Flex Mentallo

Let's start with ol' Ebenezer his self....

So I haven't got many words in me at the moment. I'm hoping to have time over Christmas to write an essay, not without a sense of irony - on - of all things - the Holy Grail I've been intending for well over a year. Meanwhile, to keep myself sane, I've compiled a set of photos that I think together capture the joy and sadness, comedy and tragedy, life and death, the sheer ebullience of Bengali village life. Only a few years, but how much simpler life was then! So turn out the lights, put on some ambient music (what the heck, I never said I had any taste!), and....

Work is a total nightmare at the moment as we battle to establish a new arts center in Greater Manchester while at the same time our sector faces the deepest funding cuts in a generation. It's not only that people are losing their jobs - entire agencies are going to the wall, and in some parts of the country I'm told, the sector has virtually ceased to exist. And this is the charitable sector, the one created to serve those most in need... 'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.' 'Are there no prisons?" 'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. 'And the Union workhouses.' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?' 'Both very busy, sir.' 'Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it.' 'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?' 'Nothing!' Scrooge replied. 'You wish to be anonymous?' 'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.' 'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.' 'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." ---from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Tales from the Island of Serendip updated thread navigation Serendipity Serendipity - Paddyfield School - The Story of Mohan - Sometimes Sting School bully! El Puente Muralist Joe Matunis - El Puente de Williamsburg - Return to Paddyfield School - Lucina Bells From the Deep Werner Herzog - Juliane Koepcke - The lost city of Kitezh - Sadko - St Clemente DavidMerryweather Virgil Finlay - Reed Crandall - Graham Ingles - Berni Wrightson - Al Williamson Small Works Flex studies for larger paintings pcalhoun & jimjum Clark Ashton Smith - Pat's poems - Jimbo's excellent paintings Father Hess The Life of Father Hess - Kasauli Art Camp - The Death of Mohan Ghosh - Rabindranath Tagore - DavidMerryweather art collection Black Marigolds In Search of Lost Time - Georges Seurat - Roger Fry - The Trojan Horse - Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Great Stupa at Sanchi - Ajanta caves - Black Marigolds Detective Stories Johannes Vermeer 1632–1675: A Detective Story - camera obscura - Han Van Meegeren - The Theft of the Mona Lisa - Donato's Captain America and other works - Rainer Maria Rilke - Cornell Woolrich - Cat's space themed paintings - Netsuke - Hart Crane - Cat's 'Creation' - Boba's illustrations - Caravaggio's Nativity Velasquez Las Meninas - John Singer Sargent - Flex large painting - Thomas Nashe - Tom O' Bedlam - Georges de La Tour - Flex exhibition - Joseph Wright of Derby - John Martin The Bosnian Conflict Andrei Tarkovsky - Welcome to Sarajevo - Margaret Moth - Yasna's cat - Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo - Miss Sarajevo - the Serious Road Trip - War Child - the Help album - The Ruin pcalhoun Writer and Book Collector Autobiographical notes - Jade tiki - Ubbo-Sathla by Clark Ashton Smith - Robert Q Sale - Tekkai Sennin - Bakemono - Zuni fetish - Yooshi's ghosts - Kuniyoshi Steven Assael Paintings - drawings Photos of Nirmal's village When Shabana was 11 - Mohammed Yunus - Grameen bank - mosaics of Ravenna, Venice & Florence - Duccio's Maesta - when Tuku was a child - We cry to Thee, O Conqueror of love Steven Assael Bride paintings with details - Spirits of the dead keep watch Calcutta Flex photo essay - Lucina's gold medal The Hero's Journey The Courts of Chaos - 'The Heroes' by Charles Kingsley - Medusa - Archetypes - Chris Vogler - Galaxy Quest - the Trickster - Prometheus In the Beginning Altamira - Shanidar - flower burial Interlude Mir para - Lija and her baby - Lullaby - Her name is Zoa Emergent themes My relationship with Bonhooghly Before They Pass Threnody - Jimmy Nelson - The Lost Steps - Witness - Jean Baptiste Debret - Johann Moritz Rugendas - Sebastião Salgado - Serra Pelada Sting & The Rainforest Foundation Sting in the tail - Raoni’s message - Rolling Stone - World in Action - 30 Most Generous Celebrities list The Last Free People Before they pass away - Yanomami - Christina Haverkamp - The Haximu Massacre - pcalhoun on rip-off charities - Love Story - Darkness in El Dorado - Kenneth Good & Yarima - The Good Project - Mridula & I Lost Cities Bitter fruit - El Dorado - The Lost City of Z - Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett - Garden Cities of the Xingu - Caral Interlude I want she don't go back to that hell Heaven's River Nazca - Maria Reiche “the lady of the desert” - Secrets of the Inca - Wari tomb - the end of all things - Machu Picchu - the Sacred Valley - The condor at Pisac - Ollantaytambo - the "eye of the llama" - The Viracochan image - the pyramid of dawn - Momia Juanita Alternative Histories Jericho - Çatalhöyük - The Great Mother - Tierra del Fuego - Lilith Flood Cataclysm - Epic of Gilgamesh - Genesis - mythological diffusion - "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan" by John L. Stephens The Universality of Myth Hamlet's Mill - the Sampo - the Phoenicians - the Paraiba Stone - Fusang - Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies - Zheng He - The Bosnian Pyramids - Maya - Xibalba Sunk Atlantis - Guanahacabibes - Mysterious grid - Bimini Road - Yonaguni - Mu - James Churchward - Out of the Aeons - Lemuria - Kumari Kandam - Ice Age Civilization - Graham Hancock - Lost Continents - Zealandia The Human Condition E. J. Michael Witzel - Laurasian mythology - humanity's emergence Arnold Bocklin The Isle of the Dead - What Dreams May Come Was God an Astronaut? Eric Von Daniken - Chariots of the Gods - The Morning of the Magicians - At the Mountains of Madness - Carl Sagan Steven Assael Druso U.F.O Kenneth Arnold - flying saucers - Roswell Incident - Maury Island - "men in black" - Project Sign - Project Blue Book - "foo-fighters" Dark Matter Alien abduction - the size of the universe - Multiple universes - Stephen Hawking - Fermi's paradox - the Drake equation - The Silence - N-rays - innate releasing mechanism - Carl Jung - The Roper Report - The abduction - The Dark Side of the Moon - gamma-ray bursts - Ordovician extinction - Invader - Budd Hopkins - the abduction of Linda Cortile - John Mack - Aliens in America The Search My red book - Carl Jung's Red Book - Charles Steffen - Ernst Haeckel - Jeffrey J. Kripal Lost Horizons The Snow Leopard - Lost Horizon - Shambala - Hollow Earth - the Thule Society - The Way of the White Clouds - António Andrade - Tsaparang - Mount Kailash - Bhagavad Gita - The Upanishads - Navratri Interlude Update from Lucina Festival Durga Puja - Ramlila - the hijras - City of Light Interlude Further update from Lucina - Calcutta Botanical Gardens - Indian ComicCon Pilgrimage Puri beach - Juggernaut - Temple of the Sun - Kajuraho - Reprise Interlude pcalhoun 'Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus' - Lucina's Conference - Market Day Photographing Wildlife More Photo of Village Life - Ongoing Correspondence - Ganges 'Beauty Spot' -Eid