The most beautiful suicide

Evelyn McHale 

McHale is famous only for her suicide. She led a conventional life, but her high-impact death was dubbed “the most beautiful suicide.”

Born September 20, 1923 and one of seven siblings, she was a child in Washington D.C. when McHale’s mother left the household and her parents divorced. Her father, a bank examiner, retained custody of all the children. After high school, McHale became a WAC, stationed in Jefferson, Missouri. Her feelings about her time in the WACs can be gleaned from the fact that she burned her uniform after finishing her stint. She made her way to New York City where she worked as a bookkeeper and lived quietly with her brother and sister-law in Baldwin, Long Island. She met her fiancé Barry Rhodes, a Pennsylvania college student just discharged from the Air Force, and was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Rhodes’ younger brother. After the wedding, she removed her bridesmaid’s gown and burned that too.

The 30th of April, 1947 was Rhodes’ 24th birthday and she took the train out to Easton to celebrate with him, spending the night. He later insisted nothing appeared to be wrong, but instead of going home when she returned early in the morning, McHale checked into the Governor Clinton Hotel on 31st Street. There, she wrote a note, which included the words: “I don’t think I would make a good wife for anyone. [Rhodes] is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.” She then crossed out the first two sentences, but put the note into her purse and went to the observation platform on floor 86 of the Empire State Building where she placed her neatly-folded cloth coat, her purse and a collection of family photos she had carried with her against the railing. Before jumping, she dropped her white scarf over the edge, and followed its trajectory down. Clearing the building’s setbacks, she hit a United Nations Cadillac limousine which was parked on 34th Street. As with any New York City catastrophe, a crowd began to converge.

A photography student across the street, Robert C. Wiles, heard the loud crash of her body hitting the metal, and ran over too. Fortuitously, he had his camera and took a photo of her as she lay on the roof of the crumpled car. It was snapped just four minutes after she died and, despite the 1050-foot fall, her body looked intact. Wiles’ photo ran as a full-page Picture of the Week in the May 12, 1947 issue of Life Magazine and also appeared in The Best of Life. The caption read: “At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier, her falling body punched into the top of a car.” This photo, which became an iconic image, was the only photograph Wiles ever managed to get published.

Her calmly elegant demeanor, her legs crossed at the ankles, the way the car’s metal folded like sheets and framed her head and arms—perhaps these were the reasons that McHale’s death was given its title as “the most beautiful suicide.” When she died, she was still wearing her pearls and white gloves.

In her suicide note, she specified that she wanted no service and wished to be cremated, which she was. She also wanted no remembrance, hoping to exit quietly. But, as Mitchell Pacelle pointed out in his book, Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and the Battle for an American Icon, “the Empire State Building offered an incomparable platform for telling the world, ‘You failed me.’ A leap off the observation deck was not something loved ones could hide from the world.” The newspapers the next day were full of headlines such as, “Doubting Woman Dives to Death.” McHale’s death became a resource for artists. Perhaps the most famous work is Andy Warhol’s painting, Suicide (Fallen Body), 1962, in which the artist uses a repetitive grid of 16 images from Wiles’ photograph. Oddly, the painting looks almost abstract and is one of four different suicide images made by Warhol that year.

McHale’s suicide continues to resonate. She was the subject of a song by the Portland indie band, Parenthetical Girls, who released the song, “Evelyn McHale” in 2010 as one side of an EP recording titled, Privilege, pt. 1: On Death & Dismemberment. It is also the subject of a 2011 work by Matthew Barney, DRAWING RESTRAINT 17; Evelyn McHale, which laid cast polycaprolactone over the original Life Magazine page. In 2011, the fall advertising campaign for Neiman Marcus used an image on the cover of their catalog of Drew Barrymore splayed across a car that evoked the original Life photograph. A 2012 painting by a contemporary Filipino artist, Jonathan Ching (I Dream What I Dream What I Dream When I am Awake) also made use of McHale’s image in death.

