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Many cleaning products used today use harsh chemicals which can be harmful to humans, animals, and the environment. While UV-C light is harmful to be in direct contact with, it does not carry the dangers of chemical cleaners as UV-C light kills germs directly in a physical process as opposed to breaking them down chemically, like most cleaners do.
The non-toxicity of UV-C light cleaning is particularly valuable for use in food preparation environments, including the restaurant, hospitality, and medical industries. All food, non-food, and food-prep items are safe to consume/use directly after a UV-C light cleaning with no adverse effects.
UV-C light is capable of killing a wide variety of harmful organisms that many other disinfecting methods aren’t able to kill or are unable to kill nearly as effectively.
A primary example of the cleansing power of UV-C light that is unmatched by most other cleaning methods is its ability to kill mold and other spores. UV-C light cleaning is a dry process that kills any mold currently inhabiting a space, while also preventing future mold from developing in the future. Few other methods can boast such cleaning power and may even leave behind a moist environment which is conducive to mold growth.
Benefit 3 - Pathogens cannot develop an immunity to UV-C light
As many other disinfection methods use chemicals to kill bacteria, this allows bacteria to potentially build immunity to said chemicals. As UV-C light uses a physical process to kill the bacteria directly, there is no opportunity for the bacteria to develop an immunity. This guarantees that UV-C light will continue to be an effective method for killing bacteria indefinitely.
Although people often associate technological solutions with expensiveness, with UV-C light treatment that is not the case. The cost of UV-C light cleaning versus chemical cleaning is very comparable and affordability is no more of a concern than with other sanitation methods.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)
Q: Does this help with the pandemic?
A: Sure does! Covid-19 (SARS COV 2) is what is known as a "communicable" illness. All communicable illness stand no chance against this process of disinfection and prevention. This also includes the flu (INFLUENZA). We all know how long that has been around.
Q: Why would I pay for this when I already pay for a cleaning crew?
A: Cleaning crews are using chemical based products that can be harmful to your overall health and well being. We offer a safe and natural option to keep you and your people healthy.
Q: How much does this cost?
A: Great Question! It ultimetly depends on the number of lights we need to use. With that being said, quotes are built around square footage.
Q: Do you have different packages?
A: We do! Depending on how much foot traffic you get in any given week. We have Weekly, Bi-Weekly, and Monthly treatment options. The more frequent the better the deal.
Q: How can we easily let people know that my building is safe?
Easy, We have a sticker that goes on your front door! This helps communicate to everyone who walks in the door that they can peace of mind when in this facility.
Q: What does “UV-C” mean?
A: The “UV” stands for “ultraviolet.” Ultraviolet light is a type of electromagnetic radiation - the same radiation that makes black lights glow and gives you sunburn. The “C” is a reference to the wavelength the radiation emits at. Ultraviolet light that emits in the “C “ wavelength is referred to as “hard UV,” and is able to kill or inactivate microorganisms, including illness-causing pathogens.
Q: How does UV-C kill pathogens?
A: UV-C damages pathogens physically by disrupting the molecular bonds that holds them together. When a pathogen’s DNA is disrupted in such a fashion, it leaves it unable to infect or reproduce.
Q: Is UV-C dangerous for humans to be in contact with?
A: UV-C is indeed dangerous for humans to be in direct contact with. Exposure to the eyes or skin for even short periods of time can cause adverse health effects. UV-Care’s certified technicians are trained and equipped to deal with UV-C in a safe and careful manner.
Q: Is UV-C harmful to plants?
A: Yes, UV-C is harmful to plants and will need to be removed from any room that is going to be UV-C treated.
Q: Is UV-C safe to use on food or in areas where food is prepared/handled?
A: Yes, UV-C is safe to use on and around food and will also disinfect any food or food products.
A: Yes, UV-C has proven effective in the killing of a wide variety of molds and fungi.
Q: How long does a UV-C treatment take?
A: The amount of time and lights needed differs based on the size of the location being treated and how many rooms the location has.
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For emperor penguins, the heart song is the thing that makes the difference between happiness and life of loneliness. But, for one little chick named Mumble (voice of Elijah Wood) that song is missing because the lad, unfortunately, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. His feet, though, can tap out their own song and he uses his unique gift to save the flock and find true love in “Happy Feet.”
Laura's Review Robins's Review
Laura's Review: DNS
March of the Penguins: The Musical” or “Dances with Penguins” are better descriptive names for this technically astounding animation that surrounds a story about intolerance to those different from us and, in the end, toleration through understanding of those differences. As such, the story of one little penguin trying to fit in with his peers is a simple one. Mumble hatches from his egg later than the other newborns following an incident where his father’s momentary inattention causes his unborn chick egg to role free during the frigid Antarctic winter. But, the baby is born, seemingly healthy except for on thing: the tumble caused baby Mumble to emerge with the titular exultant peds. The only problem is, the chick can’t sing, an affliction that is considered a scandal. His nervous lower appendages draw concern from the Emperor penguin elders even though his mother thinks it “cute.” This begins Mumble’s road to finding his true self as his “affliction” creates increasing disdain from the rest of the flock. His dance fever is seen as an aberration that is causing the fish they all depend upon for sustenance to disappear. He is banished from his clan but not before Mumbles declares that he will find out where the fish have gone and bring his discovery back to the flock. This is the second leg of the film (and the most exciting) as Mumble treks across the frozen wasteland and encounters such dangers as the penguin-dreaded leopard seal and a pair of hungry killer whales. He also comes upon another band of much smaller penguins that see nothing wrong with his passion for dance. This sympathetic flock is personified by the five hip little guys, the Amigos, who join Mumble in his quest (and provide the film’s best comic relief). The cast that gives voice to our flightless flock is an extended one with many name stars. Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving and Anthony LaPaglia are featured as the voices of the penguins but their star power is suppressed in favor of characterization (except for Williams who is readily identifiable, as usual). But, Mumble’s adventures overshadow the characters with amazing computer animation that is truly state of the art. Set CG pieces, like the leopard seal and Orca chases and Mumble’s meeting with a herd of elephant seals the best things in “Happy Feet.” (Parents, beware. The chases scenes may be harrowing for smaller kids, making this a film for kids age seven or eight on up.) There is a reliance on large-scale song and dance numbers that are reminiscent of classic Disney animes but get in the way of the Mumble’s exciting adventures and the comedy offered by the hilarious Amigos. The tunes used range from Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys and Queen and provide a familiar set of songs that the parents will enjoy while the kids dig the action. The reason to fork out your dough to see this at the theater is the incredibly detailed and realistic looking CGI. (It is also being released at IMAX theaters.) Director George Miller, of “Babe” fame, does a solid job with his story (developed with John Collee, Judy Morris and Warren Coleman) and shows his action mettle with Mumble’s scary adventures. “Happy Feet” does the meaningful message thing – be tolerant of others - in a pat manner but the computer animation is outstanding.
Laura and Robin's reviews are also featured on Rotten Tomatoes, the Movie Review Query Engine, and the IMDB.
has been produced by Robin and Laura Clifford at the Malden, Massachusetts cable access television station, MATV, since March 16, 1991.
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Last weekend my husband Steve was in a bar in New Orleans with some buddies for a bachelor party. The bar was popular with prenuptial parties, apparently, because there was a bachelorette party going on nearby. Steve and his friends weren't as raucous as the group of ladies, so the guys moved further away from the women in order to hear themselves talk. Nothing was out of the ordinary until a woman from the bachelorette party walked up to Davin, the groom, with a big plastic toy shark in her hand. Without a word, she circled it around his head three times and then went away.
"You just got sharknadoed!" said another woman at the bar.
"What?" said Davin.
"You know, like that movie, Sharknado, where there's a bunch of sharks all swirling around!" the lady said.
And that was that. So my question is, has anyone heard of this before? Is "sharknadoeing" a thing that happens, sort of like getting iced, or was this just a delightful weird thing that happened once that somebody apparently quickly found a name for? Inquiring minds want to know.
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March 27, 2014 8:23 AM
My guess is that it was a part of one of those bachelorette scavenger hunts, where there is a list of weird things to do in order to get points and check things off the list. If that is what was happening, that's a pretty adorable thing to do. I kind of want to get sharknadoed.
March 27, 2014 9:12 AM
If it's not a thing, it should be a thing. I'll be carrying a shark figure with me everywhere I go henceforth.
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The Patriots and Packers staged an unlikely classic at Lambeau Field on Sunday, with third-string New England quarterback Bailey Zappe holding his own against future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers.
Podcast Episode
The MMQB NFL Podcast
The Scrappiness, Small Victories and Mayonnaise of Week 4
One of the key plays of the first half that set the stage for the overtime thriller was delivered by another relatively unheralded Patriots rookie, cornerback Jack Jones.
The fourth-round draft pick out of Arizona State intercepted Rodgers for a 40-yard pick-six with under a minute left on the clock in the second quarter, giving the Patriots a 10-7 lead at halftime.
But, despite his modest billing as a mid-round selection, Jones sounded like a veteran star while discussing the play after the game.
“Personally,” Jones said, “I feel it’s disrespectful to throw an out route on me.”
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) October 3, 2022
The brash take seemingly didn't sit well with veteran NBC Sports reporter Peter King, who questioned Jones' "big-headedness" in his weekly Monday morning recap column, Football Morning In America:
Hey kid: They threw out routes on Deion Sanders! (Not many, but some.) How did the 121st pick in the draft get so big-headed to think one of the best quarterbacks ever was insulting him by throwing the kind of route that’s thrown 162 times a week in the NFL? Man, that was weird.
While King probably has a point about Jones' seemingly immodest reaction to being thrown at as "disrespectful," it could very well be chalked up to a young player choosing the wrong words in the heat of the moment and perhaps having his competitive juices still flowing shortly after a hard-fought game.
Maybe Jones has a chip on his shoulder and feels he has something to prove at the professional level. If so, his heady play against Rodgers surely helped put his name on the radar of fans, journalists, and opposing teams.
Whether his remarks were "weird," though, in a league where the egos are big (and arguably necessary) and trash talk is commonplace, feels like a bit of a reach.
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"Working with Stephanie has been life changing. She has helped me to release blockages that I didn’t even realize were holding me back from achieving the business success that I truly desire. After working with Stephanie for less than two months, the magic started to happen in my business. “Out of the blue” two ideal clients called me and I booked $20,000 worth of new business just like that! I have moved from anxiety and struggle to ease and faith. Thank you a million times over Stephanie. Your patience, guidance and unique talent have had a huge impact on my life and business."
~Vanessa Judelman | President
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My current fee is $400 for one 60-minute session, or save with a package of 4 sessions for $999.
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With what's going on in our world currently, this is the biggest area clients need help with. Recently prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications rose 34.1% in just one month!
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Hypnosis has proven to be a great tool to fight off whatever fear may be holding you back. You can read about a particular case study of ours here where a client was afraid of flying. Today, she runs a business as the Five Foor Traveler!
Kids, teens and young adults are experiencing crisis levels of stress and anxiety. A local pediatric practice in Danbury has sent me referrals for the past decade. As all sessions are via zoom, I can work with your child from anywhere in the world.
Americans are among THE MOST STRESSED in the world, according to a recent Gallup poll. While the American Dream can definitely be a source of inspiration for many, the high levels of stress that you must endure aren't healthy.
Does the name Tiger Woods spark a flame? I bet it does. Well, he worked with a golf psychologist who used hypnosis to help him "get in the zone." Many top notch athletes have found the power of hypnosis to take them to the top of their game!
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The way to help the most people is to teach these techniques to large groups of people who are in a position to impact many.
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In any other year in June, there would be a succession of regularly scheduled early summer activities for all age groups in and around Denham. Since March 23, 2020, the UK government has locked down most social activities so as to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. So many of these activities are denied to us because of the social distancing requirements.
But, for followers of the Denham Community History Project, here’s an opportunity for a new “diversion” . You can spend a little lockdown time writing up your memories of pastimes enjoyed in and around the village. Let’s start with a list of organisations mentioned in a Parish Council document kept by Ann Collins. Who knows when this was published ? Who remembers any of these clubs and societies ? Were you a member ?
Here are a few recollections we have already collected to start you off together with a first Comment from John Hawkins. To add your contribution, login and use the “Comment” option or email it to us at [email protected].
Sharp memories provide us with valuable insights into some favourite pastimes of more than 20 years ago, pastimes that will surely be returned to us once the epidemic is past. If you are one of the residents who lived within the Denham parish in the 1950s you may remember activities and days like these.
Not surprisingly, several ladies recall their special times past spent with their favourite toy: a doll. Hilary, who grew up in the Wembley/Harrow area remembers well, an incident at her infants/primary school, when she was probably about 5 years old and long before moving to Denham. She writes: “I had taken my favourite doll whom I had named Janet, to school with me one day and put her carefully in my desk…the kind where I could lift up the top of the hinged cover and see my books, etc. I had opened my desktop to play with her during class when the teacher called on me! I dropped the desktop on Janet’s leg and smashed it! Janet had lovely blonde hair and blue eyes and I loved her!”
“Belinda” was the name of Ann’s favourite doll. Even now, Ann remembers the day that she decided to bathe her. She writes: “But I did not realise that although her head was china, her body was of a composite material and fell to pieces. I was heartbroken! Not many dolls’ hospitals in those days.”
Some activities that were begun decades ago have become essential pastimes for many of us these days too. As a youngster in Priory Close, Jessie loved school, all subjects and playing. She remembers: “We had nature walks from New Denham up to Rush Green. Often, we would pick flowers to put into a jam jar on the Nature Table. My visits to the Uxbridge Library every Saturday morning were a must! To this day, I am an avid reader!”
Although mostly a solitary pastime, reading can now be listening as well through audio books and lively discussions through a book club. The Denham Ladies Book Club records go back to 2001 but the group may have been active even before that. Times have changed, so mobile libraries and next-day deliveries of books to a device are far more common than in-person library visits that Jessie remembers so well.
Jam jars may have been replaced by vases and wild-flowers added to those lovingly cared-for flowers by gardeners, some of whom may belong to the Denham Village Garden Club. Neighbours who enjoyed gardening and were living next to each other on the Pyghtle, organised the DVGC more than 26 years ago. Over the years, the group has grown considerably as have the visits to many outstanding gardens, nurseries, and manor houses. Home gardens have always been carefully tended by residents in Denham and a walk anywhere will show glimpses of colourful flowers and shrubs through gates and fences.
