The Echo of a Distant Time 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇩🇪🇩🇰🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱
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The Echo of a Distant Time 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇩🇪🇩🇰🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱
@arthurnewhook.bsky.social
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*John 8:32* Old-fashioned, sick it of all. Anti-populist, independent pragmatist. Girly pics, nostalgia, history, Golden Age of Hollywood. War, tyranny, collapse. Massachusetts Bay Colony 🇬🇧. #StopPutin 🇺🇦 #NeverTrump linktr.ee/arthurnewhook
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arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Blue wave? 2025 off-year elections in the former United States: false hope, and the ballad of a dying democracy. {Stop the Idiocracy 7 November, link below the fold}
A mournful allegorical painting depicting a young woman with silver hair kneeling beside a fallen donkey, her face streaked with tears. She wears a simple white dress, her expression one of anguish and compassion as she gently rests her hand upon the animal’s flank, which is draped in the American flag. The warm, earthen tones of the background evoke both timelessness and decay, lending the image the gravity of an elegy. The donkey, symbolic of the Democratic Party, lies motionless—its serene posture contrasting with the woman’s visible grief. Her tears fall like a benediction over a nation’s lost ideal, the flag transformed from emblem of unity into a shroud of defeat. The composition recalls Renaissance lamentation scenes, reimagined as political requiem—an intimate portrayal of despair for a dying civic conscience beneath the hollow triumph of nationalism.
November 8, 2025 at 12:49 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Federal judge orders Trump to restore SNAP payments—futile in a lawless land where the nation ravenously consumes its own. {Stop the Idiocracy 6 November, link below the fold}
A haunting allegorical painting depicting a pale young woman standing in a desolate urban street beneath a leaden sky. She holds a folded newspaper with the headline “Federal Judge Orders Trump to Fund SNAP Payments”, her expression subdued and sorrowful, embodying quiet endurance amidst social decay. Behind her, a derelict grocery store looms, its windows dim, while a billboard blazes with nationalist fervour—“AMERICA FIRST — STRONG AGAIN”—featuring the grinning visages of suited politicians. The contrast between her fragile humanity and the propagandistic spectacle underscores the tension between empathy and authoritarian indifference. The scene’s palette—muted ochres and ashen blues—conveys moral exhaustion, evoking a modern dystopia where hunger and political cynicism coexist. In the shadows, a homeless figure cradles a child, amplifying the painting’s elegiac meditation on neglect, inequality, and the collapse of civic compassion.
November 7, 2025 at 3:26 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Elke Sommer and the art of living unapologetically. {The Echo of a Distant Time 5 November}
A black-and-white photograph of a young woman captured in a moment of quiet intensity. She stands before a brick wall and ladder, her gaze steady and faintly defiant as she looks directly into the camera. Her tousled blonde hair frames a face at once soft and self-possessed, the light catching the contours of her cheek and the reflective glint of her eyes. She wears a patterned button-down dress, slightly open at the collar, its fabric suggestive of post-war European chic rendered with unstudied sensuality. In her right hand she holds a bitten apple—an image layered with faint biblical or cinematic suggestion—its simplicity offset by her almost wary poise. The tonal richness of the print captures both the texture of the moment and the nascent aura of celebrity: poised between innocence and allure, between naturalism and performance.
November 6, 2025 at 12:24 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Will Rogers, born 4 November 1879, and apparently a prophet of sorts. {The Echo of a Distant Time 4 November, link below the fold; photo: Wikimedia Commons}
A hand-tinted studio portrait of a middle-aged man with neatly combed brown hair, wearing a dark suit and white shirt with a tie, smiling directly at the viewer. His expression conveys genial confidence, with bright eyes and a mischievous warmth suggesting both wit and approachability. The subtle tinting of his lips and skin gives the photograph an early 20th-century charm, bridging the line between photographic realism and painterly artifice. Inscribed faintly in cursive at the bottom left are the words “Yours, Will Rogers,” identifying the sitter as the beloved American humourist and social commentator. The portrait embodies the genial populism and understated sophistication of its era—an image at once intimate, idealised, and emblematic of a figure who made comedy a form of moral conscience.