Aside from McHale, the general theme of jumping from the Empire State Building has resonated with artists. A life-size cast iron sculpture of a man by the British artist, Antony Gormley, was placed on a ledge of the Empire State Building (as well as some other buildings around New York City) in 2010, as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s public arts program. 911 was dialed so frequently by passersby reporting sightings of a man apparently contemplating suicide that one officer called the art project “a pain in the ass.”

The Empire State Building is 102 stories high and until the World Trade Center is rebuilt, it is the tallest building in New York City. McHale was not the first and certainly not the last to leap from its height. Six months after the building opened in 1931 Friedrich Eckert, a 32-year old Queens shopkeeper, jumped over a metal gate on the upper-floor observatory and threw himself from the balcony. At least 30 others have successful committed suicide by jumping from this building. This number pales, however, by comparison to suicides at another iconic structure, the Eiffel Tower, which has seen at least 360 deaths.

Jennifer Vorbach

 

The beauty of my country, Portugal

Fantasia

A ternura desta criança que foi atraída por um fantoche nas ruas de Milão!!

Photo and caption by Guillermo von Bassenheim 

Friendly Floatees

Em 29 de janeiro 1992, um barco Chinês que transportava brinquedos de plástico perdeu parte de sua carga no oceano. 29.000 patos, tartarugas e sapos de plástico chamados "Friendly Floatees" (Amigos Flutuantes), cairam assim na água e ficaram à deriva. Mais tarde as trajectórias aleatórios dos brinquedos ajudaram os cientistas Ebbesmeyer e Ingraham a desenhar as correntes da superfície do mar.

Diz a Wikipaedia:

 "Os oceanógrafos Curtis Ebbesmeyer e James Ingraham de Seattle, que trabalhavam no modelo de correntes superficiais oceânicas começaram a acompanhar o seu movimento. A libertação casual de 28.800 mil objectos no oceano num determinado momento ofereceu vantagens significativas relativamente ao método padrão de libertar 500-1000 garrafas à deriva.

   (...) A primeira descoberta consistiu em dez brinquedos encontrados perto de Sitka, no Alasca em 16 de novembro de 1992, cerca de 3.200 quilómetros do seu ponto de partida.

     (...) Em 28 de Novembro foram descobertos mais vinte brinquedos e, no total, 400 foram encontrados ao longo da costa oriental do Golfo do Alasca até Agosto de 1993.  As visualizações e recuperações foram processadas pelo computador de Ingraham utilizando medições da pressão atmosférica a partir de 1967 para calcular a direção e a velocidade do vento sobre os oceanos, assim como as correntes de superfície resultantes.

     (...) O modelo Ingraham foi projetado para ajudar a indústria da pesca, mas também é usado para prever os movimentos dos destroços ou as prováveis localizações de quem está perdido no mar.

     (...) Entre Julho e Dezembro de 2003, "The First Years Inc" ofereceu 100 dólares como recompensa a pessoas que recuperassem brinquedos em Nova Inglaterra, Canadá ou na Islândia.

     Em 2004, foram recuperados mais brinquedos do que em qualquer um dos três anos anteriores. No entanto, prevê-se que muitos desses brinquedos terão sido empurrados para Leste passando pela Groenlândia e vindo dar à costa sudoeste do Reino Unido."

"Queimados pelo sol e pela água do mar, os patos e os castores foram aclareando mas as tartarugas e as rãs mantiveram as suas cores originais. Escreveram-se livros infantis sobre patos, e os brinquedos tornaram-se itens de colecção, alcançando preços tão altos como US $1.000.   Foram também objecto de uma campanha publicitária da empresa espanhola, Seat." 

Michael Biberstein

Pequenos excertos de uma conversa entre Michael Biberstein, Fernando Calhau e Delfim Sardo: Paint in Black, 1995

"MB: Eu tenho algumas esperanças em relação à minha pintura, que as pessoas parem durante, digamos, dois minutos. A maior parte das pessoas quando olha para a arte é como se fizesse zapping com o comando da televisão. Se eu conseguir que uma pessoa pare diante de uma pintura minha por um... ou dois... minutos... tirá-la desta pressa... já ficaria diferente."

