#dome observation car | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thenixkat · 7 months

Text

UA has too much money and I want to burn it down

[ID: A screenshot of a racetrack that includes waterfalls, mountains with ziplines, several buildings, and a giant slide with a person wearing black standing in front of it. Subtitles say: Use your Quirks freely to reach the finish line! /End ID]

Decided to look up the race track for the recommendation exam (the nepo baby test) for a fic and just I hate how much money this school has.

[ID: A walled-off city with a large gate. There is a bus that is very small in comparison to the gate and dots near the bus represent people to show the scale of the city. /End ID]

This is ONE (one) of the full sized city models that UA has for students to wreck. There are even cars in these fake cities.

[ID: A broad complicated expanse of pipes that extends to the horizon. In the right corner is an observation deck. /End ID]

This is just one of the other sites that the school has for students to wreak for training.

[ID: A large expanse of forest that stretches to the horizon. There are at least two large rock formations in this forest. The forest is walled off and the wall contains a gate. Near the gate is a bus and several dots representing people to show the size of the forest. /End ID]

Another zone that UA has for students to destroy for exercises. That thing is the size of a nature preserve.

Those training grounds are labeled Beta (the city), Gamma (the pipes), and Omega (the forest). There are greek letters in between them and even more training grounds. The one that pisses me off the most that I couldn't find an aerial shot of is the fully furnished suburb. Just so many empty houses and cars, houses that likely have some amount of furniture inside if the city is any indication.

But that's not all!

[ID: A screenshot of a dirt field with white lines painted on it for different sports events. Next to the field is the corner of a large building with massive windows, greenery, and a smaller building with white walls. There are a number of dots on the field representing people that emphasize the size of the surrounding buildings. /End ID]

It also has regular big ass PE grounds and gym buildings. Yes buildings, multiple.

[ID: A sports stadium with rows of multicolored booths in front of and behind it. Around the stadium past the concrete circling it are large amounts of greenery with small buildings scattered about. /End ID]

Its got a fucking sports stadium!

[ID: A domed building against a blue slightly cloudy sky. An effect for audience convenience has the name of the building 'USJ' in gold in front of the building. /End ID]

It also has a disaster simulation building that has to be at least as large as the stadium. It also has all the simulations running simultaneously with no one actually in those simulations.

[ID: A wide expanse of concrete road with greenery on both sides. On the right side is a large multi story H shaped building with skyscraper like windows from the bottom to the top. On the left side are brown brick apartment buildings with white balconies that stretch into the horizon. /End ID]

The school later built dorm buildings for each class that attends the school on some of the campus land. The dorm buildings are all five stories tall and each room is for a single student and the size of a small apartment. Complete with mini-fridges and individual bathrooms and balconies.

Why does this school have as much money as the Japanese government and more land than god?

Just… did the mangaka ever think it through just how absurdly large this school is? UA has a bus system to get students to different parts of the campus and it's a fucking highschool.

Like just the money that this school has. Why does it have so much money? It doesn't need all that money. The other hero schools don't seem to have that much money.

And like just all that money but they only have one nurse, all the human employees have multiple full-time jobs, some of the human employees like don't have teaching licenses and are allowed to teach however the fuck they want to (like Aizawa expelling who classes and sleeping through the classes he is supposed to teach). (How the fuck are these kids being guaranteed to have a quality education here if the teachers can do whatever the fuck they want and don't need to even have fucking teaching credentials to teach here?) And all the damn robots doing basically as much as can be done to have fewer real people working at the school.

#nix meows #my hero academia #ua critical #this one fucking school could end homlessness in at least the surrounding cities #why does it have so much fucking land sitting with unoccupied and largely unused buildings and homes #how does letting students destroy so much stuff make them better proheroes?#long post #described images

18 notes · View notes

blugnettabutterflies · 1 year

Text

Outcasts, Chapter 1

"I found him."

(Criminal Case: The Conspiracy Spoilers in general, mainly of Case 60, Blaze of Glory.)

TW: Heavy description of bruises and anatomy.

Beginning - Previous Ch - Next Ch - Ending

There are a lot of things a profiler can do. Usually, their job is to take every single detail they can grasp on their fingers of anyone he meets, even if it's a friend, and analyze their behavior coming from those objects, chats, and even by only looks and hand movements. It's both a blessing and a curse.

For example, one thing Gabriel knows now is that when Gloria is nervous, she drives fast. Very fast. Constantly ignoring every driving sign she could encounter.

But, given the context they are in, it's not like the driving signs even matter. And the reasoning is also on par, understandable and valid.

They just saw the Dome explode. And it was a powerful explosion, given that he still has a sensation of trembling in his ears from the sound of it, and the vision of the dust and fire going up is still as clear as day.

They weren't even that close to the Dome and still felt like they were a few blocks away.

And what's worse, they were informed just a few minutes ago that both of his teammates were in the position the explosion took place. That explains why Gloria was running the car as if her life depends on it. Maybe some lives do depend on this.