We have an image of the front page of the “Denham News” from January 1974 showing the team of bell ringers who rang in the new year, a year that began in a different crisis with the introduction of a three day working week as a measure to conserve electricity during the period of industrial action by coal miners. Who remembers spending time during those dark days ?
Of course, many of us are walkers, and if you are among the many who have a dog or two, the spaces in and around Denham provide many attractive areas for daily walks. Julie said: “My two little Westies Jack and Mickey are like my children! They love the outdoors; we especially enjoy walking together and their toys are often of the Disney variety.”
Twice daily walks are necessary for some walkers and their dogs. Most are friendly and seem to recognise each other as well as their companions. Occasionally walks are organised. There are organised walks for hikers, and some readers may remember a group enjoying Nordic Walking. Anyone who has memories of that please let us know.
Since its founding in 1986 by Ken McKay, the Denham Hospice Support Group has become one of the most active common-interest groups in our community and its annual walk of 5-8 miles raises funds for the Thames Hospice. This splendid annual event is always followed by a lunch hosted by Irene and Philip at The White House.
As most of our readers know, though the origins of the Hospice Support Group are now part of Denham’s historical record, the Group still thrives. But sadly the events for 2020 announced in a January by the Chairman Philip Courtenay-Luck with an aim to raise £70,000 to fund the Sanctuary garden at the new Thames-hospice at Bray Lake, have had to be put on hold. We can be confident they will return to continue this great local tradition with an important charity purpose.
Throughout the decades, St. Mary’s Parish Church and its subsidiaries St. Marks in Denham Green and St. Francis in New Denham have no doubt provided the most opportunities for participation in a variety of activities from the youngest to the oldest in our community; we will focus on those special church-sponsored activities as well in months to come.
Denham residents have always supported the variety of activities and organisations available, and for those willing to pursue new challenges, the options are wide open. So on this subject it’s over to you. We’re very eager to hear from you, dear readers, about your experiences of the pastimes and diversions you have enjoyed growing up and living in the village - starting with a story from avid childhood trainspotter John Hawkins.
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Danese/Corey is pleased to announce its second exhibition of paintings and drawings by Lynne Woods Turner. These exquisite, intimate works unite a remarkable sense of color with ingenious and often wry exploitations of geometry. As curator Constance M. Lewallen comments, Lynne Woods Turner’s paintings can be characterized as geometric abstractions, which most often connote precision and cool detachment, but there is nothing mechanical about them. What strikes you when you see her work, rather, is the handmade-ness of it; it’s all subtlety and refinement.[1]
Both rigorous and understated, Turner’s paintings are composed of quiet, unanticipated colors within a linear configuration. An avid gardener, her work reflects careful observation of the natural world – the internal geometry of a leaf, the delicate tonality and soft, tender surface of a petal. The paintings are precise and exquisitely wrought – thin layers of pigment are applied, sanded and scraped, developing a smooth, silky veneer of color that seems to breathe and radiate outward. On canvases or panels no larger than 16 x 16 inches, the works’ complexity and intricacy defy their literal dimensions.
Recently, Turner was included in the three-artist exhibition In Line: Drawings by Sharon Etgar, German Stegmaier, Lynne Woods Turner at Gallery Joe, Philadelphia. Her drawings also are included in With A Clear Mind, you can move with the truth, an exhibition of works from the Millier Meigs Collection, currently on view at the Lumber Room, located in Portland, Oregon.
Lynne Woods Turner was born in 1951 in Dallas. She received her BFA from Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri in 1973, and obtained both a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Turner is a recipient of an Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship, and has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; the Birmingham Museum of Art, AL; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Diego Museum of Art, CA; the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Yale University Art Gallery.
Turner lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
[1] Lewallen, Constance M, Lynne Woods Turner, New Paintings and Works on Paper, exhibition catalogue, Danese/Corey, New York, NY.
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Designed as a vision of the Mediterranean, Pergola on the Roof is a piece of sunny European escapism. Pergola on the Roof was inspired by founder, Charlie Gardiner’s love of European al fresco dining.
Where have your biggest influences come from?
My biggest influences in terms of Pergola on the Roof have come from spending a lot of time in France and Italy as a child eating al fresco, and in beautiful settings. I don’t think as an industry in the UK we do outside dining that well. Nothing is nicer than being with friends and family, eating the best food in a beautiful setting, and it not costing the earth. When we built Pergola on the Roof and were creating the concept, the way it looked and felt to the customer was the only thing I really thought about. If you get that right, everything else follows.
At what point did your idea change from concept in to reality?
With Feast in 2013, I had a conversation with my Director at my previous company, and we just said ¨let’s do it¨. We then navigated our way through the industry and the rest was history. When I left the company to start my own business in 2015 I took Feast with me.
With Pergola on the Roof, it started in January 2016 – I knew of the site at Television Centre and had known Ian Lindsley from Jefferson Communications, who is the Comms Agency on Television Centre. He put me in touch with Alistair Shaw who is the MD and we had a meeting at Little Feast in Shepherds Bush. I told him the idea, submitted a bid and then we heard in early Feb we had secured the site. I then had to turn Pergola into a reality, which was the hardest part. By April I think I was sleeping around 3 hours a night! Scariest thing I had done, especially due to the scale. A 550 cover restaurant on the roof of a car park in White City seems slightly mad, but when we have the best team who all pushed in the right direction and now here we are, 72,000 visitors through the door to date.
There has been a boom in street food venues recently, why do you think people find them so appealing?
I think its down to choice, the quality is next level and they are so available. 10 years ago it was hard to get amazing food unless you were in restaurants, now its everywhere. You can walk out of work and get a £7 buttermilk chicken burger that would be better than most restaurants.
What do you feel is the key difference between you and your competitors?
Hmmmm. Good question. For us it’s all about the product, the experience and then what the visitor thinks. As long as you nail that then everything comes with – although I’m not sure everyone adopts that thinking.
What were the biggest challenges you faced setting up Pergola?
The biggest challenge with Pergola was how will we bring 5000 people a week here.I didn’t want to sell tickets as I don’t like that model, I don’t think people should have to pay to go and eat. We needed a combination of a strong food line up and the right concept, then you just need to back yourself and just go for it. Social media plays such a big part of it. We wanted to take bookings from day one so we now secure visitors and don’t just rely on walk ins on the day. We book out 70% and then leave 30% to walk ins. I think in our first month we had 11,000 people booked in, then by June 1st we were on 22,000. Now as I write this we are fully booked every day until we close, bar Sunday lunches. That is so important for us. Our drop out rate of bookings is around 4% so incredibly low, which means you are doing something right. As long as the place looks great, the experience is good and they enjoy themselves then word of mouth kicks in.
Do you see Feast/Pergola diversifying in the future?
I hope so, but for the moment what we are doing is right for us. We’re a seasonal business based around summer and winter, we don’t want to go into full time restaurants as its not what we do. We’ll leave that to the professionals!
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Held over a weekend in May, usually following the third Wednesday, the Buchan Heritage Festival at Strichen celebrates the Doric and the traditions of the North East of Scotland through song, verse, storytelling, drama, dance and music.
It commences with a pre-festival dance at the Ritchie Hall with further evening music ranging from fiddles to accordions during the Saturday prize winners concert and a lively Ceilidh.
The main day is Saturday with events such as schools' competitions, singing, bothy ballad and Doric storytelling and verse taking place with entrants from all corners of Buchan.
At the Royal British Legion Hall, there is a farewell Ceilidh.
See also the Doric Festival.
If you would like your Doric event featured on the website please contact me.
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The Aberdeenshire skies are under attack from an enemy jet. It is spilling a strange yellow smoke. Minutes later, people start killing each other.
Former Royal Air Force Regiment Gunner Jason Harper witnesses this and then his wife, Pippa, telephones him, shouting that she needs him. They then get cut off. He sets straight out towards the city, unprepared for the nightmare that unfolds during his journey. Everyone seems to want to kill him.
Along the way, he pairs up with fellow survivor Imogen. But she enjoys killing the living dead far too much. Will she kill Jason in her blood thirst? Or will she hinder his journey through this zombie filled dystopian landscape to find his pregnant wife?
The Fence is the first in this series of post-apocalyptic military survival thrillers from the torturous mind of local horror and science fiction novel writer C.G. Buswell.
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An army veteran moves his family back to his Aberdeenshire home, but his nightmare neighbour starts a battle of wits with him. Who will win this One Last War?
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Weddings are big deals and whether you’re planning a small one with only the closest of friends and family or a huge celebration with everyone you know and love, one Bolingbrook wedding venue is gaining popularity every year: the outdoor wedding. Having outdoor weddings in Bolingbrook and the surrounding area gives brides and grooms the opportunity to make their wedding extra special and memorable.
Every bride wants to have the most beautiful wedding ever and every groom wants to see his bride glowing with joy as they stand and are wed. One of the most beautiful backdrops you can have for a wedding is the great outdoors. Here at Carriage Greens, we have plenty of open space, beautiful scenery and accommodations that make throwing the perfect wedding easy. We love helping couples just like you get the wedding of their dreams.
Outdoor Weddings in Bolingbrook
There are three main things you need to remember and work with when planning an outdoor wedding in this area to ensure you get the best wedding in Bolingbrook:
Keep seating in mind so you have enough space reserved for everyone
Consider the decorations and try to compliment the natural beauty around you
Have a backup plan in place in case the weather decides to not cooperate
Once all the details are in place, you can enjoy your special day and spend the time with family and friends. Having the right location is key to having a less stressful wedding. Bolingbrook wedding venues come in all shapes and sizes, but Carriage Greens has what you’re looking for if you’re dreaming of a gorgeous outdoor wedding. We can help take some of the stress out of your wedding planning by giving you a venue that will meet all of your wants and needs.
Fun Ways to Make the Most of Your Outdoor Setting
Using natural backdrops for photo shoots and even the ceremony itself is a popular choice for modern weddings today. You can also make use of the natural decor by choosing a more simplistic route with your wedding and Bolingbrook wedding reception. If you still want a big fancy wedding that can be done with an outdoor wedding; it just takes a little more planning. Remember, you don’t have to go at it alone; we are here to help!
To learn more about wedding receptions and ceremonies and to get expert inside tips for making yours one of the best weddings in Bolingbrook, contact us today. Here at Carriage Greens, we have seen our share of weddings and count it an honor to help you with yours. Call now for the best outdoor weddings in Bolingbrook we have to offer.
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An event every month that begins at 11:30 am on day First of the month, repeating until December 3, 2022
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For various thoughts and other ridiculous things that surface as I walk towards my (hoped) eventual enlightenment.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
And another thing!
You know what else is weird? My brain keeps insisting that the sun is wrong. It's not like it suddenly drastically changed angle on us in only 2 weeks, but my brain keeps telling me that it's coming from the wrong direction and the shadows look weird.
In all of my days traveling by plane over long distances I have NEVER had that happen.
On top of this, I seem a little more sensitive to light and sounds. Birdsong is far more noticeable as is music (sometimes to the point of being irritating even at what were low levels) and light, even indoor fluorescent, seems unnaturally bright.
I have no idea what any of this means, I just know it's going on and I'm hoping that it eventually fades away.
Enjoying the smell of the new 72-pack of Prismacolor pencils that arrived today, along with the Copic Sketch markers. Not going to smell the Copics, they're alcohol based. My thoughts are drifting to what I can do with all of these lovelies but... I'm kinda at a loss of what to do with them. Prior to Japan I would've been bouncing off the walls when these arrived. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to stay awake long enough to catalogue the new colors.
As an aside, I'm watching Steve Wiebe, the nicest guy on earth, try to break the Donkey Kong world record live at E3 courtesy of the G4 TV channel. I am seriously sending him all the good vibes I can produce. Granted, that's a percentage less than I usually can, but he's got all of it.
E3 is going on right now and a ton of awesome video games are being announced and demo'ed. Ahh, free time. I remember when I had it. Once I graduate I will be getting back to my second love, video games. My first love is, of course, pie. Bob! I mean Bob! My first love is Bob! There we go...
Posted by Red at 8:23 PM
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I like computers, but love the arts more. Painting, drawing, & photography are my passions. We rock the geeky side of things with a firm footing in sci-fi, fantasy, video games, anime, comic books and board games in this household. I have a rescuekitty, one rescuehound, a husband and an external child with an internal one currently forming. I'm happy. I'm attempting Buddhism/vegetarianism and dig the concept even as I'm flailing at it. Trying to start a homestead, make DIY a daily process, and create a small business from my art. Welcome to my Middle Path!
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I opened my first YouTube channel in 2006. I’ve uploaded over 750 videos through the years, spent a year uploading to YouTube daily, then I started another channel for photographers, not to mention consultation and support to run client channels. Yes, I have a little experience with YouTube. If you want to grow your channel, there are a few things you should know.
Unlike other social media platforms, much of the power of YouTube is in its search engine. When you start a new YouTube channel, search is your friend. Search is not the only way to grow your channel, however, until your channel has little authority, its one of the quickest ways to get your videos in front of the right people within the YouTube ecosystem.
The fact is, people use YouTube to find information, be entertained, solve problems and discover how to do things. People use YouTube search so much, it’s the 2nd largest search engine, behind its owner, Google. It’s estimated that YouTube will eventually be the number one search engine within a few years.
Other social media depends on regular interaction or engagement to get your posts noticed. You may be aware, status updates fade quickly in most social media. In the case of Facebook, you must pay to play. Yet, YouTube offers the opportunity, like a blog, to share evergreen content and earn new subscribers years after you hit the publish button.
So, how do you grow your YouTube channel? Well, let me get the basics out-of-the-way. If you do research on YouTube growth, you’ll hear many of the same themes from YouTube guru’s. Ideas I’ve shared on this blog. Concepts, such as, create great content, more is better, be consistent and engage with your audience. The more is better part is always met with the caveat that more is not better when quality suffers.
Despite the fact I have a lot of experience with YouTube, SEO (search engine optimization) and social media. There are some people who focus much or all of their teaching on YouTube as a platform. I believe they have excellent advice for you to consider, especially if you are serious about growth on this platform. I’ve learned from these pros and certainly share their influence in my YouTube teachings. Over time, some of the YouTubers below are now friends, mentors and my professional consultants.
Below are some professional YouTubers I recommend you follow, I’ve linked their name to their channels. Make sure you check them out.
Video Creators: Tim Schmoyer is a veteran YouTuber with about 350,000 subscribers. He shares great insight on how to grow your YouTube channel. He also has a helpful Video Creators Podcast full of good information. Tim regularly offers valuable live question and answer sessions, so keep an eye out.
Brian G Johnson: Learn how to AMPLIFY your voice with Brian’s helpful insights on how to increase your views, grow your channel and community. As Brian likes to say, stake your claim and discover innovative video marketing strategies. I stake my claim as his first Patreon member, because I value his advice.
Roberto Blake: Roberto is a creative, like many of the people who subscribe to my blog. This fact alone gives him my attention. He is blunt and straight forward when it comes to his YouTube recommendations. He continues to grow and evolve to help creatives with business, life and building a YouTube channel.
Creator Insider: Get it direct from YouTube. YouTube employee Tom shares updates, insight and interviews with other YouTube employees. It’s about as close as you can get to YouTube inside information.
Creator Academy: This is a series of lessons and courses from YouTube to help you become a better YouTuber.
Derral Eves: He is a powerhouse in the YouTube growth field. Derral has multiple high value channels in which he pulls excellent data from to share with his community. He is one of the best when it comes to analytics and insight as to how YouTube works. Derral is also the host of the powerful Vidsummit conference.
Nick Nimmin: Nick hails from Thailand and shares great insight on various topics related to growing your YouTube channel. He regularly collaborates with other YouTubers such as Brian G. Johnson and Owen Hemsath. Nick also has helpful YouTube tools available under his Tubber Tools brand.
Owen Video: Owen Hemsath focuses on Live video for both YouTube and Facebook. I enjoy his question and answer sessions. I also appreciate the tools he shares to help you grow your audience. Some of his tips are the most powerful ideas I’ve used in the growth of my channels. Like many on this list, Owen offers his services as a consultant.
TubeBuddy: TubeBuddy is a helpful tool to optimize your YouTube channel and find niches for your content. They also have a helpful YouTube channel with pro YouTubers, including some on this list to give you more insight on how to grow your channel.
Video Influencers: Benji Travis and Sean Cannell share insights on how they have grown their YouTube channels. They also upload helpful interview posts with other successful YouTubers. These insights can really be powerful for your YouTube channel growth.
Morning Fame: This is another tool to consider to help grow your channel. Like TubeBuddy, I use this tool for my channel growth. Nico and Brian G. Johnson team up to give you insight and information about how to use this tool and grow your channel.
Amy Schmittauer: She shares ideas and strategies to help vloggers grow their channel and business. Her channel savvy sexy social is full of great tips and advice. She also has a book, so you can vlog like her — like a boss.
VidPow: Jeremy Vest has deep experience working with brands to grow their YouTube channels. He shares his thoughts and gives guest YouTubers the opportunity to add to the conversation. He is also the organizer of the video marketing world conference.
Rosh Sillars: I’m not offering myself as a Youtube guru. However, my job is to help businesses grow and that is what my channel is about. I do talk about YouTube and share my experience. You can check out my series on YouTube below. (link: https://www.youtube.com/yiDgXoNDqJo)
There are certainly more YouTube and video professionals online. I recommend you look for more information from YouTubers who you feel a connection and have done it. I have discovered some of the YouTube gamers and vloggers have a few videos with good YouTube growth insights and advice. Be careful, there is a lot of poor information about YouTube on YouTube.
If you keep in mind Google owns YouTube, you should be able to apply some good SEO knowledge in to the mix. I’ve actually taken what I learn from YouTube SEO and applied the lessons to my tradition SEO, with excellent results. YouTube is a video search engine, you should adhere to standard YouTube search guidelines. This is true, no mater the size of your channel.
When it comes to YouTube SEO, you should follow the best SEO practices. Consider the title tag as the most important real estate on your YouTube page. Everything should be related to the title. Your video should fulfill the promise of the title. Make your title interesting while still containing your keywords. Trust me, it takes practice.
You should use the description section to expand the idea of your video. It doesn’t seem to carry much SEO weight, yet it can be helpful to encourage people to watch your video. You can also use the description area to list your social networks, channel information and affiliate links.
Tags are like keywords. They carry more weight in YouTube than keywords on traditional websites. Make sure you fill them out well. Although, there are hints tags are devalued over time. Most likely for the same reason website keywords were devalued. In your early YouTube days, when your channel has less authority, I recommend using longer tail keywords to help you rank. Ranking helps your videos get found in search results.
There are some helpful tools which make setting up your videos easier and more effective. Tube Buddy and VidIQ both have valuable features to help you make the right moves. It’s also important to note once you publish your video it’s not over. You can always go back and rework the information on old videos as you learn which keywords and techniques work best for your channel. However, if your video is doing well, especially viral videos, I wouldn’t change any information. Actually, I suggest you wait 3-6 months before you make any changes. It can take this long for a video to catch.
One powerful tip, which I don’t do enough, is transcribe videos. You can upload your transcription to YouTube. This gives YouTube a little more data to help place your videos in front of the right viewer. You don’t have to do it yourself, I recommend you outsource transcriptions. There are a number available online sources, you can even look on fiverr.com
If you want to get people’s attention, you need to focus on your thumbnails. Creative and interesting thumbnails get viewers attention and helps to brand your channel. Make sure your thumbnails relate to your title tag, although, your thumbnail shouldn’t say the exact same thing as your headline. Your thumbnail, often needs minimal text to get the job done. Bright colors, and action which earns the curiosity of the viewer is what you want in a thumbnail. I’ve found a large human face works really well. Your thumbnail is usually your first opportunity to make an impression. Consider the branding of your entire channel and make sure it’s consistent and on message.
Below are some additional ways you can increase traffic to your YouTube channel
Consider search within the Google search engine. Google shows YouTube videos in their search results. Over time this can be a good source of traffic to you videos and channel. Try a few longtail keywords in which Google might show results (hint: check the bottom of Google search results page).
Networking: Network with other YouTubers of similar size to help each other grow. This can be a powerful, especially if you grow together. The YouTube algorithm can actually support your efforts if you are similar channels. It’s helpful to share each others work in social media, comment and champion each other.
Collaboration: If your networking partners channel is similar, you can collaborate and create videos as guests or ask each other questions. In other words, introduce each other to your audiences. Again, once YouTube realizes you are good channel companions, the algorithm can support your effort.
Social Media: If you have a good social community on other social media channels, make sure you share your videos. Urge your followers to subscribe and become active in your YouTube community.
Blog: My blog is an excellent source of visitors to my videos and channel. I write blogs around my videos and add videos to relevant blog post. People find your blog through social media and SEO, a blog fan base can lead to new YouTube subscribers.
What Makes A Channel Grow?
If you really want your channel to grow, it’s all about watch time. Like Facebook and other social media platforms. YouTube wants visitors time on site to be as long as possible. The more you keep people watching videos on YouTube, the more YouTube rewards you with opportunities to earn more views and subscribers.
If you make YouTube happy, the platform will help promote your video through its network of suggested videos. For many YouTubers, this is their main source of traffic. If YouTube believes your video will earn more watch time, it will show your video to as many people as possible. This is one way small channels earn viral hits.
Subscribers are milestones in the YouTube community. As you gain more subscribers you can earn helpful YouTube features, such as a custom URL. For many, they covet the YouTube play buttons awards, such as the gold button for 1 Million subscribers. This is one I have my eye on. Earning subscribers is helpful, because many of them will watch your video soon after its uploaded. As a result, you receive more early watch time. YouTube cares little about how many subscribers you have, however, it does care about how much time people spend on your videos and YouTube as a whole.
When you don’t have subscribers, it’s more important to focus on YouTube SEO (search engine optimization) to help people find you. However, once you have 1000 or more subscribers, you can depend a little more on catchy headlines to earn early views and improve your view velocity. A rate of views metric YouTube considers when promoting videos.
Think of it this way. When a video is first uploaded, YouTube considers basic SEO factors, the channels authority, history and recent video results. Once time passes, YouTube depends less on the technical information and more on user results. So, if you have an awesome headline and a great thumbnail with a video that offers what is advertised, people will click, watch the video and share your video. This encourages YouTube to promote your video because people seem to like it.
Retention is an important factor. If you have a four-minute video and your average viewer watches three minutes, that is 75% retention. Anything over 50% is good, in my opinion. Your channel as a whole should be over 25%, I would aim for at least 30%. Of course, higher the better. As a reference, My channel currently sits at a 45% average retention for the last 28 days.
Longer videos tend to have lower retention. However, YouTube would rather promote a 20 minute video with 33% retention than a 10 minute video with 50% retention. Why? because it fits with YouTube’s goal of more watch time and keeping people on YouTube longer.
Not only should you consider the average watch time, but how many visitors do you have watching at the end of your video. If 40-50% of your audience is still watching at the end of your video can offer a powerful result. Especially, because there is a greater chance they will watch more of your videos, click on cards, end screens or suggested videos. These are all actions YouTube rewards you for when visitors to stay on YouTube. Especially, if they started with your video.
I stress that it’s important to get as many people to your video immediately after you hit publish. View velocity is an important factor for YouTube to promote your video on other channels. This is why big YouTubers seem to win by default, yet, if you understand the concept, you can win too. Promote your video hard within the first hour and continue over the next twenty-four, with additional promotion over the following week.
Make sure you learn and understand your YouTube analytics. YouTube analytics gives a peek in to what works on your channel and the videos your audience appreciates most.
If you are wondering what type of video to make next, take a look at what people are viewing on your channel over the last 60 minutes or 48 hours. If there is a video which dominates watch time, consider making a follow-up video.
The data suggests that there really isn’t a best time of the day to publish. However, the more consistent you are with your publishing the better.
My favorite analytics to regularly review are retention and traffic sources. Retention tells me how much my audience likes my videos. If people are leaving early, watching or not watching much of a video, these stats give me clues as to what my audience wishes to see.
Traffic sources are important to me because my goal is to have more traffic from suggested videos. If your a how to channel, search is still very important. However, when I earn a lot of traffic from suggested videos, this means YouTube is finding my videos valuable to met it goals.
It’s usually impossible to really know what videos will be a hit. Honestly, shooting for a viral video is not the best long-term YouTube plan. As mentioned, your title and thumbnail are really important to get attention. However, you need a video which keeps people’s attention.
Videos which extract emotion from the viewer often win the day, when it comes to viral hits. However, that may not be the purpose of your channel. It’s important to get the point of the video quickly, usually within the first 10 seconds. A good recommendation for vloggers is if you have a high point in the video, share a clip of it in the beginning to pique interest.
Once you establish the topic your video needs to deliver on the promise made in the first ten seconds. Although, keeping people watching your video as long as possible is important, your video should be no longer than necessary. It is better to have a three-minute video in which viewers watch, on average, two minutes than a ten minute video, in which people watch two minutes. Retention is much better for the three minute video with the same watch time. YouTube will reward the three-minute video.
Look to your community. It’s good to ask your community what they are looking for from you as a creator. Review your comments and the comments in similar channels.
I created a video (below) which explains much of my philosophy. My stretch goal is to reach 1 million subscribers over the next few years. I started with a video a day, which was a great experiment. However, I’ve backed off to spend more time creating better videos which people watch longer. Am I guaranteed to reach 1 million subscribers in 4-5 years? Absolutely not. However, I’ve done the math and if I can grow an average of 20% compounded per month, I can get there. Currently, one channel is a little behind my goal and one is well ahead. Please note: it took many of the big YouTubers you appreciate 3-4 years to reach large audience status.
Sadly, many who try, will not achieve their YouTube goal. The reason is most people are not willing to do the work. When I tell young YouTubers it might take up to two years of weekly (3-7) video uploads to reach 10,000 subscribers — they do not want to go for the ride.
To grow a YouTube channel takes work. It is very rare for a YouTuber to make the big time in a few months. It is possible, yet, most have to work hard for the big goals. Chances are, those who are looking for quick money and internet fame will drop out of the race in a mater of months. Every year, YouTube breaks hearts and dreams.
YouTube is more than possible fame and money
The development of a YouTube channel is a journey. I know this well because I’ve embarked on similar journeys over the last ten plus years on social media. I found success with some channels, I’ve abandon others and I’ve outright failed a few times too.
It’s nice to earn rewards for your good work in social media. Google does reward you with income if you do a good job. The Google AdSense program can add some coin to your bank account. Revenue is available to you once your channel reaches 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours annual watch time (starting Feb 2018). However, there are many more ways to earn money on YouTube, such as merchandise sales, sponsorships and affiliates. Savvy YouTubers leverage their audience, often leaving AdSense as a small percentage of their total income.
My goal is to earn more authority as a digital marketing professional, speaker and author. From my experience, there is more money in speaking fees and consulting opportunities than AdSense. However, every channel is different. I’m a rather straight shooter and I don’t expect to win any comedy awards or rise on trending topics with a crazy viral video. I have to work for every subscriber and opportunity.
I do know this, those who win in social media are active, create value, commit to the channel and persist. Those who last the longest, often win. The same goes for YouTube creators.
Did you like this article? Share it with your friends!
January 18, 2018 at 11:47 am
[…] New: How To Grow Your YouTube Channel in 2018 […]
January 19, 2018 at 9:38 am
This is excellent information. Thanks very much for sharing. I’m just starting my YouTube channel, and I Planning to do some video interviews. I would love to have you as a guest, would you be open to doing that?
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Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer our recent customer survey. It was great to see such a wide range of ideas across a lot of different areas of the store and you can expect to see some changes soon (in fact, a couple like the new Vallejo stand have already happened). If you missed out on the survey this time don’t worry as there will be further chances to give your feedback in the future.
Due to the varieties of fields covered and the range of requests, we have decided to split our responses to some of the items across three different blog posts, one will focus on products , one will focus on events and this one will focus on the building.