"MB: ... a questão não é captar a atenção do espectador, é fazê-lo parar, torná-lo mais lento. Eu gostava que as minhas pinturas arrefecessem as pessoas por um segundo. Isso seria um bom efeito lateral da minha pintura. Penso que este é um dos papéis da arte em geral, talvez ainda mais que da música. Um dos seus principais papéis sociológicos: dar um momento de descontracção à mente, ao cérebro. Esse é o papel da arte hoje, para substituir alguma coisa que se perdeu no nosso discurso lógico."

Do meu lado podes ficar contente Mike porque eu, não só paro em frente das tuas pinturas como como entro dentro delas e me deixo ir. A tua pintura transmite-me uma sensação de imensidão, serenidade e paz de espírito, viajo nelas e revejo-me, nas tuas paisagem e atmosferas, na tua sensibilidade plástica. Admiro-te imensamente por quem foste, pela tua amizade, o teu saber, abertura de espírito, raciocínio, simplicidade e intensidade de valores. Thanks por me teres ensinado a olhar e a questionar! 

clique abaixo para aceder ao conteúdo completo da conversa

Conteúdo da conversa

When Your Mother Says She's Fat

Publico este texto escrito pela escritora Kasey Edwards que achei fantástico e que todas as mulheres e mães deveriam ler!!

Espero que a Kasey não se importe que eu publique o seu texto aqui!

Originally appeared on The Daily Life. 

Dear Mom,
I was 7 when I discovered that you were fat, ugly, and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful—in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I’d pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I’d be big enough to wear it; when I’d be like you.
But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ‘‘Look at you, so thin, beautiful, and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly, and horrible.’’
At first I didn’t understand what you meant.
‘‘You’re not fat,’’ I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, ‘‘Yes I am, darling. I’ve always been fat; even as a child.’’
In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that:
1. You must be fat because mothers don’t lie.
2. Fat is ugly and horrible.
3. When I grow up I’ll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly, and horrible too.
Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure, and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself.
With every grimace at your reflection in the mirror, every new wonder diet that was going to change your life, and every guilty spoon of ‘‘Oh-I-really-shouldn’t,’’ I learned that women must be thin to be valid and worthy. Girls must go without because their greatest contribution to the world is their physical beauty.
Just like you, I have spent my whole life feeling fat. When did fat become a feeling anyway? And because I believed I was fat, I knew I was no good.
But now that I am older, and a mother myself, I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves.
Look at the example Nanna set for you. Despite being what could only be described as famine-victim chic, she dieted every day of her life until the day she died at 79 years of age. She used to put on makeup to walk to the mailbox for fear that somebody might see her unpainted face.
I remember her ‘‘compassionate’’ response when you announced that Dad had left you for another woman. Her first comment was, ‘‘I don’t understand why he’d leave you. You look after yourself, you wear lipstick. You’re overweight, but not that much.’’
Before Dad left, he provided no balm for your body-image torment either.
‘‘Jesus, Jan,’’ I overheard him say to you. ‘‘It’s not that hard. Energy in versus energy out. If you want to lose weight you just have to eat less.’’
That night at dinner I watched you implement Dad’s ‘‘Energy In, Energy Out: Jesus, Jan, Just Eat Less’’ weight-loss cure. You served up chow mein for dinner. Everyone else’s food was on a dinner plate except yours. You served your chow mein on a tiny bread-and-butter plate.
As you sat in front of that pathetic scoop of mince, silent tears streamed down your face. I said nothing. Not even when your shoulders started heaving from your distress. We all ate our dinner in silence. Nobody comforted you. Nobody told you to stop being ridiculous and get a proper plate. Nobody told you that you were already loved and already good enough. Your achievements and your worth—as a teacher of children with special needs and a devoted mother of three of your own—paled into insignificance when compared with the centimeters you couldn’t lose from your waist.
It broke my heart to witness your despair and I’m sorry that I didn’t rush to your defense. I’d already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I’d even heard Dad describe losing weight as a ‘‘simple’’ process—yet one that you still couldn’t come to grips with. The lesson: You didn’t deserve any food and you certainly didn’t deserve any sympathy.
But I was wrong, Mom. Now I understand what it’s like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalizing these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is more cruel to us than we are to ourselves.
But this madness has to stop, Mom. It stops with you, it stops with me, and it stops now. We deserve better—better than to have our days brought to ruin by bad body thoughts, wishing we were otherwise.
And it’s not just about you and me anymore. It’s also about Violet. Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence, and her potential. I don’t want Violet to believe that her beauty is her most important asset; that it will define her worth in the world. When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can be. We need to show her with our words and our actions that women are good enough just the way they are. And for her to believe us, we need to believe it ourselves.
The older we get, the more loved ones we lose to accidents and illness. Their passing is always tragic and far too soon. I sometimes think about what these friends—and the people who love them—wouldn’t give for more time in a body that was healthy. A body that would allow them to live just a little longer. The size of that body’s thighs or the lines on its face wouldn’t matter. It would be alive and therefore it would be perfect.
Your body is perfect too. It allows you to disarm a room with your smile and infect everyone with your laugh. It gives you arms to wrap around Violet and squeeze her until she giggles. Every moment we spend worrying about our physical ‘‘flaws’’ is a moment wasted, a precious slice of life that we will never get back.
Let us honor and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty, and wisdom. I saw my Mom.
Love, Kasey xx

