the sea queen’s daughter

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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There is a legend told by the diving
girls of Okinawan, the Uminchu,
that the Queen of the Sea, while out floating
one day on the surface, gave birth to two
daughters. A goddess births only pearls,
of course, big as the moon. These two daughters
slept on the sea floor. Side by side, two girls
in their pearly forms slept. Then pearl divers
found Rin curled all round. Where her twin sister
was hid none could say. So they took her home,
combed her hair and called her Rin, the Sea Queen’s
daughter. And being the Sea Queen’s daughter
Rin was the essence of love and sea foam …
… and Our Lady of War and Submarines.

ghost bat

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in photograph

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ghost bat

This is not a quoll. It is a ghost bat, Australia’s only carnivorous bat.

Taking a photograph of a ghost bat in near darkness is tricky. Thin depth of field and longish shutter speed are OK for chuditches that sleep a lot, but ghost bats are constantly moving around. This image was just a case of narrowing down the variables (lighting, focus, etc) to something favorable then holding down the shutter release while crossing my fingers.

A bit of backlight would have been nice but you can’t have everything.

taken from Quollism

Image

in love with color: mariam aslamazyan

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Mariam Aslamazyan1

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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I am working on an article about the Armenian painter Mariam Aslamazyan, from Gyumri. I use to live near her studio on Abovian street. She is amazingly talented, working in oils and ceramics. I’ll post the entire article when I’m done, though it is a bit slow since there is hardly anything written about her in English and it takes forever to get the Russian magazine articles translated. Cheers!

Posted by | Filed under Armenia, Illustration and art

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magic bus

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Armenia, Illustration and art

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onearmenia1

Ah, this photo brings back so many memories of having to stand the entire 4-5 hours it would take to get from Yerevan to Gyumri. It wasn’t that I didn’t arrive early for a seat but that there would always be some 89 year-old tatik who was obviously going to be forced to stand the entire ride. At least back in the 1990s there was a lot of lip-service paid to how important the elderly was but I never saw in the two years I was there anyone ever doing so much as give up their seat for their own grandmother. My mama-jan didn’t raise no rude boy so I spent a lot of time standing. Such is life.

from OneArmenia.