The Building
Several responses discussed improvements customers would like to see made to the building so this seemed a good time to discuss some of the reasoning behind its development. Before we opened the store we did some research in the UK and also a limited amount in Europe (albeit from a Magic the Gathering related viewpoint). The stores we visited had very limited or sometimes non-existent play space so if they wanted to hold any tournaments they often had to use the back rooms of pubs. On one occasion the room in question had black painted walls the windows were obscured with paint and the limited number of wall lights didn’t provide sufficient light to be able to read one’s opponent’s cards. The other problem that we encountered almost universally was the poor provision of toilet facilities, most shops did not have a customer toilet and so if lucky one was able to use a staff toilet which was normally a single cubicle unisex toilet, which were sometimes filthy. One ProTour Qualifier we attended had about 300 entrants in an event over probably 8-10 hours and it had two to three cubicles which involved wading within a couple of hours of the event starting. The shop or venues also normally didn’t have any drinks or snacks, or when the event was in a pub there were drinks and food but sometimes expensive.
So, when we started at Bank Street the venue had two separate toilets and what we thought was a reasonable amount of playspace for a shop compared with what we’d seen on our travels. This is the counter area in the very early days.
It soon became apparent that we had underestimated space needed for tournaments. So, started the search for somewhere bigger and St Gregory’s Alley seem to fit the bill. The architect who drew up plans for the building and was able to see its initial state said that we should consider the building ‘a 15-year project’, which is probably not too far off what is realistically required. Our initial drive has been to get the inside of the building to function as well as possible for tournaments and retail space whilst trying to make the fabric of the building secure and watertight. Obviously, there is a certain amount of juggling involved in a project of this size particularly as retail has been going through a very tough time recently. It would be wonderful to have unlimited budgets to spend on decor and new washrooms, but that is not the reality. We have managed to replace one large area of flat roof and the pitched roofs at the front of the building so far. Our next major project will be the pitched roof over the tournament floors. It is certainly not worth undertaking any major improvement projects within the building until we can be sure that the fabric of the building is waterproof.
For anyone who didn’t know what the inside of the building looked like before we started this is a photo of the downstairs, the photo makes it look lighter than it seemed.
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Its pages were yellowed, its cheap binding broken, its typeface uneven: there was nothing imposing about the copy of Un Bagne en Russie Rouge – `A Prison in Red Russia’ – which someone once handed me as a curiosity. Nevetheless, the book, published in Paris in 1927, was one of the first to describe the Soviet Union’s earliest political prisons, located on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. Quoting survivors, escapees, and what little information had been published in the Soviet press, the author Raymond Duguet accurately described the geography of the islands, the barracks within a former monastery, the lack of food, the mass executions. He correctly named prisoners and several guards. He mentioned the mosquitoes. For sixty years, Duguet’s book was the most complete source on Solovetsky in the French language.
But Un Bagne en Russie Rouge was a failure. Its author was not famous, and its literary value was minimal. Worst the book was mistimed. Because it appeared at the end of the 1920s, when the bloodiness of the Russian revolution was already fading into memory, it was easily outshone by volumes like L’amour en Russie, and “Ma Petite Bolchevique”, books describing the romance and excitment of Soviet Russia. Wrote one Magdeleine Marx, in “C’est La Lutte Final” (“It’s the Final Struggle”) of her trip to Russia at that time: “Such boutiques there are! The happy crowds promenade beneath the trees with an air of well-being.” Stories of dismal Russian prisons were not then popular in France, and in any case, they could be countered by better stories, those told by the distinguished French communists who had been invited to visit Russian prisons (specially prepared for that purpose) and found them not to be dismal at all.
“Un Bagne en Russie Rouge” fell into the black hole of forgotten books. The information it contained did not become part of French culture. Only a fraction of the intellectual class had heard of Solovetsky; to the general public, the name of the place meant nothing. One could say, even, that although the story of the Solvetsky Islands was then `known’ in France, it was for all practical purposes, unknown. “Human knowledge,” once wrote Pierre Rigoulot, a French historian of communism, “doesn’t accumulate like the bricks of a wall which grows regularly, according to the work of the mason. Its development, but also its stagnation or retreat, depends on the social, cultural, and political framework.” The framework, in this case – the book’s style, its author, and above all the political atmosphere in which it was published – was not conducive to the growth of knowledge about Soviet prisons.
All of which is a roundabout way of explaining the phenomenal, surprise success of the “Black Book of Communism” when it first appeared in France in the autumn of 1997, as well as the fierce controversy it provoked. A serious, scholarly history of the crimes of communism – in the Soviet Union, East and West Europe, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa and Latin America – the “Black Book” did not look like an immediate candidate for the best-seller lists. Any book publisher will tell you that gloom doesn’t sell, and the “Black Book” is essentially a catalogue of gloom: torture, murder, political repression, artificial famine, terror and terrorism, without much by the way of politics or social history to lighten the atmosphere.
More to the point, unlike “Un Bagne en Russie Rouge”, which at the time of its publication contained genuinely fresh material, the “Black Book” was not, strictly speaking, original: it is not as if general information on the crimes of communism was unavailable in France. In the 1920s, there was Raymond Duguet; in the 1930s, the French newspapers reported the Moscow show trials, just like anywhere else. In 1947, Viktor Kravchenko’s book on life in Soviet Russia so shocked the French Left that one communist journal accused him of inventing it, and a spectacular, widely-reported libel trial followed. Finally, in the 1970s, Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” had an impact in Paris comparable only to its impact in Moscow: articles were written, hands were wrung, and Marxism was publicly renounced by many Marxists. It certainly didn’t seem, in 1997, as if the French public could be shocked by accounts of communist repression once again.
But if something can be known and yet unknown, so too can things be known but – for lack of a better expression – not (ital)intuitively(ital) known: circumstances can still prevent them from becoming part the culture. After the revelations of the 1930s came the war: Stalin, the conqueror of Hitler and Petain, loomed larger than Stalin, the back-stabbing despot. After the Kravchenko trial came 1968: Mao, the revolutionary voice of French youth triumphed over Mao, the man responsible for the greatest famine in world history. Even Solzhenitsyn was slowly discredited in anti-American, anti-Reagan, 1980s France, as an authoritarian, a nationalist, even as a fascist. One way or another, the political atmosphere always encouraged anti-anti-communism rather than its opposite.
From the start, the “Black Book”‘s editor, Stephane Courtois, intended the book to put the crimes of communism right back into the heart of popular culture. In his introduction, Courtois – a historian of the French communist party, and, more importantly, an ex-Trotskyite himself – produced a list of numbers, thanks to archives more accurate than they would have been in the past.Adding them up, he concluded that 100 million people lost their lives this century thanks to communist repression. He then denounced the “cupidity, spinelessness, vanity, fascination with power, violence and revolutionary fervor” which motivated several generations of Western, and particularly French, intellectuals to ignore or even “cover up” these deaths’. Most importantly, he then asked, dramatically, why they were so regularly and popularly played down in comparison with the crimes of Hitler. “A French government agency,” he wrote, “the National Lottery, was crazy enough to use Stalin and Mao in one of its advertising campaigns. Would anyone even dare to come up with the idea of featuring Hitler or Goebbels in its commercials?”
Courtois’s real aim was not to re-shape historiography: the comparison between Hitler and Stalin has been made, legitimately and uncontroversially, by historians and political philosophers from Hannah Arendt to Alan Bullock many times before, and there is much to learn from it. The comparison of the two systems can shed light on the power of ideology and propaganda, the manipulation of hatred, the dehumanisation of political enemies, human nature itself. But Courtois’ intent was less esoteric: he wanted to push the memory of communist crimes back into the cultural mainstream by comparing them to the Nazi crimes which, in French popular culture – indeed in American popular culture – have come to symbolise the ultimate evil, almost to the exclusion of other evils. His language was also perfectly calculated to irritate and embarrass the French Left, which, as he knew very well, has always been a little queasy about its strong links to Soviet communism, and far happier to dwell upon its opposition to Hitler.
At this he succeeded, not least because he topped off his scholarship with a series of combative television appearances. Over coffee in Warsaw – he was there for the book’s hugely succesful Polish launch – he gleefully described how he had carefully prepared for one telelvision interview by digging out an old copy of L’Humanite, the French Communist newspaper, with a large portrait of Stalin on the front page. When the editor began, predictably, to deny that that his paper had ever supported Stalin, Courtois dramatically whipped out the portrait and waved it in front of his nose: “What could he say? Nothing!”
Timing also helped. Because of their own revolution, the French have a soft spot for other peoples’ revolutions even in the most conservative of times. But this was France under a Socialist government. The immediate result of this open attack on the French Left was therefore a sort of collective howl, very well described by Martin Malia in the American edition’s foreword. Le Monde ran a front-page headline (unthinkable in almost any other country) declaring that “A Book has Re-launched the Debate on the Crimes of Communism,” with pages of commentary following for weeks afterward. Two of the “Black Book”‘s co-authors, also former leftists, disassociated themselves from Courtois. In parliament, a group of right-wing French politicians citing the “Black Book” attacked the new prime minister, Lionel Jospin, for including the Comunist party with its `criminal past’ in his ruling coalition. Jospin replied that he was `proud’ to have Communists in his government; the right-wing polticians walked out in protest. By the time it was all over, the book had become a publishing sensation, not only in France but in Germany and Italy, where the reaction of the Italian Left was almost as dramatic as that of the French.
And yet – for a book whose publication was surrounded by so many layers of politics, the “Black Book” is for the most part curiously apolitical. Because it covers so many places over such a long period, it is of necessity condensed, and reads, at times, like a martyrology. Trotsky’s death is dispensed with in a paragraph; more than 330,000 Poles are deported to Siberia in a page and a half. Fascinating stories – like that of the 11,600 children kidnapped by Greek communists, or the thousands of idealistic Finnish-Americans who emigrated to Soviet Russia, and were then arrested – are told only in briefest outline. There is nothing especially right-wing about the books’ language. The polemics are confined to the introduction, which was specifically written to have an impact in France, with its strong communist party and strong communist sympathies. Although some of Courtois’s comments will still irritate a part of the English-speaking academic world – we too have our historians and journalists who were less than forthcoming about communist crimes – it will be very surprising if the English language edition has any mainstream political impact at all. It certainly won’t furnish much material for those who want to attack Tony Blair or Bill Clinton.
Which isn’t to say that it won’t affect people. For although the flap about the Holocaust, and the fuss about the French Left may have induced Europeans to buy it, in the end, the “Black Book” finally succeeds in conveying the scale of the Communist tragedy not thanks to its editor’s politicised introduction, but thanks, first of all, to the fact that its authors rely on the archives of the former Soviet Union and the former Eastern bloc. If the spread of knowledge requires the right political framework, it also requires the right literary context: people must be convinced that a piece of information is true. Courtois himself is the first to concede this: “the archives make everything completely different.”
This was not immediately apparent when archives first began opening in the former Eastern bloc years ago. At the time, some material was released, some was not; in Russia and Eastern Europe even today, certain collections remain closed to some people and opened to others, or simply closed altogether, which leads many to suspect that the most sensational documents have not yet been released. In general, there has been a dearth of sensational documents, which is disappointing for those who hoped the opening of archives would dramatically alter our knowledge of Soviet history. Yet this is to miss the point. What is now available is often quite ordinary – the day-today archive of the GULAG administration, for example, with inspectors’ reports, financial accounts, letters from the camp directors to their supervisors in Moscow – and the use of such ordinary documents matters a great deal indeed, even – perhaps especially – when writing for a mass audience. Even if the general outline of the story hasn’t changed much, archives change the way writers write, and the way readers perceive their writing. We are no longer comparing the “claims” of Raymond Duguet about prisons to the “claims” of Magdeleine Marx about Soviet boutiques. The emotions, feelings, and morality of the Black Book’s authors are not the issue. Their subject matter is.
By way of illustration, listen to how Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago” describes the era of kulak deporation in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a period when richer peasants were removed from collectivised farms and deported to the far north to work as forced labourers. This wave of repression, he writes, drove
“a mere fifteen million peasants, maybe even more, out into the taiga and the tundra…This wave poured forth, sank down into the permafrost, and even our most active minds recall hardly a thing about it. It is as if it had not even scarred the Russian conscience. And yet Stalin (and you and I was well) committed no crime more heinous than this.”
By contrast, Nicolas Werth, in his chapter on the same period in the Black Book, is able to quote from a document fished out of archives in Novosibirsk. Signed by an instructor of the party committe in Narym, Western Siberia, and sent to the attention of Stalin in May 1933, it precisely describes the arrival of one of these groups of peasants – described as `outdated elements’ – on the island of Nazino in the Ob river:
“The first convoy contained 5,070 people, and the second 1,044; 6,114 in all. The transport conditions were apalling: the little food that was available was inedible and the deportees were cramped into nearly airtight spaces…The result was a daily mortality rate of 35-40 people. These living conditions, however, proved to be luxurious in comparison to what awaited the deportees on the island of Nazino…There were no tools no grain, and no food. That is how their new life began. The day after the arrival of the first convoy, on 19 May, snow began to fall again, and the wind picked up. Starving, emaciated from months of insufficient food, without shelter and without tools…they were trapped. They weren’t even able to light fires to ward off the cold.”
By 20 August, three months later, only 2200 of 6,114 people were still alive, and these survived partly thanks to cannibalism. No appeals to the Russian conscience are necessary to convey the tragedy, no attacks on Stalin or Soviet society, or “you and I as well”, are needed to heighten the drama. The mere fact that we know this information comes from a document written by an ordinary party worker, expressly for Stalin’s eyes, is enough. As a matter of fact, Solzhenitsyn’s general outline of the history of the camps has held up well. But his writing simply doesn’t have the same ring of authenticity.
Archives have also not so much resolved as dissolved some of the academic controversies that long swirled around the history of communism, blurring the events and confusing the lay reader. The most famous of these, between “traditionalists” and “revisionists” in the study of Stalinism, is now on its way to disappearing altogether, as many of the questions it raised have either been answered or shown to be beside the point. True, the battle over statistics continues, but both the carefully-planned viciousness described by the traditionlists and the chaos of the Soviet communist party described by the revisionists have now been documented and shown to be wholly compatible. Stalin’s moral responsibility for terror is no longer in question (and some did question it): his signature has been found on documents ordering mass executions. Significantly, some of those documents have even been published in a new book co-edited by J. Arch Getty, once the leading proponent of the view that Stalin was little more than a `bureaucratic moderator.’ (The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, Yale University Press). Getty also once famously wrote that “many thousands of innocent people were arrested” in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, an understatement if there ever was one. In his new book, his language has changed: “huge numbers of lives had been destroyed in the one of the greatest human and personal tragedies of modern times,” he now writes of Stalin’s terror.