November 4, 2025 at 10:21 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
“The United States is now a nation run by public servants who behave no better than internet trolls, deflecting criticism with crassness and obscenity.” {Tom Nichols 4 November, link below the fold}
A young woman stands solemnly before a grand neoclassical building, its steps strewn with litter and discarded symbols of political decay. She wears a pale pink dress, her expression one of quiet disillusionment, gazing outward with a composure that contrasts sharply with the chaos behind her. On the steps, a group of dishevelled men in business suits shout, sneer, and clutch their phones—caricatures of rage and moral collapse. Above them, a glowing sign declares, “CIVILITY IS CANCELLED,” its proclamation of cultural and political breakdown rendered in cold, authoritative letters. The tattered American flag to the left flutters in a bruised, twilight sky, echoing the nation’s exhaustion. The image fuses allegory and realism, portraying the isolation of decency amid a fallen civic order, the lone figure standing as a quiet moral remnant against the ruinous theatre of outrage.
November 4, 2025 at 9:32 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
President Biden honours Vice-President Cheney.
November 4, 2025 at 7:18 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Fare thee well, Mr Vice-President: Dick Cheney dies, aged 84. {BBC 4 November, link below the fold; photo: Reuters}
Former Vice President of the now-former United States, Dick Cheney, stands before a microphone delivering a speech in what appears to be a formal or governmental setting. He is dressed in a dark suit and patterned tie, with an American flag lapel pin affixed to his jacket. His expression is measured and faintly genial, caught mid-sentence as light falls across his face, accentuating the sheen of age and the careful composure of public life. The background, softly blurred in neutral tones, suggests the interior of a marble or stone hall, its restrained grandeur complementing the man’s statesmanlike bearing. The image conveys an impression of institutional gravitas and practised authority, emblematic of a career steeped in the rhetoric and theatre of American power.
November 4, 2025 at 7:11 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
An evil nation populated by demons: Americans anticipate a surge in political violence in the years ahead, and a substantial portion—across party lines, and assuredly higher than poll results—are embracing this nascent epoch of ‘violent populism’. {Politico 3 November, link below the fold}
A tattered and weather-beaten American flag, its once-vivid stripes now dulled and frayed, hangs limply from a wooden pole against a blank white backdrop. The fabric is shredded along the trailing edge, the red bars faded to a rusted hue and the white turned grey with age and grime. The blue canton, though still recognisable with its scattered white stars, bears the marks of long exposure—creased, thin, and weary. The image conveys a haunting sense of endurance amid decay, as though the banner, emblem of an ideal once radiant, has borne too many storms and witnessed too much decline. It stands as a visual elegy to a nation’s weathered faith in itself, torn yet still faintly defiant against the void.
November 4, 2025 at 12:15 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
The great game lapses into silence, and a long, cold winter awaits. {The Echo of a Distant Time 2 November, link below the fold}
A pale-skinned woman kneels within the hush of winter, her bare form poised like a fleeting flame amid the pallor of snow. One leg stretches forward, the other folded beneath her, the posture at once instinctive and uncertain — the body’s quiet dialogue with the cold. Her hair tumbles in soft disarray, a mortal warmth against the desolation of the trees, their branches etched like black veins into a dim, indifferent sky. She does not entirely meet the viewer’s gaze; instead, her eyes fall earthward, as though in communion with the frozen ground that both cradles and condemns her. Light gathers upon her skin like breath upon glass, revealing every subtle contour — not as provocation, but as testament. Here is no artifice, only the elemental truth of solitude made visible: the fragile radiance of life daring to exist against the endless white silence.
November 3, 2025 at 1:36 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Ann Rutherford, 2 November 1917 – 11 June 2012. {The Echo of a Distant Time 2 November, link below the fold; photo: MGM}
A black-and-white publicity photograph of actress Ann Rutherford, taken circa 1942, capturing the vivacity and poise characteristic of wartime Hollywood glamour. She poses playfully aboard a yacht, one leg bent and lifted, the other extended with pointed toes, her hand braced against the rigging while the other rests lightly atop her head in a gesture of carefree confidence. Her short, puff-sleeved dress, cinched at the waist and trimmed with delicate lace, flares in the breeze, revealing the clean, sculptural lines of her figure against the luminous sweep of the sails behind her. The interplay of sunlight and shadow lends the image a sense of sculptural clarity and motion, its composition evoking both nautical adventure and the exuberant optimism of early-1940s American femininity.
November 3, 2025 at 12:14 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Greatest World Series of all-time? Or at least in the past few decades?
November 2, 2025 at 4:44 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Yamamoto is the MVP of the World Series. This is incredible!
November 2, 2025 at 4:39 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
One of the greatest World Series ever played—the #Dodgers capture back-to-back championships after eleven thrilling innings in game seven. My word, full credit to the Blue Jays and their faithful supporters, but the Dodgers have at last ascended to immortality!
