David Nail- Red Light

Tattoos

Truly, Madly, Deeply in love

Jaime Ibarra

"Welcome to the Cathedral of Junk, in Austin, TX

This is the result of one man's creative overflow, along with a seemingly-obsessive desire to collect an innumerable amount of commonly-seen objects known by most people in western society.

No photos can do adequate justice to this wonder. Without a doubt, you have to see it in-person to fully appreciate it. If you visit Austin, TX (or are one of the many who live here who have yet to see it), you don't want to pass-up the opportunity. A quick Google search for "Austin Cathedral of Junk" will point you in the right direction."
                                                                                --Jaime Ibarra

Jesca Hoop

*Drool* the instruments...

JD Schramm: Break the Silence for Suicide Survivors

http://www.hulu.com/watch/249736

Even when our lives appear fine from the outside, locked within can be a world of quiet suffering, leading some to the decision to end their life. JD Schramm asks us to break the silence surrounding suicide and to create resources to help.

So much respect and praise for this man.
Death scares me terribly, however, I have to sympathize with those who have tried or have succeeded. I wish they hadn't. I've tried. When my depression is really low I have that mantra in my head that makes me think that death would be better.
I am not using this as a way to get attention. I prefer not to have any. I'm putting all this up because, there are so many Beautiful men and women who need to remember that there is Always someone who loves them. If you know someone who might be, reach out. Don't tell them to suck it up or pity them like a kicked dog. Sit down and ask them why. From experiences, it is hard to start that conversation but, it is more helpful than you realize. Always remember the times that you've wanted a hug, love, acceptance.

 The Six Reasons People Attempt Suicide

Suicide is far more understandable than people think.

Published on April 29, 2010 by Alex Lickerman, M.D. in Happiness in this World

 

Though I've never lost a friend or family member to suicide, I have lost a patient (who I wrote about in a previous post, The True Cause Of Depression). I have known a number of people left behind by the suicide of people close to them, however. Given how much losing my patient affected me, I've only been able to guess at the devastation these people have experienced. Pain mixed with guilt, anger, and regret makes for a bitter drink, the taste of which I've seen take many months or even years to wash out of some mouths.The one question everyone has asked without exception, that they ache to have answered more than any other, is simply: why? Why did their friend, child, parent, spouse, or sibling take their own life? Even when a note explaining the reasons is found, lingering questions usually remain: yes, they felt enough despair to want to die, but why did they feel that? A person's suicide often takes the people it leaves behind by surprise (only accentuating survivor's guilt for failing to see it coming).

People who've survived suicide attempts have reported wanting not so much to die as to stop living, a strange dichotomy but a valid one nevertheless. If some in-between state existed, some other alternative to death, I suspect many suicidal people would take it. For the sake of all those reading this who might have been left behind by someone's suicide, I wanted to describe how I was trained to think about the reasons people kill themselves. They're not as intuitive as most think.
In general, people try to kill themselves for six reasons:

1. They're depressed. This is without question the most common reason people commit suicide. Severe depression is always accompanied by a pervasive sense of suffering as well as the belief that escape from it is hopeless. The pain of existence often becomes too much for severely depressed people to bear. The state of depression warps their thinking, allowing ideas like "Everyone would all be better off without me" to make rational sense. They shouldn't be blamed for falling prey to such distorted thoughts any more than a heart patient should be blamed for experiencing chest pain: it's simply the nature of their disease. Because depression, as we all know, is almost always treatable, we should all seek to recognize its presence in our close friends and loved ones. Often people suffer with it silently, planning suicide without anyone ever knowing. Despite making both parties uncomfortable, inquiring directly about suicidal thoughts in my experience almost always yields an honest response. If you suspect someone might be depressed, don't allow your tendency to deny the possibility of suicidal ideation prevent you from asking about it.
2. They're psychotic. Malevolent inner voices often command self-destruction for unintelligible reasons. Psychosis is much harder to mask than depression, and is arguably even more tragic. The worldwide incidence of schizophrenia is 1% and often strikes otherwise healthy, high-performing individuals, whose lives, though manageable with medication, never fulfill their original promise. Schizophrenics are just as likely to talk freely about the voices commanding them to kill themselves as not, and also, in my experience, give honest answers about thoughts of suicide when asked directly. Psychosis, too, is treatable, and usually must be treated for a schizophrenic to be able to function at all. Untreated or poorly treated psychosis almost always requires hospital admission to a locked ward until the voices lose their commanding power.
3. They're impulsive. Often related to drugs and alcohol, some people become maudlin and impulsively attempt to end their own lives. Once sobered and calmed, these people usually feel emphatically ashamed. The remorse is often genuine, but whether or not they'll ever attempt suicide again is unpredictable. They may try it again the very next time they become drunk or high, or never again in their lifetime. Hospital admission is therefore not usually indicated. Substance abuse and the underlying reasons for it are generally a greater concern in these people and should be addressed as aggressively as possible.
4. They're crying out for help, and don't know how else to get it. These people don't usually want to die but do want to alert those around them that something is seriously wrong. They often don't believe they will die, frequently choosing methods they don't think can kill them in order to strike out at someone who's hurt them, but they are sometimes tragically misinformed. The prototypical example of this is a young teenage girl suffering genuine angst because of a relationship, either with a friend, boyfriend, or parent, who swallows a bottle of Tylenol, not realizing that in high enough doses Tylenol causes irreversible liver damage. I've watched more than one teenager die a horrible death in an ICU days after such an ingestion when remorse has already cured them of their desire to die and their true goal of alerting those close to them of their distress has been achieved.
5. They have a philosophical desire to die. The decision to commit suicide for some is based on a reasoned decision, often motivated by the presence of a painful terminal illness from which little to no hope of reprieve exists. These people aren't depressed, psychotic, maudlin, or crying out for help. They're trying to take control of their destiny and alleviate their own suffering, which usually can only be done in death. They often look at their choice to commit suicide as a way to shorten a dying that will happen regardless. In my personal view, if such people are evaluated by a qualified professional who can reliably exclude the other possibilities for why suicide is desired, these people should be allowed to die at their own hands.
6. They've made a mistake. This is a recent, tragic phenomenon in which typically young people flirt with oxygen deprivation for the high it brings and simply go too far. The only defense against this, it seems to me, is education.

The wounds suicide leaves in the lives of those left behind by it are often deep and long lasting. The apparent senselessness of suicide often fuels the most significant pain. Thinking we all deal better with tragedy when we understand its underpinnings, I've offered the preceding paragraphs in hopes that anyone reading this who's been left behind by a suicide might be able to more easily find a way to move on, to relinquish their guilt and anger, and find closure. Despite the abrupt way you may have been left, guilt and anger don't have to be the only two emotions you're doomed to feel about the one who left you.

Alice Dreger: Is Anatomy Destiny?

http://www.hulu.com/watch/249133

Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it's often a fuzzy line between male and female, which raises a huge quesiton: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?

BLEW my mind. Love this very much. 

Joshua Radin

Missy Higgins

The beginning...so beautiful

Wonderfully Sweet

“This would be a man that loves going to work and does not dread it the night before. Upon entering the Magic Kingdom, one of the security guards said to the girl “Excuse me Princess, can I have your autograph.” I could see that the book was filled with children’s scribbles as the guard asked the same question of many little Princesses. The little girl could not get over the fact that the guard thought she was a real princess.”

“In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.”

—Denise Levertov

EVERYTIME

Have Wavy Hair But Love This...

“I often have the fantasy that curly girls are mermaids who have had to adapt to life on dry land. We come from the sea. The ocean is in our blood. It sings through our heart and lungs, our skin and hair. Our curls require the nourishment only a watery environment can provide. Both ocean waves and curly hair are forces of nature that can’t be tamed. We can only accept and admire their power and beauty.”

― Lorraine Massey, Curly Girl

“I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.”

—William Carlos Williams

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.”

—Anthony Powell

Athenian Search

Please don't steal or copy my work.

My Love-In-Idleness streaked eyes

Burn from desperately trying
To see straight.
To make out this confusion
That has engulfed my heart, so.
 
I lay here, in the dew-soaked grass,
And wish my mind
Was not so fickle.
These tricks the fairies make,
Drown me, like my own personal anchor to earth.

The god blessed trees are a fortress             

Thickening, leaving no moonlight to,
Guide me toward His hearth.
And my feet are worn, and my arms torn,
From jealous branches that whisper lies.

I want to stop.

To fling my arms at the
Dead, night sky and cry
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
For being so cruel to this shell that is me.

I do not know

How to play this game,
That holds no rules, no
Concrete ties to the silver heaven
That I feel obliged to find.

Violin Violence

Please don't steal or copy my work.

I was moved.

Through all this clutter in my mind, that sends me reeling at every new turn and sickening lurch, I hear strings.

