Human Microchipping, Verichip, Positive ID, Police State Conspiracy or Mark of the Beast, 666?
Human Microchipping, Verichip, Positive ID, Police State Conspiracy or Mark of the Beast, 666? This video was produced by Psychetruth www.youtube.com www.myspace.com Music byJimmy Gelhaar www.jimmy.us Copyright © Target Public Media 2009. All Rights Reserved. This video may be displayed in public, copied and redistributed for any strictly non-commercial use in its entire unedited form. Alteration or commercial use is strictly prohibited.
Best Selling Author Mark Yarnell Offers Free Report to Public
Saint Louis, MO (PRWEB) December 26, 2005
Best Selling author, Mark Yarnell announces that his first publication in a new six part series of reports called the Millionaire Master Plan will be distributed free to the public via the Internet.
Yarnell reports that the Internet is the best way to accomplish this mission. “Many people are losing their jobs and pensions and are forced to find alternative ways to make a living for their family while others are looking for ways to bring a second income home. Network Marketing remains the most viable form of business available to the masses. To ensure as many people as possible succeed in this new world order regardless of the Network Marketing company they choose, it is vital they get off to the right start and we intend to help them.”
Mark Yarnell co-founded the High Road to Success along with Bob Duncan and Joe Willett in 2005. The High Road is an online training program (http://www.hightroadtosuccess.com), heralded as the only program of its type for Network Marketing Professionals.
With the release of The High Road and Yarnell’s six Millionaire Master Plan Reports, Networkers will now have access to 21st century Network Marketing concepts, strategies and techniques.
All six of Yarnell’s Reports will be provided as a bonus to those who join the High Road training program. The first one called, “Follow the Reader” will remain free to the public.
To claim your copy of the Free Report that Mark Yarnell is offering the public, please visit:
http://www.highroadtosuccess.com
# # #
Best Selling Author Mark Yarnell Offers Free Report to Public
Evansville, IN (PRWEB) December 27, 2005
Best Selling author, Mark Yarnell announces that his first publication in a new 6 part series of reports called the Millionaire Master Plan will be distributed free to the public via the Internet.
Yarnell reports that the Internet is the best way to accomplish this mission.
“Many people are losing their jobs and pensions and are forced to find alternative ways to make a living for their family while others are looking for ways to bring a second income home.
Network Marketing remains the most viable form of business available to the masses. To ensure as any people as possible succeed in this new world order regardless of the Network Marketing company they choose, it is vital they get off to the right start and we intend to help them.”
Mark Yarnell co-founded the High Road to Success along with Bob Duncan and Joe Willett in 2005. The High Road is an online training program heralded as the only program of its type for Network Marketing Professionals. With the release of The High Road and Yarnell’s six Millionaire Master Plan Reports, Networkers will now have access to 21st century Network Marketing concepts, trategies and techniques.
All six of Yarnell’s Reports will be provided as a bonus to those who join the High Road training program. The first one called, “Follow the Reader” will remain free to the public.
To claim your copy of the Free Report that Mark Yarnell is offering the public, please visit:
http://www.highroadtosuccess.com
###
Find More New World Order Press Releases
Mark Levin – Liberty & Tyranny
Mark Levin discusses his new book, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” with Rush Limbaugh. www.LibertyPen.com
‘Corrupt’ police in Mexico drug war
Mexican police have detained one their own commanders in the violence-plagued city of Ciudad Juarez following allegations of links to the country’s drug cartels.
Officers also accused the federal commander of protecting criminals in the city, where more than 5,000 federal police and soldiers have been deployed in an effort to replace local police considered too corrupt to be effective.
But as Al Jazeera’s Mark Orchard reports, these federal forces are now facing the same charges. (Aug 09, 2010)
Duration : 0:1:22
50 Things you Didn’t Know About Disney World
Think you know everything about Walt Disney World Resort and its four world-class theme parks – Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom? Think again! Even the biggest Disney fanatic will be amused, intrigued or surprised by some of the 50 fascinating Disney World facts listed below . . .
1. Walt Disney World encompasses 30,500 acres, making it approximately the same size as San Francisco.
2. When Disney’s Magic Kingdom first opened its doors on October 1, 1971, adult admission cost $3.50.
3. The opening day crowd at Disney’s Magic Kingdom was approximately 10,000 guests.
4. The eight “E ticket” attractions at Disney’s Magic Kingdom were Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree, Hall of Presidents, Jungle Cruise, It’s a Small World and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.
5. The estimated annual attendance at Disney’s Magic Kingdom is 16.2 million, followed by Epcot with 9.9 million, Disney-MGM Studios with 8.6 million and Disney’s Animal Kingdom with 8.2 million.
6. Cinderella Castle is Disney’s tallest structure at 189 feet, followed by Space Mountain at 183 feet.
7. Both the Carousel of Progress and It’s A Small World made their debut at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
8. The 180-foot-tall Spaceship Earth at the entrance to Epcot weighs approximately 16 million pounds.
9. The Haunted Mansion uses state-of-the-art Omnimover vehicles called “Doom Buggies.”
10. The jolly headhunter who shows up near the end of the Jungle Cruise is known as “Trader Sam.”
11. In conjunction with the 2006 release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men’s Chest, the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney’s Magic Kingdom was renovated to add several characters from the movie such as Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa.