Unfortunately, the enormous impact of archives on the telling of communist history also makes the Black Book somewhat lopsided. With the exception of Cambodia, the later chapters on Asia cannot stand up to the earlier chapters on the Soviet Union and Central Europe, since communist regimes are still in power in Asia, and have not been so gracious as to open up their archives to scholars. In some countries, China included, researchers have been able to do field work, and there are excellent secondary sources. In others, such as North Korea, all information must still be couched in language like “it is estimated” or “there is no way of knowing exactly”.
Nevertheless, Courtois and his publishers – he credits them with the idea – were right to include Asia, Africa and Latin America. This, in fact, is the other aspect of the Black Book which makes it different and more powerful than its predecessors: now, at the end of the twentieth century, it finally makes sense to look back at the evolution of communism as a single phenomenon. While we have not perhaps reached the end of the end of the history of communism, the story already has a clear beginning and a clear middle: it is now possible to trace the direct lines of influence, ideological and financial, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Ho Chih Minh to Pol Pot, from Castro to the MPLA in Angola.
It is also possible to trace the links between their remarkably similar systems of repression. The use of concentration camps spread from Russia to China and North Korea. The Cuban secret police were specifically set up along Soviet lines. Artificial famines have caracterised communist regimes in Ukraine, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and now North Korea. What Jean-Louis Margolin, in his chapter on Cambodia, calls the “mania for classification and elimination of different elements of society”‘ was characteristic of the other important communist regimes as well. Categories of enemies were established and persecuted everywhere: in Russia they were the “former people” or the “enemies of the people”, in China they were the “blacks” as opposed to the “reds”, in Cambodia they were the “75’ers”, who had been expelled from cities in 1975. The same kinds of dehumanisation were used to degrade the regime’s enemies – they were described as “poisonous weeds” or “insects” – and the same kind of fate awaited them and their families, in massacres, camps, and exile. All of the authors look at cultural contexts, at histories of peasant rebellion in Russia and of slavery in Cambodia, but because communism was an anti-traditional ideology, and because it deliberately destroyed older cultures and ways of life, these differences don’t, in the end, seem to matter as much as the similarities.
Which is why it is also possible now, in a way it would not have been a few years ago, to trounce once and for all the myths of a more promising “early period” of communist history, or of `better’ regimes which deviated from the general rule. Writes Getty, “the notion that we have clung to so long – that there must have been `liberal’ or `decent’ Bolsheviks who tried unsuccessfully to stop Stalin’s plan for terror – is no longer tenable.” Without exception, the Leninist belief in the one party state was and is characteristic of every communist regime, from Russia to China to Cuba to Mozambique. Without exception, the Bolshevik use of violence was repeated in every communist revolution. Words and phrases invented by Lenin and his chief of secret police, Feliks Dzerzinsky, were deployed with uncanny predictability all over the world. As late as 1976, Mengistu launched a “Red Terror” in Ethiopia.
Finally, the most important effect of the Black Book is cumulative: more than 800 pages of murders, massacres, famines, concentration camps, prisons, wars, terrorist acts and assasinations cannot fail to impress even those readers inclined to see silver linings. By the time one has reached the end of the book, in fact, one feels that the question central to the introduction ought to read somewhat differently. Given the kind of material – documents, testimony, official statements – that we now have, why do we still need to compare Communism to Nazism? True, the comparison will go on being interesting to the same kinds of historians and political philosophers who have always found it interesting. But it should by now be unnecessary for those like Stephan Courtois, who simply want the evil of communism to be intutitivly accepted the way that the evil of Nazism is intuitively accepted. We have reached the end of the twentieth century with its multiple horrors, we have all of the necessary documentation spread before us, and we should now be able to say, without making a contest of it, that Hitler was evil – and that Stalin was evil. That some still need conjure up the ghost of one in order to condemn the other merely testifies as to how far popular culture lags behind historical research. Communism now looks bad enough by itself.
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Protecting the environment is very important to us – it always has been. We take it very seriously when our products are considered to be unfriendly to the environment. Labels are not ideal on aluminum cans – this is true. As we noted in this blog post back in 2019, compatibility of the label and the container are critical. Paper labels on paper envelopes (like our self adhesive postage stamps) is one of the better options, but even in this case, the adhesive can be problematic and build up in the recycle process.
Because many of our beverage customers are small, craft producers, they really have no other choice. Nobody wants to pollute, but there is really no other viable option. Printed cans have a 12 week lead time and the minimum practical order quantity is more than 200,000 cans. This is way too many labels for many of our brewers. They don’t have the time, money, or space to order that many cans at a time. Flexible inventory and quick turn times make labels a very necessary part of the business plan. Sleeves are no better.
Shrink sleeve labels, which we could potentially produce someday on our existing equipment, are no better. The shrinkable plastic film is STILL a contamination to the aluminum recycling stream. AND, they typically have at least an 8 week lead time. One brewer is ordering shrink sleeves in the midwest, getting them shrunk onto cans in California, and then shipping their brewery in Montana! This isn’t a green solution!
Sadly (for us) this really isn’t a big problem. Labelled cans are likely less than 1% of all cans recycled in America. We certainly wish this number would grow over time, because that would be good for our business, but in reality, it is a very, very small number. All the Red Bull, Bud Light, and Coors cans render the small number of labelled Craft Beer cans meaningless. And, there is other contamination.
Yes, recyclers would like the most pure aluminum possible, but it isn’t realistic to have perfectly clean cans. Gum, cigarrette butts, and other waste is in every load of cans that has ever been recycled. There has to be an allowance for contamination in the recycling process. There is no other option but to filter out all the waste – including poly labels – when the cans are melted down. Yes the problem is growing becasue small, innovative crafte producers have this option that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but it is still a very small problem compared to the economic opportunity and creative expression offered by this flexible packaging option.
Control What you Can
Given the benefits of labels, the choice you can make is to work with an eco-friendly label company like Rose City Label. We are 100% wind powered, we use water wash printing plates, and have many award winning recycling programs in our business. We were just recognized again in the FTA 2021 Sustainability Excellence Awards
If you need great labels for your canned beverage, at least you have the opportunity to work with a company with a focus on sustainability. Call us today. We can help with all your label needs.
Sustainable Leadership Recognized again!
by Scott Pillsbury | Dec 7, 2020 | Environmental Green
Sustainable Leadership
A major label trade magazine -Label and Narrow Web – recently featured Rose City Label in a vendor case study. Read the full case study here on our website. They discussed the reasons and benefits for our move to water wash printing plates. The article is very complimentary to our company and underscores our commitment to sustainability. We previously discussed our move to water wash plates in this blog post. We are proud of our sustainable leadership.
The Plates are Fantastic
Sustainable leadership doesn’t mean you have to settle for low quality products. We are getting massive environmental benefits from these plates, but also getting very fast, clean printing plates on press. If the plates didn’t print well, we wouldn’t be making this move – even with the environmental improvement. The product has to work, and this one does work very well. Our press operators love them and our plate maker has enjoyed the learning process. Read the news update about our sustainable leadership here on the Label and Narrow Web website.
For many years, the last remaining regulated chemicals in our business were the solvents used to make plates. This was never a dangerous chemical, but it didn’t smell very good and had to be recycled by a special service. Eliminating this from our building made everyone happy – especially our plate maker that deals with them nearly every day.
Even with the move to water wash plates – our water usage is still going down! Water usage is down 33% in 2020 vs. 2019 despite business remaining very strong. We continue to reduce waste and resource consumption. Sustainable leadership starts from the front – we have to walk the talk so we measure everything and share the results with our team. Everyone is proud to work for a company that is doing the right thing. Our results were shared recently in this post. We feel it is important to share the information so people know we are taking our sustainable leadership seriously.
We Got Great Support from APR
Customers are critical to our success, but so are great vendors and employees. Without the support of our vendors, many of our technical advances would not be possible. In this case, All Print Resources – APR, was a great partner for us in this transition. They shared the case study on their website here. Thanks APR for the excellent support.
Part of our responsibility is to help other people get better on their sustainable journey. We want to be mentors and leaders to other business leaders in our community. If you want to learn more about our journey, or get tips on how to get started, please let us know. We want to help you on your journey to sustainable leadership. There is plenty of opportunity for all of us to improve. Call us today – we can help.
by Scott Pillsbury | Jun 4, 2020 | Environmental Green
We are 100% Wind Powered – and Proud of It!
When we found out our local power company offered 100% clean wind power, it was an easy decision for us. More than 2 years ago we made the commitment and we never looked back. The program was easy to set up, economical, and very effective. We use lots of energy making labels for our customers and it is nice to know that energy doesn’t come from fossil fuels.
200,000 and 300,000 – these are big numbers
Total consumption in 2019 was 191,000 kWh – that’s almost 200 MILLION watt hours of energy. More impressive, is that using the renewable wind power saved the environment from 306,000 pounds – 150 TONS – of CO2 emissions. Check the certificate by clicking here.
Part of a Larger Mission for the Earth
Wind power is only one part of our larger mission to protect the Earth. We also pioneered the use of water wash plates. All of our ongoing sustainability programs are listed in this post and this one. Recycling pallets, plastic wrap, and even encouraging our vendors to send supplies without unnecessary packaging – all these are baked into our sustainability DNA. For all these reasons, we were the first major label company awarded the SGP certification – read more by clicking here.
Being a good environmental citizen is something we can all agee on. Nobody wants to pollute or damage the Earth, but they think it is hard or expensive. In fact, it is neither. It is simple to start. We have been building this program over 10 years – it didn’t happen overnight. And, rather than costing more, it costs about the same AND it is a great reason to call your customers with positive news. And, amlost more importantly, it is a wonderful recruiting tool. As our workforce gets younger and more interested in the environment, being a mission driven organization becomes even more valuable.
We couldn’t have done any of this without leaders that have gone before. Others have paved the way with sustainable business and our vendors have been very receptive to all our ideas. Customers are appreciative of our efforts, but we couldn’t do it withouth people trusting us every day. We take the responsibility seriously and will continue to move forward as a sustainable, family owned company into the future. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Best Eco-Friendly Label
by Scott Pillsbury | Nov 7, 2019 | Environmental Green
What is the Best Eco-Friendly Label?
As with most things in the custom printing and packaging business, there is no simple answer to this question. The Best Eco-Friendly Label depends on many things including the package it is adhered to, the durability requirements, and the end of life use of the package. There isn’t just one Best Eco-Friendly Label for all cases.
More than 10 years ago, when I was Chairman of TLMI – the leading label association in North America, I wrote a letter to our members opposing a ban on certain adhesives proposed by the State of Wisconsin. The association and I opposed this blanket approach because it didn’t consider all the different types of containers we label – glass, aluminum, paper and more. When possible, it is ideal to match the container material to the label material. This works well with a PET label on a PET bottle. Or a paper label on a paper envelope or box. But on glass bottles and aluminum cans, this is much more problematic.
In some cases, we are lucky enough to have an industry that joins forces to create a solution. In the case of the Oregon Craft Beer industry, they joined with the distributor-funded bottle collection system and created a specific bottle that is reusable. This thick-walled 500ml beer bottle is ‘rented’ by the brewer and recovered, washed, and returned to circulation. This program is still in its infancy, but it has great promise. We are proud to be one of the few approved label vendors that can provide compatible labels. In this case, we spent months researching a compatible adhesive and label stock that would hold up in a cold, wet cooler but still wash off cleanly to allow the bottle to be reused. It is a great program, but not every industry has access to it.
Another term thrown around often has to do with adhesives. This stems from the Wisconsin project mentioned above, but it ONLY applies to paper on paper recycling. Think about Avery-type address labels and stamps on a letter. When unclaimed mail is recycled, this RCA adhesive allows the labels and stamps to separate from envelopes in the recycle process without too much ‘gunk’ clogging up the re-pulping machines. These adhesives are very important, but are really geared toward paper on paper applications (they are better than most, but still not a full solution).
This industry moves FAST. Things are changing all the time, but as of this publication, our best product is from Avery Dennison. Labels have three parts, and all three parts of this label contribute to its overall environmental footprint:
Label Paper – 100% PCW and FSC Certified
Adhesive – AT20N – complies with RCA standard
PET backing – most recycle friendly backing paper
These are all attributes that make this the current best eco-friendly label material. Read about the label stock specification here. Read the RCA compatibility certification. For more details about the material, please give us a call directly.
Besides the material your labels are made from, the COMPANY making them needs to be a good environmental partner. They need to be honest and fair with employees and customers – and they need to walk the sustainability walk in their own operations. Rose City Label shines in this area. Our recent SGP Certification was reported in the trade press around the world. And our 2018 Environmental Leadership award was a very nice recognition by our peers that we are committed to being a good corporate citizen.
We Can help with Best Eco-Friendly Labels
This information changes rapidly. New products come into the market on a weekly basis. If you have questions, call us today. We are here to help.
by Scott Pillsbury | Oct 16, 2019 | Company News, Environmental Green
The baseline reason for picking a label printer is that they can print excellent, high quality labels for you. If your brand doesn’t shine on the retail shelf, the the conversation goes no further. With flexo, HP Indigo digital printing, and foil stamping and embossing, print quality is a great reason to choose Rose City Label
Flexible and Hungry
Our business has doubled in the past 10 years and we have made great investment in new equipment. Still, we are a small, scrappy company. We are a 92 year old brick and mortar company with a start-up mentality. If you buy the kind of labels we make well, we want your business! Choose Rose City Label for our flexibility and willingness to work for your business. Special delivery times? Specific packaging? Run and hold programs? Rose City Label can offer all those and more.
Best People in the Business
Everyone knows a business is built on the quality of its people. We are too. But more than just talking about great people, we factually and actually have the most experienced crew in the market. With many over 20 years and two people over 30 years with Rose City Label, we have a very experienced and dedicated crew. They even come in on emergency weekends to delivery labels 3,500 miles for a customer!
Nationally Recognized Green Business
Since our County certification in 2009, people choose Rose City Label for our green business practices. We earned a very prestigious certification this year, and the Environmental Leadership award last year. We have reduced our water consumption by 47% in the past 5 years!