The violin is my lover. My soul mate; with its sad recognition of truth, a brilliance I find myself in tears to. I want my voice to sound as forlorn. I want so badly to hear beauty in the tone I wield in my daily life.

I need to hear beauty come from my lips. Lips that are always chapped and bleeding.

I don’t know how to sound sadder than I already feel. It would be a tremendous feat that could send me to the edge of every safety harness I have strapped myself into. That I have tightened diligently. That I have caressed with my wrinkled, naked, fingers. This is the intimacy I need: my pitched lover of safety.

A Letter

Plaese do not steal or copy my work.

I have discovered the antidote for getting over love:
Anger.
It costs nothing, and gives you
an escape.
With it, you realize that you are powerful.
You almost feel naked without it,
When you cross paths with the one who destroyed your world.
Your small,
Naïve,
Stupid,
World.

You want to talk to them,
To whisper their name in moments of tenderness.
To see in their eyes that they adore you,
That they want you.
That they think about you-
All the time.
Not just sometimes.
Your body aches without the warmth of their touch,
It cries out, bloody murder, in pain.
So, get angry.

Clench your jaw and stand tall.
Hold your head held high.
Do not betray that you want to snap,
When you imagine the taste of their tongue,
Feel their urgent hands,
When you make love.
Sweet, passionate, violent

Love.

Bleak

Plaese do not steal or copy my work.

I know

More with depression,

Than without.

I want to save them all-

From the twisted agony

My soul pulses

When in hell.

But, I cannot do it.

I cannot save them.

                Not all of them.

Still,
I know

How one’s mind

Shoots up acid

Into the nervous system-

Sending insanity throughout

The unconscious reality.

There is nothing,

Nothing,

You can do to fight.

You must inject your own

Mixed cocktail

To counter

The damage done.

Third Times The Charm

Plaese do not steal or copy my work.

Once is understandable

Twice is explainable

But three times,

Three times being tricked

By yourself into thinking

That you were wanted

By him.

Of course you dream of this.

What girl doesn’t pine

And waste away from thoughts

Of licking liquor off his lips.

Biting his neck.

Having his strong hands on your hips.

Daydreaming is a reality.

But being foolish is simply

The third time.

YES

I would be enlightened EVERYDAY.



Sabrina Cichy

I Kinda Sorta Love Them

VIDEO: Marines in Afghanistan Perform 'Call Me Maybe'

BeautifulBurden

Jaime Ibarra

7-19-12

The Seneca Falls Convention — the first convention for women's rights — began on this date in 1848. The seed had been planted eight years earlier, and grew out of the abolitionist movement. Lucretia Mott and her husband were traveling to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Aboard the ship, they met a pair of newlyweds — Henry and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — who were also on their way to the conference for their honeymoon. Once in London, the six female delegates, including Mott and Stanton, found that they would not be seated and could only attend the conference behind a drapery partition, because women were "constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings." Mott and Stanton were outraged, and together they agreed that they really should organize their own convention.

Eight years later, on July 11, they ran an unsigned announcement in the Seneca County Courier that read: "A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N.Y. [...] During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend." Just a few days before, Stanton took the Declaration of Independence as her model and drafted what she called a Declaration of Sentiments, calling for religious, economical, and political equality.

Reaction to the convention in the press and the pulpit was mostly negative. The Oneida Whig wrote: "This bolt is the most shocking and unnatural incident ever recorded in the history of womanity. If our ladies will insist on voting and legislating, where, gentlemen, will be our dinners and our elbows? Where our domestic firesides and the holes in our stockings?"
Philadelphia's Public Ledger and Daily Transcript declared: "A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. The ladies of Philadelphia [...] are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Virgins and Mothers."

And the Albany Mechanic's Advocate claimed that equal rights would "demoralize and degrade [women] from their high sphere and noble destiny, [...] and prove a monstrous injury to all mankind."
In response, Frederick Douglass wrote in The North Star: "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman."

It would be 72 years before women would be granted the right to vote. Only one of the signers of the original Declaration of Sentiments was still living in 1920. Charlotte Woodward, who had been 19 and working in a glove factory in 1848, was too ill to cast her ballot.

7-19-12

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring (books by this author) was first published on this date in 1954. It was the first volume of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it was the sequel to The Hobbit (1937). Hobbits are small, humanlike creatures with hairy feet and large — though simple — appetites, who generally like to stay close to home. Tolkien once wrote: "I am in fact a hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands. I smoke a pipe [and] like good, plain food." The Hobbit is a story of one Bilbo Baggins who goes on an adventure through Middle Earth and comes home with a magic ring. Tolkien had written it for his own amusement and didn't expect it to sell well, but it did, and Tolkien's publisher asked for a sequel.