12. The icon of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, The Tree of Life, stands 14 stories, features more than 300 animal carvings and is 50 feet wide.
13. Built in 1917, Cinderella’s Golden Carrousel in Fantasyland was once located at Olympic Park in Maplewood, New Jersey.
14. The Great Movie Ride at Disney-MGM Studios is housed in a replica of Mann’s Chinese Theater.
15. Astro Orbiter first opened in Tomorrowland in 1974 as Star Jets.
16. The Hall of Presidents had its origins as an audio-animatronic exhibition called “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” which premiered at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
17. Originally known as the “Tropical Serenade,” the Tiki Room in Adventureland was once sponsored by Florida Citrus Growers.
18. The 60-foot-tall Swiss Family Treehouse in Adventureland weighs approximately 200 tons and is made of concrete and thousands of polyethylene leaves.
19. Cinderella Castle, the centerpiece of Disney’s Magic Kingdom, features 18 towers and 13 gargoyles.
20. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh at Fantasyland is located on the site of the former Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
21. The “Spirits of America” statues in The American Adventure at Epcot represent Adventure, Compassion, Discovery, Freedom, Heritage, Independence, Individualism, Innovation, Knowledge, Pioneering, Self-Reliance and Tomorrow.
22. Towering four stories over DinoLand U.S.A. at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Dino-Sue is an exact replica of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered.
23. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Frontierland features six trains: I.B. Hearty, I.M. Brave, I.M. Fearless, U.B. Bold, U.R. Daring and U.R. Courageous.
24. The Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster – Starring Aerosmith at Disney-MGM Studios launches you at a speed of 0 to 60 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds.
25. A swinging suspension bridge leads from Tom Sawyer Island to Fort Langhorne, which was named after Samuel Langhorne Clemens (better known as Mark Twain).
26. The replica of the Liberty Bell that can be found in the center of Liberty Square was built from the same authentic cast as the original in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
27. The exit to Haunted Mansion features crypts with humorous names inscribed such as I.M. Ready, Rustin Peese, Pearl E. Gates, Manny Festation, Dustin T. Dust and Asher T. Ashes.
28. The Walt Disney World Railroad, which serves approximately 1.5-million passengers annually, is an authentic 1928 steam-powered train.
29. The Mission: SPACE thrill ride at Epcot is so authentic that motion sickness bags are available just in case of emergency.
30. Mickey’s Toontown Fair was once known as both Mickey’s Birthdayland and Mickey’s Starland.
31. Sonny Eclipse, an “intergalactic lounge singer,” performs daily at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café in Tomorrowland.
32. In order to rank as a “Galactic Hero” at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, you must score 900,000 to 999,999 points.
33. The audio-animatronic dog in the Carousel of Progress is named “Rover.”
34. Astronauts Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper and Jim Irwin were present at the grand opening of Space Mountain in 1975.
35. Stitch’s Great Escape in Tomorrowland lies at the former site of ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, which closed in 2003.
36. One of the original attractions at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Tomorrowland Indy Speedway was once known as Grand Prix Raceway.
37. Recently renamed The Seas with Nemo & Friends, The Living Seas pavilion opened at Epcot in 1986 and was originally sponsored by United Technologies.
38. “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,” a 3-D film at Epcot, is located in Future World at the former site of “Captain EO,” another 3-D adventure that was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred Michael Jackson and Anjelica Huston.
39. Legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus was the first champion at the Walt Disney World Open Invitational, which made its debut in 1971.
40. The Tomorrowland Transit Authority was originally called the WEDway People Mover (WED standing for Walter Elias Disney).
41. Disney’s Magic Kingdom, which encompasses approximately 107 acres, is itself larger than Disneyland, which only covers 80 acres in Anaheim, California.
42. The design of Main Street U.S.A. was loosely based on Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri.
43. The Swiss Family Treehouse is of the species Disneyodendron eximus or “Out-of-the-Ordinary Disney Tree.”
44. The 189-foot-tall water tower icon at Disney-MGM Studios is known as the “Earffel Tower.”
45. Jungle Cruise riverboats include Amazon Annie, Bomokandi Bertha, Congo Connie, Ganges Gertie, Irrawaddy Irma, Kwango Kate, Mongala Millie, Nile Nelly, Orinoco Ida, Rutshuru Ruby, Sankuru Sadie, Senegel Sal, Ucvali Lolly, Volta Val, Wamba Wanda and Zambesi Zelda.
46. Splash Mountain in Adventureland features a five-story, free-fall plunge at a 45-degree angle into a splash pool at a speed of 40 miles per hour.
47. The 8,500-acre Disney Wilderness Preserve, which lies 15 miles South of Disney World, features a Conservation Learning Center and hiking trails.
48. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin is located at the former site of If You Had Wings in Tomorrowland.
49. The three “talking heads” who introduce the Country Bears Jamboree are named Buff, Max and Melvin.
50. Approximately 46 million people visit Walt Disney World – including Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney – annually.
Ryan Wiseman
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-disney-world-110072.html
Watch ROBIN HOOD 2010 Online FREE
To watch Robin Hood 2010 online for free go to www.robinhoodfree.info
Synopsis
Oscar® winner Russell Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as “Robin Hood,” whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.
With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.