That also explains how he hasn't said a word ever since he got in the car, only looking through the window to see if the ambulance is following them.

It took less than half an hour to get to the epicenter of the explosion. The damn Dome. The same place that was full of mysteries, a whole Conspiracy going on, experiments and science, and many, many deaths and trouble for them, now is just reduced into rubble and debris, with a few structures still barely holding up.

- Here, let's start searching... they cannot be that far. - His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Gloria speaking and her door opening. That led him to do the same thing, almost automatically.

Before she departs, she indicates her whistle. Everyone has one, in case of an emergency. In this case, if they find any of the two.

Now, both have to be careful. Not only were they searching for their friends, but now they have to be on the lookout if any neohuman was nearby, ready to slit them open.

It's incredible how much those two individuals usually get themselves into trouble. Ever since this person who everyone calls as Player reappeared in the city, everything was turned upside down. And that apparently wasn't their first rodeo.

Either they have a magical intuition to let this happen, or it's just bad luck.

He just wants to think that it is a mere coincidence.

And lately, all the luck has been happening to his closest companion.

He thinks about this member for quite some time while searching. A lot has happened to this member. From finding and trying to ally old enemies of his that end up dead, to finding out that his girlfriend was without any memory, only to recover it with his help and murder someone. To then be killed.

He sighs. This member is prone to be explosive, no pun intended. His emotions are always extreme. Not that is a bad thing, but he thinks he never learned to keep an eye on them, and those can turn against him, as it did almost a week ago, almost ending with his own life.

Still to this day, he feels that he could have done something. Sure, now he looks better but the process is hard and emotionally draining, he knows that. Especially for someone like him. Maybe he could have made a little more in his journalism to find more stuff to address. Or maybe he could have found a way to...

No. Just find him now. That's your only objective. Find them both. Find them alive.

Both enter the hall and see fire. More fire than the normal they got already used. Debris everywhere, and tons of rubble around.

That was the epicenter.

They observe the place that has the most fire. An electric motor, or at least what remains of it, is destroyed into pieces.

- What on earth... - Gloria asks herself, with a very small volume. Gabriel can't give himself the answer even if he wanted to, he's just as shocked.

They keep advancing. He kept thinking about that as he kept going with a few paramedics near him. Still holding the whistle he was given so the rescue team could find him.

Suddenly, Gloria is the first to whistle.

- I found Player! - She exclaims, as she tries to take rocks that were from a supposed wall out of them. They were unconscious.

Aside from the bruises caused by the rubble, there weren't major injuries involved.

- C'mon hun, wake up. - Gloria says in a concerned tone as she tries to move Player in order to wake them up, with no positive results.

A few paramedics were already on the way to attend to them, so he didn't get closer.

"Alright, one found. One more to find." Was his train of thought as he kept on walking, almost running. He still can't find him.

- Hey! Is anyone there?!

No answer for the general call. He tries again. Maybe he just reacts to his name. Common reaction under shock.

- Hello?! J-

There is some debris going in one particular place that caught his eye. More than that, there was like an object, a lump of... something, that just fell out to the ground, prompting a sound loud enough to give some attention to it.

He approaches it, hoping it's not what he thinks it is. He even was telling himself to not think about it. It can't be.

"It can't be him. Don't let it be him." He thinks, almost prays.

But as he was approaching the lump, his suspicions were (unfortunately) getting more accurate. The lump was taking more form. He then noticed that the lump had arms.

And legs...

And a face.

A barely recognizable face.

The vision was almost nauseating. The clothes were ripped apart, with the exception of his jacket, which the back and part of his left arm took a bad hit. He can still see the ashes. The body had so many burns, he can't determine if they were second or third-degree... he can even see one part of the body not being in the right place. He can only explain to himself that he was the closest to the explosion.

His face took a major hit. This "lump" had a painful face, unconsciously feeling all that his body went through. Especially on his eyes.

They were bleeding (or at least one of them) as much as the top of his head.

The last time he saw that much blood in a body, was when he found Zoe Kusama in the psychiatric hospital.

"Oh no..."

And she was dead.

- GLORIA!!! - was all he could yell in the chaos that became his mind for a second. He didn't need the whistle, she came really fast. - Are you okay?! What happened?! - She asks while running to the position. - ... I found him.

She covers her mouth as soon as she gets to see the sight. He can tell that her mind became a fog, and honestly, his mind probably wanted to do that as well.

He blows the whistle to keep his brain from doing it. The sound keeps him on the ground.

They didn't even try to wake him up or move him. They just waited for instructions for the paramedics, who came running, applying everything they could apply to the lump of a human being that they call David Jeremiah Jones.

#criminal case #criminal case the conspiracy #criminal case game #david jeremiah jones #david jones #Gabriel Herrera #Gloria Hayes #writing #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #fanfiction writer #This is no perfect in any way #But i really wanted to make some answers and to be a second view from that case

33 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 7 months

Text

For most of the past 15 years, my interactions with young Chinese in their late teens and 20s have obeyed a familiar pattern. Having grown up in an age when their country seemed impervious to major economic setbacks, they easily shrugged off each new wave of Western assessments that China’s political and economic model—like all models—faced serious vulnerabilities.