He spent the next 17 years working on The Lord of the Rings. He was well into his first draft by the time World War II broke out in 1939. He hadn't set out to write an allegory, but once the war began, he started to draw parallels between the war and the events in his novel. He made elaborate charts to keep track of the events of the story.

Finally, in the fall of 1949, he finished. He typed the final copy himself, a typewriter on his lap, tapping it out with two fingers. It turned out to be more than a half million words long, and the publisher agreed to bring it out in three volumes. The first came out on this day in 1954. Today more than 30 million copies have been sold around the world.

Tornado Warning

Tornado Warning

by Joyce Sutphen

   That is not the country for poetry.
It has no mountains, its flowers
are plain and never poisonous,
its gardens are packed into blue mason jars.
There are no hedges bordering the roads, the sky
flies up from the ditches, loose in every
direction.

   Yet I knew it to be passionate,
even in its low rolling hills, where a red
tractor pushed through the oat field, cutting
down gold straw and beating a stream
of grain into the wagon trailing behind
in the stubble,

   I knew it to be melodious
in its birch woods, leaves shadowing
a stone-strewn river, the path along the bank
softened with pine needles, sunlight
woven in and out of branches, the many
colors of green, solid as a pipe organ's
opening chord,

   I knew it would haunt
the memory with its single elm,
where a herd of cows found shade
in the July heat, their bony tails
swinging the tufted bristle left and right
over the high ledge of a hip bone,
while at the horizon, a black fist
of storm came on, something not
to be averted, something singular
in its fury,
    as any blind heart knows.

Perhaps the most moving statement of the importance of inner honour comes from Hermione, in The Winter's Tale, as she stands accused of adultery, and threatened with death:

But yet hear this--mistake me not: for life,
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,
Which I would free--if I should be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else,
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
'Tis rigour, and not law.
(3.2.107-12)

BAMF

Dead Poets Society

One of THE best movies. I would watch it by yourself though...its one of those things that you need to think about and create your own opinion. It will honestly impact you.

Lord Byron

I find it funny that I first heard about him through my friend. Whats funny, to me about that, is the fact that his dog's name is Byron. So, when I asked him where he got his dog's name I learned something.

And Thou Art Dead, As Young and Fair, first published in 1812
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.

Lovely Ladies- Acoustic

Creature13

She calls these "sketches". They're beautiful, thats what they are. I'll add the link soon.

Its Hot

True Or False

Norah Jones

Always amazing.

Welcome

Past Tense

Plaese do not steal or copy my work.

Through my mind she races.

I don’t understand why
I feel insane
Blown.
Quiet.
Silent.
Out of control from the pure
Energy that I feel when with her.
She brings me towards the sky
To a new high that I cannot comprehend
But I need her to feel
Like I matter-
That I can go on.
I don’t want to depend on her touch

                Her hands on my skin feeling me for whom I am; finding my roughness pleasing and finding                 what’s wrong, and making it right.

Yet, I miss her.
Crave her.
I adore how the sun rises in her eyes
How it sets when she sleeps,
Calling the moon to bathe her in an unadulterated light of beauty.

Its Amazing What People Will Do

Woman watched NASCAR with deceased man for over a year

Many of us like watching races in the company of other NASCAR fans, but Linda Chase of Jackson, Mich., might have taken that just a bit too far.
For the past 10 years, she lived together with Charles Zigler. And when Zigler passed away, they continued to live and watch NASCAR together for approximately 18 months until authorities found Zigler's body on Friday.
We'll let the Jackson Citizen Patriot take it from here:

Zigler, known as Charlie, died naturally, Linda Chase said. "He just fell asleep." She kept him in his chair after he died, keeping him dressed and cleaned. His body did not stink, she said. She would talk to him and watch NASCAR races on television with him.

Jackson officials believe that Zigler, who would have been 67 or 68, died around Christmas of 2010. That was 18 months ago. When Zigler's family members went to check on him after not hearing from him for a while, they went to the police, who found Zigler's body in his chair.
Chase kept Zigler's body around for more than NASCAR races, however. She's admitted to cashing his social security checks, saying "I'm probably going to prison." She's currently being investigated. When family members, with whom Zigler did not have a close relationship, tried to contact him, Chase would tell them that he was gone. She told the paper that "It's not that I'm heartless. It's just that after so many bad things happen to you, I don't know.
"I didn't want to be alone. He was the only guy who was ever nice to me."