Cast
Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Lea Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston, Max von Sydow
To watch Robin Hood 2010 online for free go to www.robinhoodfree.info
Dominic Ericsson
“Unquenchable Russia”, or Forbidden Themes in Nabokov’s Prose
“…What I feel to be the real modern world is the world the artist creates, his own mirage, which becomes a new mir (“world” in Russian) by the very act of his shedding, as it were, the age he lives in” . Such an answer Nabokov once gave to an interviewer who was interested in his opinion regarding the modern world and contemporary politics. The book which contains this interview as well as many others, is entitled Strong Opinions, and, indeed, Nabokov is well-known not only for his brilliant fiction but for his original, independent and uncompromising views on creativity, art and the place of artist in the world. Whenever interviewed, he avoided discussion of “general ideas” such as social, political and moral issues and asserted that such global concerns lay outside the realm of art: “A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me. I don’t give a damn for the group, the community, the masses, and so forth… There can be no question that what makes a work of fiction safe from larvae and rust is not its social importance but its art, only its art . A work of art, for Nabokov, is a world in itself, brought to life by one’s creative imagination. It leads its own independent existence, unrelated to its historical surroundings and realities. In the introduction to his Lectures on Literature Nabokov explains once again: “…The real writer, the fellow who sends planets spinning and models a man asleep and eagerly tampers with the sleeper’s rib, that kind of author has no given values at his disposal: he must create them himself. The art of writing is a futile business if it does not imply first of all the art of seeing the world as the potentiality of fiction” . In this statement, visions of cosmic grandeur and an obvious reference to the story of Adam and Eve reflect a parallel between creator-artist and creator-God. In one of his interviews Nabokov explicitly brings out this comparison: “A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world” .
Nabokov’s position is, to a degree, a reaction to the situation in Soviet Russia, where demands of the state dominated the needs of a human being, where the individual was suppressed by the collective and details by generalities. He asserts once again the power and independence of personal creativity, the ability of one’s imagination to build worlds of its own, and makes a sharp distinction between a work of fiction and everything outside of it, including the personality of its creator. “Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both truth and art” .
Nabokov insisted on a specific approach to literature from the readers as well. He renounced the usual tendencies of identifying oneself with a book’s characters, searching for clues to the social and political realities of the time the work was written, or trying to form “general ideas” about a book without absorbing all its specific details. Emotional involvement, he pointed out, could also prevent the reader from objective appreciation of the work “…A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading” .
Nabokov avoided formulating his ideas under the famous slogan “art for art’s sake” just as he avoided labels of all kinds, but this well-known phrase can undoubtedly be used to describe his views and attitudes towards literature. In this hierarchy of values, aesthetic concerns dominate all others, and the influence of a great work of art on its reader is limited to a “tingle in the spine”. However, it remains to be seen, to what extent Nabokov’s ideas penetrate his own fiction; whether his novels are entirely a product of his creative imagination or a result of the deep personal experience that saturates them with great intensity.
Nabokov changed countries and languages during his creative life, and it is interesting to analyze whether these changes affected his books. Comparing two of Nabokov’s novels, The Gift, written in Russian mostly in Berlin of the 1930s, and Pale Fire, written in English at a much later date, can provide an insight into these questions.
As Nabokov mentioned in the foreword to The Gift, “the main heroine” of the novel is Russian literature, and the main character is a writer, an emigre author Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who shares many autobiographical details with Nabokov. Like Nabokov during his post-Cambridge years, Fyodor lives in Berlin of the 1920s, writes poetry and makes a living by giving lessons in English and French. He leads, for the most part, a solitary existence, devoting his time first and foremost to literature. Happy childhood in St. Petersburg, love of butterflies and chess problems, synesthesia, – all this Fyodor has in common with Nabokov. Description of certain episodes mirrors incidents from Nabokov’s own life, depicted much later in his autobiographical book Speak, Memory, – for example, the story of a childhood illness: high fever, obsession with numbers and a huge Faber pencil, given as a gift by the mother.
Perhaps, the most significant trait that Fyodor shares with Nabokov is passionate love of literary language, faith in the power of the written word: “Since there were things he (Fyodor) wanted to express just as naturally as unrestrainedly as the lungs want to expand, hence words suitable for breathing ought to exist” . Fyodor reflects on his youthful interest in rhyme and meter, analyzing the very mechanisms by which words interact and fit together like pieces of a puzzle to form the harmonious whole of a poem. Fyodor shares Nabokov’s dislike of generalities such as social issues or psychiatry. When he briefly considers the possibility of fulfilling his acquaintance, Mme. Chernyshevski’s yet unvoiced request to write about her son, he explains his aversion to the idea as follows: “I would have become enmired involuntarily in a “deep” social-interest novel with a disgusting Freudian reek” .
Most clearly, Fyodor’s (and Nabokov’s) views on literature are expressed in Fyodor’s (imaginary) conversations with Koncheyev – a fellow emigre poet, the only one whose work he admires and whose opinions he considers valuable. When Fyodor and Koncheyev leave a literary gathering and walk together down the street, a unique, brilliant dialogue, filled with allusions to various works of Russian literature, takes place between them. “…There are only two kinds of books: bedside and wastebasket. Either I love a writer fervently, or throw him away entirely” , – declares Fyodor, and the two proceed to discuss what, in their opinion, is the best and the worst in the works by famous Russian writers. Both are utterly uninterested in “general ideas” or the moral significance of the writings they talk about (aspects which always attracted Russian critics and gained new importance in the Soviet period), and all they do is lovingly point out purely artistic findings of this or that writer. They praise Leskov’s Jesus – “the ghostly Galilean, cool and gentle, in a robe the color of ripening plum” or “the gray sheen of Mme. Odintsev’s black silks” in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. Speaking of dismissed Dostoyevski, Fyodor notes: “In the Karamazovs, there is somewhere a circular mark left by a wet wine glass on an outdoor table”, – and that, for him, is the only thing “worth saving” . As for several writers known for their beautiful depictions of nature, Fyodor ruthlessly criticizes them for mistakes in their descriptions of natural phenomena: “My father used to find all kinds of howlers in Turgenev’s and Tolstoy’s hunting scenes and descriptions of nature, and as for the wretched Aksakov, let’s not even discuss his disgraceful blunders in this field” . All these statements obviously echo Nabokov’s own approach to literature, with his love of detail, his insistence on accurate knowledge of the natural world and dismissal of any other criteria in judging works of literature.
Nabokov’s belief in the power of deception and invention in creating fiction frequently finds expression in his attempts to mislead the reader, to establish this or that false move in the development of the plot, which, after a few pages, turns out to be an illusion, a figment of the character’s imagination. The whole exchange between Fyodor and Koncheyev proves to be such an illusion: “Whose business is it that actually we parted at the very first corner, and that I have been reciting a fictitious dialogue with myself as supplied by a self-teaching handbook of literary inspiration?” However, the significance of this non-existent conversation in the novel is not limited to expression of opinions on art and display of Nabokov’s mystification devices. It shows the extent of Fyodor’s loneliness, the absence of interlocutors with whom he could share his extensive knowledge of literature and love of language: the degree of detachment from the surrounding world. In his book Speak, Memory Nabokov describes the way native Europeans were perceived by Russian immigrants in Germany or France: “These aborigines were to the mind’s eye as flat and transparent as figures cut out of cellophane, and although we used their gadgets, applauded their clowns, picked their roadside plums and apples, no real communication, of the rich human sort so widespread in our own midst, existed between us and them” . The Gift recreates that atmosphere of cultural and human isolation in which Fyodor has to dwell. Deprived of his own cultural environment, Fyodor feels nothing but resentment towards the German-speaking world he is trapped in. “The Russian conviction that the German is in small numbers vulgar and in large numbers – unbearably vulgar was, he knew, a conviction unworthy of an artist” , – and still he cannot help it, as he directs all his irrational hatred at a German who pushes him in a bus (and who, ironically, turns out to be a Russian).
Like Nabokov, Fyodor is trilingual, but his French and English in his current situation serve a purely utilitarian purpose, whereas Russian remains the language of his soul and his art. Riding a bus to one of his tedious teaching jobs, Fyodor thinks of himself: “…there he is, a special, rare and as yet undescribed and unnamed variant of man, and he is occupied with God knows what, rushing from lesson to lesson, wasting his youth on a boring and empty task, on the mediocre teaching of foreign languages – when he has his own language, out of which he can make anything he likes – a midge, a mammoth, a thousand different clouds” . This is why there are hardly any examples of word play and language switch in The Gift.
On the way to yet another hateful lesson Fyodor becomes completely immersed in the memories of Russia and his past life there, – memories ”swift and senseless, visiting him like an attack of a fatal illness at any hour, in any place” . The warm, sunny vision of the Russian countryside after a short summer rain stands out in such a sharp contrast with the surrounding colorless reality and the upcoming encounter with a hopeless pupil, that Fyodor ends up skipping the lesson and going home to his writings. This is another theme expressed in The Gift with great emotional power – the theme of nostalgia, longing for the lost homeland. Whenever faced with the question about Russia during his interviews, Nabokov gave replies such as “all the Russia I need is always with me” or “exile means to an artist only one thing – the banning of his books” . Sometimes, however, he speaks of Russia quite differently: “In the first decade of our dwindling century, during trips with my family to Western Europe, I imagined, in bedtime reveries, what it would be like to become an exile who longed for a remote, sad and (right epithet coming) unquenchable Russia, under the eucalypti of exotic resorts. Lenin and his police nicely arranged the realization of that fantasy” .