We are still locally owned and operated. We are a family business first and foremost. Many of our employees have relatives in the business and that makes us a family not just a business. Our roots are deep and this long-term perspective helps us do the right things for our customers.
For all the reasons listed above, people choose Rose City Label more and more each week. Our customer list continues to grow and we are very thankful for that. Want to learn more? Call us today at 503-777-4711.
by Scott Pillsbury | Nov 20, 2018 | Beer Wine Spirits, Company News, Environmental Green, Label News
Rose City Label Recognized with TLMI Environmental Leadership Award for 2018
Rose City Label won the Environmental Leadership Award at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the top label printers in America. This Environmental Leadership Award is given annually to one printer and one supplier based on judging the association environmental community. The award recognizes specific programs, demonstrated results, and a cultural commitment to the environment. We are very honored to join the list of past winners and we will never stop on our eco-friendly journey. This year, the awards were renamed in honor of Calvin Frost – a true environmental leader in the printing industry. There is nothing better than a cold frosty beer from our customer in the commemorative ‘Frosty 2018’ mug.
Trying hard and having commitment are important, but for the TLMI Environmental Leadership Award, results matter:
Five Year Water Reduction of 47%
Small reductions in Garbage and Electricity as well
All measures are indexed to manufacturing output as our business has grown considerably in the past 5 years. Complete details and annual graphs of these measures can be found in this blog post.
Small Things that Every Business Can Apply
Besides these dramatic results, the committee was impressed with the programs and projects the company has championed. These include:
Encouraging employee bicycle commuting
Providing excess pallets for employee home garden projects
Reusing items in the press room during production runs
More about these innovative programs can be found at these two blog posts click here for part 1 and click here for part 2.
The final area called out by the judges in this award was a leadership commitment to the environment. This philosophy is baked into the business so deeply that an employee recently lobbied for an electric car charging station – she knew it would align with our values (and with her new car), but also would provide marketing value and would contribute to this award criteria. All team members know we are focused on the environment. Some additional major indicators:
Conversion to 100% wind power – read more here
Water wash printing plates – among the first on the West Coast to adopt this system – read more here
Monthly review of eco-metrics along with financial performance
This award was particularly important to us since it was renamed in honor of our longtime friend and vendor, Calvin Frost. Calvin has been the voice of the sustainability movement for decades and his message is finally being heard far and wide in the industry. Calvin’s company, Channelled Resources, is basically one big recycling business. For over 40 years, the company has inspected and salvaged potentially damaged product. This stock would be destined for the landfill if his company didn’t take the time to sort and save the (large percentage) of this material.
Winning this award any year would be great, but to the first ever ‘Frosty’ award winner is even better!
We are ready to help others become more ‘green’. Any success we have is a team effort and we want to help you on your journey. Are you just getting started? Or need some pro-level tips? Please call us today. If you buy labels, that is fantastic, but we will help any business with a true desire to learn and grow in their eco-journey. Cheers!
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| 20,857 |
3.we are the manufacturers, many commodities is now assembled, each shipment might be slightly different.
Please understand, thank you..
This product was produced in City, Zhejiang Province, is the new, modern production.Lingua
Sword maintenance of common sense:
Sword generally consists of three components:blade,sheath and accessories.The main body, blade,is mostly iron,steel,copper.Sheath is made by wood. In order to avoid getting rusted,it should not be stored in damp place nor contact with sour, salty substances. Hand touch should also be avoided in case the surface got corroded by sweat.Oil shoul be applied on surface for maintainance for medium carbon steel,high carbon steel,pattern-welded steel(Damascus steel)material stainless steel blade.
| 756 |
Kristin Chenoweth talks to Jacki Lyden on today's Weekends on All Things Considered, and if the only thing you got from the interview was Chenoweth warbling a bit of the first solo she ever did in church, it would be well worth it.
The Emmy-winning actress stars on ABC's new GCB, a sort of Desperate-Housewives-ish dishy, soapy comedy-drama premiering Sunday night at 10. She's come quite a long way since, as she explains, her father negotiated her first contract.
One of the themes of GCB — adapted from a book called Good Christian Bitches — involves the religious community of the women in the story. Chenoweth, too, has often spoken about her faith. She calls herself "a God person," but adds, "It's not my job to decide whether someone is 'a sinner' for doing something or being something or saying something. My grandma said, 'Oh, Kris, I read the Bible like I eat fish. I eat the meat that serves me well, but I don't choke on a bone.' I loved that, and I've never forgotten it."
Chenoweth speaks of her family, too, when she discusses her flair for comedy. Her parents, she says, were chemical engineers, and her brother is "a genius." She says her parents have fine senses of humor, but a simple fact remains: "I am," she says, "the odd duck."
On GCB, Chenoweth plays a woman whose old nemesis returns to town, and she is among the titular GCBs of the book. Asked whether she, as a Christian, finds the title or the idea offensive, Chenoweth says, "There's a difference between making fun of something and having fun with something. And we do the latter."
But television certainly isn't Kristin Chenoweth's only pursuit. She also releases records, including a recent country album. Lyden asks her about the inspiration she draws as a musician from one of her heroes, Dolly Parton. "This is a woman who has sacrificed and worked her butt off and worked hard to own her own music and not sold it — which is so smart."
Chenoweth may not be Dolly Parton, but she speaks of her own surprise at hearing her accomplishments detailed at a recent event that honored her. She says: "I'm trying to learn, as I'm in my 40s, to embrace what I've been able to achieve and be proud of it. And I know there's roles that I will want to play before I die, but I'm still just taking one day at a time."
Corrected: March 5, 2012 at 10:00 PM MST
The audio version of this story incorrectly says Kristin Chenoweth won a Tony Award for her performance as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked. While her role in Wicked earned her a Tony Award nomination, she did not win the award for that performance. She did win a Tony Award for her performance in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Corrected: March 5, 2012 at 10:00 PM MST
The audio version of this story incorrectly says Kristin Chenoweth won a Tony Award for her performance as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked. While her role in Wicked earned her a Tony Award nomination, she did not win the award for that performance. She did win a Tony Award for her performance in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.
| 3,606 |
A few weeks ago I sat in a monorail car on my way to the Magic Kingdom, pondering how I would introduce myself for Her Universe’s Year of the Fangirl. The opportunity to work alongside the women Ashley Eckstein has assembled is an honor I never imagined in my wildest fangirl dreams. But just a few short years ago I couldn’t have imagined that a young girl, about eight years old, would walk into the same car on a Disney monorail wearing a Jedi robe, notice my Padmé Nouveau shirt, and that we’d instantly recognize we were part of a community of fans. I was the same age as that Jedi cosplayer when my grandparents took me to see Star Wars. I consider myself lucky for having experienced the fandom from the beginning. Just a few months later for Halloween, my mother wrapped my long brown piggy tails into cinnamon rolls, put me in a simple white dress, and took the requisite picture of her daughter preparing to parade around the neighborhood as the character she idolized. In 1977 it was impossible to understand Princess Leia’s significance. She was a princess unlike any other: bold, self-rescuing, a leader and a warrior – but very much without equal on-screen and elsewhere in genre storytelling. Leia’s uniqueness represented what it was like to be an independent woman in the late 1970s, and I was still very much a child. Women were making a stand for equal treatment, but often they did it in isolation. As the generation raised on the Original Trilogy has matured, the spirit of Princess Leia and the heroines who’ve followed her have helped change the very nature of our culture.
As I entered engineering school in college, I didn’t really understand that what I was doing might be outside the norm for women. Nothing in how I had been raised suggested that I needed to make life choices based on my gender. My favorite female characters – Princess Leia, Colonel Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers, Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark – were intelligent and brave, right alongside the men. My best friend in high school had shared with me a passion for horses, dance team, and all things scifi and fantasy. Yet being listed as part of the engineering class in the dance team photo in the sports program drew surprised comments from fellow students. I slowly realized I was crossing preconceived lines. After the first year of general coursework, when I walked into specialized civil engineering classes, it wasn’t hard to miss that the male-to-female ratio was roughly 10:1. None of that really gave me reason to question my choice of career, and I’ve never regretted sticking with it.
Years later when the Prequel Trilogy reignited my passion for the Star Wars franchise, I again experienced being outnumbered in the early period of online fandom. The second time around it wasn’t my high school best friend and I debating whether Darth Vader had lied to Luke at Cloud City, but rather many voices on the internet – usually identities hidden behind screennames. And those early, male-dominated message boards had some very specific notions about the who’s, what’s and how’s of fandom. Once again, though, I refused to let it dissuade me from joining discussions and sticking up for myself. Tina Fey, a comedienne and writer who is respected for her ability to tap into pop culture’s pulse, once noted in an interview: “What I took from Star Wars was kind of the Han Solo and Princess Leia relationship story.” Admittedly, Star Wars wasn’t just about Princess Leia for me, but also Han Solo – and their relationship. Like Tina Fey, I’m a ‘shipper. While I’m at confessions, I’m a huge fan of Jaina Solo – daughter of Leia and Han. Who didn’t want to see Leia swinging a lightsaber or flying an X-wing once Luke’s story played out in Return of the Jedi? Or so I thought. Yet as recently as five years ago, ‘shippers and fans of female characters like Jaina or Mara Jade were often dismissed or bullied out of fandom discourse. Fangirl, ‘shipper, fanficcer, and more recently “fake geek girl” – these all became terms meant to diminish the importance of female fans. There was a time when I almost bought into the mindset; it’s very easy to fall into the trap if you feel alone. When a successful and confident women like Tina Fey talks about herself as a fan, though, it empowers other women to do the same. It helps start a conversation, and one has been building the past few years.
About the same time The Clone Wars came along, the internet fandom really opened up as fansites and blogs flourished and became more user-friendly – and a little company called Her Universe was born. When Ashley appeared on podcasts and hosted panels at conventions, she discussed her love of things geeky with the same genuine passion as Tina Fey. She continued the conversation, then went one step further and gave female fans another way to show their geek pride. Put on a shirt that says, “Hey, I’m a fan!” and barriers of isolation are torn down. Her Universe reminded everyone that fans, who happened to be girls, really do exist. In 2010, I created a blog to highlight the achievements of fangirls and to discuss issues in storytelling and fandom that affected and were important to female fans. I named my blog FANgirl as a way to take back the negative stigma often attached to the term. “FAN” is capitalized to remind everyone of the most important part of the word. I didn’t envision it just as my site, but as a place many voices could be heard. Over twenty fans have contributed to the blog, seven of them regularly. One of the best parts of creating a venue for fans is watching women who otherwise might never have had the chance get to interview a Star Wars author, have their review of The Clone Wars retweeted by one of its writers, or sit on a convention panel to discuss what they love about their favorite franchise.
I always believed women would come into our own in fandom. Powered by a surge of female fans coming to the fore, a female-led action movie ruled at the box office and the range of stories with strong female characters is becoming almost limitless in books, comics, movies, and television. Doors are opening for women specifically because they are fangirls. My personal highlights include writing about Star Wars on Suvudu.com, ActionFlickChick.com and in Star Wars Insider magazine, helping in the creative process for artwork that would eventually end up in Del Rey’s The Essential Reader’s Companion, dissecting The Clone Wars episodes with Jason Swank and Jimmy McInerney of RebelForce Radio, and hosting a standing-room-only panel at GeekGirlCon. These incredible opportunities have given me the courage to create my own heroine and tell her story. I am putting the finishing touches on my science fiction novel Wynde right now. I look at fangirls like Amy, who blazed a trail as a geek girl blogger, or Victoria, who has worn her fandom loud and proud with fabulous cosplay and style advice, and I’m in awe of what they have accomplished. Erin’s story and her passion for the Star Wars Expanded Universe inspire me when the days seem tough, and Lillian’s blogging and outreach exemplify how we can all be good ambassadors for the fandom. It is women like these who have built a community; we make each other stronger. Along with Ashley, each of these women exemplifies what being a fangirl is about to me: Voice your opinions, hopes, or desires about the stories that you feel passionate about. Respect that every other fan – including the ones creating those stories – brings their own unique perspective. I am so excited going forward into the next chapter of Star Wars as Disney becomes its new steward. My hope is that we can build on the community as new fans discover the Galaxy Far Far Away and its many heroes and heroines. May The Force Be With You.
Meet Year Of The Fangirl Contributor: Tricia Barr was last modified: September 6th, 2017 by Ashley
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| 10,607 |
I was thick as thieves with four banditas my freshman year of college: Muppet, Smack, KitKat, and K.O. Whether we were at a dance club or supposed to be studying, we simply had too much fun together. So when the opportunity arose early in fall semester for us to attend a concert together, of course we would go. The band: Motley Crue. Them: Fans. Me: Not remotely a fan except I did like one song.
Smack’s older brother, BK, a giant hulk of a boy, was having a pre-party at his apartment. Perfect. As we all dress and convene to go to his apartment, I am met with four pairs of puzzled eyes. "What?" I ask.
"Is that what you are wearing to the concert" asked of me in unison.
"Yes, it is."
They are layered in various combinations of denim and black. I am wearing a bright red mock turtleneck, crisply pressed navy walking shorts, red and navy argyle socks, and penny loafers. Clearly, I was not a head banger and had never been to a Crue concert. My outfit du preppy not frequently seen at a concert. I was not aware that the only attire needed by women at a Crue concert was spiral perm, pasties, and underwear that could be quickly removed to throw on stage. And even though they didn't have these costumes either, off we went. Motley Crue: not exactly singing hymnals.
When we arrive at BK’s apartment, he takes one look at me and says, “You look ridiculous.”
I ignore him primarily because you can’t tell someone in argyle they look ridiculous when you are wearing tucked and rolled acid wash jeans and a jean jacket with rips all over it.
I pony up to the keg and am handed a giant glass. I can’t say that I had ever consumed 32 ounces of beer at one time. Maybe over an entire evening at this point in my drinking career but not at one time especially when it was only about 4 in the afternoon. But, I certainly do my best. An hour or so passes and I step outside. I believe there was a Marlboro Light involved. More time passes and everyone gathers to leave. Although, I can’t be sure because I was curled up on the front porch taking a nap.
When my gal pals attempt to rouse me, it can not be done. As in, I am down for the count. BK is highly irritated with the antics. He opts to leave me there which is met with fierce resistance from my girlfriends (THANK YOU, girlfriends!) The departure includes a brisk walk to the stadium from BK's apartment. I mean, it involves a brisk walk for them. BK likely attempts to once more to advocate for leaving me on the porch to fend for myself. Once again, he is told no.