Repeat! How World Series champion Dodgers won Game 7
Highlights, takeaways from L.A.'s wild Fall Classic-clinching victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.
www.espn.com
November 2, 2025 at 4:22 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Dixie Lee, 4 November 1909 – 1 November 1952. {The Echo of a Distant Time 1 November, link below the fold; photo: 20th Century Fox}
Dixie Lee, actress and chanteuse of the early 1930s, stands immortalised in a studio portrait that epitomises the cultivated elegance of nascent Hollywood. She poses with her back turned in gentle contrapposto, her gaze cast over one shoulder—an expression suspended delicately between astonishment and seduction. Her sleeveless satin ensemble glistens beneath the studio lamps, tracing the supple contour of her figure, whilst a soft cap and a single strand of pearls lend a note of refined restraint. The chiaroscuro of light and shadow carves her silhouette with sculptural precision upon the wall behind, conjuring an image at once sophisticated and enigmatic—the very embodiment of Jazz Age glamour distilled into silvered stillness.
November 2, 2025 at 12:20 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
#Dodgers are still alive! Game seven awaits! #WorldSeries
November 1, 2025 at 3:13 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
“When the black cat crosses your path and still you smile, you’re the lucky one.” Actress and model Lillian Wells in a Halloween mood, sometime in the 1940s. {The Echo of a Distant Time 31 October, link below the fold}
Actress and model Lillian Wells kneels amidst a rustic bed of straw in this playful Halloween-themed portrait from the late 1940s. Framed by towering corn stalks, she wears a red-and-white chequered blouse, fastened primly at the collar, and high-waisted black shorts that accentuate her poised silhouette. Upon the painted fence behind her, the shadowed arc of a cat curves with spectral elegance, its silhouette imparting a note of seasonal whimsy, whilst a carved pumpkin grins slyly from the corner of the frame. The controlled interplay of light and composition conjures an atmosphere at once beguiling and faintly suspenseful—transfiguring the studio tableau into a vision of small-town October enchantment.
November 1, 2025 at 12:25 AM
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Four little witches, no broomsticks required—just charm enough to fly. {The Echo of a Distant Time 31 October, link below the fold}
Four young women, attired in sprightly Halloween finery, recline upon a bed of straw amid carved jack-o’-lanterns and towering sheaves of corn. Each dons a dark blouse or abbreviated frock, crowned by a festive hat—some sharply pointed in witchlike fashion, others wide-brimmed with rustic grace. They lounge in languid confidence, their smiles touched with playful provocation, legs extended towards the lens beneath the gleaming visages of the pumpkins. The monochrome tableau distils the light-hearted glamour of a 1940s studio conceit—an artful mingling of seasonal mischief and beguiling charm.
October 31, 2025 at 11:11 PM
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“The only spell she’s casting is the one that makes you forget your good sense.” Halloween 2025. {The Echo of a Distant Time 31 October, link below the fold}
A glamorous woman of the 1940s reclines for a Halloween-themed photograph, poised within a great wooden tub encircled by glistening apples. Adorned in a pointed witch’s hat and a dark, flowing gown, she tilts her head with coquettish grace as her teeth meet the fruit’s polished skin, her legs elegantly crossed upon the tub’s rim. The monochrome composition fuses autumnal mischief with the opulent allure of Hollywood’s golden age, transmuting the humble sport of apple-bobbing into an image of refined, tantalising sophistication.
October 31, 2025 at 10:25 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
“A federal judge in Rhode Island has temporarily ordered the Trump administration to continue funding benefits for SNAP, the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” {ABC News 31 October, link below the fold}
The image shows the official logo of the United States Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The design features a stylised green grocery bag filled with simplified illustrations of food items — including a loaf of bread, milk carton, cheese wedge, and fruit — rendered in soft, muted tones. The acronym SNAP appears prominently in large white letters across the bag, while the programme’s full name, “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” is printed to the right in smaller blue type. The composition conveys accessibility and nourishment, emblematic of the federal initiative’s role in providing food-purchasing assistance to low-income individuals and families across America.
October 31, 2025 at 7:31 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Venezuelan despot Maduro reportedly seeks military aid from Russia, China, and Iran. {The Kyiv Independent 31 October, link below the fold; photo: Wikimedia Commons}
The national flag of Venezuela consists of three equal horizontal bands of vivid yellow, deep blue, and bold red. The uppermost stripe, gold in hue, symbolises the nation’s wealth and the radiance of its independence; the central blue band evokes the Caribbean Sea that embraces Venezuela’s coast; and the crimson lower stripe stands for the blood shed in the pursuit of liberty. Centred upon the blue field is an arc of eight white, five-pointed stars—each representing one of the nation’s historical provinces that united in rebellion against colonial rule, the eighth later added in honour of Simón Bolívar’s campaign for freedom from occupying Spanish forces.