References to Russia in Nabokov’s novels, particularly The Gift, bear a trace of an overwhelming and bitter sense of loss, coming, undoubtedly, from personal experience. Like Nabokov, Fyodor transforms his inner world into art, and his poetry, born out of childhood memories, justifies, as he says, the years spent in exile. But even creative fulfillment in literature cannot fully relieve Fyodor of his nostalgia, which sometimes becomes almost a physical sensation: “For a long time he had wanted to express somehow that it was in his feet that he had the feeling of Russia, that he could touch and recognize all of her with his soles, as a blind man feels with his palms” . Again and again, he imagines an impossible return to his familiar and changed country: “And when will we return to Russia? What idiotic sentimentality, what a rapacious groan must our innocent hope convey to people in Russia. But our nostalgia is not historical – only human- how can one explain this to them?” Immediately following these lines is one of Nabokov’s central thoughts expressed through the words of his character and given a somewhat ironic ending: “It is easier for me, of course, than for another to live outside Russia, because I know for certain that I shall return – first because I took away the keys to her, and secondly because, no matter when, in a hundred, two hundred years, I shall live there in my books – or at least in some researcher’s footnote. There; now you have a historical hope, a literary-historical one…”
In this passage, there are two distinct perspectives on Russia, two different ways of perception – that of an artist and that of a simple human being, and it is the more independent, proud and detached position of an artist that Nabokov prefers to present to the world. He always vigorously protested against being identified with his characters, and, perhaps, it was his way of concealing that part of himself, which contained his own human feelings and dreams, often painful, often helplessly irresolvable. Nevertheless, just like in one of Fyodor’s childhood memories colors leak into his vision of letters and irrevocably affect his perception of language, this private and forbidden world of Nabokov inevitably enters his fiction in various guises and through different characters. Besides the theme of nostalgia, there is another highly personal development of the plot in The Gift, and it is Fyodor’s relationship with his father. Konstantin Godunov-Cherdyntsev is an explorer who is also very absorbed in his occupation and uninterested in the major upheavals that occur in Russia. In 1917, despite the troubled situation in Russia, he departs on one of his expeditions and never returns. It is another loss that haunts Fyodor: even though there is hardly any hope of seeing his father again, he keeps dreaming of his return, imagining that one day he would meet his father on the street, or hear a phone call… In one of the most poignant episodes in the novel, the phone rings, after all, in the middle of the night, and Fyodor rushes to the house of his former landlady along the streets of Berlin which suddenly become transformed into a beautiful, mysterious world somewhat reminiscent of St. Petersburg in a white night. Fyodor enters the room and sees his father. “With a moan and a sob Fyodor stepped toward him, and in the collective sensation of woolen jacket, big hands and the tender prickle of trimmed mustaches there swelled an ecstatically happy, living, enormous, paradisal warmth in which his icy heart melted and dissolved” . And again, almost unbearably this time, the whole scene turns out to be one of Nabokov’s false twists, and Fyodor wakes up from yet another dream to a cold and empty morning.
Nabokov denied a work of art any kind of “truth” aside from artistic one, but the episode with Fyodor’s father radiates with human truth: warmth, longing, vulnerability, the void of shattered hopes… One just has to remember the tragic death of Nabokov’s own father, to understand where all this is coming from.
In The Gift, covers are often transparent, and its hero is presented from multiple angles. He is not just a writer who “treats life as a possibility of fiction”, he is a human being who sees the world through the prism of his own experience, his own joys and sorrows.
The Gift was the last novel Nabokov wrote in Russian. In 1940, he immigrated to the United States and, since then, wrote his major works only in English. The change, as he said, was not easy: “My complete switch from Russian prose to English prose was exceedingly painful – like learning anew to handle things after losing seven or eight fingers in an explosion” . Pale Fire, one of Nabokov’s English novels, was written partially at the end of his stay in America, partially in Switzerland, where Nabokov spent his later years. The novel has important structural and thematic similarities to The Gift. Like The Gift, where a whole separate chapter is devoted to Fyodor’s biography of Chernyshevsky, a book on its own, Pale Fire contains a work of literature within it – a long poem written by an American poet John Shade. The rest of the novel is a commentary, which for the most part has nothing to do with the poem itself. It is an elaborate story of remote Zembla, whose king has been swept off the throne by the revolution and fled the country. Gradually, it becomes clear that Charles Kinbote, Shade’s neighbor and the author of the commentary, is himself the fugitive king. Therefore, as in The Gift, there is a theme of exile and a theme of creativity, though in Pale Fire they take quite a different development.
As Kinbote explains, “the name Zembla is a corruption not of the Russian zemlya, but of Semblerland, a land of reflections, of “resemblers” . Zemblan language resembles several European languages at the same time. There are obvious traces of Russian in it, and some words are borrowed almost unchanged: for example, there is a picture of bogtyr (bogatyr’ in Russian) in a Zemblan history book, and there are “stone-faced, square-shouldered komizars” (Russian: commissar) maintaining order on Zemblan streets after the revolution. Besides, French and German can be vaguely discerned in other phrases. “Minnamin, Gut mag alkan, Pern dirstan (my darling, God makes hungry, the Devil thirsty)” , – a Zemblan nurse says to Kinbote, and one hears, besides the Russian “alkat’” and, possibly, the English “pernicious”, “mon amie”, “Gott”, and the first person of the German “mochten”.
Nabokov in his interviews stressed that Zembla is not Russia, and, indeed, there is another Russia in the novel, a totalitarian state that contributes to the Zemblan revolution. Kinbote talks about “the tainted gold and the robot troops that a powerful police state from its vantage ground a few sea miles away was pouring into the Zemblan Revolution” . Kinbote’s constantly talks about Zembla, but his memories of it lack that depth of human feeling, which marks Fyodor’s nostalgia. Even though Kinbote repeats again and again “my Zembla”, “dazzling Zembla” , tenderness that shines through the best pages of The Gift, is missing from his story. It is essentially a story of himself and his escape from the country. For a king, Kinbote shows a remarkable lack of interest in the revolution that struck his country and the possible causes which led to it. He is more preoccupied with aesthetic and literary pleasures and calls the whole business of politics “a tiresome subject” . As for the revolution, all he can say about it is that it was “tedious and unnecessary” . In Kinbote’s attitude, there is some of Nabokov’s own indifference towards social and political issues. On the whole, the theme of exile is treated in the novel with certain coldness and detachment, but there are passages, which by their warmth and profound lyricism can be compared to The Gift. For example, Kinbote comments on his roommate who gets up early in morning and plants flowers with a very curious name: Heliotropium turgenevi. “This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land” . Even aside from the reference to Turgenev, it is clear that this land, for Nabokov, is no other than Russia, – not the monstrous police state in the vicinity of Zembla, but the real, immortal, beloved Russia of Nabokov’s memory. And this short passage retains more emotional freshness and power than colorful descriptions of Zemblan mountains that have no counterpart in the author’s childhood recollections.
It seems that, to Kinbote, being in exile means not so much the loss of the homeland as the loss of his name and title (which he now has to hide), and thus partially the loss of his identity, and in this way his isolation and detachment is more complete than that of Fyodor in The Gift. One of the critics of Pale Fire interprets his behavior as follows: “…he is trying to get the poet John Shade to confirm his identity, to validate the Zemblan reality which is his hope of salvation by turning it into a poem” . With maniacal persistence Kinbote keeps talking with Shade about Zembla: “I mesmerized him with it, I saturated him with my vision, I pressed upon him, with a drunkard’s wild generosity, all that I was helpless myself to put into verse” . Kinbote calls his relationship with the poet “friendship”, but, in fact, he cannot care less about Shade as a human being with his own hopes and sorrows. While commenting on the poem, he utterly neglects the parts about Shade’s wife and daughter. Sybil Shade, who protects her husband from his neighbor’s intrusions, for Kinbote, is just as annoying obstacle in the way, and to him, the tender lines that Shade devotes to his wife are nothing but “embarrassing intimacies” . Kinbote haughtily deals with the theme of Shade’s daughter, Hazel’s, suicide, obviously a very painful and personal subject for the poet, as if it was merely a stylistic device: “The whole thing strikes me as too labored and long, especially since the synchronization device has been already worked to death by Flaubert and Joyce” . When Kinbote feels lonely and afraid in his empty house, he wishes that Shade had a heart attack, – just to have an excuse to come over and escape loneliness and fear. At the end of the novel, when Shade has been mistakenly shot by the assassin, his “friend” is in no hurry to call for help: instead, he rushes to hide the poem, which, he thinks, contains the story of his own life.
In comparison to Kinbote, John Shade appears to be a much more appealing character, and he possesses some traits that bring more human warmth into his image: he can be lazy, he likes hearty meals, brandy and wine; he loves his wife and daughter and is generally more tolerant towards people who are not as bright and talented as he is. Nabokov gives his character some of his most cherished thoughts. For example, Shade, who is also a teacher of literature, expresses his views on teaching: “First of all, dismiss ideas, and social background, and get the freshman to shiver, to get drunk on the poetry of Hamlet or Lear, to read with his spine and not with his skull” . However, since Shade’s personality is seen in the novel only through Kinbote’s uncaring eyes, his inner world is more or less concealed from the reader. It is only through Shade’s poem that one can glimpse into the questions, which preoccupy the poet. The poem, on the whole, is a painful, difficult search for meaning, an attempt to make sense of the whole puzzle of human life and death, to find a way of transcending one’s mortality. No human thought or emotion can relieve one from being trapped in one’s own finite world. Everything fails except art: art for its own sake, art that contains a unique, perfectly harmonized inner reality, which can be perceived as a reflection of a greater pattern:
I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part,
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight…
“Combinational delight”, indeed, is important not only in Shade’s poem but in the whole novel. As in The Gift, artistic detail is a focus of concentration in Pale Fire, but here attention is focused on an even subtler level where language itself is analyzed. Pale Fire is an example of extremely dense prose where individual words are more than just carriers of meaning: they become, in a way, themselves a subject of the novel. One of Shade’s warmest images of his family together is a memory of the evenings when both he and Sybil helped their daughter to understand really obscure words from her English textbook. A difference of one letter in the words “mountain” and “fountain” becomes crucial in the story of Shade’s attempt to penetrate the mystery of the hereafter. The book is filled with examples of word play, often involving several languages, and references to numerous works of literature (some of which are likely to be Nabokov’s own inventions). In Shade’s poem, there are such peculiar combinations as: “Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept all is allowed” , which is a mixture of Alyosha Karamazov, Raskol’nikov, and, perhaps, Italian painter Fra Angelico with his intensely spiritual religious art. But nobody in the novel is more involved in digging into words than Kinbote. He is constantly preoccupied with deciphering literary allusions, musing over interplay of words, meanings, rhymes and sounds. Nabokov mentioned in his lectures that a dictionary should be a necessary attribute of a good reader, and, ironically, Kinbote, who can hardly be called a good reader, dutifully follows the lines of Shade’s masterpiece with his dictionary. For the most part, he is obsessively searching references to Zembla and his own life story in the poem, but sometimes he simply takes aesthetic pleasure in certain lines of it:
“Lines 131-132: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
The exquisite melody of the two lines opening the poem is picked up here. The repetition of that long-drawn note is saved from monotony by the subtle variation in line 132 where the assonance between its second word and the rhyme gives the ear a kind of languorous pleasure as would the echo of some half-remembered sorrowful song…” Shade’s commentator genuinely enjoys the magic of words, and so does Nabokov, whose multilingualism, artistic sense and incomparable mastery of language found full expression in the creation of the truly marvelous poem, as well as other parts of the novel.