So he has to carry me fireman style over a mile back to my residence hall. He does so grudgingly and not before he says plenty of sweet things to me. Luckily, beer has soundproofed my existence. I wake up hours later feeling none too well. In fact, the only thing that seems to be a good idea is to open my 2nd story window and hang my head out of it. Cool night air washing me with minor relief. And then I am sick. At the precise minute my sweet and innocent Japanese exchange student roommate walks in with her study group. Welcome to America Shoko! You won the roommate lottery.
Luckily, she felt sorry for me having not a clue that I did this to myself. When the girls came home from the concert, they found me in the same position. But I rallied back and we were still able to have a very fun night after the concert. Oh, youth. Gives us such elasticity. And when people asked me about the concert, I simply said, “Motley who?”
And then I blamed in on the argyle prejudice.
PS: He only hated me forever
forever being nominated as the one to carry me all the way home. We never made up.
And I have never been to another Crue concert either.
Posted by JennyMac
62 comments:
you would have been called a poser in my days..
...how was your head the next day?
March 30, 2010 at 7:28 AM
The Girl said...
I believe they call that - partying like a rock star.
March 30, 2010 at 7:28 AM
That would have might quite a photo opp--you and your garb "Shouting at the Devil."
March 30, 2010 at 7:38 AM
Anonymous said...
I don't know man. Any girl who wears Argyle anything to a Motley Crue concert is not a girl at all. She's a dude, with BIG HAIRY BALLS.
Or maybe just slightly mentally deficient. I'm just saying. :)
March 30, 2010 at 7:46 AM
Should have taken your fashion tips from the name of the band...MOTLEY...that said I personally would have gone with the argyle and in a kilt.
March 30, 2010 at 7:55 AM
Simply Suthern said...
All dressed up and no where to go. Sounds like you were lookin good. Ya prolly would not have enjoyed it anyways.
March 30, 2010 at 8:22 AM
I always try to dress for the concert I'm going to.... Because I'd totally wear argyle to a concert too.
March 30, 2010 at 8:54 AM
Jenn@ You know... that blog? said...
Hahaha :D I can totally see you doing that.
You didn't miss anything as far as I'm concerned, except maybe a giant headache from the noise they called music. Clearly not a fan either ;)
Have an awesome day!
March 30, 2010 at 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...
I'm pretty sure my argyle is what made my hippie hubby fall deeply in love with me. That and my tights under my shorts..... Ahhhh..... Those were the days....
March 30, 2010 at 9:01 AM
Cara Smith said...
That is funny! I once wore a white roxy sweater over a pastel cami and white loafers to a Black Label Society Concert.
In my defense, I went straigt from work and while I like the music, my husband is the uber fan.
March 30, 2010 at 9:04 AM
It's "Dr Feelgood", isn't it?
March 30, 2010 at 9:29 AM
Ed said...
Lightweight.
March 30, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Unknown said...
Oh! I would have loved to go to a Motley Crue concert! My sister got me into all those 80's hair bands. I think I was the only 4th grader who listened to Cinderella!LOL
March 30, 2010 at 9:35 AM
Will Burke said...
I sat next to a similar character at a Manson concert. Fortunately, we were in the balcony, so she was out of reach of the rabid fans.
March 30, 2010 at 9:36 AM
Unknown said...
that is too funny; who knew there was argyle prejudice?
March 30, 2010 at 9:38 AM
I want to see a picture of that outfit! LOL
March 30, 2010 at 9:48 AM
Leiah said...
On our first trip out of town together, my ex-husband took me to a concert where Warrant opened for Motley Crew who was the opening act for Ozzy. What...an eye-opener. (Said in my best Chelsea Handler imitation)
March 30, 2010 at 9:55 AM
Anne said...
Just came over from The Girl Next Door and I already LOVE your blog. You had me at "Cocktail" ;) Following, and will be back for more!!!
March 30, 2010 at 9:58 AM
Unknown said...
Too bad we didn't live in the digital age we do, now, where every step of our lives are documented by photos, or YouTube videos.
Wait........never mind. I'm really glad we didn't, back then. Can you imagine the stuff our generation would have to put on YouTube!?! Haha!
March 30, 2010 at 9:59 AM
I wouldn't have fit in at a Crew concert either.
March 30, 2010 at 10:06 AM
Laoch of Chicago said...
No doubt that the most important thing you preserved that evening was your hearing.
March 30, 2010 at 10:25 AM
Unknown said...
I have never been to a Crue concert, and only had a brief stint in high school where I pretended to like them so the cool kids would think I was cool, too.
Would pay to see pics of you in those argyle socks. ANd hanging your head out the window. LOL!
March 30, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Maria said...
Went to a concert tho, and never felt more out of place in my life. Lots of leopard prints. And cougar wannabes.
March 30, 2010 at 10:30 AM
Bumpkin on a Swing said...
Hate you missed the Crue in concert, it was some of the best entertainment out there in their day.
Tell me GNR wasn't opening for them then?
Seeing Axel sing Sweet Child o Mine was one of the most memorable "live" performances of our time.
March 30, 2010 at 10:57 AM
Ahhh Motley Crue. I think you were in college around the same time I was...
March 30, 2010 at 11:14 AM
Actually, scientists have discovered there is no discernible difference in human brain activity between subjects attending a Mötley Crüe concert and those barfing out of a window.
March 30, 2010 at 11:14 AM
Walking shorts at a Crue concert? that may have been a first ever!!
March 30, 2010 at 11:26 AM
Still making those fashion statements these days. I remember (and don't remember) concerts like this in college.
March 30, 2010 at 11:31 AM
Bibi @ Bibi's Culinary Journey said...
I miss the college days and the days of argyle.Those were the good ol' days I can only dream about now.
March 30, 2010 at 11:40 AM
One Photo said...
Oh how funny - isn't it always the way they when trying to be "cool" we fail so dismally?!?
March 30, 2010 at 11:58 AM
I too would've opted for a night at home puking my brains out rather than go to a Motley concert.
Why can't I bouce back after something like that anymore? Age=killer.
March 30, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Unknown said...
It's probably better that you missed out on the concert. Getting dragged to a concert featuring an artist that you have no interest in is not.fun.
My ex took me to a Tim McGraw/Faith Hill concert and I was sooo bored. I was probably the only one who sat down in my seat for 90% of the concert.
March 30, 2010 at 1:06 PM
LMAO! You know, sometimes I feel like the girl in argyle at a Motley Crue concert! I hate that feeling.
March 30, 2010 at 1:11 PM
Unknown said...
Brilliantly funny JennyMac....and quite an outfit you were sporting...love it :)
March 30, 2010 at 2:00 PM
Emily said...
Girl, that is a hilarious story! And remind me to make fun of you for owning and wearing penny loafers! ;)
March 30, 2010 at 2:23 PM
Motley Crue, not much to miss.
I had the same experience with a 32 oz, (not kidding) margarita. It was a legal drink at the time. I didn't make it to Aerosmith and I'm pretty sure there was vomit involved on my date's front door. But, that's about all I remember.
March 30, 2010 at 2:28 PM
foxy said...
Oh girl - that's a funny one! I would've looked at you like you were crazy too - all in your argyle. :) Those were the days, huh???
March 30, 2010 at 2:28 PM
...hmm... It sounds like you were never (ever) to a Crue concert...
March 30, 2010 at 2:35 PM
Mrs. M said...
Motley Crue's loss for sure! :)
(ps: don't think you missed much either!)
March 30, 2010 at 2:40 PM
Stephanie said...
You and I so could have been friends. I rocked the penny loafers:)
March 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Oh that's funny! Argyle at a Crue concert!
Splenda and I once went to a Ratt concert. We didn't even find our seats before realizing we were in way over our heads. Somehow I thought the same crowd at the Van Halen gig would be at the Ratt show.
I was wrong.
March 30, 2010 at 3:23 PM
Crap. I did that on my 17th birthday - except it was .38 Special, two beers and two shots of root beer schnapps.
Ick.
I too was the one mocked by my friend and these two random guys she knew for wearing walking shorts and a cute top.
March 30, 2010 at 3:31 PM
Anonymous said...
That is something I would have done. I was super prerry since I worked at a golf course. I used to think wearing black was for sluts!!! Oh how I am glad I grew up!
March 30, 2010 at 3:43 PM
March 30, 2010 at 3:49 PM
Anonymous said...
Maybe it was all very lucky? if we drink beer like the men do, we'll get the same pot bellies!
March 30, 2010 at 4:16 PM
Ellen said...
Way to rally! (Not that I would expect anything less ;) And yeah...my best friend in college wore a Lily Pulitzer dress to an EMINEM concert with me. Needless to say, she stood out, but I got her to wave her middle finger in the air like she just didn't care, and she blended in a bit better.
March 30, 2010 at 5:00 PM
I can't believe you rallied after that! What a woman!
March 30, 2010 at 5:40 PM
March 30, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Isn't there a saying, "argyles before beer, never sicker"?
March 30, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Eric said...
The Crue? I thought this was 'The Cure'. *walks off dejectedly*
My first concert was Ted Nugent when I was 14. Kind of a bad influence in some ways.
March 30, 2010 at 6:22 PM
Aunt Juicebox said...
Ahhhh the good ole days! lol I don't think I've ever owned anything argyle. Or anything Motley Crue.
March 30, 2010 at 6:42 PM
Leah Rubin said...
Your so-called friends should have intervened on the argyles in question... BK might have handled it all differently had you been dressed in ripped jeans... After all, this was Motley Crue, not Glenn Miller!
March 30, 2010 at 8:25 PM
Anonymous said...
I'm still laughing about your outfit...holds side....
March 30, 2010 at 8:30 PM
The girl with the flour in her hair said...
Oh, and just think about the good time you could have had. Pity.
March 30, 2010 at 11:44 PM
Anonymous said...
isn't that what it's all about anyway!!
March 31, 2010 at 12:15 AM
I was a huge Crue fan back in my single days and would have loved to see them in concert! Don't think I would have been one of those bimbos though with the pasties and trick undies Lol!
March 31, 2010 at 8:14 AM
March 31, 2010 at 9:47 AM
Stephanie said...
This made my day! What great memories. If it makes you feel any better, I don't actually remember the concert. The last thing I remember is Smack and I walking up the hill singing "Dr. Feelgood" at the top of our lungs. Good times.
On a similar note, the other day in bodyPump, "She's my Cherry Pie" was on. Guess who I thought of?
March 31, 2010 at 2:16 PM
I liked the Crue. I have been to one or two of their shows, without Argyle though....sorry. Funny story though.
March 31, 2010 at 2:16 PM
HalfAsstic.com said...
Ah, Motley Crue. You didn't miss anything, I am quite sure. Ick.
However, I am guessing you didn't have too much fun doing your "own thing" while your friends were there. Heh, Poor new room mate!
March 31, 2010 at 4:04 PM
SMACK said...
Hmmm, Smack, here...I don't quite recall all that about my brother, but then I must have had a bit to drink, too! Thanks for the walk down memory lane (although most of the night does seem to not be remembered by most of us!)!
April 1, 2010 at 9:39 PM
Anonymous said...
BK here...I totally forgot about this episode of fun with the 5 Amigos. No hard feelings Jen...I was more peeved at the bruthas for not helping carry you back to the dorm...at least I got a good workout carrying you well over a mile, especially with the incline. :)
Sorry to say, the argyle outfit was not kosher for a Crue concert. You did miss a great one, including Tommy Lee's solo act. Good times and good memories...hope all is well.
April 6, 2010 at 3:14 PM
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Today, L. Ron Hubbard’s management principles have reached more than 140,000 companies in 75+ countries.
Moving to Saint Hill Manor in the southern English county of Sussex in the early 1960s, Mr. Hubbard set about researching organizational and management principles and techniques. Poring through volume after volume of business texts he soon came to realize that no uniformly workable technology of organizations existed. While there were many successful activities, there was little in the way of proven techniques and principles which could be applied uniformly to all organizations.
Mr. Hubbard developed precise techniques to successfully start, run and manage a business of any size. He then made this technology available to businesses worldwide so long as the training is done by authorized business consultants and training organizations through licensing arrangements.
There are only two tests of a life well lived L. Ron Hubbard once remarked: Did one do as one intended? And were people glad one lived? In testament to the first stands the full body of his life’s work, including the more than 12,000 writings and 3,000 tape-recorded lectures covering, among others, the subjects of philosophy, administration, art, education, drug rehabilitation, literacy, the mind and spirit.
In evidence of the second are the hundreds of millions of individuals whose lives have been demonstrably bettered because he lived. They are the more than 28 million students now reading superlatively because of L. Ron Hubbard’s educational discoveries; they are the millions of men and women freed from substance abuse through L. Ron Hubbard’s breakthroughs in drug rehabilitation; they are the near 100 million who have been touched by his nonreligious moral code, The Way to Happiness; and they are the many millions more who hold his work to be the spiritual cornerstone of their lives.
(c) 2022 L. Ron Hubbard Library. Photograph: (c) 1987 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved. HUBBARD is a trademark and is used pursuant to a licensing agreement. I/A # Applied For.
The business owner is ultimately responsible for the success of the business and the well-being of its staff. You can have a competent team that turns your vision into reality while achieving survival, expansion and stability. This is accomplished by training your executives.
| 4,074 |
So the other day, folks in the comments were talking about leggings. I’m pretty agnostic about leggings, but the whole discussion (which centered on the fact that it can be *really* hard to look good in leggings) got me thinking about the pervasive idea that women owe it to onlookers to maintain a certain standard of decorativeness.
Now, this may seem strange from someone who writes about pretty dresses (mostly) every day, but: You Don’t Have to Be Pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.
I’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you. But in the hierarchy of importance, pretty stands several rungs down from happy, is way below healthy, and if done as a penance, or an obligation, can be so far away from independent that you may have to squint really hard to see it in the haze.
But what does you-don’t-have-to-be-pretty mean in practical, everyday terms? It means that you don’t have to apologize for wearing things that are held to be “unflattering” or “unfashionable” — especially if, in fact, they make you happy on some level deeper than just being pretty does. So what if your favorite color isn’t a “good” color on you? So what if you are “too fat” (by some arbitrary measure) for a sleeveless top? If you are clean, are covered enough to avoid a citation for public indecency, and have bandaged any open wounds, you can wear any color or style you please, if it makes you happy.