Kasey Edwards is a writer based in Australia and author of 30-Something And Over It.

The city of London in 1926

London in 1927

from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.

Incredible colour footage of 1926 London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving.

Music by Jonquil and Yann Tiersen.

Estoril Region - One place thousand sensations

I lost my way...

Estas Tonne' is a charismatic modern day Troubadour spreading an inspirational message of the new consciousness and paradigm whilst playing all over the world, delighting audiences from Americas to India, from the Middle East to Europe.
Born and raised in a former Soviet Union, Estas Tonne' studied classical music at the local music school. For more than ten years though, he put his guitar aside. His passion and love for music has been finally reactivated by the jazz-guitarist, Django Reinhardt. The inspiration he experienced, re-kindled a passion for music and a completely new and different path: The path of the Heart. Over a period of some years, the artist focused on specifying his guitar style. He has been travelling across the world playing on countless streets and hundreds of cities, at Festivals, in concerts and at different events. Many parts of the world, amongst others, the artist’s quarter of Montmartre (Paris) had a formative effect on his musical development.
The artist is known for his unique and remarkable guitar style by touching listeners deeply, especially those who witness the intensity of his music live in concert. Apart from the solo performance he's collaborating with dancers, musicians, clowns, poets, filmmakers and other artists.
Estas Tonne has been involved in various film projects as an actor, co-writer and co-producer as well as in countless theatrical experiments where he performed and improvised live.

Michael Biberstein

You departed so soon Mike and we'll miss you!!

Who will leads us now strolling through the skies, my friend?  

Who will take us to fantastic and intangible environments, scenarios of infinite calm that imprint on us such a huge presence and strength, that leaves us dreaming, nailed to the floor?

You could not have left so early!!
 

maquete do céu da igreja de santa isabel

Teatro museu Duesseldorf Exhibition 2008

Erika Koch BFF Drakestr.6 D 40545 Duesseldorf

Mike's exhibition

Artwork - photo by Reto Emch

A escalada das maquinas em substituição do trabalho do homem!

The human kind i's doomed as we know it!
The raise of the machines!!!

Read carefully by clicking on the link!

How the internet is making us poor

It's really amazing!!

How long took this guy to build this kind of trust and relationship?

Chapeau!!

Most happiest elephant in the world

Eu também estaria assim se estivesse de férias nesta água transparente e cálida!!!!

Because the night belongs to lovers

Esta sempre foi para mim a forma de sentir, and Patti did put it in words so beautifully!!

Take me now baby here as I am
Pull me close, try and understand
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed

Come on now try and understand
The way I feel when I'm in your hands
Take my hand come undercover
They can't hurt you now,
Can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us

Have I doubt when I'm alone
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
Come on now try and understand
The way I feel under your command
Take my hand as the sun descends
They can't touch you now,
Can't touch you now, can't touch you now
Because the night belongs to lovers ...

