, food, and fuel would be cut off; air raids over Gaza are under way. Netanyahu has warned its residents to evacuate. But ever since Hamas came to power, in 2007, the Strip has been blockaded. “Israel, with Egypt’s help, has turned Gaza into an open-air prison,” Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, has said. How, exactly, does one evacuate?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until the rise of the latest Israeli government, the most reactionary in the history of Israel, even some of Netanyahu’s fiercest critics have said that he was, compared with many on the right, relatively reluctant to use overwhelming force. “But this changed with this government of horrors,” Aluf Benn, the Haaretz editor, said, referring to Likud’s current parliamentary alliance with far-right parties within Israel. Nearly lost amid the huge, weekly protests over the right’s judicial “reform,” the government has countenanced a rapid rise in the building of settlements in the West Bank. Among some right-wing ministers there is even vocal support for annexation. There have been numerous incidents of settlers humiliating or attacking Palestinians, and of counterattacks from Palestinians. Government leaders have supported Jews coming to Al-Aqsa Mosque, which they know is incendiary.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without endorsing the bloodshed, some Palestinians outside of Hamas have gone to the media insisting that long decades of occupation and immiseration have led to this tragic point. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, was among the voices saying that the attack was “the direct result of the continuation of the longest occupation in modern history.” The violence, he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, would stop only with “the end of this illegal occupation” and acceptance of Palestinians “as equal human beings.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gaza is indisputably a welter of human misery. It is a poor, overcrowded, underemployed landscape of suffering that exists under conditions of enforced isolation; it is ruled within by a corrupt theocratic regime that has not held an election in seventeen years. While the people of Gaza have languished and the world has focussed its attention elsewhere, recent Israeli governments have practiced a minimalist strategy known, in security parlance, as “shrinking the conflict.” The Israeli leadership believed it didn’t need to resolve the conflict with Palestinians in Gaza so much as ameliorate living conditions with occasional modest economic incentives. Its strategy was essentially to try to render the Palestinians invisible. After the Hamas attack, a Haaretz editorial described it as the consequence of a foreign policy that was keyed to “annexation and dispossession” and that “ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The timing of the assault, though, indicates motivations beyond the scope of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials have accused Iran of helping plan the attack. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to train for the operation and then “gave the green light” last Monday, in Lebanon. Iranian leaders are deeply concerned about the prospect of closer Saudi-Israeli ties. A rapprochement between the two countries, they fear, might lead to increased American assistance to Riyadh, including nuclear technology; increased economic support from the West to Hamas’s rival in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority and its eighty-seven-year-old leader Mahmoud Abbas; and a more secure right-wing government in Jerusalem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The leaders of Hamas and Iran may also have seen opportunity in the deep divisions in Israeli society and the warnings from some Israeli officials, including Dan Harel, a former director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, that military readiness was in a reduced state. They sensed that the behavior and rhetoric of Netanyahu’s cabinet members had eroded support for Israel in the West.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both Iranian and Hamas officials have denied that the Iranian regime was involved in the attack, and yet Tehran has long been a crucial supporter and arms supplier to Hamas and to Hezbollah, which is based in southern Lebanon. So far, Hezbollah has not jumped full-force into the conflict. Its arsenal of missiles is vast and far more sophisticated than anything in the possession of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, another, smaller militant group. Escalation into a broader war could be catastrophic. As the author and journalist Ari Shavit told me, “If Hezbollah gets in, it’s Armageddon. Tel Aviv could be hit hard. They’ve got missiles accurate enough to hit power plants and Ben Gurion Airport.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On an operational level, the crucial outcome of the Hamas incursion was arguably not so much the corpses they left behind in the towns near Gaza as the Israelis, living and dead, whom they brought back as bounty. Hamas leaders remember what happened, seventeen years ago, when they captured one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit; it became an Israeli obsession for the next five years until he was finally released in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. One of those prisoners who was released, Yahya Sinwar, is now the second most powerful figure in Hamas, after Ismail Haniyeh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Hamas did all this because the prize in their eyes is getting dozens of Israeli hostages,” Anshel Pfeffer told me. “In their minds, they now have the golden goose. This will be a lever to get Israel to release its five thousand Palestinian prisoners. It’s the ultimate symbol of the Palestinian struggle: if you force Israel to do that, you are the unquestioned leader of the Palestinian movement. This renders Abbas and his party, Fatah, irrelevant.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How did this happen? “Everyone is asking: Why was there such complete blindness from an intelligence point of view?” Ilana Dayan, the investigative reporter, said. Not unlike that of the United States, the security strategy of Israel has come to rely far less on the Army, and more on its Air Force, its Special Forces units, and—critically—its intelligence gathering. And yet Hamas managed to pull off a devastating and brutal surprise attack. “With hundreds, probably thousands, of people involved in this Hamas operation,” Dayan went on, “how come Israel, this cyber-superpower, with the so-called best intelligence operation in the world, a power that can tell you precisely where a Hamas militant meets his mistress and at what time, or in which apartment a militia commander stays and where his bed is located—how come they didn’t know anything about this plan? It is an intelligence fiasco.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pfeffer said that for years, Israeli politicians have, despite periodic rounds of violence with militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, relegated Gaza to the periphery of their concerns. The security establishment was confident that its arsenal of drones, signals intelligence, phone surveillance, on-the-ground informants, border fences, underground sensors, and, above all, the Iron Dome missile-defense system, would keep Gaza in check.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When I reached Shapira, the historian, at home in Tel Aviv, her outrage at the Israeli leadership was palpable. Shapira is the biographer of David Ben-Gurion, Berl Katznelson, and other pivotal figures in the founding of the state. So long as Israel remains focussed on war, she said, criticism of the security services and the government will be generally restrained. But there will almost certainly be a reckoning—as there had been for Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, who shouldered much of the blame for the way Israel was caught by surprise in 1973.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I hope they won’t concentrate on the military leadership but will accuse Bibi himself,” she said. “Bibi is to blame for the fact that the Army was less prepared than it should have been. Bibi for the last ten years cultivated Hamas against the Ramallah government”—the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas—“because this was his way to disrupt the possibility that the Palestinians would unite and maybe get a better deal.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even before the attack, Shapira, who is in her eighties, had already spoken about her worries about Israel’s future. An outspoken liberal, she had, a week earlier, told Haaretz that she saw a rise of messianism and the diminishment of democratic values and institutions. “I always have days,” she said, “when I think about how to get a European passport”—not for her, “it’s already a lost cause, but for my children and grandchildren.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toward the end of our conversation, with the airwaves filled with images of destruction, Shapira told me that two of her grandsons, both in their early twenties, were stationed with the I.D.F. in southern Israel. As a reader of her work, I’ve always found it to be imbued with a sense of scholarly authority and confidence. But now when I asked her what might be ahead, she struggled: “People are so outraged that they are willing to give the Army almost carte blanche in Gaza. On the other hand, what will happen to everyone? What about the captives? Babies and mothers, girls, and old people. This is a situation that we have never seen before.”</div><br /><br />David RemnickUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-77501877632039645032023-08-20T02:27:00.000+02:002023-08-30T16:32:25.173+02:00CALL ALL ARTISTS to Participate in the L.I.V.E. S international Exhibition<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="425" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TwvJbP8A16s" title="UNITED PHOTO PRESS presents L.I.V.E. S" width="850"></iframe>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>CALL ALL ARTISTS to Participate in the L.I.V.E. S Exhibition</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dear Artists,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>We are thrilled to invite artists from all around the world to participate in the L.I.V.E. S (Living, Inspiring, Visualizing, Expressing, and Sensing) exhibition. Organized by UNITED PHOTO PRESS, this international and captivating photographic exhibition will be held from September 21st to October 21st at the Museum of Electricity in Funchal, Madeira Island, in partnership with the local association, Arca d'Ajuda.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The L.I.V.E. S exhibition aims to explore the richness and complexity of human lives through a captivating collection of photographs. We believe that art has the power to transcend boundaries, connect people, and evoke deep emotions. As such, we are reaching out to artists of all backgrounds, genres, and styles, inviting them to share their unique perspectives and contribute to this remarkable showcase of visual storytelling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Located in the heart of the picturesque Madeira Island, the Museum of Electricity offers a stunning backdrop for this inspiring exhibition. The exhibition space has been carefully designed to provide a vibrant and immersive experience for both artists and visitors. Each photograph will be meticulously curated to create a narrative that reflects the diversity and beauty of the human experience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Participating in the L.I.V.E. S exhibition will not only give you the opportunity to showcase your artistic talent on an international platform but also connect with fellow artists from around the globe. It is through such collaborations and exchanges that we can foster a greater appreciation and understanding of different cultures and perspectives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To submit your work for consideration, please send a email at info@unitedphotopress.net for complete the submission form. The deadline for submissions is August 31st, 2023. Our expert panel of curators will carefully review all entries and select a diverse range of artworks that best capture the essence of the exhibition's theme.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We look forward to receiving your submissions and joining us in celebrating the power of photography to portray the complexity of human lives. Together, let us create an unforgettable experience that transcends borders and leaves a lasting impact on all who attend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Should you have any further questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@unitedphotopress.com</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">United Photo Press team</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/unitedphotopress?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZVHcrbWLKXh218jcH3b8tgAcKZ1kCqEN-OvMAb7gnWOf1NxbYizXM3_wFNoHjqkf58k1vZzaRasJ7xTkSqw2T42vE_HGDf3WRq-6RKRZRmCx1UMdReuk84nBZZzbZt2I1v5XTB21B1enxJSB5CWH300q5NDbs-CW-og2N57qDqKUGiCUTNfws3yKSFueRXMtcERx3MyQTJnSE7lkOBBilK7&__tn__=*NK-y-R">#unitedphotopress</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh-mo0Z3dMgWMnuFP5ffcMckJ8zJEsoji8-xiQl5HNB1jBMuAATyjQ801d9TDSfiLQ0XVj_YryiftsdT-QFFuuJUngSIvI3O-fgZkJ1kPyXWBbR3i3wGDweJpz7ZxBMwuqaUJE6L1ubqvhK0i-bc1ECxxtWB_yiNdfZ6bTErbGBDg-Il3q5T6rm4gqNKw/s720/371328336_691027139732033_745368550915427734_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="515" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh-mo0Z3dMgWMnuFP5ffcMckJ8zJEsoji8-xiQl5HNB1jBMuAATyjQ801d9TDSfiLQ0XVj_YryiftsdT-QFFuuJUngSIvI3O-fgZkJ1kPyXWBbR3i3wGDweJpz7ZxBMwuqaUJE6L1ubqvhK0i-bc1ECxxtWB_yiNdfZ6bTErbGBDg-Il3q5T6rm4gqNKw/s16000/371328336_691027139732033_745368550915427734_n.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-21098499655534340192023-08-19T01:00:00.001+02:002023-08-19T16:41:21.945+02:00Heartfelt Thanks for Celebrating World Photography Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zn75Vy6obCp4K4qSRp0HOlc5hQc_UQ8m6sJXIoJB2Fm9h1_bOmJf7f-iJWGeRLDp2aWaMiogT0YpsLwuBCrj1OfWqKGI5HJbyBNIsLuFF8MTg8KpAzEGq16MMPzWh7cbhHnBB03tCFLx6m15TOsAvLBcc8vYW5sJwLRa99eywdXov-TsgbFlnowwpVQ/s1200/happyphotographyday1692420966261.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zn75Vy6obCp4K4qSRp0HOlc5hQc_UQ8m6sJXIoJB2Fm9h1_bOmJf7f-iJWGeRLDp2aWaMiogT0YpsLwuBCrj1OfWqKGI5HJbyBNIsLuFF8MTg8KpAzEGq16MMPzWh7cbhHnBB03tCFLx6m15TOsAvLBcc8vYW5sJwLRa99eywdXov-TsgbFlnowwpVQ/s16000/happyphotographyday1692420966261.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Heartfelt Thanks for Celebrating World Photography Day</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Dear Members of United Photo Press,</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I hope this message finds you in great spirits. On the occasion of yet another successful celebration of World Photography Day, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to each and every one of you. Your unwavering dedication to the art of photography and your collective efforts in commemorating this special day have truly made a significant impact.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Year after year, we come together as a community to celebrate the magic of capturing moments through the lens. The power of photography to tell stories, evoke emotions, and freeze time in a single frame is nothing short of extraordinary. It is this shared passion that unites us as members of United Photo Press.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The success of our celebration wouldn't have been possible without your creativity, enthusiasm, and commitment. From organizing exhibitions to hosting workshops, sharing your insights and techniques, and showcasing your remarkable works, you have all contributed to making World Photography Day an event to remember.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As we reflect on the beauty and significance of photography, let's also reflect on the strength of our community. United Photo Press is more than just a gathering of photographers; it's a family that supports, inspires, and nurtures each other's growth. Together, we have created a platform that fosters learning, creativity, and camaraderie.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's to the countless frames that tell stories, the emotions that transcend time, and the connections that bridge distances. Your contributions, whether big or small, play an integral role in the continued success of our collective journey.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once again, thank you for your dedication, hard work, and shared love for photography. Let's continue to capture the world one click at a time and look forward to many more years of celebrating World Photography Day together.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Munich, 19 August 2023</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Warmest regards,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carlos Alves de Sousa</div><div style="text-align: justify;">United Photo Press</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/unitedphotopress?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZXAsxMIC4c6OoiSDbutArIhPsb99INm7tmkJ-b7OURIIoJPir6PJlWWBolYXfTx381VsB0StrvTHcLeAbKNcdE4u9VdPc4ms0o5KEdYZa94s0NRFDK1DXYWafDyJMnRHrh9y2UnDWXpxP3dixlSU_RNMYKznSwukJQSzBDBYSegJQ&__tn__=*NK-y-R">#unitedphotopress</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unitedphotopressworld.org%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2KlTP2vSRVzlc8wtnnuNDOQ1JAjjR236FN_bnvMQdavb0Vz254MnhOgNw&h=AT1pVw_CbdhauefjmDF33SAP6dowgJNgtRxPEEVYWlitxLplv4FrDUcvTM1Z-2g26JVMJS5Uz4_Rkpame4jLV8klcinbc86wCe_AdfmMafemWLuCUBxesv6FuTNL8-P6vxyO&__tn__=-UK-y-R&c[0]=AT1Qe4pYI2jNJIXxQVlR_J4Y_iv8bQ6ce6Vx9jEQcKVuGpR4Fg1Wpxt-tvdGgnXtb8Znkf6PCoatKWKc1-KMnNiXlXHzslrCCqiuNPNownqWZsK-WQ3H1XOHX1zqEZYvW2V1xWkutn0kQLc7dApxh9zYpf97hTAl4TfWlxjqaWlcdYfM46xntQ">www.unitedphotopressworld.org</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-73859182901802163672023-08-01T04:23:00.003+02:002023-08-01T04:23:49.791+02:00Inside the Wagner Group’s Armed Uprising<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private military company went from fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine to staging a mutiny at home.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjBCf6mAQEoJ-P7UNJMnjEZMJ7P1HCz8clU2Fe8uFXh-tLfkkASskJru_wHvnOWTckwqVh4JBP1bn6DI2-laHoZxYUht2Kif-rMXrVO_75Tz5zmlUoZCD-Iz7s794e7abYfdjaavV3HAUU-yXyVFL-nKq6hQlma63KPwQV0ITNmyX4zEdpaPKe29zz_VI/s2560/230807_r42740.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1840" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjBCf6mAQEoJ-P7UNJMnjEZMJ7P1HCz8clU2Fe8uFXh-tLfkkASskJru_wHvnOWTckwqVh4JBP1bn6DI2-laHoZxYUht2Kif-rMXrVO_75Tz5zmlUoZCD-Iz7s794e7abYfdjaavV3HAUU-yXyVFL-nKq6hQlma63KPwQV0ITNmyX4zEdpaPKe29zz_VI/s16000/230807_r42740.webp" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“How can Putin claim to have total control over the country, and then something like this happens?” a member of the Russian political élite said.Photo illustration by Cristiana Couceiro; Source photographs from Alamy and Getty</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On May 20th, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, stood in the center of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, and recorded a video. The city once housed seventy thousand people but was now, after months of relentless shelling, nearly abandoned. Whole blocks were in ruins, charred skeletons of concrete and steel. Smoke hung over the smoldering remains like an early-morning fog. Prigozhin wore combat fatigues and waved a Russian flag. “Today, at twelve noon, Bakhmut was completely taken,” he declared. Armed fighters stood behind him, holding banners with the Wagner motto: “Blood, honor, homeland, courage.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than anyone else in Russia, Prigozhin had used the war in Ukraine to raise his own profile. In the wake of the invasion, he transformed Wagner from a niche mercenary outfit of former professional soldiers to the country’s most prominent fighting force, a private army manned by tens of thousands of storm troopers, most of them recruited from Russian prisons. Prigozhin projected an image of himself as ruthless, efficient, practical, and uncompromising. He spoke in rough, often obscene language, and came to embody the so-called “party of war,” those inside Russia who thought that their country had been too measured in what was officially called the “special military operation.” “Stop pulling punches, bring back all our kids from abroad, and work our asses off,” Prigozhin said, the month that Bakhmut fell. “Then we’ll see some results.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The aura of victory in Bakhmut enhanced Prigozhin’s popularity. He had an almost sixty-per-cent approval rating in a June poll conducted by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent polling agency; nineteen per cent of those surveyed said they were ready to vote for him for President. His new status seemed to come with a special license to criticize top officials in Moscow. Prigozhin had accused his rivals in the Russian military, Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, of withholding artillery ammunition from Wagner. “That’s direct obstruction, plain and simple,” Prigozhin said. “It can be equated with high treason.” In the battle for Bakhmut, he said, “five times more guys died than should have” because of the officials’ indecisive leadership.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Temperamentally, Shoigu was Prigozhin’s opposite: a deft navigator of Kremlin politics, seemingly devoid of strong emotion. For more than a decade, he had used his proximity and loyalty to Vladimir Putin—the two often vacationed together, hunting and fishing in the Siberian forest—to safeguard his position. According to a source in the Russian defense sector, Shoigu, at a meeting last spring, insisted that the Defense Ministry had always provided Wagner troops with whatever they needed, regardless of his personal grievances with Prigozhin. “As minister, I have always distinguished between the leader of this organization and its fighters,” Shoigu said. The message, the source noted, was clear: “We don’t particularly love them, but we have to admit they have a certain effectiveness.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Throughout his reign, Putin had permitted rival factions to clash and to jockey for his favor. In such a system, no one individual or clan could acquire enough independent standing to challenge his rule. And so, for a time, Putin appeared to welcome Prigozhin’s feud with the Defense Ministry. “At first, Putin saw Prigozhin as a useful instrument to pressure the military,” a Western intelligence official said. “Prigozhin told Putin, We are not doing so great—we are taking heavy casualties. He was a way to point out problems.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the end, Shoigu exacted his revenge not with a meme-ready viral video but in the dry language of bureaucratic regulations. In mid-June, the Defense Ministry announced that all members of “volunteer units,” a shrouded reference to Wagner and other private military companies, would be required to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1st. These formations would lose their independence and fall under the Russian military’s unified command. Prigozhin resisted, saying he would refuse the order. A few days later, Putin agreed that the contracts were needed, effectively siding with Shoigu.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prigozhin remained defiant. “None of Wagner’s fighters is ready to go down the path of shame,” he said. “They will not sign.” But the decision, with Putin’s backing, put him in an impossible spot. “The Defense Ministry’s position was that if Wagner doesn’t agree to the contracts then that’s it—they’re removed from Ukrainian operations,” a former Russian military official told me. If Prigozhin relented and signed, he would lose his autonomy and influence—he would no longer be Shoigu’s rival but his subordinate. The Western intelligence official said that Prigozhin “saw that, if Wagner fell under the control of the Defense Ministry, then it’s the end of Wagner as it previously existed. And maybe, he feared, that would mean the beginning of his personal end.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With the July 1st deadline looming, Prigozhin stepped up the ferocity of his attacks, declaring that Shoigu and other top military leaders, along with the Russian oligarchy, were “mentally ill scumbags” who had led Russia to disaster in Ukraine. More shocking, Prigozhin questioned the very basis for the war, an outburst that could easily be read as an attack on Putin himself. “There was nothing extraordinary happening on the eve of February 24th,” he said, referring to the date of Russia’s invasion last year. “The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the President and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us, together with the whole nato bloc.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That night, Prigozhin announced a “march for justice”—that is, an armed mutiny. “The evil being wrought by the military leadership of this country must be stopped,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shortly after midnight on June 24th, the first column of Wagner fighters left Ukraine and passed through the Russian border post at Novoshakhtinsk. A participant in the uprising later told BBC News Russian that border guards put up no resistance, and that traffic police even saluted the convoy. “Most of Wagner’s lower-level personnel didn’t understand what they were getting involved in,” Denis Korotkov, a Russian journalist who has investigated Wagner for years, told me. “Whereas the people on the command level are so indebted to Prigozhin for their positions and wealth that they had no choice but to participate.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Later that morning, the armed men arrived at the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, a primary command center for operations in Ukraine. They parked their armored personnel carriers outside the building. Masked men carrying Kalashnikovs secured positions around the perimeter. Prigozhin entered the headquarters and, from the building’s interior courtyard, demanded that Shoigu and Gerasimov be brought to him. “Until they are handed over to us, we will stay here and blockade the city,” he said. Wagner forces, he added, were also headed for Moscow. Outside the city of Voronezh, they shot down Russian military helicopters and a command aircraft, killing at least a dozen servicemen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was the most dramatic uprising in Russia since August, 1991, when the leaders of the K.G.B., the Defense Ministry, and the Communist Party put the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, under house arrest and seized power for themselves. That coup ended after just three days, but it exposed the fissures in the Soviet system and helped lead to its collapse, four months later. Now Putin was facing a rebellion from within his own ranks. “Everyone was stunned,” the former Russian military official said. “It was surreal.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a televised address, Putin called Wagner’s actions “treason,” “a subversion from within,” “a stab in the back.” In response, Prigozhin announced that he feared the “moment when blood could be spilled” and called off the insurrection. The reason for his retreat was clear. “Prigozhin assumed his krysha”—Russian slang for mafia-style protection and impunity—“was inviolable, but that was a mistake,” the Western intelligence official said. “He got scared when he realized that Putin could move against him.” The Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, had reportedly brokered a deal between Prigozhin and the government, but, in fact, he was less an independent mediator than a cutout employed by the Kremlin. Wagner forces would join the Defense Ministry, disband, or relocate to Belarus. Charges against Prigozhin would be dropped. Putin would stay above the fray.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The former Russian military official called Prigozhin’s rebellion “an act of desperation” and “pure fantasy.” But it also represented a grave political setback for Putin, who was supposed to be the omnipotent tsar, impossible to frighten or blackmail. “Putin destroyed a whole propaganda narrative he himself had constructed,” a member of the Russian political élite said. “It looked extremely humiliating.” The source in the Russian defense sector agreed. “Of course Putin is weakened,” the source said. “First, he got himself into a war he couldn’t win, and, when he inevitably encountered difficulties, he tried to find a cheap solution by allowing for the creation of an army of criminals—and then that army ended up turning against him.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Wagner was a rumor before it was a brand,” Candace Rondeaux, the director of an open-source intelligence program at the think tank New America, told me. Even for experts, identifying the group’s precise origins has been tricky. In the early two-thousands, the Kremlin, as part of an effort to modernize the Russian armed forces, began considering the use of private military companies. Tens of thousands of security contractors were then working in Iraq for the U.S. government, under the command of private firms like Blackwater. The former Russian military official told me, “The idea was that Russia also needs such a structure to operate in places where the official participation of the Russian armed forces is impractical for political reasons.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and mounted a covert invasion of the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, under the guise of a separatist uprising. The Kremlin needed to dispatch combat-seasoned troops while maintaining the fiction that it was not intervening militarily. “Things were very messy on the ground,” Ilya Barabanov, a Russian investigative journalist who is working on a book with Korotkov about Wagner, said. “A bunch of armed formations and battalions with unclear allegiances and command structures were running around all over the place.” One of them was a unit called Wagner.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner’s fighters were mostly former members of élite Russian military units. “The selection process was tough,” a senior Ukrainian intelligence official told me. “From thirty candidates, they might take two or three.” But those who made the cut were paid about two hundred thousand rubles a month (approximately five thousand dollars), which was more than ten times what an ordinary member of the Russian Army might earn. They trained at a base in Molkino, in southern Russia, that abuts a facility belonging to the G.R.U., Russia’s military-intelligence directorate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The name Wagner came from the call sign of its first commander, Dmitry Utkin, a former lieutenant colonel in the G.R.U., who is said to be a fan of the German composer Richard Wagner. For Utkin, the appeal went beyond just admiration for the “Ring” cycle or “Parsifal”; Wagner was Hitler’s favorite composer, and Utkin was known to exhibit fascist sympathies. A former Wagner fighter told me that Utkin greeted subordinates by saying “Heil!” and wore a Wehrmacht field cap around the unit’s training grounds. The Dossier Center, an investigative outlet funded by the exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, published internal Wagner documents, which showed that Utkin occasionally signed his name with two lightning bolts—the insignia of the Nazi S.S.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Utkin was Wagner’s commander in the field, then Prigozhin was its C.E.O., financier, and bureaucratic champion. Prigozhin was born in Soviet Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1961, nine years after Putin. As a teen-ager, he took up with a gang of petty thieves who robbed apartments. One night, in 1980, the gang mugged a woman on a dark Leningrad street. Prigozhin was sentenced to thirteen years in prison and served nine. His release coincided with the final stage of the Soviet Union’s slow-motion collapse, and, for his next act, he launched a hot-dog business. He and his associates mixed the mustard in the kitchen of his apartment, while his mother counted the profits—as much as a thousand dollars a month, a significant sum for most Russians at the time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prigozhin quickly expanded into supermarkets and a catering business, and, in 1996, he opened the Old Customs House, one of St. Petersburg’s early high-end restaurants. Tony Gear, a British restaurateur who had worked at the Savoy hotel, in London, signed on to run the place. City luminaries, including the mayor at the time, Anatoly Sobchak, who was then Putin’s boss, came to feast on oysters, caviar, foie gras, and crabs from Kamchatka. In the libertine spirit of the Russian nineties, strippers entertained the crowd, until Prigozhin ended the practice. “We don’t need striptease,” Prigozhin said, as Gear recalled in an interview with a Russian outlet. “People come for the food and service.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two years later, Prigozhin opened New Island, a restaurant on a boat that sailed up and down the Neva River. After Putin became President, in 2000, he frequently dined there with foreign counterparts, including Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush; in 2003, Putin celebrated his birthday there. “Putin saw how I grew a whole business out of a small stall,” Prigozhin later said. “He saw that I am not above personally serving a plate to people of royal standing, because they are my guests.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In photographs from the era, Prigozhin is often seen hovering over a table in a dark suit, plucking a cloche from a dinner plate. But he was also known to be a demanding, even abusive, boss. “He created a beautiful image in the front of the house,” a person from the St. Petersburg restaurant scene said. “But he achieved this with frightful methods.” The man had heard accounts of Prigozhin berating and hitting members of his staff, and, in one instance, tying a chef to a radiator in the back of the establishment. (Prigozhin did not respond to a request for comment.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His company Concord began catering Kremlin events, including the Presidential inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev, in 2008. Its affiliates became the main supplier of meals to public schools in Moscow. But the largest orders came from the Defense Ministry, which, in 2012 alone, awarded Prigozhin’s companies three billion dollars in contracts to feed soldiers at bases around the country. Prigozhin and his family moved into a sprawling compound in St. Petersburg, with an indoor swimming pool and a helicopter pad. They flew on a private jet and owned a yacht. “A typical criminal,” a powerful Russian businessperson said of Prigozhin. “Nothing less, nothing more.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prigozhin combined an entrepreneurial spirit with a clear sense of how to serve his patron. He is credited with the creation, in 2013, of the Internet Research Agency, otherwise known as the St. Petersburg troll farm, which employed dozens of tech-savvy young people to spread propaganda, engage in influence operations, and otherwise cause mischief on social networks. (A number of its employees, including Prigozhin, were later indicted by U.S. prosecutors for their role in Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential election.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For a budding oligarch like Prigozhin, the murkiness of the war in the Donbas presented an even greater opportunity for profit and influence. “A bunch of people close to the Kremlin were playing their own games,” Barabanov said. “Trying to get noticed, taking part in one venture or another, so they could say to Putin, ‘Look, we did our part.’ ” Wagner, he went on, “was Prigozhin’s initiative, with the Kremlin’s blessing.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Donbas war, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Wagner fighters participated in the shooting down of an Ilyushin IL-76 transport plane, which killed forty Ukrainian paratroopers and nine crew members; the battle for the Luhansk airport, which pro-Russian units seized after a months-long siege; and the so-called Debaltseve cauldron battle, in the winter of 2015, in which Russian forces moved to encircle and expel the Ukrainian military from a central railway hub in the Donbas. And yet, according to Barabanov, Wagner, compared with many of the other paramilitary units active in the region, was still “rather small in size and importance.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2015, Kyiv and Moscow signed the second part of the ceasefire protocols known as the Minsk agreements. Around this time, the Kremlin became less tolerant of the warring rebel factions running around the separatist territories. A number of their most charismatic and ideologically driven leaders started to turn up dead. In May, 2015, a prominent commander in Luhansk, Alexey Mozgovoy, who led the Prizrak, or “Ghost,” Brigade, was killed, along with half a dozen others, in an ambush on his convoy. Another commander in Luhansk, who led a group known as the Batman Battalion, was gunned down, as was the separatist mayor of Pervomaisk. That December, Pavel Dryomov, the leader of a Cossack militia, was killed when his car exploded on the day of his wedding party.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Publicly, pro-Russian outlets blamed Ukrainian sabotage groups for the violence. But some suspected that the killings were carried out by Wagner. The Russian nationalist historian Evgeny Norin, who was sympathetic to the separatist cause, wrote a column describing Wagner as an “ominous Russian Blackwater, without official status or state recognition, covered by a veil of secrecy, obeying no-one-knows-who and carrying out the most dark and dirty tasks.” Barabanov spoke to a number of separatist fighters and commanders at the time: “They all told me, ‘We know it’s being done by Wagnerovtsy.’ ”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Ukraine, Wagner maintained a limited involvement, with never more than a few hundred troops deployed at a time. The war in Syria, which Russia entered in September, 2015, to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad, served as the mercenary group’s true coming-out party. “In Syria, Russia used Wagner to reinforce units of local allies and as a main assault force,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of cast, an independent defense think tank in Moscow, said. “They weren’t supporting the war effort, in other words, but leading it.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Putin initially sold the campaign to the Russian public as largely cost-free—the fighting would be done from the sky, by the Russian Air Force, he said—but it was clear that a contingent of ground troops would be needed to help capture and hold territory from Assad’s enemies, which, at the time, included isis. The head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, Vladimir Komoyedov, hinted at the plan. “It is likely that groups of Russian volunteers will appear in the ranks of the Syrian Army as combat participants,” he said. “What attracts volunteers apart from ideas? Of course, money.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Ukrainian intelligence, approximately thirteen hundred Wagner fighters were flown to Syria on Russian military transport planes. Strategically, Wagner operated to further Russia’s geopolitical goals; tactically, the group was free to pursue its own spoils, including lucrative petroleum contracts that entities associated with Prigozhin received from the Assad government. “It was to everyone’s advantage and benefit,” Barabanov said. “The Kremlin can boast at home and abroad of destroying isis without facing serious losses—at least not officially. The Army can take credit for this great victory and pass it off as its own, and Wagner, or, rather, Prigozhin personally, earns twice—from sending his troops to the fight and from securing oil and energy assets as trophies.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the same time, Wagner was making profitable inroads in Africa. In 2017, the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, who was under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, visited Putin at his residence in Sochi, on the Black Sea. They discussed a number of joint projects, including weapons sales and the exchange of “experts” in the defense field. By the end of the year, a contingent of Wagner operatives had landed in Khartoum to train local security forces, and the Sudanese Ministry of Minerals had awarded a gold-mining concession to a Wagner front company called M Invest. Less than two years later, Bashir was ousted in a coup, but companies linked to Prigozhin maintained de-facto control of gold-mining interests in Sudan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Central African Republic, a former French colony that has faced a series of civil conflicts since the nineteen-nineties, “served as the main laboratory for Wagner’s expansion,” according to Maxime Audinet, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research, in Paris. The Wagner deployment to the C.A.R. began in 2018, with a contingent of several hundred mercenaries, who were assigned to help President Faustin-Archange Touadéra fight more than a dozen rebel groups then vying for power. French troops had largely pulled out of the C.A.R. two years earlier. Wagner instructors ran training programs for Touadéra’s soldiers. Soon, a Russian emissary acting in service of Wagner was ensconced in the Presidential palace as one of Touadéra’s top advisers. Roland Marchal, a researcher on African civil wars at Sciences Po, told me, “As Wagner learned in the C.A.R., if you start training troops, you might end up controlling the Presidency.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2019, Russian diplomats and Prigozhin associates helped broker a peace agreement between the government of the C.A.R. and the rebel factions. The next year, that deal collapsed, and rebel groups launched an armed march on the capital, Bangui. Wagner fighters, along with the C.A.R. Army and a contingent of Rwandan soldiers, led a bloody counterassault. Human Rights Watch reported an incident from 2021 in which, at a checkpoint near the town of Bossangoa, Wagner forces stopped a dozen unarmed men. Their bodies were later found, beaten and riddled with bullets, in a ditch by the road. The Times obtained a report prepared for members of the U.N. Security Council which found Wagner forces complicit in numerous cases of “excessive force, indiscriminate killings, occupation of schools and looting on a large scale, including of humanitarian organizations.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the words of a senior U.S. intelligence official, the C.A.R. is now a “proxy state.” Wagner commandos guard Touadéra and control the state customs service. Prigozhin-linked entities oversee regular propaganda campaigns, including on Radio Lengo Songo, a station Wagner created. The group also holds sway over much of the timber industry and operates a network of gold and diamond mines. In 2019, the C.A.R. government revoked the license of a Canadian company which gave it the right to mine in Ndassima, an area with gold deposits valued at more than a billion dollars, and transferred it to Midas Ressources, a company with links to Prigozhin. Diamville, a profitable precious-metals trader, is technically registered in the name of the driver of a well-known Prigozhin associate, Dmitry Sytyi, the head of the Russian House cultural center in Bangui. Yet, for all Wagner’s power in the capital, it has been largely disinterested in providing security to the rest of the country. “The truth is, Wagner is rather inefficient,” a French military official told me. “They don’t really bring stability, or even fight rebel groups all that successfully. What they do is protect the government in power and their own economic interests.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner has fought in the civil war in Libya, where it allied with the Libyan National Army, led by Khalifa Haftar, who reportedly also received the backing of France. In Mozambique, several Wagner fighters were beheaded, prompting the group to quickly pull out of the country. In 2021, the ruling military junta in Mali, which took power in a coup, invited Russia to aid in its fight against jihadist groups. The government in Bamako denies the presence of Wagner mercenaries, but journalists and human-rights agencies have linked the group’s fighters to a number of atrocities in the country, including a massacre in the village of Moura, in March, 2022, in which as many as five hundred people were killed. One thing, however, has remained constant: the principle of “se servir sur la bête,” as Christophe Gomart, the former head of French military intelligence, put it, an expression that means “to serve yourself from the beast,” or, better yet, to get your pound of flesh.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Marat Gabidullin was in his late forties when he joined Wagner, in 2015. He had spent ten years in the Russian Army, but, after leaving the service, he drifted toward alcohol abuse and a life of crime. In the mid-nineties, he spent three years in prison for shooting a small-time gangster in Siberia. After enlisting with Wagner, he was sent to Molkino for a course in assault tactics and urban warfare. “I felt reborn,” he told me recently, “as if I had returned to a familiar world, with understandable values and purpose.” His call sign was Ded, or “Grandpa.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I met Gabidullin not long ago, at a café in the South of France. He retains the taut, coiled build of a military man. His face is tanned and sinewy, with a trim white beard. On his right hand, he wore a chunky silver ring with a skull, one of Wagner’s emblems, which he’d picked up at a market in Damascus. He recalled his time as a mercenary with a mixture of nostalgia and disappointment. “At first, I saw Wagner as a community that was performing necessary and useful functions for the country,” Gabidullin told me. “And then, after some time, it became more and more authoritarian, and I began to doubt the necessity and usefulness of what we were doing.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His first tour was in the occupied territory of Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine. The local population was hardly welcoming of the Russia-backed fighters in their midst and often told them that they weren’t needed. “I understood that our propaganda is lying one hundred per cent,” he said. He left after two months. But, when Wagner commanders told him to go to Syria and lead a company of troops fighting isis, he thought, Now, this is more my thing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In March, 2016, Wagner was sent to seize Palmyra, an ancient city in the desert surrounded by palm trees and mountains. The fighting there was vicious. At one point, Gabidullin said, some of his men came upon a badly wounded isis fighter. At the time, Gabidullin’s forces were deep in the mountains, with little equipment and no backup. His men shot the injured fighter. “This is the logic of war,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A few days later, Gabidullin’s unit was ambushed. He managed to fire a few shots before a grenade exploded behind him. Shrapnel tore into his head, back, and limbs. An armored personnel carrier delivered him to Russia’s Humaymim airbase, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, where he lost consciousness. He awoke, a week later, in a hospital bed in St. Petersburg. A Wagner representative handed him a secure telephone. “No. 1 wants to speak to you,” the person said. Prigozhin was on the line. “We’ve taken Palmyra,” he said, and he promised to award Gabidullin the Hero of Russia, the country’s highest military medal. Wagner also paid for a series of surgeries to remove the shrapnel and allowed Gabidullin to rest for several months at home. “Prigozhin is pragmatic,” he told me. “He regards his mercenaries as working instruments—on the one hand, he doesn’t pity them in battle or particularly value their lives, but, on the other, he keeps them in good condition, gives them what they need, offers quality care.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To celebrate the capture of Palmyra, the Kremlin organized a concert in the city’s Roman-era amphitheatre. For the occasion, they flew the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and the world-renowned conductor Valery Gergiev in from St. Petersburg to perform Bach and Prokofiev for a crowd of Russian officials, Syrian dignitaries, and foreign journalists. Putin gave a video address that was beamed into the amphitheatre. “Any success in the fight against terrorism must be perceived by all, without exception, as a common victory,” he said. As far as Gabidullin knew, not a single Wagner fighter was invited to attend.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A video appeared online in the summer of 2017 showing Russian-speaking men in military fatigues, their faces covered, beating a Syrian man with a sledgehammer, trying to cut off his head with a knife, and ultimately decapitating him with a shovel. Novaya Gazeta, an independent paper in Moscow, later identified the torturers as Wagner fighters. Gabidullin was back in Russia when the clip surfaced. He didn’t know the perpetrators personally, but he immediately recognized which outfit they belonged to. “Inside Wagner, there was such a policy—to constantly apply methods of maximum intimidation to the enemy,” he said. “I’m not justifying this idea and, in fact, always resented it. So, what, are we going to become like isis now?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And yet, the following year, Gabidullin returned to Syria and was made a senior adviser to the isis Hunters, some three hundred Syrian fighters who operated under Wagner leadership. Their primary task was to capture oil and gas fields that had fallen to isis. “By seizing the oil fields, you deny isis an important cash supply,” Gabidullin said. But Prigozhin had his own motive for such operations. A shell company linked to him signed a contract with the Assad government to receive a quarter of the revenue resulting from the seizures. “The Russian military has to at least take into account the interests of the Russian people,” a U.S. defense official said. “Wagner can act in pursuit of its own bottom line.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That February, Gabidullin and his men were ordered to Deir Ezzor, in the northeast, where, they were told, they would participate in an assault on a nearby gas plant. The facility, though, was controlled not by isis but by an anti-Assad Kurdish militia. Gabidullin recalled a conversation with a Wagner commander, who told him that Prigozhin had got the necessary sign-offs. But one thing bothered Gabidullin about the plan: a group of American Special Forces were known to be aiding the Kurds, and their presence did not seem to be factored into the assault. When Gabidullin asked the commander why, he was told, “No. 1 said everything would be fine.” Gabidullin said of Prigozhin, “He was arrogant, confident in his own genius.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the night of February 7th, four hundred Wagner troops, accompanied by Russian T-72 tanks and heavy artillery, began to advance; Gabidullin and fifty Syrian fighters were expected to secure one of the flanks. But, as the tanks moved into firing position, they began to explode. One sped up to the right of Gabidullin, got a shot off, and then blew up. Gabidullin ordered mortar fire in the direction of the plant. A moment later, the mortar launcher and its crew were incinerated. To get a better view, Gabidullin climbed onto the roof of a nearby building. Everything was burning. A tank turret lay on the ground. The vehicles of another Wagner unit had been destroyed. Over the radio, he heard that AC-130 gunships were firing their large-calibre cannons on anything that moved down below. “I thought, What the hell is going on?” Gabidullin said. The Kurds didn’t have their own airpower; the Americans were in the fight. The radio crackled with orders to retreat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The battle in Deir Ezzor was the most prominent clash between Russian and American fighters since the Vietnam War. Twenty-three members of Gabidullin’s unit were killed. He estimated that eighty more Wagner soldiers died in the attack. (Other estimates have suggested that two hundred Wagner personnel were killed.) Their bodies were repatriated to Russia in the course of several months, flown a few at a time, to avoid attracting too much attention. “We’re just small change,” Gabidullin said. “You can throw us to slaughter and no one will answer for this.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An adviser to U.S. Special Forces who was familiar with the battle in Deir Ezzor told me that, at the time, the Special Forces felt that they had been ceding territory to Wagner and Syrian troops for months, lest they get drawn into a fight with Russian forces. “They were frustrated,” the adviser told me. Russian and U.S. officials had been relying on a so-called deconfliction line, a direct means of communication that was set up between the two militaries. On the night Wagner launched its assault, U.S. military officers called their Russian counterparts. According to the adviser, the Americans relayed what they saw: a group of armed fighters was approaching the plant—were they Russian? The Russian officer on the other end of the line said they were not. “Maybe they thought it was a bluff,” the adviser said, “and didn’t realize the U.S. would really attack.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once U.S. military officials became aware that their troops had killed dozens of Russians, there were obvious concerns about possible escalation. “Nobody completely understood the exact relationship between Wagner and the state, which is, in fact, the point,” the adviser said. “But that meant a lot of people in Washington were holding their breath, thinking, Oh, boy, this could really open up in ways that would not be good.” In the end, the Kremlin barely reacted. U.S. officials carried out a review of the incident. “We checked and double-checked and triple-checked and came to the conclusion this was not a mistake on the part of the Russians,” the adviser said. “It was interesting to see how readily Russia was willing to part with the lives of a lot of highly trained soldiers” and “to understand to what degree the Russia Defense Ministry and Wagner are allies and competing factions at the same time.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One day last August, a helicopter made a noisy approach to a penal colony in southern Russia, flying over the barracks and landing in a large open field. Guards had gathered more than a thousand inmates, nearly the entire population of the colony, telling them to wait outside for the arrival of someone they described as an important visitor. A prisoner named Alexei, who was in his early thirties, watched as men in green army fatigues, pistols at their hips, entered the yard. They were accompanied by a man in his sixties, with a bald head and heavy jowls, who spoke to the prisoners in a manner that was blunt, profane, and matter-of-fact, as if he, too, had known the inside of the zona, as Russian prisons are called. He suggested that he had arrived with the backing of Putin to make a simple offer. Come fight with me, he said. I need killers. And I can set you free.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The speaker was Prigozhin. He didn’t hide the fact that the men would be headed for the battlefield—and that in war some people die. They would be fighting the “enemies of Russia,” whom he described as mercenaries from the U.S. and Europe. If they survived the fighting for six months, they would be pardoned and free to start a new life, with plenty of money and opportunities for their children. “Think of it as paying down your debt to your motherland in blood,” Prigozhin told the prisoners. “History will remember you.” The helicopter’s rotors were whirring again. Prigozhin was on the move, headed to other prisons. Some of his subordinates stayed behind to set up a recruitment office in the administration building.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Initially, Wagner was not included in Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. The senior Ukrainian intelligence official said that Kremlin leaders “thought they would quickly capture Kyiv, keep government buildings and infrastructure intact, and simply take over and run the country. For such a supposedly quick mission, you don’t need mercenaries.” But as the Russian advance stalled, in the spring of 2022, the Kremlin withdrew Russian units from around Kyiv and redoubled efforts to take territory in the Donbas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ukrainian military first saw Wagner fighters in the battle for Popasna, an important railway junction in the Luhansk region. “The first thing we noticed was sand-colored jeeps,” an intelligence officer with a Ukrainian brigade said. He presumed that the vehicles had arrived from the Middle East. This new contingent of fighters was markedly more proficient than the Russian forces that Ukrainian units had encountered in the early weeks of the war. Previously, most of the Ukrainian troops who were killed or wounded in Popasna had been struck with shrapnel from artillery shells; now they were taking more casualties from bullet wounds—a sign, the officer said, of Wagner troops’ superior tactical training. “This phase was tough, with no time to make sense of things,” he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After Popasna fell to Russia, in early May, Prigozhin promised that Wagner would next take Bakhmut, twenty miles to the west. At the time, the city was seen as a necessary gateway to capturing the whole of the Donbas, one of Putin’s chief aims in the war. The only problem was that Wagner didn’t have enough manpower, in part because of the losses it had suffered in Popasna. According to Western intelligence, Wagner leadership considered recruiting foreign fighters from Syria and sub-Saharan Africa, but this idea was rejected by the Kremlin. In Russia, Wagner was running an aggressive outreach campaign, but, as the senior Ukrainian intelligence official said, “they couldn’t assemble as many people as they needed.” So they turned to prisoners.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Alexei had landed in prison after a fight at a café in his home town, in southern Russia. He was twenty-four, married, with two young children, and was enjoying a night on the town. A scuffle broke out. Alexei pulled a knife, as did the other guy, who ended up dead. Alexei received a twenty-year sentence. He said goodbye to his family, not expecting to see his children again until they were adults. He had served nine years before Prigozhin’s visit to the prison. A few days later, he signed up to join Wagner.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I spoke to Alexei at a detention facility in Kyiv, at a meeting arranged by Ukrainian authorities. He insisted that he had not been pressured or mistreated by his captors. He was eager to tell his story, but it was impossible to verify independently many of the details. (I have chosen not to use his real name.) He told me that his first stop after leaving prison was a military airfield in Rostov-on-Don, where he was given a uniform and combat boots. At a training base in occupied Ukraine, Wagner instructors showed recruits how to load and fire a Kalashnikov rifle, and taught them the basic tactics for storming a trench. Brutality was ever present, encapsulated by a single term: obnuleniye, or “zeroing out,” Wagner slang for execution, the punishment for desertion or retreat in battle. At one point, a fellow prisoner recruit ran away from Alexei’s training base and was picked up by local police in a village nearby. Wagner security brought him to the center of the training grounds, tied him to a wooden pole, and, in front of everyone, shot him in the head. “I realized then that things are serious,” Alexei said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After a month and a half, Alexei and ten others were brought to the “zero line,” as both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers call the very edge of the front. Their mission was to storm a three-story building, an entrenched position held by Ukrainian machine gunners and snipers. The commander of Alexei’s unit was also an inmate, who had been imprisoned on drug charges in Siberia. If anyone tried to run away, he said, he had orders to shoot him. “They told me, either I kill you or they kill me,” the commander said. “So please don’t get scared. I don’t want to kill any of you.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The assault started before dawn. As Alexei and the men moved forward, the ground erupted in a wall of fire. Almost instantly, five men were mowed down by a machine gunner. A shell exploded in front of the commander, blowing him to pieces. Snipers fired on those left in the field. Alexei could hear someone yelling about his leg. He turned and saw one of his fellow-fighters writhing, his leg now a bloody stump. Another wave of men, all prisoners, were sent in as reinforcements. More fire, more explosions, more bodies. Wagner commanders sent in a third wave. A number of these fighters were equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, which they fired at the building before entering it. Alexei was among them. Inside, he saw the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers scattered on the ground.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next day, Wagner commanders ordered Alexei and four others to storm a patch of woodland that shielded a Ukrainian bunker. When they crossed into the trees, two of them fell to the ground, picked off by snipers. Alexei dropped, too, and tried to lie as flat as he could. Bullets and grenades ripped through branches and leaves, sending splinters of wood whistling past. Alexei found himself beside another Wagner recruit, Yevgeny, who had been imprisoned for stealing a car while drunk one night. Their shoulders were touching. A bullet ripped into Yevgeny’s eye, and, for the next half hour, Alexei listened to him moan as he bled to death. Wagner continued to send waves of convict fighters, about ten at a time, a tactic that became known as a myasnoi shturm, or “meat storm.” After six hours, the woods grew quiet. Wagner had taken the bunker. The group’s commanders rewarded their men by letting them wash themselves in a nearby banya.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Alexei’s next orders were to join an assault on a Ukrainian position that had been dug into the top of a hill. He entered a stretch of forest as part of a group of Wagner fighters, looked down, and saw “a carpet of bodies,” he said. A guy next to him took a shot through the head. Tanks were firing, as was artillery, creating a wall of noise. Shrapnel from a 120-millimetre mortar sprayed into Alexei’s back, and he, along with other injured fighters, headed to an evacuation point. But, Alexei said, on the way he became separated from the rest and wandered the woods until he heard voices. They were speaking Russian. As he got closer, they switched to Ukrainian. Alexei saw their uniforms just as they drew their weapons and told him to put up his hands. In their dugout, the Ukrainian soldiers gave Alexei chocolate and cigarettes. He was surprised to see ordinary guys defending their country. He was expecting the foreign mercenaries that Prigozhin and the Wagner instructors had said were the enemy. At the detention center in Kyiv, Alexei told me, “I made a giant mistake.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner’s tactics made the group a vexing and persistent opponent on the battlefield. The Ukrainian intelligence officer, whose brigade fended off multiple Wagner assaults, described how, in situations in which regular Army units would retreat, Wagner continued its assault: “Part of the group is destroyed, others are wounded, and, instead of evacuating, the rest continue with the storm—this is completely unreasonable.” The threat of zeroing out meant that, “if they move forward, they at least have the chance to live another day,” the officer said. “If they go back, they’re dead for sure.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner had its own hierarchy. Higher-ranking commanders were situated in bunkers within radio range, often a few miles from the front, issuing orders to assault teams on the ground. Professional mercenaries were given the letter “A” and held back, entering the battle only once Ukrainian defenses had been softened. Recruited prisoners, who made up roughly eighty per cent of Wagner’s manpower, were given the letter “K” and deployed in waves, in intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes. “One group follows the other at a pre-planned distance,” the intelligence officer explained. “Even if you destroy the first, you have very little time to rest. The second is already advancing.” Moreover, the first wave was often used simply to draw fire, in order to identify Ukrainian positions, which were then targeted by artillery. “They are not bound by what is written in tactical manuals or taught in military academies,” the officer said. “Wagner is a private structure, free of any dogmas, and this makes it flexible, able to mutate on the battlefield, and, as a result, unpredictable.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The commander of a Ukrainian drone squadron told me that, over many hours of observing Wagner from the sky, he had witnessed “not so much a lack of fear but, rather, the total devaluation of life.” In one case, he watched as Wagner fighters in a trench left a dead comrade in place for several days, cleaning their weapons, eating, and sleeping with the body lying just a few feet from them. “I kept waiting for them to bury him, or at least move him, but they just acted like nothing was the matter,” he said. Another Wagner unit took a wounded Ukrainian soldier prisoner, and then placed him on the edge of their trench, to keep Ukrainian forces from firing on them. The commander said that he watched, helpless, as the Ukrainian soldier flailed and lost blood, and finally froze to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When confronted by an armed drone, the commander said, “the regular Russian mobiks”—as mobilized recruits are called—“fall into hysterics, scatter in every direction, try to hide.” Radio intercepts pick up their frantic calls to higher-ups: “We are being shelled!” Wagner fighters from Russian prisons, however, often fire wildly into the air, trying to shoot down the drone. In some cases, they do manage to disable it; just as often, they stand in one place until they’re blown to pieces. “This isn’t bravery,” the drone commander said, “but complete craziness.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner’s use of human-wave attacks led to some limited battlefield successes. In January, Wagner captured Soledar, a small town north of Bakhmut known for its salt mines. “I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar from units of the Ukrainian Army,” Prigozhin declared. “The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The place had little strategic import for the larger Russian campaign, but it was the country’s clearest military achievement in more than half a year. At first, the Defense Ministry praised Russian paratroopers for taking Soledar, with no mention of Wagner. Prigozhin alleged that Russian generals were attempting to “steal victory.” The Defense Ministry released a new statement, clarifying that the “direct assault on the residential areas of Soledar” was “successfully carried out thanks to the courageous and selfless actions of the volunteers of Wagner’s assault squads.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Russia launched its invasion, Andrey Medvedev assumed that he would be called up to fight. He was twenty-five years old and had spent much of his childhood in an orphanage in the Siberian city of Tomsk. As a teen-age conscript, he spent a year in the airborne infantry, an experience that had soured him on the Russian Army. He had heard about Wagner, which not only paid better but was also supposedly run more efficiently and rationally. “The Defense Ministry will screw you over,” he recalled thinking. “Wagner is run by more reliable people.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medvedev had spent years after his service bouncing between odd jobs—security guard, construction worker, driver—and had done a stint in prison. “I didn’t have shit,” he told me. “No home, no family, nothing.” He largely believed the propaganda he saw on television: Nazis in Ukraine were committing atrocities against a population that yearned to be liberated by Russia. He called Wagner’s recruitment hotline, in the summer of 2022. After two weeks at the base in Molkino, he was given his assignment: commander of the 1st Squad of the 4th Platoon of the 7th Assault Detachment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medvedev was sent to a position outside of Bakhmut, where he had ten Wagner fighters under his command—recently enlisted mercenaries, not prisoners. In one of their first assaults, he and one other member of his unit made it out unscathed. The rest were badly injured or killed. Afterward, a higher-ranking Wagner commander told him to expect some “fucking great reinforcements.” Medvedev asked whom he meant. “Killers,” the commander said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soon, a group of convicts arrived, many of whom appeared old and physically unwell. Medvedev described an episode in which he and his new recruits were pinned in a trench, taking heavy fire from Ukrainian soldiers. “The guys climbed in and just sat there,” he told me. Medvedev yelled at the convict soldiers, “The enemy is about to hop in this trench and start fucking shit up. What are you going to do then?” A handful of Wagner mercenaries with combat experience repelled the attack, but the episode rattled Medvedev. “There were some decent fighters,” he said, “but the majority had no clue what they were doing.” A couple of weeks of training, he said, “were barely enough to learn how to hold a machine gun and walk straight.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the recruits was a convicted murderer in his mid-fifties named Yevgeny Nuzhin. Medvedev described how, at one point, their unit came under heavy fire, and everyone dispersed into the trees. Nuzhin came back without his rifle, having thrown it off in a panic. They found it lying in the shrubs. Later, the unit had to cross a clearing in range of Ukrainian artillery. Rounds were exploding around them, but Nuzhin was so winded that he could barely walk. He had lost his gun again. Medvedev ran up to him in a fury. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I have high blood pressure,” Nuzhin answered.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medvedev eventually lost track of how many convict fighters cycled through his unit. “Once we started using prisoners, it was like a conveyor belt,” he said. “A group comes—that’s it, they’re dead.” He stopped remembering their names or call signs. “A new person shows up, survives for five minutes, and he’s killed,” he said. “It was like that day after day.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medvedev attended a training exercise on how to defend against new weapons systems that nato countries were supplying to Ukraine. Prigozhin delivered a motivational speech, telling those in attendance, “We’re the most combat-ready division. Everyone else has shit themselves. We’re the only ones advancing.” Medvedev said that he asked Prigozhin a question: “At what price will we manage to enter Bakhmut? By walking over the corpses of our own men?” Prigozhin replied coolly, asking for his call sign and identification number. When the training was over, Medvedev reported to a Wagner officer, who asked him, “What are you running your mouth for?” He ordered Medvedev locked in a shipping container, saying, “Let him think it over.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During another visit to a Wagner base, Medvedev came across a crowd of soldiers who were waiting for members of Wagner’s internal security department, whom they called the Chekists, a reference to the early Soviet secret police. The Chekists arrived in pickup trucks transporting two men. As the crowd looked on, they ordered the men to their knees; one of the Wagner security officers launched into a speech about how the men were traitors and cowards who had run away from battle. The Chekists shot them in the head. “I’ve seen people killed,” Medvedev told me. “Fuck, I’ve killed myself—I didn’t flinch. But I despise people who act that way.” I asked him the reason for such violent displays. “It’s obvious it comes from Prigozhin,” he said. “It’s a means of intimidation and control, to devour people and make them think only about their own self-preservation.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Medvedev noted a video he’d seen of Nuzhin, the recruit with high blood pressure. Nuzhin had been captured by Ukrainian forces, and, as a P.O.W., recorded an interview. “I told myself that when I came I would do whatever it took to surrender,” Nuzhin said into the camera. “Because it’s not Ukraine who attacked Russia. It’s Putin who attacked Ukraine.” Two months later, a new video, titled “Hammer of Revenge,” appeared on a social-media channel associated with Wagner. Nuzhin had reportedly been part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. In the video, he is in a dark cellar, his head taped to a brick wall. “They told me I was to be tried,” Nuzhin says. A man in camouflage steps forward and swings a sledgehammer into his head, crushing his skull. Prigozhin denied that Wagner had anything to do with Nuzhin’s killing, but he made his satisfaction clear. “A dog receives a dog’s death,” he said in a statement. “Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, betrayed them deliberately.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After four months, Medvedev showed up at the office of his commander and submitted his resignation. The commander said Medvedev still had to fight six more months, maybe more—Wagner had the right to extend contracts as it saw fit. He ordered his men to throw Medvedev into a pit, where he was told that the Chekists were coming for him next. But, before they arrived, some sympathetic fellow Wagner fighters helped him flee. In December, Medvedev gave an interview to Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian activist based in France, who has published numerous investigations into Wagner and the Russian security services. Medvedev was on the run inside Russia. “I understand that I am in danger because I know their methods,” he told Osechkin. “I know exactly how they treat people like me.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shortly after the interview, Medvedev went to Murmansk, a city above the Arctic Circle, near Russia’s border with Norway. A local driver brought him to the border zone. It was mid-January, and mounds of snow rose out of the frozen ground like dunes. He donned a white camouflage jumpsuit, hopped over one fence, then another. Two shots rang out; a guard dog was barking. Medvedev ran across a frozen lake, his feet plunging into the frigid water in places where the ice was brittle. On the Norwegian side, he collapsed on the ground and pulled out a bottle of vodka that he had brought with him. As he walked down an empty road, a police car pulled up. Medvedev tried to explain himself. “Wagner,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Wagner?” one of the Norwegian officers asked, incredulously.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last September, a Ukrainian counter-offensive expelled Russian forces around the city of Kharkiv, cutting off a position from which they were advancing on Bakhmut. Prigozhin criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for the retreat. “Send all these scumbags to the front line with guns and bare feet,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new battle lines meant that capturing Bakhmut no longer promised an obvious route for Russia to seize the Donbas. Instead, Bakhmut became a means for both armies to tie up and degrade the other’s forces, so as to exhaust them for future battles. “Our task is not Bakhmut itself,” Prigozhin said last November, “but the destruction of the Ukrainian Army and the reduction of its combat potential.” The operation, he went on, had been dubbed “the Bakhmut meat grinder.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This was a politically convenient line for Prigozhin to take, given that, nearly a year into Wagner’s efforts to seize Bakhmut, the mercenary force was only advancing a few metres a day. “Bakhmut became a kind of fetish that the Defense Ministry and general staff weren’t particularly eager to throw themselves into,” the Russian defense source told me. “Russian military command came to the conclusion that, if Prigozhin wants to take this city so badly, then let him.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to a former Wagner fighter, whom I’m calling Bogdan, the meat grinder was nothing like war as he remembered it. Two decades earlier, he had spent more than a year as a young Army conscript in Chechnya, where Russian forces carried out a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. His life had been a series of tragic events since then. His wife died suddenly, in her mid-twenties, leaving him alone with their two daughters. He became addicted to heroin, then mephedrone, known in Russia as sol, or salt. In 2021, he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute and sentenced to eleven years in prison. By then, he was H.I.V.-positive. When Wagner recruiters showed up at his prison, in the Ural Mountains, he was in an advanced stage of infection. He had nine years left on his sentence, though he’d likely be dead before the end of it. If he went to fight in Ukraine, there was a chance he could finish his tour after six months and see his daughters again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I met Bogdan earlier this summer, in a prison in Dnipro, a large city in southeastern Ukraine, a hundred and forty miles from Bakhmut. He has a tired, hollow face, and speaks in a falsetto whisper. Bogdan said that the Wagner recruiters told him he’d be responsible for evacuations, bringing the dead and injured off the front lines. They gave him a red bracelet to wear on his wrist, which indicated his H.I.V. infection. In early February, after three weeks of training, he was sent to Bakhmut.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No one there said anything about evacuations. Instead, he was ordered to join a group of twelve soldiers and prepare to storm a Ukrainian position. It was still dark when he and the others set off, entering a patch of forest outside the city. Bogdan could see craters from explosions and bodies lying in the snow. Suddenly, his unit was attacked with grenade launchers. Everyone scattered; Bogdan crawled over the frozen ground, trying to feel for the way he had come, and groped the arms and legs of fallen Wagner fighters. When he heard drones overhead, he went limp and played dead. Even nighttime wasn’t safe, as snipers with thermal scopes hunted whatever moved. “It was like a video game,” he told me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next day, he was shot in the arm. He jabbed himself with a painkiller from his first-aid kit, and passed out. He awoke, surrounded by Ukrainian soldiers. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked. “No,” came the reply. “We’re taking you prisoner.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wagner was losing between fifty and a hundred fighters a day. News of the high casualty rates had reached Russian inmates, fewer of whom were willing to join. At the same time, the Defense Ministry had begun drawing its own recruits from the prisons, signing up convicts for armed formations called Storm-Z. If the Defense Ministry was keen to limit Wagner’s influence, cutting off its supply of convict fighters was one way of doing it. In February, Prigozhin announced that Wagner was ending its program of recruiting prisoners. Later that month, he shifted the deadline for taking Bakhmut. “Progress is not as fast as we would like,” he said, insisting that Russia’s “monstrous military bureaucracy” was to blame.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Olga Romanova, who runs Russia Behind Bars, a criminal-justice advocacy group, said that she and her staff had been in touch with several hundred prisoners who joined up with Wagner. “I heard the same thing from them, over and over,” she said. “No one is waiting for me on the outside. I have no home, no family. At least here I’m needed.” To Romanova, who has defended the rights of Russian prisoners for fifteen years, Prigozhin’s exploitation of convict soldiers contains a cruel irony. “You could say that Wagner achieved something we’ve never had in Russia—post-penitentiary rehabilitation,” she said. “Only in the most terrible and gruesome way imaginable.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On May 5th, Prigozhin posted a video of himself standing in a dark field, his flashlight trained on a row of dead bodies. “These are boys from Wagner who died today,” he says. “Their blood is still fresh!” The camera pans across the field, revealing yet more bodies, in soiled camouflage uniforms. “You will eat their guts in Hell,” he says. “Shoigu, Gerasimov, where is the fucking ammunition?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prigozhin threatened to pull his forces out of Bakhmut if they didn’t receive more ammunition. Apparently, he got what he wanted, because he soon announced that Wagner would stay. But the rift inside Russia’s war camp was striking. The member of Russia’s political élite said, “How is it that he gets away with saying what others would be imprisoned for in two seconds?” The answer, he went on, was likely that Putin had seen Prigozhin deliver results when the regular Army had stalled: “In wartime, you have to use whatever methods you have, without paying too much attention to side effects.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the middle of May, Wagner controlled more than ninety per cent of Bakhmut. But, even as the Ukrainian military was pushed out of the city, it was recapturing territory on the flanks, turning Bakhmut into both a prize and a trap. Prigozhin claimed that Wagner had handed over these areas to the regular Russian Army, and thus it was the Defense Ministry, not Wagner, that was responsible for their loss. “This is not called regrouping,” he said. “This is fleeing.” He warned that “attempts by the Defense Ministry in the information field to sugarcoat the situation” risked leading to a “global tragedy for Russia.” He scolded, “We must stop lying immediately.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Around that time, I travelled to the Donbas and spent several days in Ukrainian-held towns outside Bakhmut. Soldiers were staying in abandoned houses, and tanks and armored personnel carriers streamed up and down the roads. A Ukrainian commander told me that he and his men had initially been confused by some of Wagner’s tactics: “We saw them running around with sledgehammers, and at first couldn’t figure out what for.” Officers eventually realized that Wagner was demolishing walls, so that its fighters could navigate the city without making themselves visible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In one battle for an apartment building, the commander told me, Ukrainian forces managed to push back a group of Russian troops and hold a position from which they mounted a counterattack. Then they intercepted an appeal on Russian radio lines, calling for backup from “Psychos”—that is, Wagner storm troopers. The Psychos exhausted the Ukrainian soldiers with their sheer numbers and unwillingness to retreat, even when they were taking losses. “Our guys couldn’t hold on,” the Ukrainian commander said. “They had to pull back.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One afternoon in mid-May, I drove to an abandoned gas station that served as a staging point for troops. A U.S.-supplied mrap armored vehicle rumbled past. A piece of heavy artillery, hidden in the trees, fired in the direction of Bakhmut, shaking the ground with each blast. A car full of soldiers drove up. Their commander, a jolly man with a thick orange beard, nodded in the direction of the city, a few miles down the road. “That’s where Hell begins,” he told me. They put on body armor, loaded magazines into their weapons, and sped off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was there to meet Anton Lavryniuk, a Ukrainian battalion commander whose soldiers had been fighting Wagner in and around Bakhmut for six months. Combat had been exhausting. “Imagine today you killed twenty people. Yesterday it was twenty. The day before that it was thirty. Every day they come, and get mowed down in whole rows,” he told me. “What’s more, you see these rows of bodies, and no one is trying to pull them out. Today’s assault simply marches over the same ground where yesterday’s bodies are still lying.” In some cases, Lavryniuk saw that individual soldiers in his unit were struggling, psychologically as much as physically, and he sent them to the rear for a few days of rest. “They need to get their brains untwisted,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lavryniuk noted that, as Wagner’s losses mounted, the number of storm troopers in each wave had become smaller—as few as six per group. One aspect of the group’s tactics remained constant, though: the practice of “zeroing out.” Lavryniuk and his men intercepted frequent radio traffic on the battlefield in which Wagner commanders gave the order: “Anyone who takes a step back, zero them out.” Lavryniuk told me, “We heard this over and over.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had received conflicting accounts about the decrease in Wagner artillery fire. Sources in both Ukraine and Russia noted dips in firing rates last spring, and cited a general rationing of munitions along the front. “Everything is regulated in the Army,” the former Russian military official said. “There are prescribed rates of ammunition consumption that dictate how much artillery you need for this or that operation.” Lavryniuk, for his part, doubted the sincerity of Prigozhin’s complaints about a lack of ammunition: “In many places, the intensity of fire was greater than before.” His men had adopted an ironclad rule. As soon as Wagner forces made contact, they hugged the ground or changed firing position, because an artillery barrage was imminent. “Wagner operates according to scorched-earth tactics,” Lavryniuk said. “They don’t storm a trench or a building until they’ve levelled it completely.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two days later, Bakhmut was fully occupied. President Volodymyr Zelensky initially denied that the city had fallen, but within days it was clear that no Ukrainian troops remained. Prigozhin announced that his fighters were withdrawing and would hand over their positions to the regular Russian Army. In another video, he walks among burned-out apartment blocks, giving instructions to his men, and declares that Wagner will leave Bakhmut by June 1st. His soldiers needed to regroup for a new mission.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In hindsight, the capture of Bakhmut was the beginning of the end for Wagner in Ukraine, the moment when, once it had accomplished its stated goal—at an extraordinary cost in men and matériel—its role and influence could only decrease. In the days after Wagner’s aborted mutiny, Prigozhin went largely quiet, releasing just a cryptic audio message. “We started our march because of an injustice,” he said. All that he and his men had wanted, he went on, was to “avoid the destruction of Wagner.” Prigozhin was equally adamant that Wagner’s short-lived insurrection had not been aimed at Putin or the Russian state: “We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Three days after the uprising, Konstantin Remchukov, a newspaper editor in Moscow with Kremlin connections, was invited to a meeting with Putin and other media executives. Remchukov described Putin as energized and focussed, and said that he spoke of poring through Wagner’s past contracts with the state. “Putin doesn’t believe there is such a thing as selfless opposition to his rule,” Remchukov said. “He always looks for a material reason.” Putin revealed that same day that the state had paid Wagner nearly a billion dollars during the past year. Dmitry Kiselev, a television propagandist, named an even higher sum—nearly ten billion dollars in state funds for Wagner over its lifetime. “Prigozhin has gone off the rails because of big money,” Kiselev said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the wake of the insurrection, Putin appeared to take a measured approach with Wagner. Hundreds of Russian citizens who have criticized the authorities and the war in less vivid terms than Prigozhin have been imprisoned, fined, and removed from their jobs or universities, and none of them sent an armored column on the road to Moscow. But, at least for now, Putin has decided that imprisoning Prigozhin would risk making him a martyr while also undermining Russia’s military effort. “What’s the most important political priority for Putin right now?” Remchukov asked. “Victory in the special military operation.” Wagner may yet prove useful for that goal, and the dismantling of its forces in the middle of a war would be messy, rife with distractions and dangers for the Kremlin. Putin appears to have concluded that the Wagner insurrection wasn’t aimed at him personally—a convenient position, in that it doesn’t force him to take any bold or risky action. “If they aren’t against me,” Remchukov said, paraphrasing Putin, “we can leave them in place for the solving of important problems.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, for a person whom Putin had called a traitor in all but name, Prigozhin retained a remarkable level of influence and access. Journalists observed that a private plane linked to him made several flights to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The former Russian military official told me that Prigozhin had spent considerable time in Moscow, advocating for himself and his business empire with high-ranking figures: “He’s going around beating himself on the chest, saying that he’ll continue to fight on behalf of Russia. Let’s see whether he’s allowed to or not.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that, on June 29th—five days after Wagner’s failed march on Moscow—Putin met with Prigozhin and dozens of Wagner’s top commanders at the Kremlin. The meeting lasted three hours. “They emphasized that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and commander-in-chief—and also said they are prepared to fight for the country going forward,” Peskov said. “Putin heard out the commanders and proposed further employment options and further combat options.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Ukraine, Wagner was but one piece of the military effort; elsewhere it represents the majority of the Russian presence. Gabidullin, the former senior adviser of Wagner’s isis Hunters, spoke to a number of Wagner fighters in Syria, who told him that the uprising had not affected their operations: “They say that they expect to continue their work, even if certain conditions change.” Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said of Wagner’s missions in the C.A.R. and Mali, “This work, of course, will continue.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, Putin is unlikely to repeat the same mistake twice: allowing a private army led by a hotheaded sadist to take an outsized role in Russia’s security. “How can Putin claim to have total control over the country, and then something like this happens?” the member of the Russian political élite said. “They’ll have to lose their independence and be integrated into the Army.” But putting Wagner on a tighter leash would lead to a very different Wagner, one that, as the U.S. defense official put it, would trade “an increase in control for a reduction of deniability.” That would lessen the danger of such a group, but it would also challenge the fundamental reasons that the Kremlin found it useful in the first place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By July, a contingent of several thousand Wagner fighters had made it to Belarus, setting up camp near the town of Asipovichy, where the Belarusian Defense Ministry said they would train local reservists. Prigozhin paid a visit, making his first public appearance since the mutiny. He brought the Wagner flag from the base in Molkino, which had been emptied out. “We fought with dignity,” Prigozhin told the assembled troops. “We’ve done a great deal for Russia.” Wagner, he went on, would now prepare for new missions, including a reinvigorated presence in Africa. “Maybe we’ll return to the special military operation at a time when we are sure that we won’t be forced to disgrace ourselves and our experience,” he said. He then introduced Dmitry Utkin—“the one who gave us the name Wagner”—who stepped forward, his face covered in the shadow of early evening. The crowd applauded and whistled; Utkin tipped his cap. “This is not the end,” he said, “but just the beginning of the biggest job in the world, which will be carried out very soon.” He switched to English and yelled, “Welcome to Hell!” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>By Joshua YaffaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-31266337956648303512023-07-23T05:12:00.004+02:002023-07-23T05:12:31.212+02:00Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023: Crystal Globe for Russell Crowe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhndRXfucZt0iLY37rwVMISuoO5r7kNAy0dYGkiTuDB7CatZlyVp-0lzJpZgeLpUeC7TkJxUwgEZF84JJ_AA2rDYHzbaLmmH-_w0qctm_u1AClWPKdjEec8GtrWUn0iBYNsjC-jwvog6BZYz5Z9MG4b163wRxlyjXXZDm2lopSb5Hqstj5mIsMRbHbFj7s/s2048/IMG_0457.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhndRXfucZt0iLY37rwVMISuoO5r7kNAy0dYGkiTuDB7CatZlyVp-0lzJpZgeLpUeC7TkJxUwgEZF84JJ_AA2rDYHzbaLmmH-_w0qctm_u1AClWPKdjEec8GtrWUn0iBYNsjC-jwvog6BZYz5Z9MG4b163wRxlyjXXZDm2lopSb5Hqstj5mIsMRbHbFj7s/s16000/IMG_0457.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Russell Crowe receiving the Crystal Globe for Extraordinary Artistic Contribution to World Cinema.</div><br />He confessed that Karlovy Vary was completely new to him. "I have to tell the truth," he said, "I was unaware of this film festival until very recently. I've been to so many film festivals that are completely disorganized and absolutely chaotic. But I have to congratulate the organization of this festival; it's one of the best I've ever attended."<br /><br />Crowe gave a simple but heartfelt speech about his experiences as an actor. "The thing about me and my career," he said, "is that I started acting when I was six years old. I did my first television show in 1970 and have been making movies since 1989. Fortunately for me, I still love coming to work. I love waking up every day thinking about the scenes ahead of me. <div><br /></div><div>And I believe it's because I make decisions to do specific films where I feel a particular connection. So, I never have to wake up at 4 in the morning and wonder why I'm there. I always know why I'm at work. And my relationship with cinema? The older I get, the deeper it becomes: my love for cinema and what it can achieve, how it can educate and how it can move people. It just gets deeper and deeper."<br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPYivkR2mtpMrwdnDA8SJQLzmKqe3dA3M3U6HSkLRBVs_gaeaM8vWWM2uerT9LJBs6ylteXEDrBIW05ciAH_QJ_5cSltGSXkOf_w0l81BkcAXghTgsu-ORd5QBvUIPpMsqurYSjv45ah1kWW0GA7k6av3Xj0CYYgcc2lORI98spj2iABA4yegn3KwW-o/s5184/IMG_3583.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPYivkR2mtpMrwdnDA8SJQLzmKqe3dA3M3U6HSkLRBVs_gaeaM8vWWM2uerT9LJBs6ylteXEDrBIW05ciAH_QJ_5cSltGSXkOf_w0l81BkcAXghTgsu-ORd5QBvUIPpMsqurYSjv45ah1kWW0GA7k6av3Xj0CYYgcc2lORI98spj2iABA4yegn3KwW-o/s16000/IMG_3583.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">The legendary British band Morcheeba</div><br />This year, the opening concert of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, traditionally held for the public on a stage in front of the Hotel Thermal, will feature a very special guest. In addition to the previously announced performance by Russell Crowe and his band Indoor Garden Party, the show will also include the legendary British band Morcheeba.<br /><br />Morcheeba from London was founded in 1995 by brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey and vocalist Skye Edwards. The band made their debut with the EP "Trigger Hippie," which helped them secure a record deal. In 1996, they released their first album, "Who Can You Trust?" and began performing live. In the following years, the band gained international fame. Critics often consider their 1998 album, "Big Calm," as their breakthrough moment. It was followed by "Fragments of Freedom" (2000) and "Charango" (2002). To date, the band has released ten studio albums, which have produced numerous hits like "The Sea" and "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day."<br /><br />By Antonio Cossa</div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-33947278207294956132023-07-20T01:20:00.003+02:002023-07-20T01:20:47.776+02:00Panama Papers’ tax fraud investigations<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5VnsbdSMNvQY2xQHX2fj3rJHlUu5l0sl2T7SlYwplFS0zer94q9DH6g_fmMajd4IZUhXGy-AkRcos13ubz9dco4y0l5B3Mz1ZNajDOxAhv4dAKNXVIZaUUdrcoJH3LDb6NODEFWc-pNqrLk3bZrBdY8aH5PudnaR2BfjUxheNd75-HuUcIFGXpu1PEA/s1920/Panama-Papers-5-year-anniversary_1920px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5VnsbdSMNvQY2xQHX2fj3rJHlUu5l0sl2T7SlYwplFS0zer94q9DH6g_fmMajd4IZUhXGy-AkRcos13ubz9dco4y0l5B3Mz1ZNajDOxAhv4dAKNXVIZaUUdrcoJH3LDb6NODEFWc-pNqrLk3bZrBdY8aH5PudnaR2BfjUxheNd75-HuUcIFGXpu1PEA/s16000/Panama-Papers-5-year-anniversary_1920px.jpg" /></a></div><br />Plaintiff seeks to anonymously sue Germany for alleged breach of contract to share revenue raised due to Panama Papers’ tax fraud investigations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unorthodox case prompts whistleblower advocate to question if Germany is running an ad hoc rewards program for whistleblowers that lacks formal protections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A person claiming to be the whistleblower behind the Panama Papers is attempting to sue the German government and federal criminal police anonymously in a complex legal and financial dispute over an alleged deal to purchase the leaked dataset, according to a recent lawsuit filed in the United States.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On July 3, the Washington D.C. judge in the case, Chief Judge James Boasberg, <a href="https://www.taxnotes.com/research/federal/court-documents/court-opinions-and-orders/alleged-panama-papers-source-can-proceed-under-pseudonym/7gy17">ruled</a> that the plaintiff could proceed with it using a pseudonym publicly — but would have to reveal their identity to the court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The anonymous plaintiff argues that they should not have to provide the court with identifying information, as it would put their life in danger.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The plaintiff has accused German authorities of reneging on an alleged agreement to pay the source 10% of revenue over a 50 million euro threshold recouped from investigations into tax fraud and other financial offenses based on the trove of files, which Germany purchased in 2017, and is seeking more than $14 million in compensation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In early 2015, the 11.5 million documents that later became known globally as the Panama Papers were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. ICIJ brought together a team of hundreds of investigative reporters from around the world, and their stories — published in Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 media outlets — exposed the secret offshore holdings of world leaders, celebrities, criminals and more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ICIJ is not commenting on its sources and never pays for information.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">David Kenner and Hamish Boland-Rudder</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-27942825293211504682023-07-02T17:50:00.017+02:002023-07-02T17:50:00.138+02:00Inside the Secretive World of Penile Enlargement<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd_jK7fyqySgilvTlyyK4DwJxLLnsAVgeU7o556A2XElLHW3ZolQO_UVdrXkoYhvIOQXYF3LjE9bLA5dCF9QNw06sdNEOkXBcuJ6vB2Zi2tgXv5oAcvsyrr7EGkMllu-hY6zajoRT-nwZvYX3n5um2oG0WTn3Wf4QjQn-1V6ZKmx-_lbPr82VP_uONg4/s2000/202306-Elist-11.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd_jK7fyqySgilvTlyyK4DwJxLLnsAVgeU7o556A2XElLHW3ZolQO_UVdrXkoYhvIOQXYF3LjE9bLA5dCF9QNw06sdNEOkXBcuJ6vB2Zi2tgXv5oAcvsyrr7EGkMllu-hY6zajoRT-nwZvYX3n5um2oG0WTn3Wf4QjQn-1V6ZKmx-_lbPr82VP_uONg4/s16000/202306-Elist-11.webp" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div>The Perils and Promises of Penis-Enlargement Surgery</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>They wanted it because they’d just gone through a bad breakup and needed an edge in the volatile dating market; because porn had warped their sense of scale; because they’d been in a car accident, or were looking to fix a curve, or were hoping for a little “software upgrade”; because they were not having a midlife crisis; because they were, “and it was cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron”; because, after five kids, their wife couldn’t feel them anymore; because they’d been molested as a child and still remembered the laughter of the adults in the room; because they couldn’t forget a passing comment their spouse made in 1975; because, despite the objections of their couples therapist, they believed it would bring them closer to their “sex obsessed” husband (who then had an affair that precipitated their divorce); because they’d stopped changing in locker rooms, stopped peeing in urinals, stopped having sex; because who wouldn’t want it?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mick (his middle name) wanted a bigger penis because he believed it would allow him to look in the mirror and feel satisfied. He had trouble imagining what shape the satisfaction would take, since it was something he’d never actually experienced. Small and dark haired, he’d found his adolescence to be a gantlet of humiliating comparisons: to classmates who were blond and blue-eyed; to his half brothers, who were older and taller and heterosexual; to the hirsute men in his stepfather’s Hasidic community, who wore big beards and billowing frock coats. After he reached puberty — late, in his estimation — he grew an impressive beard of his own, and his feelings of inadequacy concentrated on his genitals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">None of Mick’s romantic partners ever commented on his size, but his preoccupation had a way of short-circuiting the mood. He tried several kinds of self-acceptance therapy, without success; whenever he went to the bathroom, there it was, mocking him. “Like an evil root,” he said of the fixation. “It gets in there and grows like a tree. But I think everybody has that on some level about something.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After high school, Mick decided to study art and moved to Berkeley, California, where his mother had spent her hippie years. Eventually landing in Seattle, he supported his life as an artist by working in the hospitality industry. His paintings often depicted a human body glowing, as if transfigured, in a geometric landscape.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the years, Mick kept up with advances in male augmentation but wasn’t thrilled by the options. The gains from a vacuum pump were fleeting; hanging weights from the end of his shaft seemed like a painful investment for an uncertain result; and having a surgeon snip his suspensory ligament, which promised an additional inch or so, could lead to wobblier erections. It wasn’t until the spring of 2019, when he was 36, that he came across something appealing: a silicone implant shaped like a hotdog bun that could be inserted just under the skin of the penis to increase its girth and flaccid length.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The device, called the Penuma, had been invented by James Elist — a silver-haired urologist who has been described on TMZ as “the Thomas Edison of penis surgery.” Elist’s procedure was touted as reversible, and, according to a rapturous article in GQ, more than a thousand men had already undergone it. It was also, as far as Mick could tell, the only genital enhancement on the market to have received the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The basic operation would cost $15,000 — roughly half of Mick’s life savings — though he added in a pair of discounted testicular implants, at seven grand more. He put down a deposit, told his long-distance boyfriend that he was taking a work trip and, on a sunny morning in September, arrived at Elist’s office, in Beverly Hills. A framed copy of the GQ story — cover line: “We Have Huge News About Your Manhood” — hung on the wall of the exam room. Elist strode in, directed Mick to drop his pants and rolled Mick’s scrotal sac appraisingly between his fingers, as though it were a piece of fruit at a market stall.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist’s hands seemed reassuringly delicate, but Mick wanted to see the implant before it was put inside him. The surgeon clicked open a briefcase containing three translucent sheaths: Large, Extra Large and Extra Extra Large. The device felt stiff to Mick’s touch, but Elist told him that over time it would soften to the consistency of a gummy bear.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The consultation lasted about five minutes, Mick recalled. He signed a stack of consent forms and releases, including one that said his consultation had lasted more than an hour, and another promising “not to disclose, under any circumstance,” his “relationship with Dr. James J. Elist.” The operation took place the same morning in an outpatient clinic up the street. In the preop room, awaiting his turn, he watched “Rush Hour” in its entirety on a flat-screen TV.