They had heard and rejected the idea that China’s political system was inherently inferior to Western-style democracy. The evidence to the contrary seemed largely sufficient to their eyes as the United States and other high-income countries fell victim to the 2008-09 global financial crisis while China sailed forward almost placidly by comparison. The “democracy is superior” argument took another big hit in their minds during the Trump administration, when U.S. politics was dominated by one poorly informed but powerful man’s impulsiveness. Wasn’t that supposed to be a key flaw of dictatorships?

They had dismissed the widespread notion that China’s relatively closed authoritarian system would prevent the country from innovating fast enough. Yes, it was true that China had blocked most of the trailblazing U.S. companies of the early internet age, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many others. But hadn’t China come up with its own terrific domestic alternatives? Look at WeChat, young Chinese began telling me from the moment of that homegrown app’s birth. On “our” platform, they observed, one can seamlessly do everything that it takes a whole host of U.S. apps to accomplish. Has anyone in the West created something so brilliantly capable?

And if one thinks this is a matter of ancient history, which is what the early app era is when talking about the history of the internet, what about electrical vehicles and the batteries that make them run? China has gotten so good so fast at developing sleek, well-functioning, and competitively priced cars in this space that it even has the Germans trembling, as seen at this week’s industry show in what is probably the West’s premium car-producing country. Or look at the U.S. attempt to stifle Huawei, China’s biggest cellphone-maker. Although prevented from using U.S. technology for 5G components, China has, using homegrown technology, just rolled out a high-end smartphone model that is capable of 5G-like data connectivity speeds and which throws in satellite connection capability as a bonus.

Young Chinese have also heard that the country’s poor environment would bottleneck their growth or drive an uprising by the middle class. Not so long ago, the air in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai was frightfully polluted, drawing justified comparisons to the London of Charles Dickens. If one had to endure this much pollution in order to sustain further decades of fast economic growth, didn’t that call into question more than just the seeming disregard of the country’s leaders for the people’s well-being? What, in other words, is the purpose of growth if one’s child can’t play outside because it’s dangerous to breathe?

Well, something remarkable happened here, too. While traveling in China for much of the past summer, I discovered the air in many of the country’s biggest cities to be so vastly improved that a newcomer would have a hard time imagining the recent long era of “airpocalypses,” as the immovable domes of impenetrable smog encasing urban environments were called.

Though I have never believed that China had somehow repealed basic economic laws, which suggest that every great boom era must come to an end, I have always found a lot to admire in the great many young Chinese I have gotten to know over the last 15 years or so. Substantial numbers among them have been students in my own classes in the United States and elsewhere. And one of the qualities that has consistently struck me most among them is what I like to call civilizational confidence.

It is true that the Chinese state, through tightly controlled education and unstinting propaganda, works hard to instill this attitude, but there is something more at play here than just top-down manipulation. I suspect part of it comes from being part of such a large country with great historic depth and many, many cultural and scientific achievements to its name. Part of it, too, seems to be about resilience. Even if not during their lifetimes, young Chinese know that their country has been down before but has always sprung back impressively. All of this has bred self-belief.

But all of this also makes the impressions I received during my recent weeks of travel in China feel even more remarkable. What I heard over many conversations with young people was not a response to the perennial cycles of doomcasting about China that one finds in the Western press and in much publishing about the country. In fact, most of these people were not terribly well-informed about the current state of Western discourse about their country at all. What they were, however, was filled with their own doubts about the future, which they readily vented.

Some of the contours of this were unsurprising. After all, this was the summer that Beijing decided to suppress the publication of youth unemployment data, presumably because of how grim the numbers have become—in June, youth unemployment hit a record 21.3 percent. In conversation after conversation, my young interlocutors spoke with deep trepidation about their economic prospects in the near and even longer term.

It wasn’t the topic itself that surprised me so much as the swiftness and power of the shift in sentiment. At almost all times during this century, it has been an article of faith in the country that education, and especially higher education, would be rewarded with sharply rising incomes, secure entry into the middle class or better, and a version of the sentiment common in the United States during the boom decades that followed World War II: that it was the birthright of each new generation to be much better off than the one that preceded it.

If the problem of youth unemployment in a China whose economy may be set for long-term deceleration has been widely commented on, some of the profound problems that stem from this generally have not. A graphic representation of the number of new college graduates in the country over the last four-plus decades looks like the upward curve of a roller coaster track. Here we find the kind of problem that is an unintended consequence of what has always seemed like a very sensible proposition: Educating people equates to creating new waves of prosperity. In its current funk, though—and perhaps on a longer-term basis, due to deep contradictions in the country’s economic model—China can no longer find enough gainful employment for its huge numbers of newly educated people.