With love we sleep
With doubt the vicious circle
Turn and burns
Without you I cannot live
Forgive, the yearning burning
I believe it's time, too real to feel
So touch me now, touch me now, touch me now
Because the night belongs to lovers ...

Because tonight there are two lovers
If we believe in the night we trust
Because tonight there are two lovers ..

Paixão

Hoje dei comigo a pensar se já terei esgotado as paixões da minha vida. Haverá um numero certo de paixões a que temos direito? A quantas terei direito? 

A paixão é uma das melhores coisas na vida mas ao mesmo tempo a paixão também pode ser um sentimento muito doloroso quando o objecto da nossa paixão não está na mesma onda que nós! Não foi sem mais nem menos que dei comigo a pensar na paixão, isto aconteceu depois de ter assistido ao filme "benvenuti al sud", uma comédia light num lugar no Sul de Itália, como o título do filme sugere. Não que o filme fosse muito bom ou tivesse muitas cenas de amor, nada disso, só que no final do filme comecei a imaginar o bom que é sentir aquela sensação óptima que dá na boca do estômago, quando encontramos uma pessoa que nos cativa e cujo olhar cruzámos. Uma única troca de olhares é suficiente para nos pôr a cabeça a rodopiar e a sonhar fazendo o sangue correr nas veias com uma incrível rapidez para depois nos deixar cair extasiados de paixão! É a melhor coisa da vida, uma paixão que de repente se assoma na nossa vida que nos faz sorrir com aquele desabrochar de todos os sentidos e que nos deixa a face inteira a sorrir, sabe tão bem! E depois é tão bom saber e sentir que estamos a sorrir sem mais nem menos, unicamente porque sim, porque estamos felizes e queremos mostrar a alegria que nos vem de dentro, que nos sai do peito. Esta alegria é tão boa que só de lembrar me torna feliz, é uma alegria que nos trás uma vontade louca de entrega de corpo e alma a esse ser que nos é tão especial, sem pensar em mais nada do que fazê-lo feliz!

É lindo olhar alguém e sentir que entre ambos somos uma só pessoa, sentir que ao olhar o sol, o mar e o que nos rodeia, não vejo tudo isto só pelos meus olhos, são os nossos olhos que vêem da mesma forma e que sentem a mesma emoção. São visões que não necessitam de palavras são toques de mãos que transmitem electricidade, mãos e corpos que se agarram sem se conseguir apartar, beijos que se replicam sem fim, uma afinidade total e completa como se fossemos os únicos no planeta, como se não houvesse mundo à nossa volta só uma bolha de ar pairando sobre uma paisagem deslumbrante, um mundo onde a natureza e as cores nos enchem de ternura, amor e erotismo deixando de lado as merdinhas do dia-a-dia!

Apaixonei-me três vezes na minha vida, cada uma delas linda, em seu tempo, repletas de recordações e memórias indeléveis. Todas elas voltaria a ter. Mas não estou satisfeita, sinto que à medida que crescemos em idade as paixões tornaram-se cada vez mais fortes mais intensas porque a confiança naquilo que fomos e naquilo que somos transmite-nos uma calma, um conhecimento da vida e do amor que nos deixa uma vontade de entrega sem medos e sem receios e, esta forma de nos darmos sem pedir nada em troca mas dando tudo o que temos, esta entrega completa, é a única forma de viver uma paixão!

Tenho tantas saudades deste sentimento, destas vivências tão intensas, que dão tanto sentido à vida, que, quando vejo uma comédia light onde o amor toma um papel importante no desenrolar da história quero eu própria fazer parte desse filme, ser um dos protagonistas dessa peça e deixar-me ir, fluir e viver mais uma paixão na minha vida!

Galeria de Walkaway351

Galeria de Walkaway351 no Flickr.

Algumas imagens da minha criação!

Tempestade

Imagens incríveis da tempestade dia 19 de Janeiro 2013
Parabéns Pedro Graça!

Cascais from Pedro Graça on Vimeo.