I was going to make a handy prettiness decision tree, but pretty much the end of every branch was a bubble that said “tell complainers to go to hell” so it wasn’t much of a tool.
Pretty, it’s sad to say, can have a shelf life. It’s so tied up with youth that, at some point (if you’re lucky), you’re going to have to graduate from pretty. Sometimes (as in the case with Diana Vreeland, above, you can go so far past pretty that you end up in stylish, or even striking (or the fashion-y term jolie laide) before you know it. But you won’t get there if you think you have to follow all the signs that say “this way to Pretty.” You get there by traveling the route you find most interesting. (And to hell with the naysayers who say “But that’s not PRETTY”!)
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339 thoughts on “You Don't Have to Be Pretty”
May 20, 2014 at 10:50 am
Thanks for writing this, and I’m sorry people are miss-attributing your lines about prettiness. They so perfectly capture what I want to say to my daughters every single day. I suppose everyone assumes this wisdom must come from some well-established figure from history. Either they’re wrong, or in a hundred years you’re going to be a well-established figure from history.
LikeLiked by 2 people
June 2, 2014 at 8:34 pm
Fenomenal. I think I just might have to tattoo “you don’t owe prettiness to anyone” or “pretty is not a rent you pay for occupying a space called female” somewhere, to remind me every day. It’s become my mantra. Thanks for this!
PS. It seems people have mixed up your statement as being Diana Vreelands (because people don't read properly, I suppose), I hope that sorts itself out so you get your rightly credit.
PPS. This would be excellent for a spoken word poem.
Carolyn says:
June 23, 2014 at 5:07 am
This blog post really resonates with me. And a lot of other people (I’m impressed that you really have almost 300 comments!) .
I know I don’t look as young, pretty, slender or cute as I feel. It’s somehow reassuring that you gave me permission to be who I am.
Sunita says:
June 24, 2014 at 2:19 pm
Read somewhere – Age is a great leveller for beauty and ugliness. One is lost in it, the other hidden
June 25, 2014 at 5:16 am
This is an amazing, inspiring and beautifully put blog post. It is very much third wave and I love it. Wear what you want. Do what you want. Do it for you.
June 26, 2014 at 7:18 pm
I LOVE this. I’ve been saying something along those lines. Other people’s opinions don’t pay my bills or buy my clothes…etc. If I’m taking good care of me, it makes it easier to take good care of those I love …just saying
July 4, 2014 at 2:45 am
Well written, I suppose. But an absolute lie. As someone who has been told IN WRITING by a group of men at my former place of work that I am NOT pretty and am in fact ugly, your words are hollow. Every woman here is lying to herself if she thinks otherwise. They all want to be ALWAYS looked at as “the pretty one”.
Ana says:
July 22, 2014 at 10:45 pm
Yes, but that doesn’t mean THEY HAVE TO.
Also, I bet there would be a lot of men who’d tell you the exact opposite thing: you’re pretty
May 4, 2016 at 11:58 pm
I don’t want to be looked at as “the pretty one”, actually. (: I would rather be seen as the strong one. The empathetic one. The resilient one. Would I enjoy being called ugly! Oh, no! It would hurt me. And I am so sorry that you were spoken to that way. But we are so much more than our appearance.
December 20, 2017 at 7:21 am
December 2017 – Well, your moment has come, and you have their comments in writing. If you can’t sue them, plaster them all over the Internet!
LikeLiked by 1 person
December 20, 2017 at 7:27 am
I tried to reply to Veronica, who says men at her workplace told her in writing that she was ugly. This is the year to do something about them.
Jocey says:
December 5, 2020 at 12:25 pm
I’m sorry that happened to you. Fuck those men’s opinions. I’m sure you in no way asked, and I suspect many of them were not much to look at. But that is the difference – a man would not be subject to a written review and unsolicited advice on their appearance, from anyone let alone a place of work. Because it is irrelevant and shallow (and no ones business actually).
There is nothing wrong with enjoying being pretty – it is fun and feels nice. But there really is much more to life than that. It is on its own, unsatisfying and hollow, and denies us of a much richer experience of ourselves and others.
If you do ever decide to take to task for their inappropriate discrimination and behavior, I wish you luck. And I hope you don’t have to deal with that kind of thing again xo
Doris says:
July 21, 2014 at 2:54 am
Hey, Erin, it looks like your quote is now being attributed to Diana Vreeland. I found a meme on Pinterest that attributed your words to Vreeland, and it linked back to this Buzzfeed list: http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/famous-quotes-that-will-make-you-even-prouder-to-be-a-fem?sub=3277031_3010985
Erin says:
July 21, 2014 at 4:11 am
Thanks for commenting on that list! Of course, waiting for Buzzfeed to correct something is probably only slightly faster than waiting for Godot …
July 23, 2014 at 12:52 pm
Love this! Being happy and comfortable (and so many other things) are SO MUCH higher on the ladder than “pretty”. Especially as the mama of two girls, I hate all the emphasis on pretty – since it seems like that is often the ONLY emphasis. They are so much more than that.
waterbear says:
July 24, 2014 at 12:13 pm
What a nerve you struck! Nearly 8 years after posting, still getting heartfelt comments! And here I am, back rereading for the many-th time, just to wisdom myself up to face today.
August 8, 2014 at 11:33 am
If you’re going to quote Diana Vreeland, then QUOTE her. Dont pop a photo above, sneak in her quote, and not give her credit for it. Because now, lots and lots of websites are quoting YOU, and this was not your genius.
“You Don’t Have to Be Pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.” -Diana Vreeland
Erin says:
August 8, 2014 at 2:07 pm
Hi Kylie — you may want to read the comments above yours.
This quote is being credited to DV elsewhere on the Internets by people who are somewhat lacking in reading comprehension because I put a big picture of DV up at the top. I am happy to stand behind my own writing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 9, 2014 at 10:44 am
Well, at least Kylie recognises genius.
LikeLiked by 1 person
tricia says:
November 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm
Can I just tell you how much I LOVE this? Thank you for writing it. It is one of my favorite things to reread and to resend my friends. Thought I would let you know that!
Deb says:
November 8, 2014 at 11:36 pm
Found ya by accident today. I adore this article! Late (as usual) to the party/meme, let me tell you fur shure pretty fades. It may not even go quickly – I was mid 40s before one day *proof* I became invisible. Know what else? The prettier you are, & the longer it lasts, the more cutting it is when it fails. Just about killing. Definitely fatal to self-esteem. UNTIL or UNLESS you are cozy comfy already with who you really are. And know you have a great deal to offer to has little/nothing to do with outer pretty. A shame women for so loooong were just something supposed to be good to gaze upon … that pedestal is very high & unsteady.
m says:
February 15, 2015 at 10:12 pm
So…lemme get this straight. I don’t owe anyone pretty, BUT, I do have to meet a stranger’s standards of personal hygiene?
April 10, 2015 at 2:26 pm
You talk today in the New York Times about quotes that have been incorrectly attributed, but not quite plagiarized.
But stealing, in effect, is what you’ve done with this portrait of Diana Vreeland. There is no photo credit for the portrait. Do you know who took it? Did you get permission to use it? And did the photographer say, “Hey, no problem, take my work, no need for compensation and please drop my credit?”? Not knowing who shot an image isn’t any excuse to lift it for your own purposes. It’s called unauthorized usage and often copyright infringement.
And why are women still endlessly obsessed with pretty, not pretty, “different” beauty? To begin to break free of the tyranny of beauty, let’s talk about something, anything else.
Erin says:
April 10, 2015 at 2:31 pm
Hi Robin, you’re right! This post was first put up back in 2006 when people weren’t as careful, but that’s no excuse, especially since I license all my own photos CC-BY for maximum use and sharing.
This photo is by Andy Warhol, part of an iconic set of fashion polaroids he created. I’ve added a credit line.
But I disagree that we should talk about “anything else” than beauty. Until we acknowledge the tremendous beauty pressure women operate under, we will not be able to get out of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
April 10, 2015 at 2:58 pm
Yes, Warhol, obviously. Credit and a hyperlink are good, permission and (sometimes) a fee are also required. Did his estate give you an ok? Highly unlikely.
It’s great that you license your photos CC-BY. But photographers like to control their work, decide where images show up, get paid, etc. It would be as if I lifted an entire post from your blog and dropped it down into mine, not a reblog, which can be annoying enough, but a total “sharing.”
Maybe I’m über enlightened (unlikely) but I caught on to the beauty industrial complex a long time ago. It’s almost a decade since you wrote your post and if you think women are still as obsessed (and I’m not necessarily disagreeing), we’re going backwards.
Erin says:
April 10, 2015 at 3:59 pm
Thanks Robin — I can see that this has (rightly) touched a nerve with you, and I appreciate your calling attention to it.
It looks as if the Warhol estate is very generous with noncommercial licensing. I’ll drop them a line.
I agree that recognizing the beauty industrial complex is not necessarily a matter of being ‘über-enlightened’ –although perhaps as a very visual person this comes more naturally to you — it’s more that there is SO MUCH in the culture that assumes that the highest goal of any woman is to be decorative that we need to be very vocal in our dissent. Otherwise our voices are drowned out.
May 18, 2015 at 6:14 pm
October 12, 2015 at 2:52 pm
No, prettiness is not owed, but just as I don’t want to see an old man bare chested with bouncing man-boobs, a gold chain around his neck, and a hairy back, I don’t want to see a woman’s butt crack and cellulite through her translucent leggings.
Erin says:
October 12, 2015 at 3:04 pm
Luckily you can always look away! I recommend keeping pictures of things you find beautiful ready to hand so that you can rest your eyes on them, instead.
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 8, 2016 at 10:33 pm
Really, really phenomenal writing. Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 11, 2016 at 5:41 pm
Can I just say “Wow”. I loved the piece mainly because now that I am considered a ‘senior citizen’ I am not as skinny or as easy on the eyes as I once was. I still have have my intelligence and wisdom that comes from age. I have mellowed and I am in a happy place. It is too bad that some people feel they have to be on the negative or right side of things as they see them. To them I say if it offends you look away, stop reading or just leave the area. Life is too short to spend so much time missing the adventure.
Shaw N. says:
June 8, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for writing this. I come back to this page probably every few weeks. Thank you.
Didi Pancake says:
September 25, 2016 at 4:20 am
Back i the late 60s, I often wore a ring on my left thumb in addition to several other rings. A handsome Englishman was visiting my parents. I had a bit of a crush on him, but he pretty well ignored me. Finally, as I was driving him to the airport, he asked about the thumb ring. I remember my reply to this day. It was exactly, “A woman can be either pretty or interesting. And you did ask, didn’t you?” Shut him right down for the rest of the trip. It was a liberating moment.
Mary Ann says:
November 18, 2016 at 7:41 pm
I first read this three years ago and I believe it resonates even more with me today. Good writing never goes out of style. Thank you.
June 23, 2017 at 7:18 pm
A friend sent me this link, and I rediscovered it today after a few years. I needed these words, today, more than you can know. Thank you.
November 5, 2018 at 7:50 am
Well, it’s now 2018 and I’ve finally stumbled across these lovely words of yours. (I would say I was fashionably late, but clearly I’m just late-late … )
Erin, thank you and well done and please bless us with more! This was such an enlightening read – I’ll be back.
| 15,839 |
His Brother’s Wife, 1936, is playing on Turner Classic Movies on Tuesday March 7 at 9:15 a.m. est. Closed Captioned. Mr. Taylor was actually a fan of roller coasters and often dragged Ms. Stanwyck off to ride them with him.
Folks, this one is from 1936 so we have to take it for what it is. During the early years of talkies, Hollywood came up with some very interesting tales to tell. His Brother’s Wife is one of them. Robert Taylor plays the younger brother to the brother that Barbara Stanwyck marries in retaliation for Taylor’s going into the depths of the Jungle to find a cure for some god-awful plague. Confusing? It is? Confusing and almost silly. Yet, there is a touch of that old classic film magic that makes it a delight to watch.
There is something about the on-screen chemistry between Taylor and Stanwyck, (most likely springing from their real life romance), that makes you keep watching. The scenes between the two stars make the whole twisted tale worth sitting through.
Now, don’t be fooled, there are many more films that have plots that are more contrived than His Brother’s Wife, but there is something about the jump from New York, to the Jungle, and then back to New York, then to the Jungle again, that makes this film a little more silly than most. But, lets face it, if you choose to watch this film you are doing so all for the man with the perfect profile’s smile (Robert Taylor) and The Ball of Fire’s spunk (Barbara Stanwyck).
All and all this is a fun film to watch. It by no means is predictable–most likely due to the fact that the plot is out of this world.
Enjoy. I did. Review by movieblue from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the imdb.
My take: His Brother’s Wife is the first film in which Mr. Taylor and Ms. Stanwyck co-starred. Their real life relationship was in its early stages and the love scenes are quite convincing. Although this film can’t decide whether it wants to be a light hearted love story or a serious medical drama, the uncritical viewer can enjoy it a lot.
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I became a Robert Taylor fan at the age of 15 when his TV show, "The Detectives" premiered. My mother wanted to watch it because she remembered Mr. Taylor from the thirties. I took one look and that was it. I spent the rest of my high school career watching Robert Taylor movies on late night TV, buying photos of him, making scrapbooks and being a typical teenager. College, marriage and career intervened. I remember being sad when Mr. Taylor died. I mailed two huge scrapbooks to Ursula Thiess. I hope she got them. Time passed, retirement, moving to Florida. Then in 2012 my husband Fred pointed that there were two Robert Taylor movies that evening on Turner Classic Movies--"Ivanhoe" and "Quentin Durward." I watched both and it happened all over again. I started this blog both for fans and for people who didn't know about Robert Taylor. As the blog passes 200,000 views I'm delighted that so many people have come by and hope it will help preserve the legacy of this fine actor and equally good man.
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This entry was posted in Films and tagged 1936, Barbara Stanwyck, beefcake, celebrities, doctors, evening clothes, fever, gambling, gentleman, Golden Era, hollywood, matinee idol, medical drama, MGM, movie stars, photos, Robert Taylor, romance, romantic comedy, Turner Classic Movies. Bookmark the permalink.
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