If you’re between the ages of, say, 17 and 28 or so—which was the case for almost everyone I spoke with—this is deeply discouraging and even scary, as so many people didn’t hesitate to tell me. “We are competing with each other in what has become a pure rat race,” a college freshman, whose name I am withholding for their security, told me in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. “Everybody is trying to push their education as far as they can, but we are competing for fewer and fewer jobs. As a result of supply and demand, lots of people are going to earn less, and lots of others will just have to accept low-grade jobs.”

But this was only the beginning of the new pessimism I was encountering.

For years when I taught in my graduate school classrooms in New York about the coming aging crunch in China—a time projected for the near future when the ratio of older adults to the young and working-age populations would rapidly flip in favor of the former—I drew a knowing look from many of my Chinese students. After all, it is a problem I have been writing about for many years already. “Here we go again,” the stares I received from some of my Chinese students seemed to say. “Professor French has given in to the doomsaying industry about our country, but we know better.”

This summer, though, I didn’t have to ask about aging. It was on everybody’s lips, not least the young people. I suspect that’s in part because the state quite belatedly has itself become alarmed. The Chinese government avoids shocking language about the stark nature of a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale, but the ability to read between the lines of official messaging to see the underlying urgency of this challenge is almost child’s play, especially for the dwindling numbers of young adults in the country who only recently were children themselves.

The country’s media are now filled with prompts for young people to get married earlier and have more children. Chinese President Xi Jinping has traditionally been loath to use social welfare spending or direct cash benefits to citizens to reduce China’s addiction to investment and stimulate the economy. But that is exactly what Beijing is rolling out in response to the alarming decline in birth rates. Suddenly, one city or province after another is introducing monetary inducements to women or couples to have more children.

The young people who will in theory be the source of the children of the future increasingly say they are discouraged by the costs of housing and of raising children. And as most of them belong to one-child families themselves, they also speak in fear of the financial burdens that await them when their parents grow old and infirm and need taking care of. Compared with most wealthy Western countries, the Chinese state’s social welfare provisions for retirement, health, and elder care remain bare-bones.

In response to this, not only are young people putting off marriage until later, but increasing numbers of young Chinese are also forgoing it altogether, with some even dropping out of dating. Young women, meanwhile, have been big beneficiaries of the enormous boom in higher education in the country, and with more and more advanced learning among them, growing numbers of them have been privileging their own career development and—“Why not?” some said to me—their personal fulfillment.

In my conversations in China this summer, I never once inquired about feminism, but one after another, young women freely identified with it themselves. Then came this comment from a 19-year-old in Shanghai, whose name I am also withholding for her safety. “Maybe you’ll think this is too dark, but I definitely don’t,” she said. “It seems like we are on track for a situation where the state tries to force women to have children, like take us away to a camp or something. It worries me a lot.”

During China’s long boom years, not succumbing to the skepticism and naysaying of others seemed like a real source of strength for the society, even a virtue. We are in a new era now, though, and one of the biggest tests will be something the country’s leaders are altogether unaccustomed to: how well the system can hear and respond to the growing concerns and doubts of its own citizens.

3 notes · View notes

guerrerense · 8 months

Video

flickr

OCS To Worcester por David Blazejewski Por Flickr: I shared this shot recently: flic.kr/p/2oTS2Vr which made me think back to another ridiculously cool catch at this exact same spot just shy of five years prior. Until the road was bought out by CSXT, Pan Am Railway's little vest pocket OCS was seen out on the road regularly, though trips other than on the mainline to Mechanicville or down to Boston were exceedingly rare. This was the only time in many years that it traveled down the Worcester main. After an amazing chase all day from the Hoosac Tunnel 100 miles east on the freight main they turned south (railroad west) for 23 miles down the Worcester Main to Barbers. They are seen passing the old freight house still dressed in tattered peeling standard B&M colors as they approach the Center Bridge Road grade crossing at MP X19.1. PAR 1 and PAR 2 are ex Canadian National FP9s 6505 and 6516 built in 1954 and 1957 respectively by GMDD. They passed from CN to VIA Rail in 1978 before being picked up by the Conway Scenic in 1995 when they expanded into Crawford Notch. After 15 years spent hauling tourists in the White Mountains 6505 & 6516 would become PAR 1 & 2 when traded to Pan Am Railways in March 2010 for GP38 252 and GP35 216. They are pulling the three car train consisting of dome car 102, lounge car 101, and observation/business car 100. ST100 was originally Norfolk and Western business car 102 that was rebuilt and streamlined in 1957 from diner 1011 that was originally built by ACF in 1934. It was purchased by the D&H in 1976 and then passed to Guilford in 1984 and was retained after the 1988 bankruptcy and divestiture of the D&H. ST101 also came from the D&H but was one of four originally built by Budd for the D&RGW in 1950 for use on the Denver-Salt Lake Prospector and was numbered 1290 named the Castle Gate. After that train was discontinued in 1967 the D&H acquired it and named it Champlain. And ST102 was also built by Budd in 1950 for Wabash's Chicago to St. Louis "Blue Bird" and originally wore #201. It later became N&W 1611 until stored at Roanoke in 1966. In 1971 it went to Amtrak where it stayed for 22 years before ending up in private hands for 20 more years until PAR bought it in 2013. Lancaster, Massachusetts Thursday August 16, 2018

#flickr

4 notes · View notes

alightinthelantern · 2 years

Photo

Milwaukee Road “Skytop” lounge-sleeper cars, 1948

In early 1948 the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad built four “Rapids” series lounge-parlor-observation cars in their home shops for their “Morning Hiawatha” and “Afternoon Hiawatha” passenger services, daytime trains that ran twice-daily through the Great Lakes region. Dubbed “Skytops”, these cars were designed by famed industrial designer Brooks Stevens, whose accomplishments vary from trains and automobiles to home appliances and even the original Wienermobile. These "Skytops” featured a radical design, with their tail-end an elongated quarter-sphere with a bullet-tip floor plan in a complex curvature made up of flat sections joined like a polyhedron. The cars’ tails were 90% glass and featured flat panels of glass only, no curved glass at all in their construction. The four “Rapids” series cars, which each boasted a name ending in “Rapids”, were parlor cars, with comfortable single seats which swiveled, rather than benches as in Coach, offered at First-class rates.

In late 1948 Milwaukee Road outsourced to the Pullman Company the construction of six “Skytops” for use on their long-distance “Olympian Hiawatha” service which ran between Chicago, Illinois and Seattle, Washington. Dubbed “Creek” series, with names all ending in the word “Creek”, these “Skytops”, delivered between December 1948 and January 1949, were lounge-sleeping cars rather than lounge-parlors, and featured eight bedrooms, sleeping sixteen, in the forward majority of the car, each with private toilet, plus a public toilet at the head of the car, and an enlarged lounge area seating twenty at the tail-end. Visually similar to the “Rapids” series cars in exterior, the “Creek” series lounge-sleepers had an extra bay of windows and skylights forward of the main tail section, and a different arrangement of windows along the sides of the car forward of the lounge.

During its existence the “Olympian Hiawatha” saw stiff competition from several rival trains along the same route, and the Milwaukee Road Company created bold, stylish passenger cars such as the “Skytops” and “Super Domes” in hopes of giving their service an edge. However, the 1950s saw the creation of the US Interstate Highway System and the subsequent diminishing of the railroads at the hands of an automobile boom, and with diminishing ridership and mounting losses the Milwaukee Road cancelled the “Olympian Hiawatha” in 1961. After this the six “Creek” series cars were sold to Canadian National, and served on various trains throughout the 1960s and early seventies. The cars, which had exits only at their forward ends, saw the end of service when new safety laws decreed all passenger cars in service must have at least two exits, and an exit at each end. After this Canadian National scrapped three of the cars and sold the rest to US interests. One car “Coffee Creek”, is currently under restoration, and the last two, “Gold Creek” and “Arrow Creek”, are stored as cut-up hulks at the Milwaukee Road Heritage Center.

Photos:

Image one is original concept art for the Skytop sleeper, painted by Brooks Stevens.

Image 3 is an edit of Image 2 which I personally did.

Image 4′s source is here

Image 5 is a model of the car.

Images 6–10 are historical photos from various sources.

#Brooks Stevens #Milwaukee Road #trains #1940s #Skytop car #Skytop #Skytops #lounge-sleeper

20 notes · View notes

aryburn-trains · 1 year

Photo

"Revelstoke Park" brings up the rear of stainless steel VIA 614, (Holiday Ocean) consist departing Matapedia at 05:10 while VIA 616 (Holiday Chaleur) prepares to leave for the Gaspe' Coast. December 28, 2006

#ocean #chaleur #via rail #2006 #montreal #halifax #gaspe #trains #passenger train #history #matapedia #quebec #dome car #observation car #dome observation car

12 notes · View notes

nicklloydnow · 6 months

Text

"Two Modern Noh Plays" by Yukio Mishima presented by Midtwenties Theater Society & 2019 Vancouver Fringe Festival

“POET: Listen to me. . . . I am just what I seem, a threepenny poet, without even a woman who'll look at me. But there's something I respect-the world as reflected in the eyes of young people who love each other, a hundred times more beautiful than what they actually see—that I respect. Look, they're not the least aware we're talking about them. They've climbed up high as the stars. You can see the glint of starlight under their eyes, next to the cheeks. . . . And this bench, this bench is a kind of ladder mounting to heaven, the highest lookout tower in the world, a glorious observation point. When a man sits here with his sweetheart he can see the lights of the cities halfway across the globe. But if (climbs on the bench) I stand here all by myself, I can't see a thing. . . . Oh, I do see something—lots of benches, somebody waving a flashlight—must be a policeman. A bonfire. Beggars crouching around the fire. The headlights of a car. They've passed each other now and are heading toward the tennis courts. What was that? A car full of flowers. Performers returning from a concert? Or a funeral procession? (He gets down from the bench and sits.) That's all I can see.

OLD WOMAN: What rubbish. Why in the world do you respect such things? It's that same silly nature of yours which makes you write sentimental poems that nobody will buy.