October 31, 2025 at 7:08 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
No depravity too great: Donald Trump, the American people, and the caprice of human adulation. {Stop the Idiocracy 31 October, link below the fold}
A man wearing a tan baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and a sleeveless black shirt is speaking outdoors before an American flag backdrop. Text above him lists several numbered allegations, each involving names, ages, years, and reported financial settlements, referencing locations such as Trump Tower in New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. The on-screen TikTok interface identifies the user as “David Boomer,” with engagement metrics showing tens of thousands of likes and comments. The composition combines the man’s video frame with overlaid text formatted like a bulleted list, conveying a provocative political message.
October 31, 2025 at 6:09 PM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
The death of journalism in Trump’s #Murica: veteran political analyst Jon Keller laid off from CBS Boston. {Stop the Idiocracy 30 October, link below the fold; photo: Boston Globe}
A composed, silver-haired man in a tailored dark suit and red patterned tie stands against a studio backdrop of deep blue and muted red, the lighting casting a soft sheen across his glasses. His neatly trimmed moustache and calm, observant expression convey the seasoned poise of a veteran broadcaster. A discreet lapel microphone rests against his jacket—an emblem of his trade. The faint outlines of stars and a stylised civic dome behind him evoke the world of political discourse, situating him within the milieu of televised analysis. Captured mid-glance, he appears both attentive and mildly amused, the faintest smile betraying a journalist’s sceptical wit. The image, rich in compositional balance and tonal warmth, distils the essence of modern American political commentary—urbane, self-contained, and quietly reflective of the tension between authority and affability.
October 31, 2025 at 2:00 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Extortion assumes its latest guise in #Murica: ever more vexatious intrusions of advertising upon ‘smart’ devices, from refrigerators to car consoles—designed to weary the user into paying tribute in order to silence said insolent devices that were already bought and paid for. {Ted Gioia 29 October}
In a dimly lit kitchen awash with spectral blue light, a silver-haired woman in a crimson slip stands barefoot before a monolithic refrigerator whose digital screen reads, with chilling indifference, NOT OPEN. The detritus of her small rebellion lies at her feet: a toppled tub of melting ice cream, scattered cutlery, and a glossy manual titled Smart Life Sync. Through the window, the nocturnal city hums—aloof, unreachable. The scene is painted with a precision that recalls both classical realism and dystopian allegory: domestic modernity reimagined as quiet horror. The woman’s posture—tense, bewildered, yet oddly dignified—suggests an Eve in exile, confronted not by divine wrath but by the cold tyranny of automation. Every reflection, every contour of artificial light, conspires to underscore a single, inescapable irony: the machinery designed to serve her has become her silent warden.
October 31, 2025 at 1:04 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
A smile from a century ago, still bold enough to make the present blush. {The Echo of a Distant Time 29 October, link below the fold}
A young woman of the 1920s reclines upon a wooden swing, one slender leg lifted in a gesture of playful poise, the other extended just enough for her heeled shoe to graze the earth’s surface. She is attired in a loosely draped cardigan worn over a delicate frock or slip, her stockings meticulously rolled to the calf in the manner of the age, and a close-fitting cloche hat nestles over softly marcelled waves of hair. Her lips—darkened to that enigmatic cupid’s bow so favoured by the era’s ingénues—curve into the faintest, most knowing of smiles as her gaze inclines dreamily upward. Bathed in warm sepia hues, the faintly blurred garden beyond imparts an atmosphere at once wistful and beguiling—part coquette’s reverie, part modernist awakening—an image suspended between innocence and sophistication, and perfectly emblematic of a decade learning, with exquisite audacity, how to be modern.
October 30, 2025 at 12:36 AM
arthurnewhook.bsky.social
Actress Constance Dowling, 24 July 1920 – 28 October 1969. {The Echo of a Distant Time 28 October, link below the fold}
Actress Constance Dowling reclines on a velvet chaise longue trimmed with gold fringe, her pose poised between languor and contemplation. Clad in a cream skirt patterned with oversized bows and a fitted dark top that accentuates her classical silhouette, she radiates an air of weary elegance—beauty not as ornament, but as quiet endurance. One arm supports her head, her expression thoughtful, almost remote, while her long legs, gracefully extended, lend the composition a sculptural equilibrium. The subdued palette—muted ochres, soft crimsons, and pale ivory—infuses the image with a painterly intimacy, as though caught between glamour and introspection. Dowling appears as a figure suspended in time: a relic of mid-century melancholy, embodying both the poise of Hollywood’s golden age and the private ache that often shadowed it.
October 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM