Jazz or non-jazz photos

[king ubu]

and ten minutes later:

Hailstorm, correct??? If it was, how big were those suckers???

no, just some lame attempt - hopefully the last one! - at winter this year, which except for some cold days passed us by, no snow, no nothing...

[rockefeller center]

Flying wing.

[Free For All]

This is a pictures of my kids

They can has cheezburger?

Seriously, nice picture, Erik.

[sidewinder]

This is a pictures of my kids

They can has cheezburger?

Seriously, nice picture, Erik.

Yep, nice shot indeed !

[rockefeller center]

RC, you are not taking full advantage of your photo parking service. If you scroll down to the options, go to "Forum", and select the link between "", your photos will post larger and without all the extraneous info text, etc.

See?

I usually post thumbnails w/image size infos to not waste those people's bandwidth/screen space that don't want so see the images. I'm taking full advantage of thumbnails.

Edited March 24, 2008 by rockefeller center

[king ubu]

RC, you are not taking full advantage of your photo parking service. If you scroll down to the options, go to "Forum", and select the link between "", your photos will post larger and without all the extraneous info text, etc.

See?

I usually post thumbnails w/image size infos to not waste those people's bandwidth/screen space that don't want so see the images. I'm taking full advantage of thumbnails.

dreaded ol'yurpeen modesty, that! get extinct, willya!

what are you doin' in Spitzbergen anyway?

[Noj]

I just snapped this one on my drive home from Mammoth Lakes, CA.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

A bit different from glitzy Manhattan:

Just over 30 years ago I moved to this area. 16 year old lads were going down the pit as they left school. Today this is the only headstocks surviving - and a housing company has a request in to demolish it to 'develop' the site.

The mines were wiped out in the 80s and 90s - an almost Stalinist expunging of history followed, with virtually all visible remains removed. Just the odd half a pit wheel.

Very sad - the whole shape of this community was created by 100 years of coal mining.

Bev, you have aroused our curiosity, but your images didn't come through.

A bit of history, Chris, since you're interested, but no photos of my own.

Thatcher came to power in 1979 on a wave of anti-unionist feeling (not wholly unjustified at the time). She wanted to break the unions. A good deal of legislation went through to reduce union immunities and recruitment/negotiation rights. The miners were the most extreme left wing union in Britain - many Communist and other extreme left wingers among them at grass roots and senior levels - also the most militant and mutually solid. It had been a miners' strike that had brought down a Tory government in 1974, so Arthur Scargill, boss of the union and a leading member of the Socialist Workers' Party, was no 1 on her hate list. A further strike was instigated in 1984 by proposals to close 20 mines and, after a long, bitter struggle, with a good deal of social disorder (there were fears at one time that the Government would call out the Army), the unions lost.

But that 20 was only the first of many closures. Michael Heseltine closed most of what remained of Britain's deep mines in 1994. Effectively, the Thatcher government closed the industry prematurely, using North Sea oil, not to fund much needed infrastructure investment, but to replace coal, in order to break this union.

There were about 600 coal mines in South Wales in the 1920s. From about the 1890s, Cardiff was the world's busiest coal port and had the only Coal Exchange in the world (that's why it has the world's oldest record shop). Only one deep mine remained open in South Wales after 1994 - Tower Colliery, Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley - and only because it was bought out by the miners themselves, forming an Anarcho-Syndicalist Workers' Co-operative (it closed a couple of months ago, having been worked out).

South Wales is still producing energy. The mines have been replaced by windmills. This is the view across the valley from our estate.

And now a couple of references:

Miners' strike 1984

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3494024.stm

Tower Colliery

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites...rcolliery.shtml

Oh, so there IS one of my pictures

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Beautiful downtown Tonyrefail on a busy lunchtime

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And while we're on the subject, inside Spillers Records, the world's oldest record shop (est 1894)

MG

[Niko]

I'm breaking protocol - this is a jazz photo, but it's in the same folder as the other pictures so I couldn't resist.

I love this. From the Jazz @Lincoln Center auction of a few years ago.

I'd really like to get inside Wayne's head into why performing with a great band, on tour, playing your own music, would be so dissatisfying!

Maybe the hotels and other conditions were less than favorable.

great one!

[BillF]

A bit different from glitzy Manhattan:

Just over 30 years ago I moved to this area. 16 year old lads were going down the pit as they left school. Today this is the only headstocks surviving - and a housing company has a request in to demolish it to 'develop' the site.

The mines were wiped out in the 80s and 90s - an almost Stalinist expunging of history followed, with virtually all visible remains removed. Just the odd half a pit wheel.

Very sad - the whole shape of this community was created by 100 years of coal mining.

Bev, you have aroused our curiosity, but your images didn't come through.

A bit of history, Chris, since you're interested, but no photos of my own.

Thatcher came to power in 1979 on a wave of anti-unionist feeling (not wholly unjustified at the time). She wanted to break the unions. A good deal of legislation went through to reduce union immunities and recruitment/negotiation rights. The miners were the most extreme left wing union in Britain - many Communist and other extreme left wingers among them at grass roots and senior levels - also the most militant and mutually solid. It had been a miners' strike that had brought down a Tory government in 1974, so Arthur Scargill, boss of the union and a leading member of the Socialist Workers' Party, was no 1 on her hate list. A further strike was instigated in 1984 by proposals to close 20 mines and, after a long, bitter struggle, with a good deal of social disorder (there were fears at one time that the Government would call out the Army), the unions lost.