In all honesty...I hope she doesn't get charged with anything. She just sounds like a broken woman who may have made a mistake in trying to be happy.

I Dream A Dream

I had the strangest dream.

       

 It was probably a combination of all the murder shows I seem to be addicted to, or simply the horrors trapped inside my mind. Sometimes I’m terrified by what I seem to posses subconsciously.

       One part that sticks out to me from my dream is when a woman, who was a teacher of mine, showed a video in front of many people while trying to prove a point to me.

       The video was my birth.

       I was born with charred skin. Blackened by a fire my mom had been incased in. yet, when I saw her, she was alright. Only I took the power of the flames. The doctors let her hold me. Then, I was strapped into a plastic cube, there were air holes. And tiny black and red insects were crawling, dominating every surface of my little body. When they finally dispersed I was shown to be the fleshy pink of a well newborn.
      The thing that caught me, though, was the fact that I was not a real child. What was supposed to be me was this mechanical baby doll, which was only in a plastic diaper.  The surface of my skin had a bright shine, my head was perfectly bald. I was still in a large plastic cube and outside was my two best friends. They looked to be at the age of five-years-old while I was this fake thing.
      All of that was on a video shown by a woman my imagination created. It may not sound terribly horrific or gruesome but, the context shook me. It was like someone was revealing me to be a changeling and I didn’t even know. I was exposed.

The Weeknd

Explicit.

When I first heard this the word Sensual came to mind and instantly I loved the mood/ feel of the song. What made it better was my best friend, who showed it to me, said, "this brings me back to my roots". because her and her dad used to listen to music like this all the time when she was younger. Something about that caught me.

Katharine Mcphee

Desert Flower Trailer

You may look at this and think that it is probably the stereotypical "girl movie". It is not that at all, It is so much more. It chose to show this one instead of another bescause the other gave away a lot. Watch this...look it up. It may change how you think. It did for me.

Montage Poem Project: French Revolution

Please do not steal or copy my work.

For Class, we were assigned to create a montage project on something in history or our personal history. At the time doing something personal would have been painful. So, I did something historical. I have always been facinated by the French Revolution.

Introduction Poem

The Revolution: Narrated by Terror - La Révolution: Rapporté par Terreur

I was Spreading.

Like blood, I raced through

The boiling veins of men.

Casting doubt upon tranquil lives of deception.

                I saw nothing tranquil in my children starving.

The Yankees embraced me first,

With hearts of rage

And passionate revenge desired.

They craved the flesh of victory between their teeth.

                Taxes, drought, debt, cattle disease.

With the precision, similar to my brother Plague,

I leisurely strolled to France.

And what a time I had,

Dwelling in the minds of the masses.

                Their ignorance can be tolerated no more.

The messieurs and maquerelles

Invited me to their lovely homes,

Where the ideas of

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity- were disregarded.

                Oh, how they will forfeit their power amongst screams.

Their dead thoughts,

I hold them sensually to my chest.

As the sweet blood from their paper necks

Stain my hands, warming them.

                Vive la Révolution.

Monologue Poem

Writing to You with Love - Écrivant à vous avec amour

 October 14, 1793.

                Beloved diary,

I write you in hopes of gaining courage.

(Though I know I will gain none.)

Today, I was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal.

They looked upon me with disgust-which I am starting to get used to.

I remember the days, the wonderful days,

When all I had to do was stand upon a stool

As my tailor fitted my gowns,

When I sat in front of my vanity

As my hair was done and my wigs adorned

With beautiful feathers and vividly colored birds-

And the time, with the miniature boat,

It was quite a lovely boat…

I miss those days.

Truly I do.

The men,

They adored me, you know.

Of course, I never did as the rumors suggested.

I only teased with my favorite pink fan,

As it shielded my face, only showing my bright eyes,

Hiding my smile, so full of pleasure,

As I watched their lusts drive them to insanity-

Completely losing their heads.

I do not mean that unkindly,

Of course not.

But when one has a husband like mine,

Who does not care whether you are near or not,

You crave the attention of those unattainable.

Now, more than ever,

I wish he were never my husband.

My poor head greatly aches.

The lighting in here is very dull.

It is also very cold.

Bitterly cold, I wish for illness to take me,

In two days time.

The thought of my head…

In a pool of blood,

In an old whicker basket,

How did it come to this?