Perhaps, the refined world of literature allows Kinbote a way of escape from his troubled personal reality, and so it does for Shade, and, to a degree, for Fyodor in The Gift, and, ultimately, for Nabokov. In his commentary, Kinbote recounts an episode when someone in the presence of Shade tells a story of a mad railroad worker, who “thought he was God and began redirecting the trains”. “That (“mad”) is the wrong word”, – he (Shade) said. – “One should not apply it to a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention” . Still, comparison of Nabokov’s novels shows that the most “brilliant invention” becomes truly alive only if the light of one’s own human experience, however “drab and unhappy”, illuminates it from within. In Pale Fire the walls sheltering Nabokov’s private world of memory and feeling are thicker than in The Gift, and the novel follows more closely Nabokov’s ideas of art as elegant deception, an entirely invented world which should be approached on aesthetic rather than emotional grounds. This is the major difference between Pale Fire and The Gift.
Time is likely to be one of the factors behind this change: Pale Fire was written almost twenty years later than The Gift, as greater and greater distance separated Nabokov from his Russian past with which he had stronger emotional bond than with the years spent abroad. Another important factor is, probably, language. Nabokov was very proud of his English works and repeatedly called himself an American writer, but sometimes he provided his readers with unexpected revelations such as: “My private tragedy, which cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural language, my natural idiom, my rich, infinitely rich and docile Russian tongue, for a second-rate brand of English” . In another interview, when asked which language he considered the most beautiful, Nabokov replied: “My head says English, my heart, Russian, my ear, French” . It is possible to say that for him Russian conveyed emotional power, while English had more of an intellectual appeal, and this is one of the reasons why Pale Fire, written in English, appeals to the brain more than it does to feelings.
One of the most striking confessions that bridges Nabokov’s inner world with his public self exists in a poem. An Evening of Russian Poetry, written in English in 1945, is a rhymed presentation of a public lecture which Nabokov gives to an audience of American students, predominantly female. Russian poetry is the theme of the lecture, but Nabokov approaches it in the way typical for him: he does not talk about schools, trends and periods. Again, he speaks of letters, shapes, individual intricate details, and hidden tenderness shines through his words, staying invisible for his listeners. They ask him questions about his favorite trees and stones, echoing that insensitive critic from The Gift, whose “discussion of Koncheyev’s book boiled down to his answering for the author a kind of implied questionnaire (Your favorite flower? Favorite hero? Which virtue do you prize most?)” In Nabokov’s discussion of Pushkin and Nekrasov everything merges and melts together: the sky and the grass, the beauty of verse and human feeling, – and inevitable theme of exile. Nabokov speaks of memories, saying openly: “I must remind you in conclusion that I am followed everywhere and that space is collapsible” . His private tragedy is lost on his young listeners, whose innocent inquiry prompts what becomes the most remarkable ending of a poem:
How would you say “delightful talk” in Russian?
How would you say “good night”?
Oh, that would be:
Bessonnitza, tvoy vzor oonyl i strashen;
lubov moya, otstoopnika prostee.
(Insomnia, your stare is dull and ashen,
my love, forgive me this apostasy.)
All of Nabokov’s carefully hidden private world that, he insists, “cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern”, is suddenly revealed in these poignant lines: long nights, loneliness, the feeling of guilt over abandoning one’s language and nostalgia for inaccessible, unforgettable, “unquenchable Russia”.
Bibliography
1). Kernan, Alvin B. “Reading Zemblan: The Audience Disappears in Nabokov’s Pale Fire”. Vladimir Nabokov (Modern Critical Views). Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 101-125.
2). ???????, ????????. ???. ??????: ??????, 1990.
3). Nabokov, Vladimir. The Gift. New York: Capricorn Books, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
4). —. Lectures on Literature. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1982.
5). —. Pale Fire. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993.
6). —. Poems and Problems. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1970.
7). —. Speak, Memory. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1993.
8). —. Strong Opinions. McGraw-Hill International, Inc. 1973.
Elena Koutcherova
http://www.articlesbase.com/fiction-articles/unquenchable-russia-or-forbidden-themes-in-nabokovs-prose-204030.html
New World Order (Part 1 of 6) Skull and Bones Secret Society Masonry 666 by Barry Smith
Barry Smith shares information he has discovered about the New World Order, secret societies like the Skull and Bones order and their involvement with a global one world government. He also goes onto suggest that the mark of the beast talked about in revelations is the introduction of the RFI identity chip, which is already in use in exclusive clubs in france and for detecting elderly residents in old folks homes. He also talks about world leaders who are currently involved in groups like skull and bones.
I have other very interesting videos you can check out on near death experiences and out of body experiences on my channel where former atheists have experienced the their Spiritual body out of the physical and had experiences with God which have totally transformed their belief system.
Duration : 0:10:1
Hell or Heaven: Firsthand Authors Describe your Fate
Our earthly existence demands that we plan for our future in the best way that we can. We must conduct our affairs in this life in a prudent manner regarding investments, education, insurance and such to guide us towards the goal of safety and contentment. But what about a strategy regarding the afterlife when our brief stay on this planet is over?
Bill Wiese and Don Piper are two authors who describe in vivid detail the ultimate outcomes of our worldly lives in books respectively entitled “23 Minutes in Hell: One Man’s Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment” and “90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life”. The aptly named books describe firsthand the reality of two extreme destinations one of which lies ahead of each of us according to our own freewill choices.
Wiese’s “23 Minutes in Hell” began at 3:00 a.m. on Monday, November 23, 1998 when he found himself being hurled through the air completely out of control before landing in what appeared to be a prison cell. He was “fully awake and cognizant” throughout the entire event during which he was led to experience a peril well beyond what can be imagined in this life.
“There is never any peace of mind. No rest from the torments, the screams, the fear, the thirst, the lack of breath, no sleep, the stench, the heat, the hopelessness, and the isolation from people.” Bill adds that “this place was so terrifying, so intense, and so hostile that it would be impossible for me to exaggerate the horror.” The hideous, seething creatures together with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness made one trapped in a “sea of tormented souls”.
The other end of the spectrum is explained by Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven” which describes his experience while declared dead after his car was struck by an eighteen-wheeler at about 11:45 a.m. on January 18, 1989. He was greeted in the heavenly realm by what he called a “celestial welcoming committee” of incredibly joyous people whom he had known previously that had passed on from earthly life.
Piper described the sensational level of bliss by stating that “everything I experienced was like a first-class buffet for the senses. I had never felt such powerful embraces or feasted my eyes on such beauty. Heaven’s light and texture defy earthly eyes or explanation. Warm, radiant light engulfed me. As I looked around, I could hardly grasp the vivid, dazzling colors. Every hue and tone surpassed anything I had ever seen.” Don was in another dimension and felt “fully alive” in a state of awe that human words are not capable of expressing.
The hell and heaven experiences of both authors are precisely in line with another source that has displayed irrefutable accuracy over time. This book is a compilation of 66 works written by about 40 authors over the course of approximately 1,500 years in three different languages on three different continents. The book that calls one’s attention to what awaits all in the afterlife is called the Bible.
The evidence is clear that the Bible gives harsh descriptions in regards to the reality of the “damnation of hell” ( Matthew 23:33 ). It warns of “everlasting destruction” ( II Thessalonians 1:9 ), “place of torment” ( Luke 16:28 ), “fire that never shall be quenched” ( Mark 9:43 ), ), “weeping and gnashing of teeth” ( Luke 13:28 ), “where their worm dieth not” ( Mark 9:44 ), “everlasting fire” ( Matthew 18:8 ), “outer darkness” ( Matthew 8:12 }, and “lake of fire burning with brimstone” ( Revelation 19:20 ) to name but a few of the wake-up calls regarding the “danger of hell fire” ( Matthew 5:22 ).
Heaven, on the other hand, is a place where “they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more” ( Revelation 7:16 ) and “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” ( Revelation 21: 4 ). It will be an indescribable “eternal weight of glory” ( 2 Corinthians 4:17 ) for those who cherish and abide by the Bible’s teachings. It will be a place of pure love beyond our finite comprehension.
Bill Wiese gives his support and states that “the Bible is far more unique than any other book written. It has been scrutinized by an endless array of scholars, historians, archeologists, scientists, mathematicians, and the like for thousands of years. There have not been any discrepancies or errors that could not be cleared up with good scholarship.”
Bill supports this claim by listing quotes from both acclaimed scholars and respected historical figures who support the absolute reliability of the Bible. Don Piper is also one who conveys his full conviction with respect to the truth of the Scriptures without question.
So what guidelines are to be followed to enter the gates of heaven and avoid the described torments of hell after reading “23 Minutes in Hell” and “90 Minutes in Heaven” and the most popular book in the history of the world? The answer is clearly to pay close attention to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as the only “mediator between God and men” ( 1 Timothy 2:5 ) to gain our heavenly triumph.
Both Bill Wiese who suffered the anguish of hell and Don Piper who had to leave the indescribable bliss of heaven to an agonizing recovery believe that their lives are meant to tell the world of the consequences that await us all. They are using their experiences to warn anyone and everyone about the realities of what they lived through. They also wish to share the truth that the only way to escape the eternal and hopeless trappings of hell is a commitment to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
My own unfortunate life events are what led me to find this truth. I have suffered the effects of having been comatose for 11 days, walked away from a burning car wreck, been struck by a Mack truck and have escaped a handful of other potentially deadly or crippling circumstances. Failure has certainly not been a stranger in my life in other ways as well. I share a belief with the authors that my experiences in this life are meant for salvation on both a personal level as well as for readers who simply need to get right with God through Jesus Christ.
My advice? Find and join, if you haven’t already, a true Christian church that bases its teachings strictly on the verses contained in the Bible. Avoid at all costs any “feel good” or watered down alternatives that compromise the truth for the sake of profit or political correctness. Finally, believe the words of Jesus in John 14: 6 of “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Your eternity depends on it.
( Bill Wiese’s “23 Minutes in Hell: One Man’s Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment” and Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life” and the Bible can be purchased at http://www.christianbook.com )
Brian Connors
http://www.articlesbase.com/religion-articles/hell-or-heaven-firsthand-authors-describe-your-fate-138609.html