But that 20 was only the first of many closures. Michael Heseltine closed most of what remained of Britain's deep mines in 1994. Effectively, the Thatcher government closed the industry prematurely, using North Sea oil, not to fund much needed infrastructure investment, but to replace coal, in order to break this union.

There were about 600 coal mines in South Wales in the 1920s. From about the 1890s, Cardiff was the world's busiest coal port and had the only Coal Exchange in the world (that's why it has the world's oldest record shop). Only one deep mine remained open in South Wales after 1994 - Tower Colliery, Hirwaun in the Cynon Valley - and only because it was bought out by the miners themselves, forming an Anarcho-Syndicalist Workers' Co-operative (it closed a couple of months ago, having been worked out).

South Wales is still producing energy. The mines have been replaced by windmills. This is the view across the valley from our estate.

And now a couple of references:

Miners' strike 1984

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3494024.stm

Tower Colliery

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites...rcolliery.shtml

Oh, so there IS one of my pictures

MG

Fascinating stuff, MG! There's nothing in Manchester suburbia that can match the epic history of your district or Bev's, but I'm 100% with you where Thatcher is concerned.

[A Lark Ascending]

Is Big Pit still open for visitors, MG (I think that's what it's called)? I recall going down 20 odd years back - amazing because the drop was very long!

I take students down the pit near Wakefield that has been turned into the National Coal Mining Museum. Fantastic place - really good museum (and I don't really like museums) and brilliant underground as it's all ex-miners with broad Yorkshire accents who show us round. I'm always a bitt scared that when they hear we're from Notts they'll call us scabs and beat us up!!!!

The drop there is quite shallow by comparison with the Welsh one I remember.

+++++++++

Going back to the legacy of the strike, there was a murder a few years back not 2 miles from the headstocks I pictured. The investigation had the roots of that in a working/striking miner feud!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is Big Pit still open for visitors, MG (I think that's what it's called)? I recall going down 20 odd years back - amazing because the drop was very long!

I take students down the pit near Wakefield that has been turned into the National Coal Mining Museum. Fantastic place - really good museum (and I don't really like museums) and brilliant underground as it's all ex-miners with broad Yorkshire accents who show us round. I'm always a bitt scared that when they hear we're from Notts they'll call us scabs and beat us up!!!!

The drop there is quite shallow by comparison with the Welsh one I remember.

Big Pit is still open. I haven't been there but my wife has. Incredible, she said.

There's also the Rhondda Heritage Park, at Trehafod, halfway between here and Pontypridd, which is based on an old mine. I remember getting someone to put together some money for that in about 1990. (In those days, the Rhondda had a Communist mayor - a nice lady called Mattie.) That one's still open, too. Cultural tourism is very much the game now in these areas.

Going back to the legacy of the strike, there was a murder a few years back not 2 miles from the headstocks I pictured. The investigation had the roots of that in a working/striking miner feud!

Stuff like that is SERIOUS in old mining communities. Everyone's life depends on how well each man works and contributes to the safety of all. This breeds incredible solidarity, which goes well beyond the mine and the union. One of my former bosses, a Merthyr Tydfil man, used to say that, when a bunch of blokes gathered in a pub, you could always tell the civil servants and the miners - while all other groups would talk about beer, fags, football, women and how to get from A to B, those two groups would invariably talk shop. People breaking that solidarity are completely beyond the pale.

MG

[BERIGAN]

I just snapped this one on my drive home from Mammoth Lakes, CA.

That's a great photo Jon!

[BERIGAN]

I'll try to find some better photos, but here are a few from the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, California. My digital camera is older, and they don't allow flashes in this building, so had to cover the flash!

So, used photoshop so you could at least see the images.

If you live in that neck of the woods, you ought to check it out!(I have heard rumors that even though it's supposed to be funded forever, it may be shut down!) Mainly a classic car collection, they also have in the original building an amazing collection of restored mechanical musical instruments like the player whatyacallits shown above(Theres a name for them, but can't think of them-and not seeing it on the websites below)several of which are just huge room sized things and were shipped over from Europe. Can't find a all encompassing article on this part of the collection, but here is some info...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EI...n_6/ai_n8684673

http://www.mechanicalmusicpress.com/histor...la/w32_1_p2.htm

and a bit more on the whole collection

http://www.eyespyla.com/www/thebuzz.nsf/59...33;OpenDocument

Edited April 3, 2008 by BERIGAN

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Cor! I really love that marble floor, Conrad!

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

Cultural tourism is very much the game now in these areas.

True of Britain as a whole!

[aparxa]

What fundamentalist physicists are preparing in Geneva :

Her little name is Alice

[Man with the Golden Arm]

me and small Queequegs last fall. i can still smell it.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

me and small Queequegs last fall. i can still smell it.

Where is that? Gloucester?

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Yesterday in West Virginia.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

...also in West Virginia.

...built in 1959 with 30 tons of coal.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

me and small Queequegs last fall. i can still smell it.

Where is that? Gloucester?

locals call it "stinky beach" in Manchester and that was long before the sei whale washed up. the aquarium came up and towed it out to sea.

[aparxa]

Snowfox version 1.0 :