POET: And that's exactly why I never invade this bench. As long as you and I are occupying it, the bench is just so many dreary slats of wood, but if they sit here it can become a memory. It can become softer than a sofa, and warm with the sparks thrown off by living people. . . . When you sit here it becomes cold as a grave, like a bench put together out of slabs of tombstones. I can't bear that.

OLD WOMAN: You're young and inexperienced, you still haven't the eyes to see things. You say the benches where they sit, those snotty-faced shop clerks with their whores, are alive? Don't be silly. They're petting on their graves. Look, how deathly pale their faces look in the greenish street light that comes through the leaves. Their eyes are shut, the men and women both. Don't they look like corpses? They're dying as they make love. (Sniffs around her.) There's a smell of flowers, all right. The flowers in the park are very fragrant at night, just like those inside a coffin. Those lovers are all buried in the smell of the flowers, like so many dead men. You and I are the only live ones.

POET: (Laughs.) What a joke! You think you're more alive than they are?

OLD WOMAN: Of course I do. I'm ninety-nine years old, and look how healthy I am.

POET: Ninety-nine?

OLD WOMAN: (turning her face into the light) Take a good look.”

“OLD WOMAN: I know what the face looks like of someone who's come back to life—I've seen it often enough. It wears an expression of horrible boredom, and that expression is what I like. . . . Long ago, when I was young, I never had the sensation of being alive unless my head was all awhirl. I only felt I was living when I forgot myself completely. Since then I have realized my mistake. When the world seems wonderful to live in, and the meanest little flower looks big as a dome, and flying doves sing as they go by with human voices . . . when, I mean, everyone in the whole world says "Good morning" joyously to everyone else, and things you've been searching for ten years turn up in the back of a cupboard, and every girl looks like an empress . . . when you feel as if roses are blooming on the dead rose trees, then—idiotic things like that happened to me once every ten days when I was young, but now when I think of it, I realize I was dying as it happened. . . . The worse the liquor, the quicker you get drunk. In the midst of my drunkenness, in the midst of those sentimental feelings and my tears, I was dying. . . . Since then, I've made it a rule not to drink. That's the secret of my long life.

РОЕТ: (teasing her) Oh! And tell me, old lady, what is your reason for living?

OLD WOMAN: My reason? Don't be ridiculous! Isn't the very fact of existing a reason in itself? I'm not a horse that runs because it wants a carrot. Horses, anyway, run because that's the way they're made.”

- Yukio Mishima, ‘Sotoba Komachi’ (1956)

#mishima #yukio mishima #sotoba komachi #noh plays #Midtwenties Theater Society #Vancouver Fringe Festival

2 notes · View notes

leewhitaker · 1 year

Text

The Snowglobe

My snowglobe of New York City shattered on the floor while I was busy losing my virginity. The light was dim, but I knew exactly where it stood on my desk, so I had a vague sense of where it landed on my floor. The noise was such a startling interruption that the boy and I exchanged a look, and for a moment I could tell we were both considering taking a brief respite from using our bodies as callow, nervous instruments of passion to clean up the damp shards.

As I laid there, a series of moments from my life vividly began to flash before me in still frames, the way slides switch in an old View-Master: I saw the pale ceramic tableau of Manhattan as I sat at that desk with my chin propped up on my fist, procrastinating my summer reading and pretending that those buildings were the whole world. I saw the flurry of sparkles as I rolled the clear glass ball around and around above my head, leaning back in my chair, observing the distorted shapes of my bedroom through it like a looking glass the first time I smoked pot. I saw the tiny currents in the water, and the broken bubbles I could make at the top of the dome if I shook it hard enough. I saw it on my desk as I left that very morning, undisturbed, and I remember thinking I ought to move it away from the edge.

The boy didn’t stop of his own volition above me and I did not tell him to. “Sorry,” he breathed, but the word was labored, and broken up by the rhythm of his body.

And I was already so disoriented by the loud noise and the fact that I hadn’t eaten that day, that the prospect of a man apologizing for something—the prospect that a man could have the emotional tact, or self awareness, or even the instinct to feel guilt at all during sex—bewildered me even further. At the time, I didn’t have the language necessary to parse this feeling, but I know now, unequivocally, that that’s what it was. I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice was suddenly absent.

“Do you want me to stop?” he went on, pulling my legs up to his shoulders.

For reasons that still remain beyond my comprehension, I nearly slipped into genuine, unironic laughter at the invisible question pinned to the air between us: Would it matter if I did?

He continued to fuck me for a long, long time before I finally shook my head. “It’s fine.”

I used to keep an eye on the sun’s position in the sky through that snowglobe. It would refract the light shining through my window into a dotted line along the desk, like my own imaginary little calendar of the solstice. There was a squeaky tin globe hardly larger than a grapefruit that always stood beside it, and something about their symmetry and uselessness together always just made sense to me. As a pair, they had this united, satisfying predictability, and if ever I awoke in a cold sweat in the blue, small morning hours, the moon always drew a glossy outline around them that I could easily recognize as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The way they were placed made them look like planets beside each other, so perhaps that’s why the snowglobe always seemed to have such a celestial quality about it. But it was a trinket—strictly ornamental. It meant nothing to me. In fact, I’m almost certain it came into my possession by regifting. I never cared much for New York City.

