The USAF "Thunderbirds" flew the McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II aircraft from 1969 through 1973. This aircraft, arguably the best fighter aircraft of its time, was used extensively in the Vietnam War. The Thunderbirds used eleven of these machines. Two of them were lost to crashes, but nine remained for posterity. All but two are on display throughout the country. This book chronicles an exciting motorcycle trip by the author, a Thunderbird who flew in these aircraft during 1970-1972, to visit all of the remaining nine phantoms. His coast-to-coast journey covered nearly 8,000 miles and provided an endless array of wonder and a bottomless well of memories. Filled with scores of color images, it details the vistas, events and thoughts that constantly bombarded the authors senses as he pursued his quest to visit old friends from the past.
“Ruined Castles and Phantom Memories” is a pictorial edition featuring the remnants and remains of several Middle Age castles in southern France and particularly within the Languedoc region. Each image frames the ruined monuments and elevated structures of 12th century France occupied by members of the once vibrant Cathar movement. Desolate and foreboding, these staggering monoliths bear the sole testimony of the Cathar race, effectively exterminated in the 14th century by the Catholic Church during the Albigensian Crusades. The finely crafted masonry and vaulted remaining pillars cast expansive shadows across the soaring landscape. Time brakes to a halt enabling the viewer to understand the allure of simplistic elegance and majesty. The principal fortresses photographed include the castles of Peyrepertuse, Queribus, Chateau de Thermes and the Abbey of Saint Hilary. The stark photographic severity examines the ravages of time, warfare and neglect. Photographer Marques Vickers lived in the Languedoc region between 2005-2009, while capturing these portrayals. Peyrepertuse Guillaume de Peyrepertuse resisted submission to the Catholic Church and was excommunicated in 1224. He built the castle at the end of the 13th century. The fortress later defended the French border against the kingdom of Aragon and then Spain until the 17th century. The castle was the site of numerous armed conflicts until finally decommissioned as a border fort with the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 after having lost its strategic prominence. It was abandoned during the French Revolution and left to decay with the elements. Queribus The castle was another strategic border protector with Spain until 1659. It is often regarded as the last Cathar stronghold. The Cathars avoided bloodshed by the pursuing French army by abandoning it before their appearance. Chateau de Thermes Aloft amidst its high elevation and fortified by deep ravines, the fortress was seized during the first Albigensian Crusade. Most of the combatants and residents were forced out by depleted water and diminished ammunition supplies amidst an extended drought. The French government used it as a royal garrison to defend the borders with Spain. Abandoned and then reclaimed by a band of bandits, the group terrorized locals during the mid-seventeenth century. Their activities were halted abruptly when the walls were blown apart by canon fire issued by royal decree. St. Hilary Abbey A medieval Benedictine monastery features an attractive cloister and important Romanesque artworks inside including the sarcophagus of St. Sernin by the Master of Cabestany.
How does the spectre appear in Icelandic literature and visual art created in the aftermath of the economic crash in Iceland in 2008? Why does it emerge at that specific point in time and what can it tell us about repressed collective memories in Iceland? The book explores how the crash becomes an implicit background setting in novels that address the silences and gaps of the family archive, and how crime fiction employs generic features of horror to explicitly tackle the ghosts residing in the lost homes of the financial crash. Spectral space is an apparent theme of cultural memories produced in times of crisis, and the book explores how this is made apparent in visual art of the period.
Provides an exploration into how science has shaped our identity by examining the elements of our immune systems such as the thymuses, bone marrow, and lymph nodes to show how they define us in extremely individual ways, and reveals how faith and love are in fact programmed into our genes.
The theme of memory has played a significant role in anime throughout its evolution as an art form and as popular entertainment. Anime's handling of memory is multifaceted, weaving it into diverse symbolic motifs, narratives and aesthetic issues. This study aims to provide a detailed analysis of a range of anime titles wherein different aspects of this cultural phenomenon are articulated. It explores anime films and series that exemplify the distinctive signatures placed by particular directors or studios on the treatment of memory, while also highlighting the prominence of memory in anime with reference to specific philosophical, artistic, and historical contexts.
Recollections of unexpected and emotional events (called 'flashbulb' memories) have long been the subject of theoretical speculation. Previous meetings have brought together everyone who has done research on memories of the Challenger explosion, in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of flashbulb memories. How do flashbulb memories compare with other kinds of recollections? Are they unusually accurate, or especially long-lived? Do they reflect the activity of a special mechanism, as has been suggested? Although Affect and Accuracy in Recall focuses on flashbulb memories, it addresses more general issues of affect and accuracy. Do emotion and arousal strengthen memory? If so, under what conditions? By what physiological mechanisms? This 1993 volume is evidence of progress made in memory research since Brown and Kulick's 1977 paper.
Staying Alive: A Love Story is a story of hope and renewal that centers on a woman’s search for meaning after the untimely death of her 49-year-old husband. Coupled with other experiences of loss in her life she is determined to, with her children, persevere.Like Annie Dillard, Hayden draws on the rhythms and rituals of the natural world to explore her Brooklyn roots and New England adulthood. Wild creatures and domesticated critters, seasides and hillsides proffer comfort and understanding as she comes to realize that “no more than a hairline and no less than an eternity” separate her from the man she loved. Even with the wear and tear her faith endures, it rarely diminishes.Her purpose – to usher her two grieving children through a difficult adolescence to a well-adjusted adulthood – resonates through her own struggles. With the precise objectivity reminiscent of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Joyce Carol Oates’ A Widow’s Story, Hayden recounts the day her husband died and the rituals and obsessions of the bereaved. Forced to look at death straight in the eye, the author stares back, wide-eyed, without blinking through her tears.Hayden also manages to be seriously droll – in an Anne Lamott way. Never is her humor more honed than in the portrayal of her deceased spouse, whose devotion, antics, and wisdom remain ever-present to those who are staying alive without him. His death becomes not only the family’s heartbreak, but the loss of a well-executed life for all who knew him or will get to know him through these essays.Whether Laura Hayden’s writing deals with herself, her children, or her cadre of loved ones, it is clear that she, her daughter, and her son emerge from their tragic loss survivors, not victims of Larry’s death, an outcome of which he would be very pleased. In a culture of intentionally exposed and celebrated self-victimization, the story of this family may be considered a quiet triumph.
In the tradition of Lewis Thomas, Stephen J. Gould, and Oliver Sachs, this special double issue of Creative Nonfiction, the only exclusively nonfiction literary journal, demonstrates the many ways in which aspects of the scientific world—from biology, medicine, physics, and astronomy—can be captured and dramatized for a humanities-oriented readership. Edited and introduced by the award-winning author of Many Sleepless Nights , An Unspoken Art, and A View from the Divide includes a diverse range of voices, from poets to immunologists and physicists, from established writers to up-and-coming new talent.