Documentary Poem

For all we know - Pour tout ce que nous savons

Thank you for joining us today.

Shall we Begin?

If you look to your left, you will see what helped spur the French Revolution:

-The American Revolution

-Enlightenment ideals

                Popular Sovereignty

                Inalienable Rights

All that must have sent the people of France’s heads whirling. Must have caused them to think of what life could possibly be like.

Could you blame them?

Now,

The les états généraux was summoned; - an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility, and middle class- the meeting was set for May 5, 1789. This had not happened since 1614.

While waiting for this date, delegates compiled cahiers de doléances for the king:

King Louis XVI

The assembly was put together because, in the fall of 1786, Louis XVI’s controller general, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, proposed a financial reform package that dealt with a universal land tax from which the privileged classes would no longer be exempt- the meeting was a measure of forestalling a growing aristocratic revolt.

Because the Lower classes revolting was less threatening.

Naturally.

The non-aristocratic members of the Third Estate now embodied 98% of the people.

But they could still be outvoted by the other two heads.

            The Third estate mobilized support for equal representation.

            They wanted voting by head and not by status.

 When the Estates-General convened at Versailles, the very public debate rose to levels of hostility, among the three orders.

             June 17, 1789: the Third Estate met alone and officially adopted the title of National        Assembly. Three days later they took the serment du jeu de paume, vowing not to disperse      until constitutional reform had been achieved.

                A week later, most of the clerical deputies and 47 liberal nobles joined the.

                June 27:  Louis XVI immersed all three orders to make a new assembly.

                                Resentfully.

Shall we continue?

I do hope your feet do not feel sore.

Onwards.

 June 12: while the National Assembly continued to collaborate at Versailles, emotions ran thick as terror and violence ran hand in hand joyously through the capital.

            

            Despite enthusiasm about the breakdown of royal power, Parisians were anxious as         rumors flew of a possibly impending military coup began to travel.

            July 14: the Bastille fortress is stormed to secure gunpowder and weapons.

            Many consider this the start of the Revolution.

It is a national holiday in France.

You will receive miniature flags on your way out.

Questions?

No?

Wonderful.

Waves of the revolution swept up the country in swells of hysteria.

Peasants looted and burned homes of:

-Tax Collectors

-Landlords

-Seigniorial Elite

I would do this too if I had the chance.

What about you sir?

 Oh, I beg your pardon.

You are a vital member of society.

 Anyways,

   
   The la Grande peur: the agrarian rebellion hastened the growing evacuation of nobles from the country and inspired the National Constitution Assembly to abolish Feudalism on August 4, 1789.

Georges Lefebvre later called it the “death certificate of the old order”.

                                Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen:  “The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancient regime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government.”

To Your left is a painting of the day.

              September 3, 1791: France’s first written constitution echoed the more moderate voices in the Assembly. It established a constitutional monarchy in which the king had royal veto power and the ability to appoint ministers.

             As you can imagine, this did not sit well with some. Influential radicals like Maximilien de             Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton were full of bitter blood. They       created popular support for a more republican form of government. Louis XVI was put       on trial.

            April 1792: The new Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia. They were feeling quite daring. It was believed, in these countries, French émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances. It was also hoped that warfare would spread thick the revolutionary ideals across Europe.

Meanwhile, looking domestically, the political crisis took a major turn when a group of insurgents led by the extremist Jacobins attacked the royal home in Paris and gleefully arrested the king on August 10, 1792.

             January 10, 1793: King Louis XVI was sent to the guillotine for high treason and crimes    against the state.

            Nine months late, 1793, his wife Marie Antoinette was executed by the ever popular       guillotine, as well.

No longer would she be the life of the party.

Please exit on your right.

Thank you.

Conclusion Poem

The Future: Narrated by Hope - L'avenir: Rapporté par l'espoir

For ten months they hid

Amongst severed heads and blood,

Which dried prettily in patterns

On their rough soles.

            We were free by words, not action.
 

Blindly feeling their way.

I took pity,

I could not leave them in such

Despairing conditions.

            Would we ever eat the fruits of our murderous labor?

I could not wait for the days

When they would commemorate

All they endured

With such dazzling celebration.

             What are we fighting to save-only broken pieces of a dream.

If only they could see

All that they would become.

They would fight with more dignity,

Defend with youthful vigor.

            We can go on, but for how much longer is the question.

They will see.

No longer will Terror reign,

No longer will they cry out to heaven.

They will be revived by shock alone.

           We are slave to our mistress, Hope.