The boy left and I showered and washed the sheets and sat on my bed with wet hair and ate dry Apple Jacks and watched a show on my laptop and tried not to think about the way my hips, and the middle of me felt a little bit different every time I would shift. I took Advil. I painted my nails. I reorganized my bookshelf. I procured myself breakfast each day, and went to all my classes. I took my permit test and a pregnancy test on the same day. I whitened my teeth.

Eventually, I had sex again in a different room, and later in a car. But for twenty-one days, Lady Liberty’s dismembered arm lay on my bedroom floor in the dry, sparkling grave of my former snowglobe. I do not know why I swept all the broken glass into the corner of my room, or why I let it sit there in a pile like a cadaver I didn’t want to deal with. I didn’t want to look at it, or think about it, but I also had to have it right there. It had to sleep in the same room as me.

Sometimes I still think about the snowglobe when I’m in bed with a man—if a picture frame falls, or the furniture shifts. I don’t remember it on my desk, though; I remember its final resting place on my bedroom floor in the corner with no sunlight. I remember the drawn curtains and the radio silence—the way I still had clothes hooked to me somewhere around an elbow or ankle, as I did not have the luxury of disrobing completely before we began. And while I do not remember the boy, I remember how he looked into my eyes, said sorry while he was doing it, and didn’t stop. He said sorry while he was doing it and didn’t stop. I swear that has never left me.

L.W.

#writing

4 notes · View notes

malenaroyorodic · 1 year

Text

Week 2 - Drivers / Concept / Materiality

This week the Petrol Station had the main focus as a site and primary ideas were studied. A sort of "clean air" bubble helmet was created as a prosthetics with the use of a carbon filter (this is to filter out the polluted particles from the air coming into the helmet), however the idea was further developed into a site intervention and not just a human being intervention. The site has been 3D modelled and a "cinematic" observatory was drawn with the idea of integrating glass, carbon and some other material (tests were studied) to create a membrane to filter out the pollution (CO2, NO2...), and being part of the architecture of the project itself. To map the shape that pollution actually has, the mathematical Gaussian model was used and shapes were extracted (normal distribution / standard deviation) from it to create a physical path to the observatory and filter the emissions of the cars underneath it. More maps were extracted to support the cinema history in Walthamstow/Leyton and how the abstract concept comes into the project. All of these areas have to be further developed and get to a more clear conclusion/aim for next week's crit.

The 4 drivers of my professional practice right now include:

Concept / Abstract / Architecture (Film / Cinematic experience / Hitchcock / Human observation / life / CoopHimmelb(l)eau)

Environmental awareness (Pollution / Emissions / CO2 / Climate Change)

Materiality (Carbon / Membrane / Innovation / Kengo Kuma)

Visual Manifestation / Geometry / Mathematics (Gaussian model / Steven Holl)

To create linearity and consistency (+ communication) so that this makes sense, for next week each of these 4 categories will have its idea illustrated together with titles and a concise order. A good key as well.

Hook / No proposal without analysis outcome understanding / Embracing relationship with existing typology / Reveal what is not visually seen / Something a bit more personal / ...

Each of them will also be [respectively] further developed into:

Hitchcock cinematography background, how does film affect us? Maybe a manifesto of my idea.

Site environmental analysis + Dome Environmental workshop?

Layering materials to create a possible membrane. Testing it.

Work on the mapping in my site and its relation to humans.

Things that will come up in 1-4 / Your comments?

8 notes · View notes

emiratesviisa · 1 year

Text

10 Must-Visit Places in Abu Dhabi That are a Must Visit in 2023

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and a stunning coastal city, is a well-known tourist destination worldwide. The nomadic Bani Yas Clan lived in this area in the seventeenth century. Before the significant change occurred brought about by the discovery of oil resources nearby, it was a little fishing community.

Abu Dhabi became the cutting-edge industrial city it is today because of the enormous revenue brought in by the oil industry. To explore this dreamy land you’ll require an emirates visa. There are numerous places for travelers to visit in and around Abu Dhabi. Find out more about the top ten among them.

Here is a list of the best 10 Must Visit Places to Visit in Abu Dhabi:

1. The Louvre Museum

The most well-known museum in the UAE is the Louvre Museum of Abu Dhabi. It displays a complete history of civilization's artistic accomplishments, dating all the way back to the Neolithic era. The collection, which includes everything from famous Picasso paintings to monuments from ancient Egypt, is astounding. The main draw of the museum is its impressive structure, which has perfectly organized galleries beneath a vast silver dome.

Along with the extensive permanent collection displayed in twelve galleries, the museum hosts numerous noteworthy temporary exhibitions each year. The only fully finished and operational museum to open on Saadiyat Island is the Louvre, one of three major museums that are planned.