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the surgery was over, Mick, still groggy from the general anesthesia, took an Uber to a Motel 6 near the airport, where he spent the next five days alone on his back, his penis mummy-wrapped in gauze. Morning erections were excruciating. Sharp jolts seized his crotch whenever he peed, which he could do only by leaning over the bathtub. He’d anticipated some discomfort, but when he changed his gauze, he was startled to see the corners of the implant protruding under the skin, like a misplaced bone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back in Seattle, the Penuma’s edges continued to jut out, particularly on the right side, although the testicular implants looked fine. He decided not to tell his boyfriend about the operation: talking to him would only make it seem more real, and he wasn’t yet prepared to entertain the possibility that he’d made a terrible mistake. When he emailed Elist’s clinic the staff urged patience, counseling him that he was “continuing to heal as we expect.” Then he began to lose sensation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I know it’s been just three weeks and I’m following by the letter all the instructions but I’m a bit concerned about the look of it as you have seen in the pictures,” he wrote Elist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“It’s been 70 days since surgery and yet it feels like a shrimp,” he wrote in November.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I’m so sorry for another email,” he wrote in December, “but I am freaking out about the fact I have zero sensitivity in my penis!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Being totally numb is normal as mention[ed] in the past correct?” he asked later that month. “It will pass correct?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Elist-17.jpg?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=614&q=75&w=800&s=8ff4235987fcf8267c67519f756b0af2" />After Mick received a cosmetic penile implant, he lost sensation in his penis. (This photo has been darkened to protect Mick’s identity.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For much of the 20th century, urologists devoted themselves to the prostate, testes, kidneys and bladder. A man’s sexual function, or lack thereof, was largely considered a matter for psychoanalysts to puzzle over. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that a handful of researchers began demonstrating that erectile troubles, though occasionally psychogenic, were primarily vascular in cause. Their discoveries transformed the mercurial penis — John Updike’s “demon of sorts ... whose performance is erratic and whose errands seem, at times, ridiculous” — into a tamable medical object.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was at this moment of upheaval that Elist entered the clannish, hypermasculine world of American urology. Raised in a Sephardic family in Iran, he completed a residency in Washington, D.C., just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Instead of going home, he remained in the States and went into private practice in Beverly Hills. There, he joined the vanguard of physicians who were treating impotence with a suite of novel procedures, such as injections and inflatable penile prostheses. “If the penis is the antenna to a man’s soul, then James Elist must be the Marconi of medicine,” Hustler announced in a 1993 profile. Larry Flynt, the magazine’s publisher, was among his celebrity clientele.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/20230-DrElist_2023-06-20-215430_mxzo.jpg?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=6b9c3243669d7c07183387c5ea338445" />Dr. James Elist, a urologist in Beverly Hills, received his first Food and Drug Administration clearance for his invention, the Penuma, in 2004.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With the <a href="https://time.com/5212572/viagra-20th-anniversary/">blockbuster launch</a> of Viagra, in 1998, Elist feared that demand for surgical cures for erectile dysfunction would fall, and decided it was time to diversify. Over the years, many of his patients had asked if he could make them bigger while he was down there. Walking around the 90210 ZIP code, where the median breast size seemed to balloon by the day, Elist realized that his next move was staring him in the face.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As he toyed with an early prototype for the Penuma, other doctors were dismissive. The penis — a tentacle that shrinks and swells with an exquisite sensitivity — was nothing like the breast; it wouldn’t be possible, they told him, to put something static under its elastic skin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Because the FDA requires the pharmaceutical industry to conduct clinical studies of new drugs, it is often assumed that the same is required of medical device manufacturers. However, a loophole known as the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/premarket-submissions-selecting-and-preparing-correct-submission/premarket-notification-510k">510(k) process</a> allows companies to implant untested products in patients as long as they can demonstrate that the devices are “substantially equivalent” to those already on the market. In September 2004, not long after Elist convinced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of the novelty of his invention, he informed the FDA that his “silicone block” was comparable to calf and butt implants. A month later, when the agency cleared the device for the “cosmetic correction of soft tissue deformities,” the word “penis” did not appear in its indications for use.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite the FDA imprimatur, persuading men to get the implant was a challenge, even after one of his patients, Bryan, a 20-something with biceps the size of porterhouse steaks, began modeling it for prospective customers. Bryan, who later referred to himself as Elist’s “spokespenis,” told me he also moderated content on My New Size, an online forum for male enhancement, where Elist’s invention was often extolled. Still, by 2014, the doctor was averaging barely 100 implant surgeries a year. It wasn’t until the 2016 GQ article that his device — newly christened the Penuma, an acronym for Penis New Man — was propelled from the margins to the mainstream. (The New Yorker, like GQ, is owned by Condé Nast.) By the end of the year, Elist was doing roughly 60 Penuma procedures a month, and his oldest son, Jonathan, left a job at McKinsey to become the CEO of International Medical Devices, as they called their family firm.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prominent urologists had long seen penile enlargement as the remit of cowboys and regarded Elist as such, insofar as they regarded him at all. As part of Penuma’s gentrification campaign, Elist got the FDA to explicitly clear his implant for the penile region in 2017, noting in his application that the “unique anatomy, physiology, and function of the penis does not increase the overall potential risks.” At conferences of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, his company also began to recruit “key opinion leaders,” as Jonathan put it, to advise the company and join its new board.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among the KOLs in the field of sexual medicine are those who install the highest number of prostheses to restore erectile function, typically in prostate cancer patients or in men with diabetes. So entrenched is this hierarchy that specialists to whom I spoke frequently rattled off their colleagues’ stats. “It’s all about who has the biggest whatever and who has the bigger numbers,” Faysal Yafi, the director of Men’s Health at the University of California, Irvine, and himself a high-volume implanter, explained.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist’s first big catch was Steven Wilson, formerly a professor of urology at the University of Arkansas, who, until his apparent unseating by Paul Perito, a spirited upstart in Miami, was feted as the highest volume implanter in the country. (“Our Tom Brady,” Yafi said of Wilson, admiringly.) Wilson, a paid consultant for Elist’s company, helped vet skilled surgeons around the country who could be trained to perform the Penuma procedure. “The cosmetic revolution of the flaccid penis,” Wilson said, is urology’s “last frontier.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the conference circuit, where the goals of the revolution were the subject of fervid debate, Penuma surgeons argued that urologists were at a crossroads. They could cede the augmentation market to quacks and overconfident plastic surgeons, or they could embrace their vocation as the so-called champions of the penis, and in their hygienic, well-lit clinics provide patients with what they’d been asking for and might otherwise find an unsafe way to secure. When the tabloids <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/penis-enlargement-death-billionaire-diamond-16905885">reported</a> in March 2019 that a Belgian Israeli billionaire had died on a Parisian operating table while getting an unknown substance injected into his penis, it seemed to prove their point. A month later, Laurence Levine, a past president of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America and a professor at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, successfully performed the first Penuma procedure outside Beverly Hills, kicking off the implant’s national expansion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soon afterward, the pandemic began fueling a boom in the male augmentation market — a development its pioneers attribute to an uptick in porn consumption, work-from-home policies that let patients recover in private and important refinements of technique. The fringe penoplasty fads of the ’90s — primitive fat injections, cadaver-skin grafts — had now been surpassed not just by implants but by injectable fillers. In Las Vegas, Ed Zimmerman, who trained as a family practitioner, is now known for his proprietary HapPenis injections; he saw a 69% jump in enhancement clients after rebranding himself in 2021 as TikTok’s “Dick Doc.” In Manhattan, the plastic surgeon David Shafer estimates that his signature SWAG shot — short for “Shafer Width and Girth” — accounts for half of his practice. The treatment starts at $10,000, doesn’t require general anesthesia and can be reversed with the injection of an enzyme. In Atlanta, Prometheus by Dr. Malik, a fillers clinic, has been fielding requests from private equity investors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Impotency.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=234565ceceefae5ed1f983f27008ae0a" />Elist’s first book, “Put Impotency In Your Past,” published in 1991</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a business that’s often reduced to a punchline, enhancement entrepreneurs are unusually vocal about the perceived or actual chicanery of their rivals, whom they see as posing a threat to their fledgling legitimacy. “What can we do to keep patients out of the hands of these charlatans?” Paul Perito, who developed a popular filler named UroFill, asked colleagues at a recent webinar attended by doctors across the world. He displayed a slide highlighting an ad by Victor Loria, an osteopath and erstwhile hair transplant specialist headquartered in Miami, whose permanent penile filler injections were on sale for $14,950. Loria’s concoction, mixed in-house, includes liquid silicone oil, which is typically used to refill damaged eyeballs. Perito described Loria’s methods as “practically criminal,” but Loria, who self-identifies as the highest volume permanent penile filler administrator in the nation, denies unethical conduct, defends the safety record of his product and told me that Perito and his “bandits” were just upset that he’d stepped into the urologists’ sandbox.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What the Penuma promised the urologists was effectively what it promised patients: the chance to make it even bigger. Even as costs soar, physician reimbursement rates from Medicare for complex operations have <a href="https://www.renalandurologynews.com/home/conference-highlights/annual-meeting-of-the-society-of-urologic-oncology/suo-2021/urologists-payments-from-medicare-have-shrunk/">declined</a>. Inserting an inflatable penile prosthesis to treat erectile dysfunction <a href="https://www.bostonscientific.com/content/dam/bostonscientific/Reimbursement/Urology/pdf/Prosthetic_Urology_Procedure_Coding_and_Payment_Guide.pdf">brings</a> a surgeon around $800. For the Penuma procedure, which is not covered by insurance, that same surgeon can pocket six times as much.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During a call in January 2020, four months after Mick’s Penuma surgery, Elist told him that the sensation in his penis would return in time. Having invested so much, financially and psychologically, in the implant, Mick felt grateful for the doctor’s assurances and tried to focus on his paintings, producing several large acrylic canvases in which forlorn human figures appeared to be tossed about by waves. But the numbness of his penis reminded him of having a limb fall asleep, indefinitely.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the paperwork Mick had initialed on the day of the surgery, a clause said, “The clinic highly discourages seeking information elsewhere as the information provided can be false, misleading, and inaccurate.” One day, though, Mick opened Google and searched “Elist,” “Penuma,” “numb.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“I was looking for people to tell me, ‘Oh, yeah, I waited three months, and now everything’s fine, I am very happy,’” he said. Those people were hard to find.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A truck driver whose device dug into his pubic bone told me that he felt like a “prisoner in my own body.” An executive at an adhesive company, who hid his newly bulging crotch behind a shopping bag when walking the dog, began to have nightmares in which he castrated himself. A sales specialist at an industrial supply store sent me his diary, which imagined Elist as its addressee. “I wish you would have told me I would lose erect length,” he wrote. “I wish you would have told me it could shift and pinch my urethra and make it difficult to urinate.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was tricky to bend over to tie the laces of winter boots, tricky to slip on a condom, tricky to sleep in a comfortable position, tricky to stretch, tricky to spoon. “It makes you look like you’re always semi-erect,” a health-spa vice president said of his Penuma. “I couldn’t let my kids sit on my lap. I couldn’t jump on the trampoline with them. I even felt like a pervert hugging my friends. And God forbid you get an actual erection, because then you have to run and hide it.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not everyone minded. Kaelan Strouse, a 35-year-old life coach, was thrilled by both the “restaurant-size pepper mill” between his legs and the kilts he began wearing to accommodate it. Richard Hague Jr., a 74-year-old pastor at a Baptist church in Niagara Falls, said his implant made him feel like “a wild stallion.” Contented customers told me they were feeling better about their bodies and having better sex, too. But even they acknowledged that getting a Penuma could require adjusting not just to a different appendage but to a different way of life. As one pleased Elist patient counseled others, “You have to treat your penis like a Rolex.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For dozens of Penuma patients who spoke to me, the shock of the new was the prelude to graver troubles. Some, like Mick, lost sensation. Others said they experienced stabbing pains in the shower or during sex. Seroma, or excess fluid, was not uncommon. When a defense-and- intelligence contractor’s girlfriend, a registered nurse, aspirated his seroma with a sterile needle, a cup of amber fluid oozed out. The one time they tried to have sex, she told me, the corners of his implant felt like “someone sticking a butter knife inside you.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some implants got infected or detached. Others buckled at the corners. Occasionally these protrusions broke through the skin, forming holes that would fester. The hole of the health-spa vice president was so tiny that he originally mistook its fermented odor for an STD. An engineer with gallows humor played me a video of the snorting crunch his penis made when air moved through a hole. He had two holes, and the skin between them eventually eroded so that a corner of the implant emerged, pearlescent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Elist-05.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1066&q=75&w=800&s=47de1ccf2b489aff56e5737bf3fd7c3c" />A Penuma removed from a patient</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Later, doctors unaffiliated with the Penuma would compare such penises to “a torpedo,” “a penguin,” “a pig in a blanket,” “a beer can with a mushroom sticking out on the top” and “the tipped-down nose of the Concorde.” But the imperturbable assistants at Elist’s clinic, besieged by photographs documenting these phenomena, told patients that they were “healing as expected” and “continuing to heal well!” It was only after months had passed and the men insisted they weren’t healing well at all that Elist would sometimes suggest that an “upgrade” to a bigger size would resolve their problems. (Elist said in a deposition that upgrades are “part of the process of the procedure,” noting that some patients “might need the upgrade with the larger implant or the longer implant, and that happens often.”) Faced with the prospect of more surgery, some men began, quietly, to seek other advice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The subculture of penile enhancement remains shrouded in stigma, because for a man to admit that he wants to be bigger suggests that he isn’t big enough. In February, the rapper 50 Cent <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/tracewilliamcowen/50-cent-settlement-shade-room-penis-enhancement-case">settled</a> his claims against the Shade Room, a gossip blog he’d sued for falsely insinuating that he’d had work done on his penis and subjecting him “to ridicule.” Only six of the 49 enlargement patients I spoke to agreed to have their last names printed, also fearing ridicule. In such a taboo and information-poor environment, anonymous testimonials can take on the authority of peer-reviewed journal articles.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist understood this dynamic. In addition to encouraging Bryan, the spokespenis, to post positive comments on My New Size, Elist tracked his own mentions on PhalloBoards and Thunder’s Place, other online forums for male enhancement, demanding that their moderators stop harboring “defamatory” statements. He offered a PhalloBoards user, after an abscess had formed, $5,000 for deleting his posts about the procedure and releasing the clinic from liability, according to a settlement agreement I reviewed. (Elist said through a spokesperson that the patient didn’t follow post-op advice, and that, while he was not able to respond to some of the accounts in this story because men had requested anonymity, complications were rare.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A sign in Elist’s waiting room instructed patients not to speak to one another about medical issues (the better to protect their privacy, Elist said through the spokesperson). But Elist could only do so much to disrupt the communities of unhappy men coalescing online. As Mick pored over hundreds of posts, he was horrified to discover that he had been acting out a well-worn script. The others had also read the GQ article about the Penuma, learned that the implant was “reversible” and, heartened by the FDA’s clearance, put down their deposit. They, too, felt that their consultations were rushed and that they hadn’t had enough time to review the cascade of consent forms they’d signed alerting them to potential complications.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Emmanuel Jackson, then 26, was a model who had grown up in foster homes outside of Boston. He won a free Penuma in a contest in 2013, as part of a marketing campaign involving the rapper Master P. According to a complaint by the Medical Board of California, Jackson said he was given scripted answers for a promotional video, which later appeared on Elist’s YouTube channel. (Elist’s spokesperson said Jackson volunteered his positive comments in the video, and Master P, who once featured Elist on his Playboy Radio show, said through his own spokesperson that he was not involved with any YouTube testimonials for the implant.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Elist-10.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=923a6944dfdbf26aeead3af81e662769" />Emmanuel Jackson’s Penuma fractured into pieces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jackson didn’t find the other men online until 2018, around the time a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic told him his implant had fractured into pieces that were floating under his skin. A young Iraq War veteran whom Jackson met through PhalloBoards warned him that having the implant out could be even worse than having it in. “He told me, ‘Manny, you’re going to lose your mind,’” Jackson recalled. “He was right.” Medical records show that, not long after the fragments were removed, Jackson attempted suicide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I’ve been threatened for saying the things I’m telling you,” Mark Solomon said when I visited him in his waiting room, in Los Angeles, this spring. A plastic surgeon with an elegant Roman nose and a crisp white lab coat over a brown cashmere sweater, he’d learned the techne of male enhancement in Vienna in the ’90s. But he never imagined that, one day, nearly half his male practice would involve fixing the handiwork of other practitioners. Now, as much as he liked to joke that the last thing Beverly Hills needed was another plastic surgeon, he was doing such brisk business repairing Penuma complications that he’d relocated his practice from Philadelphia to an office down the street from Elist’s clinic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the number of Penuma procedures increased, a cottage industry emerged to treat what Solomon describes as a new class of “penile cripples.” William Brant, a reconstructive urologist in Salt Lake City, who told me he sees about 10 Penuma patients a month, noted “the deep despair of men who can’t unring the bell.” Gordon Muir, a urologist in London, said that he’s been taking out Penumas “all the way across the bloody pond.” But other reconstructive surgeons asked to speak confidentially, because they were afraid of being sued. Solomon had received a cease and desist letter from Elist’s lawyers arguing that the mere mention of Penuma on his website infringed on the implant’s trademark. (Solomon now notes his expertise in treating complications from “penis enlargement implants” instead.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Elist-04.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=937b27af3ef8bfac42fbe101fad9631e" />Part of plastic surgeon Dr. Mark Solomon’s practice consists of repairing Penuma complications.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From his satchel, Solomon produced a couple of biohazard bags. One held two sheaths of silicone stitched together with a blue thread: an early edition of the Penuma that he’d removed from a patient. The other contained a modern Penuma, a single piece with a built-in crease. “Once this goes in, these men are never going to be the same again, because their penis is never the same again,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When a foreign object is placed in the body, the body reacts by forming an envelope of tissue around it. In the penis, a retractable organ, this new tissue can distort shape and mobility, causing the penis to shorten and curve. The disfigurement can be exacerbated if the Penuma is removed, Solomon explained, since the penis can contract to seal up the vacuum of space — a phenomenon that patients have called the “mini-dick” or “dicklet” phase.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To counteract retraction and scarring after removal, some men engage in an elaborate penile rehab regimen. Solomon directs his patients to wear a condom with a metal weight at its tip six hours a day. Other doctors who remove the device — explanters, in the parlance — prescribe RestoreX, a contraption whose painful clamp and extension rods its users compare to a medieval rack. These daily stretching routines are sometimes accompanied by further revision procedures, as well as by prescriptions for Viagra and antidepressants. The great irony — lost on few — was that, after getting surgery to stop thinking about their penises, these men were now thinking about their penises all the time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At conferences and in case reports, urologists across the country cautioned that, although they were seeing only the subset of patients unhappy enough to seek them out, the complications those patients presented (<a href="https://www.ijcasereportsandimages.com/archive/article-full-text/100014Z15KO2021">“significant penoscrotal edema,”</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jsm/article-abstract/18/Supplement_1/S80/7021346?redirectedFrom=fulltext">severe erectile dysfunction</a> “necessitating placement of an inflatable penile implant during removal”) could be “devastating” and “uncorrectable.” Penuma surgeons, meanwhile, were <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36198339/">collecting</a> their own <a href="https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04985123">data</a>, which showed that the complication rate was both low and comparable to that of other procedures. In the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30145095/">largest study to date</a>, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Elist’s clinic surveyed 400 of the 526 patients who’d received a Penuma between 2009 and 2014. Eighty-one percent of the subjects who responded to the questionnaire indicated “high” or “very high” levels of satisfaction. Other surgeons told me they wouldn’t be associated with Elist’s invention if most of their patients (some of whom, they added, were urologists themselves) weren’t similarly pleased. On his website, one of the Penuma doctors dismissed PhalloBoards as being populated by patients who ignored post-op instructions and said it was propped up by “opportunistic” competitors. (Solomon is among a dozen doctors who sponsor PhalloBoards.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist’s consent forms included a provision releasing the clinic from “any liability” if a patient receives post-op treatment elsewhere, but Mick, confused about whom to trust, online or off, decided to seek out a second professional opinion — and then a third, a fourth and a fifth. Some of the physicians he consulted were, as Elist had forewarned, baffled by the alien device. But Thomas Walsh, a reconstructive urologist and director of the Men’s Health Center at the University of Washington, was not. He was struck that Mick, like other Penuma patients, had the misapprehension that the device was easily “reversible,” as Elist and his network had advertised. “To fully consent to a procedure, the patient needs someone to tell him everything,” Walsh said. “He doesn’t need a salesman. The problem here is that you’ve got someone who is inventing and manufacturing and selling the device. That personal investment can create a tremendous conflict of interest.” (Elist, through his spokesperson, said his expertise with the device outweighs the conflict, which he freely discloses.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Walsh.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=5cf61e267ab5cb61af306287a2405c80" />Reconstructive urologist Dr. Thomas Walsh removed Mick’s Penuma.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before removing Mick’s implant, in May 2020, Walsh ordered an MRI, which suggested that the device was impinging on the nerves and arteries at the head of his penis. Walsh also sent Mick to a neurologist, who, after prodding Mick’s shaft with a sharp metal tool, declared the glans to have lost “total” sensation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was no guarantee it would return. The challenge of removing a Penuma, Walsh told Mick, can lie in the detachment of a rectangular piece of mesh from the tip of the penis. Mesh prompts the body to create scar tissue, which binds together everything in its vicinity; to help the implant adhere, Penuma doctors stitched some near the head, an area dense with arborized nerves and blood vessels. Despite carefully planning the explantation, Walsh found himself disconcerted in surgery by the sight of his patient’s erogenous zone ensnared by the patch of plastic. “I feel like it’s sacrilege, wrapping a man’s neurovascular bundle in mesh,” Walsh later said. “How would anyone want to do that?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It has been hypothesized that a longer penis confers an evolutionary edge in launching the reproductive payload into the vaginal canal. But, as the journalist David Friedman recounts in “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Mind-of-Its-Own/David-M-Friedman/9781439136089">A Mind of Its Own</a>,” a cultural history of the male sex organ, some primatologists who have seen male apes brandish their genitals during a fight have posited that its purpose, if any, is simpler: to impress and intimidate rivals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“They notice the penis of a brother or playmate, strikingly visible and of large proportions, at once recognize it as the superior counterpart of their own small and inconspicuous organ, and from that time forward fall a victim to envy for the penis,” Freud <a href="http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/rrushing/470j/ewExternalFiles/Freud.pdf">wrote</a> in 1925. He was referring to the “momentous discovery which little girls are destined to make” about their lack of a phallus, but his description more precisely captures the “penis envy” that some men told me they’d felt after catching a glimpse of the competition. As John Mulcahy, a clinical professor of urology at the University of Arizona, put it, “It’s more of a locker room thing than a bedroom thing.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yet, after biological explanations for impotence triumphed and urologists wrested the penis away from the psychoanalysts, they seemed to overlook the man and the society to which it was attached. Critics of male enhancement said they had no desire to body shame men in search of something extra, noting that women who get breast implants can do so without provoking a moral panic. But, especially in the case of men with an unrealistic self-image, the critics worried that doctors seemed too eager to pitch a risky surgical procedure for what is a cultural, and, in some instances, a psychiatric, phenomenon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What surgeons continually emphasized — the implanters with pride, the explanters with dismay — was that most of the men they were seeing had been of at least average size before going under the knife. (The photographic evidence men sent to me over text and email supported this contention.) “Most don’t have anything physically wrong with them at all, so what they don’t need is vultures preying on them, which is almost always a disaster,” Muir, the London urologist, said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Along with other urologists and psychiatrists, at King’s College and the University of Turin, Muir conducted <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31027932/">a literature review</a> called “Surgical and Nonsurgical Interventions in Normal Men Complaining of Small Penis Size.” The research showed that men dissatisfied with their penises respond well to educational counseling about the average size, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/how-big-average-penis">which is</a> 3.6 inches long when flaccid, and 5.2 inches erect. (The average girth is 3.5 inches flaccid, and 4.6 inches erect.) For men who have an excessive and distorted preoccupation with the appearance of their genitals — a form of body dysmorphic disorder — Muir said that cognitive behavioral therapy and medications may also be necessary.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Penuma surgeons told me they use educational videos, intake surveys and sexual-health therapists to make sure that the men they operate on have realistic expectations and to screen for those with body dysmorphia, though only a handful of the patients I spoke to recalled being referred to a therapist before their surgery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Model.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=a56c7eb00d1f9c76aba8f16bd557a4fd" />An anatomical model at the Men’s Health Center at the University of Washington</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shortly before the pandemic, Elist received a Google alert for “penile implant” and noticed something strange: a Houston urologist, Robert Cornell, had been issued a patent for the Augmenta, a device that bore an uncanny resemblance to his own. The previous year, Cornell had asked to learn about the Penuma “expeditiously,” saying that he saw a “real opportunity to expand the level of service” he offered to patients. Run Wang, a Penuma board member and a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, had cautioned Elist that Cornell could be a bit of a snake, according to Jonathan Elist. But father and son chalked up Wang’s warning to the machismo of the Texas urological market, and Elist invited Cornell to shadow him as he performed four Penuma procedures. Now, as Elist thumbed through Cornell’s patent, he was startled to see his future plans for the Penuma, which he said he recalled discussing with Cornell, incorporated into the Augmenta’s design.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In April 2020, Elist and his company sued Cornell, alleging that his visit to Beverly Hills was “a ruse” to steal trade secrets. Later that year, when Elist discovered that Wang was listed as the Augmenta CEO and had assisted the penile startup with its cadaver studies, Elist and his company added Wang as a party to the suit. (Cornell and Wang did not comment for this story, though Wang denied through his counsel that he’d called Cornell a snake and said in court filings that he’d been named CEO without his consent.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When deposed, Cornell said that he’d talked to Elist about marketing strategies, not proprietary specifics, and that his invention had been spurred by potential hazards he’d observed during the surgeries, particularly the use of mesh. As both teams began conscripting high-volume implanters as allies and expert witnesses, the fraternity of sexual medicine was sundered into warring camps. “This is a tiny smear of people, and they are fucking cutthroat,” one high-volume implanter told me of the intellectual property dispute. “It’s vicious because there’s so much money to make.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Augmenta’s team endeavored to put the safety record of the Penuma on trial, securing Elist’s confirmation in a deposition that 20% of the patients in his 2018 study had reported at least one adverse post-surgical event. Foster Johnson, one of the Augmenta attorneys, also tracked down some of the patients who’d posted horror stories online. In 2021, he reached out to Mick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A year had passed since Mick’s explant, and he’d entered a serious depression. He’d barely noticed when pandemic restrictions were lifted, because he’s continued to stay in his bed. Originally six and a half inches erect, he had lost an inch of length. Whenever he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he felt desperate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So did other post-removal patients. An FBI agent in his early 30s said that he was afraid he would never date again, let alone start a family, because his penis had shrunk to a stub. A Hollywood executive who’d undergone multiple surgeries with Elist told me, “It’s like he also snipped the possibility of intimacy away from me.” The defense-and-intelligence contractor, who’d traveled the country to consult six reconstructive surgeons, said he’d tucked a Glock in his waistband before one appointment, thinking he might kill himself if the doctor couldn’t help.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mick had come to believe that the only thing more humiliating than being a satisfied penile enhancement patient was being a dissatisfied one. Still, he tried to alert local news stations, the Better Business Bureau, the FBI, the district attorney, malpractice lawyers, the California medical board. No one returned his calls — “Who could blame them when it almost sounds like a joke?” — apart from an investigator with the medical board, who didn’t treat his distress as a laughing matter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither did Johnson, who decided to tip off a Houston-based firm that specializes in class-action complaints. Last year, a Texas man accused International Medical Devices of falsely advertising the Penuma as FDA cleared for “cosmetic enhancement” when it was, until recently, cleared only for cosmetic correction of soft-tissue deformities. Jonathan Elist called the lawsuit, which awaits class certification, meritless. “It’s not medical malpractice,” he said. “And it’s not a product-liability case, either, which is what one might expect from something like this.” His expectations proved prescient when, in March, a personal injury law firm in Ohio brought the first of what are now eight product-liability suits against the company. The lawsuits, all of which Elist’s spokesperson called “frivolous,” feature 10 John Does.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Every surgical revolution is bloody by definition. When I met Elist, earlier this year, he underscored how many taken-for-granted medical breakthroughs had emerged from tweaks and stepwise developments. The breast implant had been dogged by ruptures and leaks in its early days. Even the celebrated penile pump — the object around which the egos of many eminent urologists now orbit — had taken years to overcome high rates of removals. Two decades of innovation had led to the current Penuma procedure, he noted, and during that time nearly everything about it had improved, from the deployment of a drain to the placement of the incision. “This procedure is like any other procedure,” he told me. “It has its own evolution.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recently, the Penuma procedure evolved again. Elist had got rid of the vexing patch of mesh, and the company was shipping out a new model. He invited me to shadow him as he implanted it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first operation of the day complete, Elist was in a giddy, expansive mood. As his next patient was put under anesthesia, Elist sat behind an imposing desk in a borrowed office and spoke about his forthcoming book, a collection of parables for spiritually minded surgeons titled “Operating with God.” His ghostwriter had rendered his voice so skillfully, he said, that he’d found himself moved to tears while reading it. Beside a gilt statue of a jaguar in the corner of the room, someone had propped a mirror with an image of Jesus etched at its center. As Elist recounted passages from his book, his merry face, crowned by a hairnet, hovered next to Christ’s.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The surgery, which Elist said was supposed to take approximately 35 minutes, lasted twice as long. A surgical technician had covered the patient’s body in sheets until only his penis, gleaming beneath the overhead lamp, was visible. With a purple marker, Elist drew a dotted line close to where the scrotum met the shaft. A clamp pulled the skin taut, and he began to cut along the line. The scrotal skin gave easily, like something ripe, and a few seconds later, the man on the table let out a high-pitched sound.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To stop the bleeding, Elist applied a cautery pencil that beeped each time it singed the skin, giving off smoke and a whiff of burned flesh. Alternating between his cautery tool and a pair of scissors, he deepened the incision, centimeter by centimeter, revealing the chalky tissue below, until he approached the pubic bone. Then, in a stage known as “degloving,” he began to flip the penis inside out through the hole he’d created at its base. Wearing the marbled interior flesh around his fingers, he trimmed the soft tissue and cauterized a series of superficial blood vessels, speckling the interior of the shaft with dark dots. For a few moments, a quivering red sphere popped up like a jellyfish surfacing at sea — an inverted testicle, he explained.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A nurse unwrapped an Extra Large implant from its box and handed it to Elist, who used curved scissors to smooth its top corners. With a hook-shaped needle, he began to sew the implant into the inverted penis, and he asked his surgical tech to tie a “double lateral” knot. He barked the word “lateral” several times and sighed. “She’s never seen this procedure,” he told me. When he asked for wet gauze a few minutes later, she handed him a piece they’d discarded. “You know that it’s dirty,” he reprimanded her in Farsi. “It was on the skin. And you bring it for me?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I recalled that Zimmerman, the “Dick Doc” of Las Vegas, had compared his own visit to Elist’s operating theater to being “in the presence of a master conductor who can bring the whole orchestra together.” But as Elist chided his tech for being “a troublemaker” — she’d handed him the wrong size of sutures, an unnecessary needle, the wrong end of the drain, the wrong kind of scissors — it felt like watching the stumble-through of a student ensemble.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist cauterized more tissue by the pubic bone to make sure the implant would fit there, and at this the patient’s breaths rose into a moan. Elist regloved the penis with the Penuma tucked under its skin. Too long, he decided. He slid the implant out part way and snipped a bit off the bottom. Pushing it into the shaft, he wagged it back and forth. “OK,” he said. It was done. The patient, who had arrived that morning average sized — four inches in length by four inches in girth — was now six by five. Later, through his spokesperson, Elist would say that the patient’s outcome was excellent. In the room, talk turned to preparing the table for the next man.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Office.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=2af173ccab494ea4d9086bfb1e53c209" />The office building in Beverly Hills where Elist’s clinic is located</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist has always been keen to distance himself from other purveyors of controversial penile enhancement techniques — “gimmick” surgeons, he has called them. At one point during our conversations, which were punctuated by lively digressions, he said that some of his unscrupulous rivals reminded him of Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who conducted lethal experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. “How do you allow yourself to put something on the patient’s body that you know gets infected?” he asked, as though addressing them directly. Sections of his <a href="https://www.drelist.com/patient-education/myths-and-facts/dermal-fat-grafting/">website</a> and of a book he self-published in 2015, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Size-Always-Wanted-Could-ebook/dp/B011543KW4">A Matter of Size</a>,” are devoted to chronicling the macabre complications that can result from skin grafts and fat injections to the penis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When I reviewed old files in an underground archive for the Los Angeles County courts, however, I saw that, a decade before the Penuma came into being, Elist had been part of a coterie of LA surgeons promoting the very methods he now decried, with coverage in Hustler, Penthouse, Penis Power Quarterly and local newspapers like the Korea Central Daily and the Korea Times. One ad, in Korean, for the surgery center where Elist operated sounded a familiar note, promising a “life changing” procedure with no complications and “guaranteed results,” performed by “the Highest Authority in Urology in Beverly Hills,” “approved by the state government” and “authorized by the FDA.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At least 23 malpractice lawsuits have been filed against Elist in Los Angeles since 1993. (He has also been named as a defendant in product liability lawsuits regarding inflatable penile prosthesis brought by plaintiffs Dick Glass and Semen Brodsky.) The dockets indicate that some of the complaints were settled confidentially out of court, a few were dismissed and in one of two trials a jury ruled in Elist’s favor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not unusual for a doctor practicing for more than 40 years to be accused of malpractice, and it is not unusual, either, for patients to be self-serving in their recollections of informed consent, but as I scrolled through the microfilm I was surprised to see how many of Elist’s past patients — who’d received cosmetic surgeries, medical procedures or both — described the same MO. Three men alleged that they’d been asked to sign consent forms after being injected with Demerol, a fast-acting narcotic. A number of foreign-born patients seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction alleged that they were given forms in English, which they couldn’t read, and some of those same patients, who said they’d thought they were undergoing a vein-cleaning procedure, alleged that they awoke from surgery to find themselves implanted with a penile prosthesis for erectile dysfunction. Multiple patients who said they’d turned to Elist for a functional issue alleged that they’d been upsold enhancement procedures that resulted in their disfigurement. Ronald Duette, a 65-year-old property manager and auto detailer who filed a malpractice case in 2021, told me that a consultant at Elist’s clinic had encouraged him to get the Penuma by reassuring him that Elist had one himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist’s spokesperson told me that Duette’s allegations and the claims in the other lawsuits are false; that Elist does not have a Penuma; and that Elist is a gifted, responsive and exacting surgeon, supported by conscientious employees, who does not rush his patients and performs additional surgery only when medically appropriate. The spokesperson said Elist was not aware of any patients suffering extreme dissatisfaction or sleeplessness or mental health crises as a result of Penuma surgery, and noted that complications were more likely when patients failed to comply with post-op instructions. The spokesperson disputed some particulars of Mick’s account (Mick waived his medical privacy rights so that Elist could discuss his records) and said this article “cherry-picks and sensationalizes” outlier cases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist told me that what his critics failed to grasp, whether by dint of envy or closed mindedness, was that for every dissatisfied customer there were many more whose lives had improved immeasurably. Nobody hears about the happy implantees, he said, because “unfortunately people are not willing to come out and talk about penile enlargement.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All nine deeply satisfied Penuma patients I spoke to, several on the recommendation of Elist and his associates, said they would do it again. “I can give someone pleasure and see it in their eyes,” an industrial designer said. “That’s the part that makes me almost cry.” But hearing some of their stories I found myself wondering whether the difference between happy and unhappy customers was less a matter of experience than of its interpretation. Two men said they’d needed a second surgery to replace their implants when complications arose, and one continued to volunteer as a patient advocate even though he’d had his Extra Extra Large removed. He explained: “It was very uncomfortable for my wife. She was getting microtears and was considering getting a procedure done to enlarge that opening.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elist emphasized to me that “the best advantage of Penuma over any other procedure” was how easy it was to remove. He said that some patients even gained length upon removal. Last year, Penuma’s monthly newsletter, “Inching Towards Greatness,” featured the YouTube testimonial of a man who, after his removal, said that the procedure had still been “worth every cent.” This patient — who described his Penuma to me as a “life-ruiner” — said that he’d been under the influence of drugs the clinic had prescribed at the time. Elist, through his spokesperson, declined to comment on the matter; the video is no longer available.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In April, Mick received a letter from the office of California’s attorney general, notifying him of a hearing this October on Elist’s conduct. Since Mick had filed his complaint, the California <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23860738-cal-med-bd-accusation?responsive=1&title=1">medical board had investigated</a> the surgeon’s treatment of 10 other Penuma patients, including the contest winner Emmanuel Jackson and other men I interviewed. Alleging gross negligence and incompetence, the board accused Elist of, among other lapses, recommending that patients treat what appeared to be post-op infections with Neosporin, aloe vera and a bloodflow ointment; asking them to remove their own sutures; and deterring them from seeking outside medical care. Elist said through his attorney that innovative procedures like his are routinely reviewed by regulators; that many specifics in the complaint are false; and that a previous medical board complaint against him was resolved in 2019, when he agreed to improve his recordkeeping.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reading the letter from the attorney general’s office dredged up “dark thoughts from the ditch where I’d been burying them,” Mick said. In the three years since his Penuma removal, he estimates that he’s regained about 80% of the sensation in his penis, but his anger and sense of powerlessness have remained. In one of his last emails to Elist’s office, he wrote that he’d felt like “a testing mouse.” Given a recent expansion of Elist’s empire, the possibility that the surgeon might be censured, fined or lose his license now seemed to Mick beside the point. “They should have cut down the tree before it grew,” he said. “It’s too big now.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/202306-Elist-06.JPG?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fm=webp&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=600&q=75&w=800&s=e6509bbc1d8c2924e5f3c5d017e9cfe2" />The Medical Board of California is investigating Elist’s treatment of Mick and 10 other Penuma patients. A hearing is scheduled for October.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Times Square, a billboard recently appeared: “MANHOOD REDEFINED,” it said, beside the URL for the Penuma website. A few weeks after Elist and his lawyer were served by the office of the California attorney general, Elist was traveling on the East Coast, training new recruits to his network. He has also been pitching interested parties in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and South Korea, the world capital for cosmetic surgery. Colombia was already a go. “The Penuma is going to be the only procedure that surgeons not just in the United States but worldwide are going to accept,” Elist told me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In June, his company <a href="https://filmdaily.co/lifestyle/why-penumas-latest-male-enhancement-procedure-should-get-everyone-excited/">rebranded</a> the updated Penuma as the Himplant, and the Augmenta trial unfolded in a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Elist testified with brio about his victimization at the hands of Cornell, who’d violated “the sanctuary” of his operating theater; the judge ruled with Penuma’s attorneys that the negative experiences of patients like Mick were irrelevant to the question of theft at hand. On June 16, the jury returned a verdict in Elist’s favor and invalidated Cornell’s patents.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not long ago, I met Bryan, Elist’s former penis model, at a coffee shop in Orange County. He had undergone multiple surgeries with Elist, with two different iterations of the implant. He said he’d experienced complications and, in 2011, he’d had his second implant removed. The following year, Bryan ended up flying to Philadelphia for the first in a series of revision and enhancement procedures with Solomon, whom he’d learned about on PhalloBoards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This spring, he was released from prison, where he’d served time for participating in a car theft ring that a prosecutor described as highly sophisticated and that Bryan described to me as a matter of “incorrectly filled-out paperwork.” When he returned home, he got back into the enlargement scene. He now works as a paid patient advocate for Solomon — a role that involves fielding inquiries from men struggling with the fallout from unsatisfactory operations. The week before we met, Bryan had spent hours on the phone with Kevin (his middle name), an aspiring actor. Kevin said that he had undergone five surgeries with Elist, including two upgrades, a revision and a removal, and his penis no longer functioned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, Kevin had always found the surgeon to be caring, if a little preoccupied. “He reminded me of Doctor Frankenstein — the intensity of him wanting this thing to come to life,” Kevin told me. It sounded strange, he acknowledged, but before each operation he’d been filled with excitement. “You just feel relieved that you’re fixing something,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At an appointment earlier this year, Kevin said, Elist promised to fix him again with a sixth procedure, but one of the surgeon’s assistants discreetly advised against it. Kevin thought he could spot “the other experiments” in the clinic from their loose-fitting sweatpants and the awkward way they walked. There were so many men waiting to see the doctor that they spilled into the hallway.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ava Kofman</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kirsten Berg contributed research.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-68380527171730137182023-07-01T05:08:00.001+02:002023-07-01T05:08:13.317+02:00National Geographic lays off its last remaining staff writers & photographers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfPAhQa85Nm2LoKTarUShEMSG4KLwKotwYiH8A17XEBFy5WN70gL0F2k0zB7eL0DG36oPEhh5R8Sp_pgK2YE0McsIHdEj7wDNgLdxxAzwZkO6z9OV5jkhUS0RqAE50E8DLvtgOFfEgoRqaG6U7eRWLyo8KGU3IHDGAoRC87Hh8W4x4VXtzDOgfJ2PFGeU/s1280/national-geographic-removal-netflix-2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfPAhQa85Nm2LoKTarUShEMSG4KLwKotwYiH8A17XEBFy5WN70gL0F2k0zB7eL0DG36oPEhh5R8Sp_pgK2YE0McsIHdEj7wDNgLdxxAzwZkO6z9OV5jkhUS0RqAE50E8DLvtgOFfEgoRqaG6U7eRWLyo8KGU3IHDGAoRC87Hh8W4x4VXtzDOgfJ2PFGeU/s16000/national-geographic-removal-netflix-2019.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magazine, which remains among the most read in the U.S., has struggled in the digital era to command the kind of resources that fueled the deep reporting it became known for.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like one of the endangered species whose impending extinction it has chronicled, National Geographic magazine has been on a relentlessly downward path, struggling for vibrancy in an increasingly unforgiving ecosystem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Wednesday, the Washington-based magazine that has surveyed science and the natural world for 135 years reached another difficult passage when it laid off all of its last remaining staff writers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cutback — the latest in a series under owner Walt Disney Co. — involves some 19 editorial staffers in all, who were notified in April that these terminations were coming. Article assignments will henceforth be contracted out to freelancers or pieced together by editors. The cuts also eliminated the magazine’s small audio department.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The layoffs were the second over the past nine months, and the fourth since a series of ownership changes began in 2015. In September, Disney removed six top editors in an extraordinary reorganization of the magazine’s editorial operations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Departing staffers said Wednesday the magazine has curtailed photo contracts that enabled photographers to spend months in the field producing the publication’s iconic images.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a further cost-cutting move, copies of the famous bright-yellow-bordered print publication will no longer be sold on newsstands in the United States starting next year, the company said in an internal announcement last month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>National Geographic writer Craig Welch noted the moment in a tweet on Wednesday: “My new National Geographic just arrived, which includes my latest feature — my 16th, and my last as a senior writer. … I’ve been so lucky. I got to work w/incredible journalists and tell important, global stories. It’s been an honor.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magazine’s current trajectory has been years in the making, set in motion primarily by the epochal decline of print and ascent of digital news and information. In the light-speed world of digital media, National Geographic has remained an almost artisanal product — a monthly magazine whose photos, graphics and articles were sometimes the result of months of research and reporting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At its peak in the late 1980s, National Geographic reached 12 million subscribers in the United States, and millions more overseas. Many of its devotees so savored its illumination of other worlds — space, the depths of the ocean, little-seen parts of the planet — that they stacked old issues into piles that cluttered attics and basements.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It remains among the most widely read magazines in America, at a time when magazines are no longer widely read. At the end of 2022, it had <a href="https://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/ecirc/magtitlesearch.asp">just under 1.8 million subscribers, </a>according to the authoritative Alliance for Audited Media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">National Geographic was launched by Washington’s National Geographic Society, a foundation formed by 33 academics, scientists and would-be adventurers, including Alexander Graham Bell. The magazine was initially sold to the public as a perk for joining the society. It grew into a stand-alone publication slowly but steadily, reaching 1 million subscribers by the 1930s.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magazine was eventually surpassed for profits and attention by the society’s video operations, including its flagship National Geographic cable channel and Nat Geo Wild, a channel focused on animals. While they produced documentaries equal in quality to the magazine’s rigorous reporting, the channels — managed by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox — also aired pseudoscientific entertainment programming about UFOs and reality series like “Sharks vs. Tunas” at odds with the society’s original high-minded vision.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The magazine’s place of honor continued to dim through a series of corporate reshufflings that began in 2015 when the Society agreed to form a for-profit partnership with 21st Century Fox, which took majority control in exchange for $725 million. The partnership came under the Disney banner in 2019 as part of a massive $71 billion deal between Fox and Disney.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among those who lost their jobs in the latest layoff was Debra Adams Simmons, who only last September was promoted to vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion at National Geographic Media, the entity that oversees the magazine and website.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the time, David Miller, executive vice president of National Geographic Media, said the magazine was “realigning key departments to help deepen engagement with our readers while also nurturing existing business models and developing new lines of revenue.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In an email to The Post on Wednesday, National Geographic spokesperson Chris Albert said staffing changes will not affect the company’s plans to continue publishing a monthly magazine “but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Paul Farhi / WP</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-23178320664653247432023-06-23T05:09:00.007+02:002023-06-23T05:09:53.912+02:00Boeing, UW and NASA deny design partnerships with OceanGate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigd0yTauxQJX-4aO1ZqU24vfekavoHJs1RAJdvpSdTVltk9mAIOpnv_ZzNB3dZdr9t2c0UIvvZaZ2xtwNOYBriBdYv-LC3At56NIYlXPipwYi9N3khbDBYB1Gal9nqWNZLLuFBKyVbT9LDKgembwpnFeKQTuRGnGcQ9M6NETols7spq261hkWVwXj-mo/s1200/33087560_web1_L1-OceangateTitan-EBJ-180312-1200x822.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhigd0yTauxQJX-4aO1ZqU24vfekavoHJs1RAJdvpSdTVltk9mAIOpnv_ZzNB3dZdr9t2c0UIvvZaZ2xtwNOYBriBdYv-LC3At56NIYlXPipwYi9N3khbDBYB1Gal9nqWNZLLuFBKyVbT9LDKgembwpnFeKQTuRGnGcQ9M6NETols7spq261hkWVwXj-mo/s16000/33087560_web1_L1-OceangateTitan-EBJ-180312-1200x822.jpg" /></a></div><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13.6px;">Stockton Rush, OceanGate CEO, in front of Titan, on Monday, March 12, 2018 in Everett, Washington.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13.6px;">(Andy Bronson / The Herald)</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">WSU Everett and Everett Community College severed ties with company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate claimed it drew on the expertise of some of the nation’s high-powered corporations, universities and federal agencies to design and build Titan, the five-person sub whose pilot and passengers perished this week en route to the wreck of the Titanic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deep sea exploration company has described The Boeing Co., the University of Washington, and NASA as “partners” who made significant contributions to the vessel’s design and construction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We partnered with aerospace experts at the University of Washington, NASA and Boeing on the design of our hull,” a promotional video on OceanGate’s YouTube channel advertises. The moderator’s statement is accompanied by a screen covered in the logos for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi60tvRwRlE">Boeing, NASA and the UW.</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>This week, all three entities — Boeing, NASA and UW — denied participating in the sub’s design or construction.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Their denials have raised questions as to whether OceanGate overstated, misrepresented or exaggerated the role they played, if any, in developing the experimental vessel designed to take high-paying customers to the Titanic wreckage. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard said the vessel suffered a catastrophic imposion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Such claims might have led tourists to believe the sub was more thoroughly vetted than it actually was despite OceanGate’s description of the sub as an experimental craft.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate said it drew upon Boeing’s expertise to design the vessel’s hull, consulting with the airplane manufacturer in designing Titan’s unique carbon fiber and titanium hull. Other small submersibles are typically built from a heavier combination of steel and titanium, Oceangate said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“This is the only submersible — crewed submersible — that’s made of carbon fiber and titanium,” OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush told The Associated Press in June 2021. Rush called it the “largest carbon fiber structure that we know of, with 5-inch-thick carbon fiber and 3.25-inch-thick titanium.” The chief executive was one of the five passengers who died after the Titan went missing Sunday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a statement Thursday to The Daily Herald, the aerospace giant denied a partnership with the company.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it,” the company said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Boeing may have consulted with OceanGate, but it’s not clear what that involved<a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/10/08/uw-local-company-building-innovative-deep-sea-manned-submarine/">,</a><a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/10/08/uw-local-company-building-innovative-deep-sea-manned-submarine/"> according to a 2013 UW news release.</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The Boeing Company worked with OceanGate and the UW on initial design analysis of the 7-inch-thick pressure vessel,” the release read.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/10/08/uw-local-company-building-innovative-deep-sea-manned-submarine/">In a clarification added to the 2013 news release on Wednesday</a>, the UW said, “the vessel that resulted from this partnership was a steel-hulled submersible that can <a href="https://www.heraldnet.com/travel/">travel</a> to 500 meters ( 0.3 miles) depth, named the Cyclops 1.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate refers to Titan as its “second Cyclops-class submersible.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Denials of involvement in the sub’s design have also been issued by NASA and the University of Washington.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/06/nasa-expresses-concern-for-missing-titan-submersible-says-it-consulted-but-didnt-build-craft.h">The space agency told an Alabama news outlet</a> this week that it consulted with OceanGate but “did not conduct testing and manufacturing (of the submersible) via its workforce or facilities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory also issued a disclaimer this week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/10/08/uw-local-company-building-innovative-deep-sea-manned-submarine/">A 2013 university news release announced</a> a joint effort by OceanGate and the physics lab.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a statement to The Herald on Thursday, the UW said,“The physics lab initially signed a $5 million research collaborative agreement with OceanGate, but only $650,000 worth of work was completed before the two organizations parted ways.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“That collaboration resulted in a steel-hulled vessel, named the Cyclops 1, that can travel to 500 meters depth, which is far shallower than the depths that OceanGate’s Titan submersible traveled to. The Laboratory was not involved in the design, engineering or testing of the Titan submersible used in the RMS Titanic expedition,” the UW said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 2015 and 2021, OceanGate used the UW School of Oceanography’s testing tanks for nine tests “on a contract basis,” the UW said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate was listed as the client, but no UW researchers or staff provided “any verification or validation of any OceanGate equipment as a result of those tests,” the UW said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate also partnered with Washington State University Everett and Everett Community College in offering internships to students and graduates.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A <a href="https://news.wsu.edu/news/2018/02/21/a-new-generation-of-titanic-exploration/">2018 WSU Everett news release</a> offered an exuberant account of student involvement in designing the sub.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“When a five-person submersible descends to the floor of the North Atlantic this summer, part of a historic series of private excursions to map the famed RMS Titanic’s wreckage in 3-D imagery, it will be WSU Everett students that helped make it possible,”<a href="https://news.wsu.edu/news/2018/02/21/a-new-generation-of-titanic-exploration/"> a 2018 news release</a> from the college said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The release says that the sub’s entire electrical system was designed by WSU Everett students.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The whole electrical system – that was our design, we implemented it and it works,” Mark Walsh, a 2017 WSU Everett graduate in electrical engineering, said in the release. “We are on the precipice of making history and all of our systems are going down to the Titanic. It is an awesome feeling!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2017, OceanGate hired Walsh to lead the company’s electrical engineering. According to his LinkedIn profile, he left the ocean adventure company in 2019.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Thursday, WSU Everett offered this statement to The Daily Herald:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“WSU Everett does not have an alliance with OceanGate,” the statement reads. “We are aware that some of our graduates have worked at OceanGate. To our knowledge, one graduate currently works there. We are not privy to what OceanGate projects WSU Everett alumni have been involved in or what their roles may have been outside of publicly available information.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OceanGate’s ties to WSU Everett and Everett Community College began after the company moved to Everett in 2015.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Founded in Seattle in 2009, OceanGate leased warehouse space at the Port of Everett in 2015. There the company planned to develop and build a “fleet of manned next-generation submersibles,” and conduct sea trials.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Everett Community College’s Ocean Research College Academy, located at the port, helped students obtain internships at OceanGate, said Ardi Kveven, the academy’s founder and executive director.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, those internships were discontinued four years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kveven said there was often a disconnect between the exploration community, which embraced pushing the envelope, and the more methodical scientific community.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Puffery is allowed</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attorney Sherif Edmond El Dabe, a partner with Los Angeles-based <a href="http://ec2-100-20-220-134.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/x/d?c=32769206&l=10e62d73-add9-4d38-a2d2-bb1be7173111&r=f2060921-c01a-4812-b31a-3daaa45e0918">El Dabe Ritter Trial Lawyers</a>, said OceanGate CEO Rush specifically sought to hire younger people.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Based on Rush’s on-the-record comments,“He wanted a team partly based on who would do things in a new way due to their youth and optimism,” El Dabe told The Herald on Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Was the team ignorant of certain safety concerns or design flaws that an older, experienced engineer would have headed off?” El Dabe asked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That’s unknown.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The news comes as the company announced Thursday that all five passengers had perished in the Titan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” OceanGate said in a statement Thursday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans. Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew,” the company said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With their deaths, the families of the passengers may launch a legal challenge against OceanGate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But obstacles loom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Everyone on board knew this wasn’t a vacation or a sightseeing trip, and the disclaimer appears to have made the risk of death very clear multiple times,” El Dabe said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a result, the likelihood of a successful lawsuit against OceanGate “is close to zero,” El Dabe said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, what passengers didn’t know when they signed up for the trip might be relevant in a lawsuit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The waiver could be challenged if it’s found that OceanGate was negligent in the way the submersible was designed or operated, “and that caused it to be lost,” El Dabe said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, exaggeration or overstatement may not count.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If OceanGate merely exaggerated or overstated its ties to NASA, Boeing and the UW — the determination could be much murkier.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The law does allow for some amount of puffery or exaggeration in marketing materials,” El Dabe said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If OceanGate worked with Boeing in some capacity, “but Boeing didn’t have an actual hand in the design and construction,” that type of statement would not invalidate the waiver, he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, if the waiver, for example touted the sub as rated for 13,000 feet but it’s actually rated for 5,000 feet — that would be fraud, El Dabe said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Statements by Rush and <a href="https://www.heraldnet.com/news/former-oceangate-employee-raised-safety-issues-about-missing-submersible/">a 2018 lawsuit by a former employee claiming the OceanGate ignored safety issue</a>s are also likely to be taken into account, the attorney said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Janice Podsada</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-78416062158927358522023-06-14T03:59:00.003+02:002023-06-14T04:02:49.003+02:00The ultimate insider view of The Beatles and Beatlemania<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-czBjdPEs4J6QeAhiCxUztV8Mos6CItNKppTQil0MIEipGA1HXM9WuWKXziGEhEcdhDuHeAEsfQW55w_oQjsthMvjujbB_tyZ8GuMxlDDaEsqoZOJ_xwsfLyu0BX8HhmRDbjNN3azIPjcd9ilwtSfSAJJtJgPKfNLjGwdFS7hAHQFXBx97H0U7Tr/s1600/p0ftyq09.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-czBjdPEs4J6QeAhiCxUztV8Mos6CItNKppTQil0MIEipGA1HXM9WuWKXziGEhEcdhDuHeAEsfQW55w_oQjsthMvjujbB_tyZ8GuMxlDDaEsqoZOJ_xwsfLyu0BX8HhmRDbjNN3azIPjcd9ilwtSfSAJJtJgPKfNLjGwdFS7hAHQFXBx97H0U7Tr/s16000/p0ftyq09.webp" /></a></div><br />In 1964, on the band’s first world tour, Paul McCartney took pictures that have only recently been discovered. What do they show us?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On November 4, 1963, the Beatles played at the Prince of Wales Theatre, in London, exuberant, exhausted, and defiant. “For our last number, I’d like to ask your help,” John Lennon cried out to the crowd. “Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry.” Two weeks later, the band made their first appearance on American television, on NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report.” “The hottest musical group in Great Britain today is the Beatles,” the reporter Edwin Newman said. “That’s not a collection of insects but a quartet of young men with pudding-bowl haircuts.” And, four days after that, “CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace” broadcast a four-minute report from “Beatleland,” by the London correspondent Alexander Kendrick. “The Beatles are said by sociologists to have a deeper meaning,” Kendrick reported. “Some say they are the authentic voice of the proletariat.” Everyone searched for that deeper meaning. The Beatles found it hard to take the search seriously.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“What has occurred to you as to why you’ve succeeded?” Kendrick asked Paul McCartney.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“Oh, I dunno,” he answered. “The haircuts?”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kendrick’s report had been set to air again that night, on “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.” The rerun was cancelled. The sixties started in 1964, observers like to say, and 1964 started that afternoon, November 22, 1963, when Cronkite broke into “As the World Turns.” “In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade,” Cronkite said, his voice grave and urgent. You couldn’t see Cronkite; the news had just come in on the wire service, and onscreen was a slide that read, “cbs news bulletin.” Minutes later, with the cameras finally on, Cronkite appeared in shirtsleeves, spruce but shaken. “If you can zoom in with that camera, we can get a closer look at this picture,” he told a cameraman, holding up a photograph of the motorcade taken moments before the shooting. At 2:38 p.m., Cronkite looked up at the clock, and announced that the President had died.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We were backstage somewhere on a little tour in England when we heard the news,” McCartney told me last year. We were in his office in New York; McCartney, eighty, wore jeans and a pullover, slouching in his chair like a teen-ager. More pensive than wistful, he remembered that day, how it was surreal, unreal, but, then, everything about that year was surreal. Two days after Kennedy was killed, Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television. In 1964, you could hold your camera up to the world. But what madness—what beauty, joy, and fury—would you capture?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1964, the Beatles became the first truly global mass-culture phenomenon. As the historian Sam Lebovic has pointed out, they’d been shaped by a wide, wide world. They wore Italian suits and Cuban-heeled boots and French haircuts popular with German students. They played nineteen-twenties British music-hall music, and rhythm and blues, and Black roots music from the banks of the Mississippi and the streets of Detroit. It’s even in the name: “the Beatles” is a mashup of the name of Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, and the Beat poets, a label that came from Black slang. Beatles records played on radio stations from Tokyo to Johannesburg. By the time they broke out, the sun had set on the British Empire, but the age of globalization had begun. And something more, too, was catching fire: an unsettling, an upheaval, revolutionary. Time, writing about the Beatles, called it “the New Madness.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Partly it was the magnificent irreverence, the affectionate cheekiness, the surprisingly soft sexiness. The band’s interviews became a signature, four very clever young men batting back reporters’ endlessly idiotic questions, a patter only barely fictionalized in the 1964 film “A Hard Day’s Night”:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reporter: Tell me, how did you find America?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>lennon: Turn left at Greenland.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reporter: Has success changed your life?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>mccartney: Yes.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reporter: What would you call that hair style you’re wearing?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>harrison: Arthur.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Asked, preposterously, to explain their own significance, they made fun of the question. Still, McCartney tried to capture some of that New Madness through the lens of a camera. In 1963, each of the Beatles had been given a Pentax. It helped them cope with the stress of being photographed constantly, and with the worry that they were about to travel to a country where they expected, like Kennedy himself, to be greeted by frenzied crowds and hordes of photographers and exposed to possible gunmen. From 1963 to early 1964, McCartney shot dozens of rolls of film, as the band travelled from Liverpool and London and Paris to New York, Washington, and Miami. Somehow, hundreds of his photographs were saved, and then rediscovered, in 2020, in his archives. The images, which will soon be the subject of an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, in London, are a glimpse of Beatleland from the inside. Everyone was looking at the band in 1964. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>What did the Beatles see?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Everyone was looking at the band in 1964. What did the Beatles see?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/647fa9a87a8d12e07358c6cf/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/P1964Z_13.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The marquee at the Olympia Theatre.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/647fa9a4ac45771b0f6fe6c7/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/P1964-2-8_DS.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">George Harrison wearing two hats.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The New Madness started in Liverpool, where Lennon and McCartney had been playing together since 1957. “We were from the North of England, which was nowhere to a lot of people,” McCartney said. The dark and gritty, war-wearied, working-class North had lately become the subject of a certain fascination. “Coronation Street,” a kitchen-sink soap opera set in Manchester, had débuted, in 1960. But the Beatles became the embodiment of the North, the sound of it. It wasn’t just their music or their accents; it was their wit, which was a little Flanders and Swann, a little “Goon Show,” and a lot Liverpool.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>reporter: Why do you wear all those rings on your fingers?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>starr: Because I can’t get them through my nose.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By 1963, the New York Times was reporting on a development in the U.K. that had been dubbed “Beatlemania”: writhing crowds of young people screaming, shrieking, bursting, blooming, and wilting, like fields of flowers. “By comparison, Elvis Presley is an Edwardian tenor of considerable diffidence,” the reporter Frederick Lewis wrote. The Beatles could claim to be “spokesmen for the new, noisy, anti-Establishment generation.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the "final Beatles record" is announced, unseen photos of the band are revealed, chronicling an extraordinary time, as witnessed through the eyes of one man at the heart of it, Paul McCartney, writes Deborah Nicholls-Lee.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the 60s, youth culture exploded, spawning pop music, short hemlines and screaming fans. One witness saw this exciting time closer up than almost anyone else. "Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget for the rest of my life," he recalls. Sir Paul McCartney was centre stage in some of the most iconic images of the era, as Beatlemania gripped Britain and beyond. Until now, the period described by McCartney as "bedlam", "pandemonium" and "mass hysteria" has largely been recorded from the outside looking in. But what did McCartney see as he looked out?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, a new exhibition, <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/paul-mccartney-photographs-1963%E2%80%9364-eyes-of-the-storm/">Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm</a> at London's newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, and a new book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453946/1964-eyes-of-the-storm-by-mccartney-paul/9780241619711">1964: Eyes of the Storm</a>, feature more than 200 images taken by McCartney, rediscovered by the singer-songwriter in his production company archives in 2020. The images track his time in The Beatles from 1963 to 1964 when the band were taking off, moving from the dingy picture houses of their home city of Liverpool, to the capital cities of London and Paris, and culminating in their electrifying debut in the US, which took place in New York, Washington DC and Miami.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/720x900/p0fty9rc.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Included in the remarkable collection of photos are several self-portraits (Credit: Paul McCartney)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Younger Beatles fans, who missed the fun and furore the first time round, can soon experience the launch of what McCartney described to BBC Radio 4 yesterday as "the final Beatles record", created thanks to AI technology extracting John Lennon's voice from an unused track on an old demo tape. With The Beatles enjoying a resurgence on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, the unnamed song, to be released later this year, will delight a flourishing fan base of Gen Z enthusiasts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We know that the band's frenzied fans have always been enthralled by the four young men, but McCartney's photos show this fascination to be mutual. As well as off-guard moments of the band relaxing between gigs, they include snaps of the crowds they attracted, taken from a rear windscreen or hotel window − unseen images chronicling an extraordinary time as witnessed through the eyes of one man at the heart of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eyes of the Storm takes its name from the eyes that were everywhere. "Who is looking at who?" writes McCartney in the book's foreword. "The camera always seems to be shifting, with me photographing them, the press photographing us, and those thousands and thousands of people out there wanting to capture this storm."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>It's about Paul and the experience that he was having with his friends, who happened to be The Beatles – Rosie Broadley</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Photography is to play a greater part in the refurbished National Portrait Gallery, which launches with two major photography exhibitions, starting on 22 June with Yevonde's colour photographs of the 1930s, and followed by Eyes of the Storm on 28 June. The gallery's internationally recognised photographic collection will be "much more integrated" into displays, Eyes of the Storm curator Rosie Broadley tells BBC Culture. "This enables us to tell a much more nuanced and layered narrative because the people who sit for photographs are often much more diverse."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/976x549/p0ftyd74.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The images by Sir Paul McCartney are exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London (Credit: Paul McCartney)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The gallery's archives include photographs of The Beatles taken by big names such as David Bailey and Don McCullin, but these new images, where the camera has been passed back to the subject, offer a unique insight. "The essential difference is that it’s his perspective on the band and what’s happening. They were never meant to be publicised or shared. They're private," explains Broadley. "It's about what he was interested in, who he wanted to remember, and it’s not really so much about The Beatles – it's about Paul and the experience that he was having with his friends, who happened to be The Beatles."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Liverpool, we meet a fresh-faced Cilla Black, while in Paris, McCartney seems very taken with the French actress and pin-up Sophie Hardy. Intimate pictures of the band also provide rare through-the-keyhole glimpses as John towels himself off after a swim, for example, or George puts on sunscreen. And we are introduced to the offstage players that helped make the madness happen: the roadie, the driver, the manager, the bodyguard… captured smoking, reading or napping, or fooling about with the boys during downtime. "We messed around. It kept us sane," McCartney writes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are surprising discoveries, too. Behind the scenes, the US tour was not always rock 'n' roll. We learn that John's wife Cynthia travelled alongside him, for example. And we meet Paul's Miami date, a modestly-dressed wide-eyed teenager who he collected, in a gentlemanly manner, from her father's office.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/976x549/p0ftyddc.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The images catch candid moments of the iconic band, laughing and messing around (Credit: Paul McCartney)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">McCartney, a working-class lad who previously had holidayed in budget resorts in the UK, was just 21 in 1963, and the photographs reflect his unworldliness and his curiosity about the new worlds he was discovering. The novelty of travel is clear from the many photographs taken from planes and his touristy snaps of the Arc de Triomphe and the White House; while shots of posters and billboards with the band’s name on them suggest a baffled pride at their celebrity so far from home. "Looking at these photos now, decades later, I find that there is a sort of innocence about them," writes McCartney. "Everything was new to us at this point."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>American Dream</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For McCartney, the United States was synonymous with success. "Everything we listened to was from America," he writes, describing touring the US as "the big time" and "the big prize". In many ways it lived up to the band’s expectations. Their performance on the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1963 attracted a record 73m viewers and McCartney drank in the US culture, photographing the skyscrapers and flashing lights of New York and going to a drive-in movie for the first time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the monochrome snow scenes of Washington DC, sun-kissed Miami radiates warmth as McCartney reaches for the colour reel, and we get bright green palms, blue skies and canary-yellow beach wear. Described by McCartney as "Wonderland", Miami was a tropical paradise for the boys, who had the time of their life nipping around in convertibles loaned by MG and lounging by their private pool.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the US revealed a darker side, too. Kennedy had been assassinated just months before on 22 November 1963 – the band arrived in the US on 7 February 1964 – and a close-up of a gun slung about a police officer's waist suggests McCartney's unease. It was, he writes, "the first time I had ever seen something like that". The band were also shocked by the racial inequality and became part of the ground shift when they refused to play to segregated audiences. "The Beatles were not the first white band to speak out against racial segregation. But no one had a platform the size of theirs," historian Jill Lepore, who wrote the introduction to 1964: Eyes of the Storm, tells BBC Culture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/976x549/p0ftyg8y.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">John Lennon pictured in Paris – the images are featured in a new book, Eyes of the Storm (Credit: Paul McCartney)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The photographs have significant historical merit. They document a pivotal time in politics, animated, says Lepore, by a "far more purposeful spirit of rebellion". "Huge structural changes" were taking place, she says, pointing to the end of the draft in the UK and the lowering of the voting age to 18 in the US. The US Civil Rights Act was being passed just as colonies around the world were gaining independence; while the advent of the contraceptive pill coincided with the first steps towards equal pay legislation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>We were moving at such speed that you just had to grab, grab, grab! – Paul McCartney</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Reporters were always asking them [The Beatles] to make sense of that world, and all its changes, and I just love how they refused to participate in that," says Lepore. "There's this one moment, when The Beatles are in Washington, DC, and a reporter asks, 'What place do you think this story of The Beatles is going to have in the history of Western culture?' And Paul says, 'You must be kidding.' It's just so beautiful. The irreverence right back."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For photographers, however, McCartney had great respect and curiosity. "I often took pictures of them, not so much for revenge, but because they were interesting people," he writes. The band selected exceptional photographers to tour with them. Harry Benson, Dezo Hoffman and Robert Freeman all feature in McCartney's photographs, and when they were behind the lens, McCartney would watch them at work, eager to learn from their artistry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The images in Eyes of the Storm were taken with a 35mm Pentax, and include modern prints made from negatives and enlarged images taken from contact sheets. Several bear the scratchy cross of McCartney's chinagraph pencil, where he has marked out his favourite shots. Some pictures, such as a grinning Ringo Starr and a self-portrait in the mirror, are blurred. Sometimes this was deliberate and sometimes it was because there was simply no time. "We were moving at such speed that you just had to grab, grab, grab!" he writes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/976x549/p0ftyfzl.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">George Harrison photographed relaxing in Miami, February 1964, during the band's US tour (Credit: Paul McCartney)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though an amateur, McCartney's aptitude is noteworthy. "Not only has he absorbed the ideas around photojournalism… the Cartier-Bresson idea of capturing that decisive moment, he's already looking to frame shots, looking for interesting angles," says Broadley, who helped select the photos for the exhibition from a pool of almost 1,000. "He understands what makes a good portrait, he’s quite good at placing a figure in space, [and] he's interested in architecture and the interesting perspectives you can get."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Occasionally, he hands his camera to someone – a manager, roadie or bandmate – and there he is, McCartney himself, performing on stage or posing for press shots, the familiar doe-like eyes peeping out from the mop-top haircut.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We were just wisecracking guys, and we had fun with each other whatever we did and wherever we went. I think this comes across in my photos," writes McCartney in the book's closing chapter. "Words cannot describe what happened to us, but imagine every dream you’ve had coming true, and you might get close."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/paul-mccartney-photographs-1963%E2%80%9364-eyes-of-the-storm/">Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm</a> is at the National Portrait Gallery from 28 June to 1 October 2023. The book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453946/1964-eyes-of-the-storm-by-mccartney-paul/9780241619711">1964: Eyes of the Storm</a>, is out now, published by Penguin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-5683309204262753312023-06-04T16:19:00.006+02:002023-06-04T16:22:37.201+02:00Should We, and Can We, Put the Brakes on Artificial Intelligence?<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8jXkHzasM8_-APE9gGjsSYIq9lS7w0ozJlEu84DAK_GP40x2c5jEQQqpcGKdUxWyp29aGyMW0dVKnFD_VWnjTAWtvP6k-_4K5v-ziv4IsPTTYXbCAreL5AyTkRedlf4tJh9qs8RvO4tK_KFfN3sulDLhWDBscY0sguP4PQpEgNIkN1CEJc9cFoEp/s5600/artificial-intelligence-1079012838-6ee85656ad2047f08371f47bd26f1b64.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3900" data-original-width="5600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8jXkHzasM8_-APE9gGjsSYIq9lS7w0ozJlEu84DAK_GP40x2c5jEQQqpcGKdUxWyp29aGyMW0dVKnFD_VWnjTAWtvP6k-_4K5v-ziv4IsPTTYXbCAreL5AyTkRedlf4tJh9qs8RvO4tK_KFfN3sulDLhWDBscY0sguP4PQpEgNIkN1CEJc9cFoEp/s16000/artificial-intelligence-1079012838-6ee85656ad2047f08371f47bd26f1b64.jpg" /></a></div><br />Sam Altman, who ushered in ChatGPT, and Yoshua Bengio, an early pioneer of A.I., discuss the growing concerns surrounding unfettered, nonhuman intelligence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, says that artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that will streamline human work and quicken the pace of scientific advancement. But ChatGPT has both enthralled and terrified us, and even some of A.I.’s pioneers are freaked out by the technology and how quickly it has advanced. David Remnick talks with Altman, and with the computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, who won the prestigious Turing Award for his work in 2018, but recently signed an open letter calling for a moratorium on some A.I. research until regulation can be implemented. The stakes, Bengio says, are high: “I believe there is a non-negligible risk that this kind of technology, in the short term, could disrupt democracies.” Plus, Masha Gessen brings the story of a gay activist targeted by the Russian government, and discusses why repression of L.G.B.T.Q. people is becoming more widespread around the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, discusses the surge of A.I. tools, such as ChatGPT, explaining their applications, limitations, and the need for government regulation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-49476989342395094502023-05-26T13:13:00.009+02:002023-05-29T13:19:04.084+02:00THE 40TH HIGH END BREAKS ALL RECORDS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNXNVooE-dXjtdY2sZi-QxSeqYcniKOT4NEE-CRrhztBGhswjQCaEW2c5_HoblpFHN3N5e12d43H8BrY8omPm0ZdWLHsZQ8AZQsIgTq7UcFHXWq70CHJknwi6RvBrmcEeAu7R0QVx1FhD09QbpexjZNb9cul353ZxvradcwLInTBM3TmHL6bvyOFGd/s1472/unnamed.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="1472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNXNVooE-dXjtdY2sZi-QxSeqYcniKOT4NEE-CRrhztBGhswjQCaEW2c5_HoblpFHN3N5e12d43H8BrY8omPm0ZdWLHsZQ8AZQsIgTq7UcFHXWq70CHJknwi6RvBrmcEeAu7R0QVx1FhD09QbpexjZNb9cul353ZxvradcwLInTBM3TmHL6bvyOFGd/s16000/unnamed.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The figures have now been evaluated and confirm the outstanding impact left by the HIGH END 2023, which ended on Sunday and attracted an international audience to the MOC Event Center in Munich from 18th to 21st May. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With halls fully booked down to the last centimetre, atrium and conference rooms packed to the brim, and the new Press Center flooded with natural light in Atrium 2, the 40th HIGH END pulled out all the stops to put on a successful show. A total of 22,137 visitors from around 100 different countries attended the world’s largest audio show to find out about the new products and innovations of its 550 exhibitors from 54 nations. This was the highest number of visitors ever recorded by the HIGH END. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The result far exceeds the expectations of the event organiser, the company HIGH END SOCIETY Service GmbH. Alongside the abundance of positive feedback from those involved in the trade show, these figures underline the fact that this anniversary event was the most successful in the history of the HIGH END. They also show that extending the show again to cover two B2B days after doing so successfully in 2022 was very well received in the industry. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">While trade visitors made up approximately 38 percent of the visitor total in 2019, they represented nearly half of all guests at the HIGH END 2023, which welcomed 10,748 trade visitors compared to 10,860 visitors when open to the general public. These were joined by a total of 529 media representatives from 43 countries reporting on the world’s most important audio show.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The best HIGH END ever</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The HIGH END 2023 was a hive of activity characterised by its captivating, positive and emotional atmosphere. According to the feedback received by the man behind the show, Stefan Dreischärf, and his team during this event, it was the best and most outstanding show they have ever hosted. “The response to this year’s show is truly overwhelming. Every single person I have spoken to was impressed by the fantastic atmosphere in the MOC,” reports Dreischärf. “We had hoped to be able to repeat the terrific success of the last HIGH END but didn’t expect to even go one better.” While exhibitors praised the perfect organisation of the event, their impressive world premieres and the large number of product innovations captivated and excited their audience to a huge extent. The diverse programme of events organised by the HIGH END SOCIETY to accompany the anniversary show also attracted a great deal of attention and filled the event venues to the max.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The concept of a balanced combination of an industry gathering and interactive exhibition has yet again been a complete success in 2023. The decision to again split the HIGH END into two trade visitor days and two days for the general public ticked all the boxes. The largest specialist show of its kind is the most important marketplace with the highest international involvement for exhibitors from all over the globe. It is only here in Munich that all significant players in the industry come together at the same time. The jam-packed schedule of talks and meetings on the B2B days confirmed that the decision to appeal to both target groups in equal measure represented an important new approach. And indeed, the companies participating in the event were very well prepared for their business meetings at the HIGH END. In fact, discussion areas and meeting rooms are no longer a rarely seen occurrence at stands. The requests for B2B cabins at the event venue came in so thick and fast that the event organiser was also unable to meet them all due to the limited space available.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No other audio show offers as much to discover as the HIGH END. With a virtually endless range of exhibits on show, the event is a true treat for both the eyes and ears of music aficionados, audiophiles and technology lovers. All visitors to the HIGH END were able to immerse themselves in captivating sound demonstrations, enjoy music of all genres, admire both subtle and eye-catching devices and gain an insight into sophisticated state-of-the-art technology. The event shone the spotlight on major international companies, small independent labels and start-ups in equal measure, all of which presented their broad spectrum of new technologies and services. The brand-new products showcased included turntables with active vibration decoupling, innovatively networked hi-fi loudspeakers, modern amplifiers that combine a wide variety of functions with outstanding sound quality, and many other highlights.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A huge selection of models in the WORLD OF HEADPHONES</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another proven visitor highlight at the HIGH END 2023 was the WORLD OF HEADPHONES, a special area in Hall 1 where manufacturers and distributors presented all kinds of different headphone models. Given that more and more companies are now discovering this market and decided to showcase their products in the WORLD OF HEADPHONES, this year’s special exhibition area was twice as big as when it was launched in 2022. It is an attractive addition to the HIGH END that attracted young people in particular and encouraged them to spend time exploring the models on show. “The headphone show is like a magical visitor magnet, attracting people to try out products directly without any interruptions,” states Stefan Dreischärf, delighted about how visitors flocked to the stands on all four days of the audio show. Some of this year’s trends included Bluetooth headphones, in-ear variants and high-quality portable audio players, which can also be used as high-end hi-fi components thanks to their streaming and wi-fi functions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another convincing performance was displayed by the audio systems under the SOUNDSCLEVER label — not only those from individual exhibitors but also, for the first time ever this year, four systems presented by different hi-fi magazines. With this initiative, the HIGH END SOCIETY wants to debunk the myth that excellent music reproduction is only available in the luxury price segment. After all, companies that want to appeal to new target groups and encourage them to explore a premium hobby need to take new approaches. At the end of the day, high-quality musical enjoyment not only needs to be fun but must also be affordable. The components of the SOUNDSCLEVER audio systems have been assembled in such a way that they offer excellent music reproduction with top-quality sound yet cost no more than 5,000 Euros in total.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">An illustrious visit by our brand ambassador Al Di Meola</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Never before has a brand ambassador attracted such a buzz of attention. At the opening press conference with Al Di Meola, there wasn’t a free seat in the house, and even the standing room was fully packed. Wherever the artist went during his time at the HIGH END, a crowd of excited visitors soon gathered. His presence at the “Meet the man” expert interview with Lothar Brandt also received excellent feedback, with the 45-minute talk providing listeners with an interesting insight into the life of the musician who was once the fastest guitarist in the world. The autograph session attracted a long line of patient fans waiting to get their hands on an authentic signature from their star. These fans and everyone who encountered the artist throughout his time at the event were able to experience his friendly and welcoming nature and also his keen interest in all things audio. Al Di Meola also made the most of the opportunity to enjoy the event with all of his senses, to discover the exquisite sound reproduction that he supports as the ambassador of the world’s largest audio show and to confirm why he perfectly embodies this year’s motto, “Loving Music”. His live performances are not the only evidence of his virtuoso ability; many of his albums also take centre stage with their outstanding recording quality. Surrounded by such premium sound, the artist was immersed in an audio heaven: “It has overwhelmed me and is truly stunning,” he exclaimed in his emotional summary of the HIGH END. In the run-up to his visit to the largest audio show, a number of special exhibitor events were already planned in cooperation with his record company Impex Records. Together with his wife Stephanie, who accompanied him to the show, Al Di Meola compared playbacks of his own live recordings on a variety of exclusive audio systems. At the end of the event, he even happened to run into Rick Rubin, who was visiting the HIGH END out of personal interest. The world-famous music producer is now one of 600 owners of the limited-edition version of the album “Saturday Night in San Francisco”, which was produced by Impex Records, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the HIGH END. What’s more, he is one of just a handful of people to own a copy signed by Al Di Meola himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The HIGH END KOLLEG shines in a new light</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The HIGH END KOLLEG series of presentations experienced a revival at this year’s event. It welcomed new stage formats that invited listeners to follow exciting panel discussions or expand their technical knowledge of the audio world. Thanks to the cooperation with the ALTI Association, which presented its ALTI Pavilion as part of the supplier trade show IPS – International Parts + Supply, held in parallel with the HIGH END, the spectrum of topics covered by the presentations was much more extensive than in previous years. Under the title of “Future-fi – what’s next?”, the hosts of the two panel sessions, Olaf Adam from <a href="http://hifi.de/">HIFI.DE</a> and the YouTuber Dimi Vesos, dared to take a look in the crystal ball and discussed what they consider necessary to secure the future of the hi-fi industry with their panel partners with various focuses. The guests involved in the English panel discussion hosted by Olaf Adam included Michael Fremer from the USA, Ljubiša Miodragović from Serbia and Stuart Smith from Great Britain. Dimi Vesos welcomed the hi-fi journalist Bernd Weber, the YouTuber Patrik Scholz, the specialist retailer Markus Wierl, and Lars Baumann from the company ELAC onto the stage for his session. To everyone who could not attend the HIGH END 2023 or missed out on the HIGH END KOLLEG events: you can watch the live recordings of the sessions on the YouTube channel of the HIGH END SOCIETY. You can also, of course, be sure to look forward to the next HIGH END. When? From 9th to 12th May 2024 at the MOC Event Center in Munich.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Here is what our exhibitors had to say:</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We would say overall it was very successful. Made lots of connections, and liked the diversity of the show offers."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soundsmith</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The HIGH END 2023 gave us the ideal platform to launch our latest product and it has been a storming success. We look forward to returning to Munich in 2024!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;">PMC</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Good show, very well organised. We can only be positive about the complete show. Big thanks to Stefan Dreischärf and his team."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Quest Group</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Overall very good show. Great international attendance. Very busy on business days and good organisation."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Esprit Cables</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Munich 2023 has been a great opportunity for Tannoy to reconnect with their loyal distributors and customers from around the world. The show has created great visibility for the brand with worldwide press, journalists and end customers taking a keen interest in the Tannoy room."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">TANNOY</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Information on the HIGH END</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The HIGH END, the internationally renowned audio trade show, is the undisputed leader when it comes to impressively setting the tone for top-class music reproduction. It has been providing ideas and impetus for producers, sellers and consumers of high-quality consumer electronics for four decades. On the four days of the event in May, the entire world of audio experts and professionals will gather in Munich to visit hundreds of exhibitors from more than 40 different countries as they showcase their latest innovations in the halls and atriums of the MOC Event Center.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Claudia Kazner<br />Press and Public Relations<br />HIGH END SOCIETY Service GmbHUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-33500750143856300032023-05-12T20:53:00.001+02:002023-05-12T20:53:58.716+02:00Art Is Now a Crime in Russia<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPAfKSEsYVIyW8KvbyugpupC6p4McK6G78mTS-eGD_TEDKVneEVAvZ9vR446OIUPQUSK5zv6NB20dDvnRN4JSuPFBufrwxNcUgOw3r8P6tEEUZY98wN1guO1S2bzIyMU8pxSASjIlZlGGV-Xpce-0iXPaSx3UwfcwBIy8EcRYGvofnfEmzwlOCXYgj/s7000/2QKN7HBFF5B77O24IN4XAYNMWE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4666" data-original-width="7000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPAfKSEsYVIyW8KvbyugpupC6p4McK6G78mTS-eGD_TEDKVneEVAvZ9vR446OIUPQUSK5zv6NB20dDvnRN4JSuPFBufrwxNcUgOw3r8P6tEEUZY98wN1guO1S2bzIyMU8pxSASjIlZlGGV-Xpce-0iXPaSx3UwfcwBIy8EcRYGvofnfEmzwlOCXYgj/s16000/2QKN7HBFF5B77O24IN4XAYNMWE.jpg" title="Zhenya Berkovich has directed more than a dozen plays. Last year, her production of a play co-written with her now co-defendant won top honors at Russia’s leading theatre festival." /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Graphik, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">Zhenya Berkovich has directed more than a dozen plays. Last year, her production of a play co-written with her now co-defendant won top honors at Russia’s leading theatre festival.</div></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The arrests of a director and a playwright in Moscow signal a new chapter in the Putin regime’s eradication of dissent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?&display=popup&caption=Art%20Is%20Now%20a%20Crime%20in%20Russia&app_id=1147169538698836&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fnews%2Four-columnists%2Fart-is-now-a-crime-in-russia%3Futm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%3Donsite-share%26utm_brand%3Dthe-new-yorker%26utm_social-type%3Dearned" style="color: black;"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On May 5th, a Moscow court placed two women, the thirty-eight-year-old Zhenya Berkovich and the forty-three-year-old Svetlana Petriychuk, under arrest for an initial term of two months.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">About a year earlier, I was startled to realize that Berkovich was still in Russia. Most of my extended circle had left in the days and weeks following the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in February, 2022. Russian authorities had brutally disbanded protests, passed a set of laws banning antiwar speech, hounded independent media out of the country under threat of arrest, and banned Facebook. Those who stayed took a newly standard set of precautions, including “locking” their Facebook accounts so that only their “friends” could see their activity. Berkovich spent ten days in jail for protesting the invasion and then kept posting openly, publishing poems, and writing about her reactions to the war and her frustrations with her teen-age daughters, both of whom she had recently adopted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I didn’t know her well. We met perhaps a decade ago, when I was still living in Moscow, and Berkovich, freshly graduated from the famed Moscow Art Theatre School, was involved in the production of a play based on interviews with people whose grandparents had been Stalin’s henchmen. The play was staged at the Sakharov Center, which was shuttered by the government last week. I had also seen one of the first plays that Berkovich directed, “The Man Who Didn’t Work,” which was based on an activist’s notes of the courtroom proceedings in the trial of the poet Joseph Brodsky. Soviet citizens were required by law to be engaged in productive work. Brodsky was found guilty of “malicious parasitism” and sentenced to internal exile and mandatory labor. (The play was staged at Memorial, a human-rights and history organization that was shut down by the government last year.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In the play, a judge demands of Brodsky, “What did you ever do to benefit the motherland?”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“I wrote poetry,” Brodsky responds. “That is my work. I am certain that every word I’ve written will benefit many generations of people.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>. . . . “Tell the court why you didn’t work.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“I worked. I wrote poetry.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“Answer the question. Why didn’t you labor?”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“But I labored. I wrote poetry.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“Why didn’t you study that at an institution of higher learning?”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>“I thought . . . I thought it was a gift from God.”</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I took my older kids to see both plays. For years afterward, Yolka, who was ten or eleven when she first watched them, would return to the one about Brodsky. When I was writing this column, I asked what had stuck with them, and Yolka texted back, “I remember it seemed a little too related to how it was in Moscow at the time.” Back then, this response would have sounded hyperbolic. Russia was cracking down on dissent, but poets weren’t going to jail for writing poetry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Berkovich directed roughly a dozen more plays. Last year, her production of a play written by Petriychuk—now her co-defendant—won top honors at the Golden Mask, Russia’s leading theatre festival. The name of the play, probably best translated as “Finist, the Brave Falcon,” is a reference to a Russian fairy tale about an elusive male love object who has the ability to turn into a bird or a feather. The play is based on the stories of young Russian women who met isis fighters online, converted to Islam, married the men in virtual ceremonies, and went, or tried to go, to Syria to join the fight with their husbands. Many of the women were later arrested and prosecuted in Russia, and the play made use of the transcripts of their police interviews. It was a subtle, tender, and slightly absurdist portrayal of loneliness and the longing for love. The production opened with the cast singing, in English, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Before the Russo-Ukrainian war, I didn’t know that Berkovich wrote poetry. The first poem that caught my attention went viral in the Russian blogosphere about a year ago, as Russia was staging its annual grand celebration of victory in the Second World War. In the poem, the ghost of a man who fought in the war visits his grandson in present-day Russia and asks him not to make use of his image or legacy. “We don’t need you to be proud of us / Nor to be secretly ashamed of us. / All I ask is that you / Make it so I am finally forgotten,” the grandfather pleads.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>But then I’ll forget how we looked for that painting</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>In the Russian Museum</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How I woke up wet</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>And you dressed me</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How we read Prishvin together</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>And looked for the North and South Poles in the atlas</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How you explained why planes</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Leave a white stripe in the sky.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>How you gave me</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A magnifying glass.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>That’s all right, the grandfather says</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>As he disappears.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>None of that did you any good.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In times of crisis, Russians write poetry, and this was one of many poems making the rounds. Gradually, though, I realized that Berkovich was probably the poetic voice of this period. One after another, her poems, posted on Facebook, put words to the agony of wartime. Many of them had the form of litanies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Needed: clothes for a woman</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Age seventy-nine</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>From a city that no longer exists.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A T-shirt, size M, for Mariupol,</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A jacket, size L, for Lysychans’k.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A bra with a B cup,</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For Bucha and Borodyanka.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>So began one poem. Another listed imaginary—but typical—cases of Russians getting arrested.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Andrey Alexandrovich Lozhkin</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>63 years old</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A dentist</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He raises a blindingly white sheet of paper overhead</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>His beard is flying in the wind</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Everyone will be looking for him until morning</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>By then he no longer has a poster or a beard or any hope of getting out . . .</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Daniil Yegorovich Milkis</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>24 years old</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A student, a nerd</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He “likes” a joke on someone else’s Instagram</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He has a girlfriend named Sonya and an inarticulate beard</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He will send the ring with his lawyer</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Sonya will say yes</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He will talk about god and won’t be allowed to sit down in court</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>He’ll get four years and eight months</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Thank god for that</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The prosecutor asked for six years.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like many people, I came to depend on Berkovich’s poems as a release for my own feelings. I nearly stopped marvelling at her decision to post openly. It helped that she interspersed the poetry with some decidedly prosaic rants, some about everyday life and some about politics. It was as though, in a way, she was the last person still living in prewar Moscow, where it was possible to use social media to say what you thought, if only to stay sane.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On May 4th, police searched the St. Petersburg apartment of Berkovich’s mother and grandmother (both women are well-known writers and human-rights activists) and detained Berkovich in Moscow. Petriychuk was detained at a Moscow airport. The following day, they appeared in court, where investigators asked that they be placed in pretrial detention. They are being charged with “justifying terrorism.” The charges are based on the play “Finist, the Brave Falcon.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet working in exile, obtained a copy of the expert opinion that formed the basis for the charges against the two women. It says that the play contains elements of isis ideology and, simultaneously, “the ideology of radical feminism,” including “images of the denigration of women in an androcentric world in any space where a woman encounters men, which gives her the right to fight against this state of affairs.” Both perceived ideologies are seen as evidence of support for terrorist tactics. The charge can carry a penalty of up to seven years behind bars.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have found it hard to write about the ongoing crackdown in Russia. After a while, it seemed that there was nothing left to say—even when, last month, the journalist and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for “high treason.” The sentence should have been shocking, but, just days earlier, the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich had been arrested on analogous charges. The arrests of Berkovich and Petriychuk, though, do signal a new chapter. For the first time in the post-Soviet era, Russia has explicitly arrested people for creating art. They are not charged with high treason, like Kara-Murza, or espionage, like Gershkovich, or “discrediting the armed forces” or “spreading false information about the special military operation”—the charges created to punish journalists for covering the war—or for “hooliganism,” as the protest group Pussy Riot was, but for the content of a play they wrote and staged. And also, of course, in Berkovich’s case, for acting as though she could keep expressing her thoughts and feelings out in the open. On the other hand, even as I write this, I understand that the novelty is subtle, if it exists at all: parsing the distinctions in how the Putin regime eradicates difference is a fool’s errand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last Friday, as the two women were being charged, several dozen people gathered outside the courthouse in Moscow. After the hearing, one of Berkovich’s friends wrote on Facebook, in a post visible only to “friends,” “I wanted to write what I think, but then I remembered that I live in Russia and decided not to. You know anyway.” Berkovich’s own Facebook account has vanished. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Masha GessenUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-21244906410534554602023-05-12T04:41:00.003+02:002023-05-12T04:41:20.516+02:00Munich High-End 2023<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeoghFjBpKk76jBpNWBYE_WhdIaEKMIuvkSGdTtwjrGX2rtP6jxmKRnwN5I_8zAp5DhKlvCMVMypJvCsyvxd_t58OxnFXxXe8e8z5PUYKTlHRRmAv3D2NV0OaX0Qg-aNwjKjtvuSDV4fI8xqM-jC5oekW5vXI8k_N1HoH_rSO4U35SvtleacA6s5wC/s1500/highend-munich2023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="1500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeoghFjBpKk76jBpNWBYE_WhdIaEKMIuvkSGdTtwjrGX2rtP6jxmKRnwN5I_8zAp5DhKlvCMVMypJvCsyvxd_t58OxnFXxXe8e8z5PUYKTlHRRmAv3D2NV0OaX0Qg-aNwjKjtvuSDV4fI8xqM-jC5oekW5vXI8k_N1HoH_rSO4U35SvtleacA6s5wC/s16000/highend-munich2023.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ll be back. Come again? It’s the annual <a href="https://www.highendsociety.de/high-end-44.html">HighEnd show</a> taking place this month at Munich’s MOC. In parallel, the Hifi Deluxe event beckons like a cuckoo’s nest at the nearby Marriott Hotel. While many makers follow tradition by springing their novelties on an unsuspecting public come show day, others find that divulging their latest ‘n’ greatest ahead of time drives far more guaranteed traffic to their exhibits. And let’s face it, this is one huge event. Attendees suffer sensory overload already a few hours into their first day. A few late nights later, it’s a zoo of headless chickens. That makes it all too easy to miss things only to see ‘em in sundry post-show reports and think, “by tarnation, I’d have loved to have seen and heard that”. To preload your plate with a few items you might find of interest, here goes:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.axxess.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.axxess-580x264.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://audiogroupdenmark.com/axxess/">Axxess Acoustics</a> is the fourth and latest brand of the Audio Group Denmark umbrella which also operates Aavik, Ansuz and Børresen. A lot of their kit aims at ne plus ultra kaboodle to mean stickers commensurate with Hifi Formula 1. The aptly named Axxess now means to romance less turbo-charged budgets though tractors are still out. Their first product is the Forté platform, FutureFi which combines a DAC, preamp, streamer, amp and headphone amp in one case. It means two USB host ports, RJ45, USB Audio, BNC and Toslink plus one analog input and a variable pre-out. The internal amplifier is based on a 100wpc Pascal class D module driven from a resonant-mode switching power supply said to increase operating frequency and peak power. The DAC is a 1-bit type developed in house “for faster data processing and insensitivity to noise”. The streamer module incorporates Aavik precedents to shun microcomputers. The headfi section operates in class A. Proprietary high-frequency noise attenuation includes Ansuz Tesla coils. It’s the amount of built-in noise filtering which distinguishes the Forté 1 [€5.5K], Forté 2 [8K] and Forté 3 [€11K]. The three models otherwise share identical featurization and the same chassis which combines metal with composite plates and industrial design by Flemming Rasmussen, original founder of Gryphon Audio Design.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.cengrand.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.cengrand-580x109.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the AudioNEXT booth, check out Sino brand <a href="https://en.cen-grand.com/">Cen.Grand</a> for whom 2023 is the debutante ball to global export. Having reviewed their flagship headphone amp and DSD1’024 DAC, I’m convinced the brand is this year’s Denafrips discovery. Depending on what their German importer bought in for Munich, brand new are this dedicated preamp and pair of 1’000-watt class AB monos. A network player with novel ‘synchronous’ connection was previewed at this year’s Beijing show and should start shipping by October. Perhaps AudioNEXT will have a sample of that as well?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.devialet.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.devialet-580x240.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the Bang & Olufsen of France, <a href="https://www.devialet.com/en-eu/portable-speakers/devialet-mania-opera/">Devialet</a> will bring Gallic Mania to the proceedings. Priced from $790 – $990, it’s a portable all-in affair of a “360° stereo sound” speaker with four small wideband drivers, two woofers and (cough) bandwidth from 30Hz-20kHz. But there’s also WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, Spotify Connect and AirPlay 2. For juice on the go a 3’200mAh battery builds in. This balcony, porch or beach party affair measures just 18x19x14cm and lengthens our arm by only 2.3kg. Various trim levels apply. At first glance we might dismissively think Sharper Image catalogue or a retail emporium like Harrods of London so a glitz blitz with little sonic substance. But Devialet have proven already that despite very noisy marketing laden with whiz-bang acronyms, they’ve also got excellent engineering and manufacturing chops on their side.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.estelon-580x498.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://estelon.com/">Estelon</a> of Estonia have always promoted very costly ceramic Accuton drivers and sculpturesque composite cabinets to position themselves firmly in our hobby’s higher heavens. So even their new entry speaker Aura [€17.5K/pr] sits where other portfolios would run out of breath, not kick-off. But for those of us dreaming of a hot rod inside a banger chassis, Aura could be just the thing. Simply ditch the banger bit. Whilst these drivers go ‘soft’ by way of a ScanSpeak Illuminator textile tweeter set into an oval waveguide bracketed by two 5” SB Acoustic Satori papyrus- paper mids plus a 10” down-firing sealed paper woofer from Faital, the enclosure remains very curvaceous synthetic stone. Available in white or black, that means true Bay Watch lookers. The filter network includes custom OFC air-core inductors, supercap-type capacitors and wire-wound resistors pair-matched then wired point to point into Cardas terminals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.ferrum-580x165.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Poland’s <a href="https://ferrum.audio/">Ferrum Audio</a> is part of HEM, a company that also does OEM/ODM work and hifi distribution. They used to design/build Mytek kit before branching out into their own brand. That’s named for iron-ore deposits close to their hometown of Warsaw. Their newest product is the Wandla flagship DAC built around an ESS 9038 chip. There’s IR remote, a remote app, a choice of buffered digital on-chip/analog Muses or no volume, one analog RCA input, RCA/XLR outputs and on the digital input side, USB-C, coax, AES/EBU, Toslink plus I2S and ARC via HDMI. Where Wandla leaves the usual reservation is with a touch screen, extensive menu options and their proprietary Serce processor board. That handles signal routing, DSP even I/V conversion. As part of their custom DSP, Ferrum have installed user-selectable filters including some custom filters from HQPlayer. There’s MQA, PCM up to 32/768 and DSD up to 256. The initial I2S pin configuration follows the PS Audio standard shared with Denafrips, Jay’s and Singxer. As requests arise, Ferrum will add alternates by firmware update. Lastly, Wandla can be powered by the company’s hybrid Hypsos power supply as part of their in-house upgrade path.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.fioo_-580x146.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">China’s <a href="https://www.fiio.eu/">FiiO</a> has its new FT3 [349] full-size headphones looking to compete against a Darko/6moons favorite, Meze’s 99 Classic. Tucked beneath alpha-male ear cups are N52-powered 2.4-inch dynamic drivers with diamond-like carbon membranes and beryllium-plated gaskets. Voice coil wiring is all of 0.035mm thick, load behaviour 350Ω. 391g of weight will wear slightly on the heavy side. Included are a 3m 23-gauge mono-crystal copper cable, 6.3mm adapter and both pleather and suede pads for some custom tuning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.ifi_.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.ifi_-580x138.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://ifi-audio.com/">iFi</a>’s world of budget wonders expands with two novelties for the show. The first is the LAN Silencer [€89], a self-powered inline galvanic isolator aka noise stripper for networked audio. The second is something quite gnarly called GO pod which turns wired IEM into wireless wonders. iFi have collaborated with 64 audio, craft ears, Meze, Symphonium and Westone to bundle select IEM. After the first 1’000 combos are gone, raw GO pods will sell with “loops for MMCX and 2-pin IEM, Pentaconn, T2 and A2DC connectors” to mate with other IEMs. There’s a charging case with 1’500mAH battery. A pair of pods is said to last for up to seven hours whilst the case will refuel them multiple times for up to 35 hours total. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon handles Bluetooth 5.2 with QCC144 processor. Supported codecs are LDAC/HDC up to 32-bit/96kHz. The Cirrus Logic MasterHifi DAC has five user-selectable digital interpolation filters. The volume control is analog, the built-in mic is augmented by Qualcomm’s cVC noise suppression tech. There’s true wireless mirroring and the analog output stage is balanced and discrete.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.lotoo_.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.lotoo_-580x232.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://m.lotoo.cn/en_index.html">Lotoo</a> of China will show their battery-power portable Mjölnir all-in-one in the booth of German importer audioNEXT GmbH. Main specs are an AK4499 DAC, 2.5wpc/32Ω balanced power, Roon/AirPlay support, 94Wh battery and 2.7kg of mass. Analog outputs are on XLR and RCA and there are digital i/o, an SD card slot and USB media port. Should the design conjure up Nagra, that’s no coincidence. For more entry-level kit which the storied Swiss brand can’t manufacture in their own Lausanne facility to hit intended price points—I’m thinking of my small portable recorder—they collaborate with Lotoo. Given such credibility at stake, we might say that Nagra has pre- shopped mainland China suppliers on our behalf so that when we go Lotoo, we’re fully Nagra approved. At least that’s what my wallet tells itself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.mofi_.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.mofi_-580x191.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://mofi.com/">Mobile Fidelity</a> from the US has the latest Andrew Jones coaxial design, the SourcePoint 8 [$3K/pr] with a 1.25″ soft dome in the throat of an 8″ paper-pulp mid/woofer crossed over at 1.6kHz. Measuring 18×11.4×13.2″ Hx”xD and weighing 28lbs, this speaker is 87dB sensitive and never drops below 6.4Ω. Finish options are black ash, satin walnut or satin white.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.qacoustics.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.qacoustics-580x339.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/">Q Acoustics</a> from the UK has the new 5000 models to show. With the familiar form factors and driver tech as their flagship Concept range, the baffles are laminated with butyl rubber and black acrylic for vibration damping. Finish options span a generous satin black/white, rosewood or oak.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich-rogue.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich-rogue-580x180.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If salt and pepper are what chefs call seasoning, tubes and solid state are hifi’s equivalent. How to get both into one shaker <a href="http://rogueaudio.com/">Rogue Audio</a> show with their new DragoN monos which embed a 12AU7 voltage-gain stage in the loop of an nCore class D power module whilst running the lot off a classic linear not switching power supply.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.soundsmith-580x123.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More wicked than the witches of Eastwich is <a href="https://www.sound-smith.com/index">Soundsmith</a> with its new MosTube One, “a long-lived solid-state replacement for the most popular power tubes featuring extreme stability, automatic matching, no adjustments, tube-type 2nd-harmonic flavor and an automatic 30-50% power increase. Replaces 6550, KT66 through KT150, EL34, 6L6 and more.” Before you think April’s fool, Brinkmann and Schiit have already done this for some of their own models. Soundsmith is simply the first to propose rolling transistor outputs into any valve amp with the right tubes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.spl_-580x210.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">German pro-audio brand <a href="https://spl.audio/en/">spl</a> has crossed into ConFit (Fi fit for consumers) years ago. Its new Phonitor 3 [€2’599] might actually straddle the prosumer fence by adding mastering features like adjustable cross feed, soundstage angle and width, stereo/mono and more. Two VU meters shout mastering console but McIntosh devotees would demure by demanding VU meters at home. This deck also includes a premium DAC and pre-amp outputs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">// Intermission. Toilet break. Head over to the Frankfurter stand between the atriums for some Germanic calories. Chew the fat with other showgoers. Stomach duly fortified, Pilsner swallowed, you’re now ready to spend big; or at least pretend you could. //</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.acapella.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.acapella-580x130.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For that, take the shuttle over to the Marriott Hotel where <a href="http://acapella.de/">Acapella Audio Arts</a> from Germany will show off its new Hyperion. Think 2.5 meters tall and 300kg each. Think 4 x 15-inch woofers; per side. In stereo, that becomes the equivalent of one compound 42.5” woofer! But there’s more. Think 2.5” midrange loaded into a 78cm diameter hyper-spherical horn. Think horn-loaded ion tweeter with essentially zero mass. Outboard crossovers weigh 30kg each. If you need to ask about the price, you’re categorically in the wrong place. So don’t ask. Just sit down politely and hear how the Jones listen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If <a href="https://audiogroupdenmark.com/boerresen-acoustics/">Børresen</a> finalizes its new M6 loudspeaker in time, that’ll be another occasion to spend vicariously; to the tune of €540’000/pr I’m told. If not, you could slum it with the €260’000 M3, a 5- driver 2.5-way tower whose drivers rock ultra-light composite cones with N52 motors, solid-silver pole pieces and baskets 3D-printed from zirconium. Anything that fits into the factory’s own vats is deep-cryo’d to boot; and the crossovers incorporate active analog dither spun off sonar radar tech plus active Tesla coils.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.clarisys.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.clarisys-580x362.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For another me-and Mrs.-Jones deed, consider the <a href="https://www.clarisysaudio.ch/">Clarisys Audio</a> exhibit with their Auditorium dipoles driven in Munich by a full Soulution stack. If you didn’t know, Clarisys of CH is Apogee Acoustics reborn. Of sorts. The company does host an Apogee restoration panel to help owners of Jason Bloom speakers which need repairs. Hence their own products continue where Mr. Bloom left off. That makes this an ideal opportunity to sample true 3-way ribbon speakers at the very top of that game. Think 2m tall, 210kg a side and extreme resolution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.raal_.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.raal_-580x316.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of ribbons, I would check out <a href="https://raalrequisite.com/">Raal-Requisite</a>’s new CA-1a, [€2-2.5K], its circumaural follow-up on the winged AKG K-1000 reminiscent SR1a. It comes with a new impedance interface to run off any standard headphone amp. The Serbian designer is keen for us to know that these are far more than SR1a with ear cups to feature all-new motors and more. Some people are all hot for headfi, others bothered. Even if you’re amongst the latter, don’t miss an opportunity to hear what might be one of the best headphones extant. It may not convert you; but at least you’ll have a renewed respect for what’s possible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.thorens-580x164.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To go gaga over what cost no object can look like in turntables, this year <a href="https://thorens.com/en/">Thorens</a> celebrate its 140th year of operations and bow its New Reference priced “between the Airforce Zero and Nagra Reference”. Designed by Helmut Thiele, its active vibration isolation is from Germany’s Seismion to exploit piezoelectric acceleration sensors in a system called sky-hook damping. This collaborates with an adaptive levelling system with 20μm tolerance. The three-phase synchronous belt-drive motor is powered by three linear amplifiers with 120° phase-shifted signals. The bearing is a hydrodynamic type. The speed controller is based on two precision quartz oscillators with a claimed 3ppm max deviation over 20 years. The table can be fitted with up to three bases to suit tonearms from 9″ to 12″.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.vpi_-580x181.jpg.webp" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not to be left out to dry, <a href="https://vpiindustries.com/">VPI Industries</a> will counter with its new magnetic direct-drive table, the €60’000 aptly named Titan Direct.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.monitor.jpg"><img src="https://darko.audio/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/munich.monitor-580x131.jpg.webp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you’re still in the mood for rarefied air but speakers in particular, check out the <a href="https://www.monitoraudio.com/">Monitor Audio Group</a>’s finalized Hyphn [€82’500/pr] which last year merely previewed. I think of it as an ‘inverted’ KEF Blade whose coax executes with seven discrete drivers; whose outfiring quad-woofer array fires inward. It’s an 11-driver dual-concentric 3-way with force-cancelling 8” woofers and 6 x 2″ flat-membrane drivers encircling Monitor’s own MDP III aka AMT tweeter-like flower petals. Loaded into the central slot are two pairs of face-to-face so self-damping woofers. Available matte finishes are white, black and heritage green. Each half of the thermoformed mineral-loaded acrylic ‘H’ enclosure obscures a vertical down-firing ~50cm long large-diameter 26Hz port tube for -6dB/16Hz extension.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>by Srajan<div>Darko</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-29534028402237456902023-05-09T04:32:00.000+02:002023-05-12T04:42:21.964+02:00Cary Audio SLP-98P Tube Preamplifier<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsebcoDzGMq99m4JdlZygezTaMYl2vIOLDvE6furqxO__nei4KIMjoVmfhSz2G_UyVwoKUK5kgNgbkNtV8cbofTlDUkMxXVTAtgnhbIJqVkCTedGI6-N7lCYsmaor2ttqviBuEsa3fMsWv3dwjy2QWiaKdDXZc2SfcA4obOusccmeO_cysxt-bLhIW/s6000/Cary-Audio-SLP-98P.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsebcoDzGMq99m4JdlZygezTaMYl2vIOLDvE6furqxO__nei4KIMjoVmfhSz2G_UyVwoKUK5kgNgbkNtV8cbofTlDUkMxXVTAtgnhbIJqVkCTedGI6-N7lCYsmaor2ttqviBuEsa3fMsWv3dwjy2QWiaKdDXZc2SfcA4obOusccmeO_cysxt-bLhIW/s16000/Cary-Audio-SLP-98P.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Audiophiles that might be reading this are most likely very familiar with Cary Audio, originally the brain child of Dennis Had who is something of a legend in our industry. The venerable Cary 805 Mono Block Power amplifiers are legendary, and the audio equivalent of the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari 512 Testa Rosa. Many of us had a poster of one or the other car on our walls as youngsters depending of course on marque loyalty. If you were well heeled you had both posters. I had pictures of the 805s framed on my desk until I obtained the real thing for my stereo system. The performance, quality, fit, finish, and sound have held up well over the years and they are still one of the most beautiful pieces of audio art out there. Both visually and sonically they are stunning, eye catching and the sound is to die for. Suffice it to say the commitment to the art is very strong with Billy Wright, now running the entire operation after Dennis retired a number of years ago. Billy has handily taken the company to the logical next level. Another legend in the making! Go Billy!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This review is about the latest version of Cary Audio SLP-98P tube preamplifier with a moving magnet phono stage (hence the last P in the name). Five out of six of my cartridges are moving coil, but I do have a very nice Sumiko Moonstone that is moving magnet and I review MM cartridges from time to time. That makes the SP-98P a great fit for my needs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is a first for me I believe. I actually bought the preamplifier to mate up with my Cary 805 mono block amplifiers prior to even discussing the review. I wanted to mate the Cary preamplifier for a more symbiotic coupling with the amplifiers to maximize my tunes. I have heard the preamplifier in the past, but not the latest version until I bought it sight unseen. It has not been very often that I have bought something sight unseen that retails in the vicinity of $6-7k. Would I do it all over again? Yes, I would and would not even begin to second guess the decision. Thinking of it now is the best reason to examine the decision and the outcome. The following is the down and dirty answer to those two questions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cary Audio has been in business since 1989, and has always produced some of the finest audio gear in the industry. Is there more prestigious gear out there? Who can forget the Cary Audio 1610 two story amplifiers? One of these days I may possibly trade up. I know there is plenty of gear out there that is more expensive, but how much better would entail a vigorous debate, and it could be quite contentious but definitely arguable. From my experience you would definitely pay a great deal more, feature for feature, to even begin to render a Cary product to secondary status. My very first Cary product that I purchased was the Cinema DVD player, ,I bought primarily to serve as both a CD and DVD player. I still have it, and aside from needing a new infra red sensor it has never faltered in its ability to play any disc I throw in it. Cary products are stoutly built, the fit and finish is outstanding, and the sound they produce, as I have already stated, is absolutely superb.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2633.jpeg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2633.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The SLP-98P preamplifier is only bested in the Cary line by the Cary SLP-05, which is a full two chassis affair. When I bought the SLP-98P my thoughts were focused on downsizing and ease of placement. It is a small unit for the main chassis with an outboard power supply. Very compact and elegant in look and feel, but huge in terms of performance and features. Let's get to the specs for that info right up front:Circuit Type: Class A Triode</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Output: Rated 2 volts, 12 volts max</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gain: 20dB - Line Stage, 43dB - Phono Stage (SLP 98P only)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hum and Noise: 88 below full output</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Input Impedance: 50,000 Ohms - Line, 47,000 Ohms - Phono</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Output Impedance: 440 Ohms</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Frequency Response: 5 Hz to 163,000 Hz</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tubes: 4 ea. 6SN7 Line Stage, 2 ea. 12 AX7 Phono Stage, 2 ea. 12AU7 Phono Buffer</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Power Transformer(s): EI Laminate, 200% Duty Cycle</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Resistors: 1% Metal Film</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Capacitors: Polypropylene Film with hand soldered copper terminals (optional upgrades available)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Power Supply Capacitors: 4 ea - 560 uF@400VDC</div><div style="text-align: justify;">AC Cord: 2 Conductor, Detachable</div><div style="text-align: justify;">AC Power Requirements: 117/234 VAC @ 50/60 Hz</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Consumption: 44 Watts Operation</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Warm Up Time: 3 Minutes</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break In Time: 100 hours of playing time</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finish: Anthracite black finish with silver or black faceplate</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Weigh:t 22 Pounds</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dimensions: 5" H x 12.5" W x 12" D</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2635.jpeg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2635.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Available UpgradesMundorf SilverGold Output and Coupling Caps</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hexfreds</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kimber Kable throughout</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My unit has most, if not all the upgrades available, sans the Kimber Kable wiring. I wanted a built in MM phono stage since I do review cartridges that are MM from time to time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As mentioned at the outset, there is a very good argument for the symbiosis that comes from components made by the same manufacturer, and the familial design DNA that just seems to make sense, and that is certainly the case with the SLP98 and its ability to seamlessly blend in the with 805 amplifiers and to bring the absolute best out of those amplifiers. It was when I replaced my old preamp with the Cary SLP98 that the system seemed to come into a whole new realm of sound quality. The preamplifier is perfectly mated to the 805 amplifiers. I can only imagine it would be stellar with any amplifier, especially with other Cary products. Someday when I am rich and famous I may upgrade to the CAD-211FE amplifiers or perhaps a set of well taken care of 1610s for more headroom. But, I will keep the SLP-98P because I just do not see the need for anything more than this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2634.jpeg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2634.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Setup is nice and easy and the main unit's smaller footprint (1 square foot) allows for a lot of flexibility and the outboard power supply comes with a reasonable long umbilical so it can be placed on another shelf altogether. I actually set my power supply below the preamplifier proper. This placement also gave the preamplifier and its 8 tubes room to breathe in the cabinet. That setup has worked just fine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fit and finish is superb. My choice was the silver face plate, and it is a very elegant piece. (My only complaint when buying was that the gold/champagne face plates are no longer available to match my amplifiers, boo….)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Controls are easy to use and logically laid out. On/Off/Standby on the left side with another rotary knob next to it for input selection makes for easy selections. The large center volume dial can be adjusted remotely (thank you Cary from all of us older people). In the middle is a mute switch and there is an identical switch for the Tape Monitor. Some find this switching method counterintuitive. On the right side are a pair of input knobs to balance out sound if needed. Overall it becomes very easy to use the SLP-98P in everyday listening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2636.jpeg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IMG_2636.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is the first time that Cary Audio has built a unit around the venerable 6SN7GT dual triode. This is tech from back in the 1940s, and a great choice. Two of them are used per channel. Like the SLPs before it it is available with or without a phono stage. The unit I chose is the SLP-98P with the phono stage that adds a pair of 12AX7 for gain and a pair of 12AU7 tubes for buffering.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other interesting part of this setup is the outboard power supply containing the transformer, a choke and a couple of large capacitors, a rectifier bridge, relay and other odds and ends. As stated before there is a sizable umbilical cord to link to the preamplifier chassis. Everything in the setup is hand wired point to point. Having visited the factory numerous times over the years, it is really a pleasure watching the team build and wire these units. The craftsmanship is world class and a clear source of pride for the Cary family.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A special note about the included MM phono stage. I found it more than just a bit convenient. It did a great job of handling my Sumiko Moonstone MM cartridge. As long as the cartridge has a relative high output it performs admirably. If you only run MC cartridges you will need a step up transformer to get enough oomph to use the phono stage. I have multiple phono stages for my MC cartridges so I did not try running any of them from the on board phono stage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In then end, as with all things, Audio preference is an individual thing. I have listened to many, many top line preamplifiers. Most recently I have spent a good deal of time listening to Nagra's top tier preamp, no doubt at the upper echelon of available kit. Anyone who listens to the SLP-98 will come away with their own truth as to how well it fits their needs. For me it checked every box I was looking for. Exceptional quality, tube smoothness, plenty of inputs, and at an affordable cost. I am currently running two turntables (no microphone though. Get it?), a streamer, a reel to reel, and could still add on another component.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The SLP-98P is a very fine addition and distinctly musical. I consider myself a tube friendly audiophile (okay, maybe a bit of an understatement) and the Cary delivers the goods in a way I could only describe as truthful and faithful to the source material. Soundstage is broad, detail is pinpoint and depth is amazing. Speakers completely disappear. Air and vibrancy around all the players are the order of the day. It is that kind of delivery, along with incredible fit, finish and high quality build, with a price that is incredibly fair considering the components that have gone into it, makes it a very solid bargain and a preamplifier that should be on anyone's list who is shopping at this price level or even twice to three times the cost. I bought it and it was easily one of the best audio purchases I have ever made!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the first things that struck me about this preamplifier was during one of my first in-depth listening sessions. After about 40 hours of break in, as I will listening to "You Are the Music, We are the Band" by Trapeze from the album of the same title (Threshold Records THS-8). This was a pretty loud listen (as so much rock is meant to be). At the end of the first side my Tru Lift brought up the tonearm and there was an astonishing lack of sound. When I say lack, I mean stone silent! Not a whisper, zero tube hum, no line noise, absolutely nothing with my ear right at the speakers. Just blackness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Glenn Hughes has an amazing voice and this is a performance that really cemented his legend as a singer with astonishing range. Some of the passages are a bit on the edgy side, and through certain amplification his voice can be painful and penetratingly shrill when hitting the really high notes. The SLP did a great job of knocking the harshest edges off. This made for a listening session that was delivered with tonal accuracy (like an opera singer breaking glass) with all the energy and sense of urgency he put into the vocals without the "nails on the chalkboard" effect I have heard with other gear before. The SLP smoothed it out without taking anything in the way of the dynamics and in your face nature of his singing. Amazing difference in how the overall presentation sounded.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/51asb9Y2oHL._UF10001000_QL80_.jpg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/51asb9Y2oHL._UF10001000_QL80_-300x300.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While in a bit of nostalgic mood for good 70s era hard driving rock, I pulled out Ronnie Montrose's album Open Fire (Warner Brothers RSK 3134) and the opening five songs on side one are almost one long tune. It starts with the spacey sounding, orchestral "Openers," drifting into "Open Fire," a flat rock and roll classic that screams right into "Mandolinia," which is reminiscent of the Who's use of synths in "Won't Get Fooled Again." The finale, "A Town Without Pity" is a lilting and lovely remake of the classic Gene Pitney 1962 theme song from the movie of the same name. Full of soaring guitar work over a very subtle orchestra underpinning. I consider this to be Ronnie Montrose's finest performance. What a talent, and greatly under appreciated as the melodic master that he was. The first side ends with the incredible acoustic "Leo Rising," which smacks of some early Jimmy Page acoustic work, and it is a thing of beauty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This particular album was produced by Edgar Winter and engineered by Dick Bogart. Primary musicians besides Ronnie were Edgar on keyboards, Ronnie Shlosser on drums, Jim Aclivar handling sequencer programming and co writing, and Alan Fitzgerald on bass. The time of the total suite is approximately 14 minutes of non stop thrill ride. The guitar work is inspirational, melodic with a sense of fierceness, and the SLP delivered it without breaking a sweat. Balanced, front and center guitar, and all other musicians in the proper space. I could also see an elevated orchestra behind the cabinet that holds my gear. This is the best my system has sounded thus far, and it made it a joy to pull out these albums for a fresh listen. Drums were impactful. The kick drum felt at times as though you were hit by cannon fire. Cymbals had a natural ring to them and a very realistic decay compared to live. If you have never heard this album may I suggest you purchase a copy. I doubt you will regret it. To this day one of my favorite all time albums, and well worth the listen. It will tell you a lot about your system's ability to handle huge dynamic swings. The SLP handled every bit of it with missing a step anywhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Up next I thought it would be good to change up things and went right to Luther Vandross' breakout album Never Too Much, Epic FE 3745. The title song is a rollicking soul/pop love song. Great melody and catching lyrics. Supported by Buddy Williams on drums, Marcus Miller on bass, Nathaniel Adderly Jr. on keys, Steve Love on guitar. There is also a great a string orchestra joining in for flavor. What stood out on this track was the velvety texture of Luther's vocals. It's little wonder that he rocketed to superstar status on the heels of this recording. Range, control to die for, and just unwavering smoothness. The SLP delivered him as though he was back among the living and singing in my audio room. The rhythm guitar provided by Steve Love was a thing of beauty. His strumming was crystal clear, and very consistent in terms of applied pressure of each stroke. A great system will show every misstep of a guitarist. Steve's playing is flawless, in the way he never wavers. No fireworks just pace and tempo like a metronome. It actually jumped out at me for the first time. So much so that I played the track a few times, as I simply don't recall every hearing it this clear and present. It wasn't distracting in its place, but rather just noticeable how perfect it was for the first time. It also reminded me of how the world at large is worse off for losing Luther at such a young age.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/R-1357568-1301397876.jpg"><img src="https://positive-feedback.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/R-1357568-1301397876.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I followed up with an album by Cal Tjader, La Onda Va Bien (Pure Audiophile Records PA-600 2.) This is a double album on 180 gram vinyl, and recorded for 45 rpm from the original tape masters from 1979. The first track "Speak Low" had Cal on his vibes with Mark Levine on piano, Roger Glenn on flute and percussion, Vince Lateano on drums, Rob Fisher on bass, and Poncho Sanchez on congas and percussion. This is a limited edition album with outstanding sonics and very well balanced engineering. Every musician takes a turn with some solo work. Each is elevated to the same level as Cal when soloing, and the presentation is smooth and creamy. Every instrument on this recording is clearly present in its own space with plenty of air between the musicians. The music builds throughout, and the pace is furious. It is clear that each of these performers are masters of their craft. The soundstage is very precise and broad. The most stunning aspect however was Vince's drums. Within the soundstage and placement the drums were to the back and right. What was not common and was wholly unexpected was the fact that the ride cymbal was delivered as slightly in front of the snare drum. That is an extremely accurate reproduction of the drum kit. The fact that I suddenly heard that slight difference in placement of part of the kit threw me a serious curve ball. I don't recall ever hearing that significant split in placement anytime before. The drums always seem to be properly placed and each of the drums or cymbals are always clear from side to side, but I simply have never heard that front to back of the kit so clearly before. Unfortunately Cal died three years after this recording while on tour from a massive heart attack. It certainly is a fitting album for one of his final recordings. The SLP just delivered the goods on every level. All I can say is wow!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I finished the LP part of this with a play of Rimsky-Korsakoff's Scheherazade performed by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, (Living Stereo LSC-2446). Scheherazade is something of a cornerstone of classical music, and there are many different recordings. This recording is arguably one of the best. There are some that have suggested that this performance, along with others, be put on a five to ten year moratorium since they might be overplayed. I say nay to that. Great musical compositions deserve to be recorded periodically by different performances to render the nuances that come from different venues and orchestras to provide as much diversity of performance as the market will bear. I have gone on record more than once saying that I was not a classical music lover. Over the past ten to twelve years recordings like this one have moved me closer and closer to the lover side of the equation. Every aspect of this recording is just superb. Rhythm and pace are outstanding. The swells and drops in music are palpable and emotive. Of special note within the record is the performance of the guest violinist Sidney Harth. His performance is just inspirational. Exceptionally smooth and precise with an appropriately delicate touch. In the midst of the bombastic nature of many parts of this performance the tone of flesh on the strings still came through during his solo takes. The SLP delivered every bit of the music in its entirety without interjecting any of its own personality. While the term "neutral" is ubiquitous in this filed and not always associated with the "warmth" of tubes this is as good as it comes to the neutrality of playback. I felt like standing to applaud at the end of the first side.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While my listening notes are all pulled from vinyl sessions that were the primary source for the most critical listening, I also spent a good deal of time streaming music, and running a number of my reel to reel tapes through the system. The Cary SLP-98P handled every bit of other sources in the same way it handled the vinyl. That is to say, close to flawlessly. This preamplifier came incredibly close to being completely neutral. Some will say that tubes never render a neutral sound, but that is just not true. It may not measure on the bench that way, but to my ears it was as close as I have come in my own system to that hallowed ground. Yes there is an inherent tube warmth, but it is also so subtle as to not draw attention and focus away from the pureness of the music. There is nothing remotely perfect in the arena of audio gear. Everything must give way to some types of compromises, no matter how small. Much like it goes with hand grenades and horse shoes, "close" often counts for the big points. So it goes with the Cary audio SLP-98P. I will gladly trade that slight warmth for ease of listening, low fatigue, and exceptionally high fidelity that delivers an incredibly satisfying listening experience. Detail, massive soundstaging, depth and breadth of the soundstage. Thanks to the absolute spot on mid range, vocals are creamy smooth, especially female vocals, and the SLP-98P delivers them in a way that drags listening sessions from a couple of hours at a session to a full day long event. Upper frequencies are delivered with sparkly, sizzle and realistic decay without and annoying edge or shrillness. Bass slam, while never being a strong suit of 300B tubes, is very present with the addition of the 845 tube in the mix. I continue to be impressed to this day with the level of bass depth and slam that I get from my 805 amplifiers and the SLP-98P just conducts everything so smoothly to the amplifiers that it all blends into a seamless delivery of audio nirvana</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I said earlier on in this review I have not had a single regret about buying the SLP-98P. It has proven to be a very high performing preamplifier and one that I plan to live with till I move on to the next phase of existence. It would take me winning a mountainous lottery to think of replacing it with anything. At that point I would go out of control on everything including building a specific listening room with room correction built in to the room. Since I do not see that happening to me I am quite content to live out my life with my current amp and preamplifier setup. Thanks to Billy and all the great people at Cary for providing me with so much musical joy. If you are looking for an absolutely stellar tube driven preamplifier and want the biggest bang for the buck you simply cannot beat the SLP-98P without spending double the money or more and even then I would not bet against this preamplifier being out performed at even at the increased cost. As my friend Tony says, "Come get ya some!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">SLP-98P Preamplifier</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Retail: $5495 before any upgrades.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cary Audio</div><div style="text-align: justify;">6301 Chapel Hill Rd.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Raleigh, NC 27607</div><div style="text-align: justify;">919.355.0010</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.caryaudio.com/">www.caryaudio.com</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842863043258323956.post-46590228412705949052023-05-05T03:54:00.007+02:002023-05-05T03:54:31.543+02:00What Vivian Maier Saw in Color<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-Nu5nKPnipkKeKh8MGAI-Ymk51WFbGFMsOnJfrS7exIU7_RmxdauSBwMKR9gjQ8X9tk-WPOaB4kmfDbNnxoemqgjc6tMge-_R9icxDLqomkrrrkEDduoSd8JNmqPCoXZBP2v3UZ8XOABEAe26HHyZcGDxi7H84skhavYsJ-4GGrgYHOz_BMH5yYK/s620/self-portrait_new_york_ny_may_5_1955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-Nu5nKPnipkKeKh8MGAI-Ymk51WFbGFMsOnJfrS7exIU7_RmxdauSBwMKR9gjQ8X9tk-WPOaB4kmfDbNnxoemqgjc6tMge-_R9icxDLqomkrrrkEDduoSd8JNmqPCoXZBP2v3UZ8XOABEAe26HHyZcGDxi7H84skhavYsJ-4GGrgYHOz_BMH5yYK/s16000/self-portrait_new_york_ny_may_5_1955.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Self-portrait New York NY May 5 1955</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From the 1950s until a few years before she died, in 2009, destitute at the age of 83, Vivian Maier took at least 150,000 pictures, mostly in Chicago, and showed them to nobody. Now she has earned her place alongside Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Lisette Model, Garry Winogrand, and other giants of the American street. See her vivid photos, which might have languished in obscurity if not for a chance acquisition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A photograph is a secret about a secret,” Diane Arbus said. In the case of Vivian Maier, the photographer was a secret, too. From the nineteen-fifties until a few years before she died, in 2009, destitute at the age of eighty-three, Maier took at least a hundred and fifty thousand pictures, mostly in Chicago, and showed them to nobody. It’s telling, perhaps, that one of her favorite motifs was to shoot her own shadow. For decades, she supported herself as a nanny in the wealthy enclaves of the city. But her real work was roaming the streets with her camera (often with her young charges in tow), capturing images of sublime spontaneity, wit, and compositional savvy. When pressed about her occupation by a man she once knew, Maier didn’t describe herself as a nanny. She said, “I am sort of a spy.” All the best street photographers are.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maier’s covert work might have languished in obscurity if not for the chance acquisition, in 2007, of a cache of negatives, prints, contact sheets, and unprocessed rolls of film, all seized from a storage locker because she fell behind on the rent. When John Maloof, a Chicago real-estate agent, bought the material, everything about Maier’s identity was a mystery except for her name. It was only when he ran across her death notice, two years later, that her story began to unfold. (His wonderful documentary on the subject, “Finding Vivian Maier,” was nominated for an Academy Award in 2015.) Maier shot in both color and black-and-white; perhaps to establish her credibility as a “serious” artist, the first of her pictures to be widely disseminated were the latter. Now that Maier has earned her place alongside Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Lisette Model, Garry Winogrand, and other giants of the American street, a new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vivian-Maier-Color-Colin-Westerbeck/dp/0062795570">Vivian Maier: The Color Work</a>,” and a related exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery (opening on November 14th) consider her eye for the vivid.</div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bd8c32eee4c672d14dfc2a5/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier25.jpg" /><br />Chicago, 1978.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Maier is such an original artist that it feels a like a cheat to play games of compare and contrast. But, leafing through the book, it’s remarkable how often other photographers spring to mind. On an unknown date, at the Art Institute of Chicago, she pulled a Thomas Struth when she documented a mother (a nanny?) and a child staring raptly at a painting on the wall, both dressed in navy and white; the composition is centrally anchored by another child staring, defiantly, directly at Maier. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In another image, a red-headed boy, who sucks his thumb while slumped against a wood-panelled wall on which four framed handguns are hanging, could be the shy, sullen cousin of Arbus’s manic boy with a toy hand grenade. The detached bumper and crash-crumpled metal of a Volkswagen Beetle, shot in Chicagoland in 1977, assumes sculptural proportions that invite thoughts of Arnold Odermatt, the Swiss policeman whose forensic photos of automobile accidents deserve to be more widely known.</div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bdb72b8a0620319e16c6c65/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier17.jpg" /><br />Location unknown, 1960.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Beetle was yellow, a color that brings out Maier’s best. In 1975, she took one of her shadow self-portraits against a green lawn dotted with little gold blossoms; cropped by the lens, the dainty, painterly landscape splits the difference between a Warhol silkscreen of flowers and the allover compositions of AbEx. (Note that Maier was shooting her shadow in the nineteen-fifties, roughly a decade before Friedlander, who is renowned for the gesture, did the same.) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The same year, she came across two men on a sidewalk—one standing, one striding—both wearing canary shorts and lemon-fizz socks. To their right is a woman in a sensibly dark woolly cardigan and a daffodil-colored skirt. Their outfits are almost absurdly sunny, but not one of them is smiling.</div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bd8c32f0b29b72d21f34ad9/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier00.jpg" /><br />Chicagoland, April, 1977.<br /><br /><br /><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maier can pack an entire short story’s worth of details into a single frame. Consider the overly tan, skin-baring couple shot in an unknown location in 1960. They stand peeping through two cruciform holes in a high wall separating them from a swimming pool. The woman’s dingy white curls echo the hue of the stucco; his peeling, freckled back repeats its mottled texture. The ruched fabric of her bitter-orange bathing suit is the same palette and pattern as a poolside cushion in the near distance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Past the man’s ear, there’s a lively brunette whose blue one-piece is a shade darker than the water below. She’s thrown her arms in the air, as if describing a wild night at a party. The elderly pair are on the outside looking in, and it’s worse than having their noses pressed against glass—they can smell the chlorine. When you see that she’s clutching a wrinkly brown paper bag, the mise en scène becomes somehow sadder.</div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5be09ca06cc2dd2d8635b357/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier31.jpg" /><br />Location unknown, c. 1960–1976.</div><div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bdc7daff32ff4223a9cff8b/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier09.jpg" /><br />The Art Institute of Chicago, date unknown.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">One question that has dogged the discovery of Maier’s photography is how a lowly nanny could make such high art. Let’s call that sexism. I’ve never heard anyone ask how another exceptional Chicago outsider, the visionary writer and artist Henry Darger, could have produced his fifteen-thousand-page magnum opus while holding down a job as a janitor. The photographer Joel Meyerowitz contributed a foreword to the new book, a canny choice given that, like Maier, he learned how to shoot on the streets. He also co-wrote (with Colin Westerbeck, who also contributes an essay) an esteemed volume on the genre, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bystander-History-Photography-Colin-Westerbeck/dp/1786270668">Bystander: A History of Street Photography</a>.” </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">He concludes, rightly, that “Maier was an early poet of color photography.” But he also floats a wince-inducing theory about her knack for snatching secrets, what he terms all great street photographers’ “cloak of invisibility”: “She’s as plain as an old-fashioned schoolmarm. She’s the wallflower, the spinster aunt, the ungainly tourist in the big city . . . except . . . she isn’t!” Has Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” ever been defined in terms of his looks?</div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5be08dac58d5df2dccb75076/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier10.jpg" /><br />Location and date unknown.</div><div><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5be08dacfc6b020cee2a943c/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier11.jpg" /><br />Location and date unknown.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5be08d48f70d262a2d70af86/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier28.jpg" /><br />Chicagoland, March 1977.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bda21c0f70d262a2d70a8bc/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier01.jpg" /><br />Chicago, December 1974.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bda220b265a7147d5235f02/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier06.jpg" /><br />Chicago, 1975.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bdc704c1982473cfaec7584/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier08.jpg" /><br />Location unknown, 1976.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bdc704cf7371c366e4c3456/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier19.jpg" /><br />Chicago, 1973.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bdc6841a965f9460b7f786a/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier29.jpg" /><br />Self-portrait, Chicagoland, 1975.<br /><br /><img src="https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5bda22c4f32ff4223a9cfe03/master/w_1600%2Cc_limit/scott-maier18.jpg" /><br />Self-portrait, Chicagoland, October 1975.<br /><br />Andrea K. Scott<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com