2. Sheikh Zayed Mosque

Located in Fujairah, Abu Dhabi, the renowned Sheikh Zayed Mosque is a spectacular landmark structure. The opening of this enormous mosque, which has a capacity for 40,000 worshippers, took place in 2007 after around 20 years of development. A large number of tourists are drawn to the mosque because of its grandeur, gorgeous design, and exquisite glasswork.

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which is dedicated to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, is the largest mosque in the United Arab Emirates. The large mosque is open to visitors who are not Muslims. There are guided tours available, and if you choose the Abu Dhabi Morning tour, you can see the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which is a popular destination on Al Khaleej al Arab Street in Abu Dhabi.

3. Ferrari World Theme Park

This theme park on Yas Island can make you feel as though you are participating in Formula One racing. It is a popular destination for tourists in Abu Dhabi who want to experience the rush of driving fast. A Junior GT track is accessible to young people. Adults can ride the 120-kilometer-per-hour Flying Ace roller coaster, which is exhilarating.

The park has an excellent collection of Ferrari vehicles, starting with the 1947 model and continuing with many more if you're interested in learning more. For traditional car enthusiasts, there is a Ferrari factory tour and a game show with a Ferrari theme.

4. Etihad Towers Observation Deck

The greatest site to see the Abu Dhabi skyline is from the Jumeirah observation deck in the Etihad Towers. It is located on the floor of the hotel Etihad Towers. A charge is required to enter the tower if you are not a hotel guest.

On the observation deck, there is a great restaurant where you can eat small meals or snacks while taking in the sights of Abu Dhabi. front of you. Your memories of the city's splendor and magnificence will endure forever, and your perch on the 74th level itself may give you a surge of excitement and a sense of adventure.

5. Al-Hosn Fort

The oldest structure in Abu Dhabi is the Al-Hosn fort, which is located on Hamdan bin Mohammed Street. The Old Fort and White Fort are other names for this fort. It was built in 1793 to serve as both the royal family's home and the government's headquarters.The inside has currently been updated and kept as a museum that illustrates the history, legacy, and culture of Abu Dhabi. The exhibition includes a lot of old photos. The fort includes a sizable courtyard, and the great northern gate's exquisite tilework is something to behold. The role of emirates visa online is important in exploring this fort.

6. Falcon Hospital

The Falcon Hospital in Abu Dhabi is a working veterinary facility for ill and injured falcons. It is situated off Sweihan Road. The facility is open to tourists, and there are guided tours available. You can observe these prey birds in the wards during the guided visits.

On the grounds of the Falcon Hospital, there is a museum that showcases the development of falconry. The time and actions of the vets during their visit will determine when visitors are permitted to hold and feed the falcons.

7. Warner Brothers World

Theme park Warner Brother World is situated on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. This theme park was created using characters from "Warner Brothers" cartoons, movies, comic books, and heroes and villains. As a theme park that is indoors and air-conditioned, the park is cleverly separated into six lands. It is among the top attractions in Abu Dhabi for families.

There are several rides that appeal to everyone's tastes, from young children to teenagers. Bed Rock and Cartoon Junction are perfect for amusing young children. For those who are more daring, Metropolis, Gotham City offers thrilling roller coaster-style attractions along with a 4D interactive concept.

8. Yas Waterworld

The large water theme park Yas Water World is situated near Yas Leisure Driver on Yas Island. It has a number of water slides and a river trip in inner tubes. It is both the world's first hydro-magnetic tornado water rafting ride and the largest sheet wave suitable for surfing.

The other main attractions are the Jebel Drop and the free-fall water slide. On campus, there are various places to dine and shop in addition to a water play area for small families with young children.

9. Emirates Park Zoo

Another place for a day trip with the family is Abu Dhabi, this one around 30 minutes from the city. The wildlife park is home to a wide variety of species, including white tigers, giraffes, zebras, and elephants. For the care of various species of monkeys, a distinct primate division is kept.

The sea also has a sea lion enclosure and a flamingo park. The establishment has a petting zoo where kids can interact with and feed domesticated animals.

10. Heritage Village

Abu Dhabi's Heritage Village is a recreation of a traditional Bedouin village to provide a sense of life in the Emiratis prior to the discovery of oil on the property. It is located in Abu Dhabi's seaside neighborhood and is ideal for a leisurely stroll after visiting the ancient village.

The heritage village includes ancient household items, studios where you may see antique craftwork being done, workshops for metallurgy, and a weaving studio. Visitors can enjoy viewing displays that highlight the region's farming traditions and pearl-diving industry. Yas Island, several shopping malls, the contemporary world trade Souq, and other locations are just a few of the places and attractions in Abu Dhabi that might pique emirates visa UK tourists' curiosity.

#Places in Abu Dhabi #emirates visa #emirates visa online #emirates visa uk #emirates tourist visa #emirates visit visa #emirates air visa services #emirates e visa

2 notes · View notes