Bag of Bones CHAPTER NINETEEN

The telephone was ringing. I climbed toward it from a drowning dream where I couldn't catch my breath, rising into early sunlight, wincing at the pain in the back of my head as I swung my feet out of bed. The phone would quit before I got to it, they almost always do in such situations, and then I'd lie back down and spend a fruitless ten minutes wondering who it had been before getting up for good. Ringgg . . . ringgg . . . ringgg . . . Was that ten? A dozen? I'd lost count. Someone was really dedicated. I hoped it wasn't trouble, but in my experience people don't try that hard when the news is good. I touched my fingers gingerly to the back of my head. It hurt plenty, but that deep, sick ache seemed to be gone. And there was no blood on my fingers when I looked at them. I padded down the hall and picked up the phone. ‘Hello?' ‘Well, you won't have to worry about testifyin at the kid's custody hearin anymore, at least.' ‘Bill?' ‘Ayuh.' ‘How did you know . . . ‘ I leaned around the corner and peered at the waggy, annoying cat-clock. Twenty minutes past seven and already sweltering. Hotter'n a bugger, as us TR Martians like to say. ‘How do you know he decided ‘ ‘I don't know nothing about his business one way or t'other.' Bill sounded touchy. ‘He never called to ask my advice, and I never called to give him any.' ‘What's happened? What's going on?' ‘You haven't had the TV on yet?' ‘I don't even have the coffee on yet.' No apology from Bill; he was a fellow who believed that people who didn't get up until after six A.M. deserved whatever they got. I was awake now, though. And had a pretty good idea of what was coming. ‘Devore killed himself last night, Mike. Got into a tub of warm water and pulled a plastic bag over his head. Mustn't have taken long, with his lungs the way they were.' No, I thought, probably not long. In spite of the humid summer heat that already lay on the house, I shivered. ‘Who found him? The woman?' ‘Ayuh, sure.' ‘What time?' †'Shortly before midnight,†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ they said on the Channel 6 news.' Right around the time I had awakened on the couch and taken myself stiffly off to bed, in other words. ‘Is she implicated?' ‘Did she play Kevorkian, you mean? The news report I saw didn't say nothin about that. The gossip-mill down to the Lakeview General will be turnin brisk by now, but I ain't been down yet for my share of the grain. If she helped him, I don't think she'll ever see trouble for it, do you? He was eighty-five and not well.' ‘Do you know if he'll be buried on the TR?' ‘California. She said there'd be services in Palm Springs on Tuesday.' A sense of surpassing oddness swept over me as I realized the source of Mattie's problems might be lying in a chapel filled with flowers at the same time The Friends of Kyra Devore were digesting their lunches and getting ready to start throwing the Frisbee around. It's going to be a celebration, I thought wonderingly. I don't know how they're going to handle it in The Little Chapel of the Microchips in Palm Springs, but on Wasp Hill Road they're going to be dancing and throwing their arms in the sky and hollering Yes, lawd. I'd never been glad to hear of anyone's death before in my life, but I was glad to hear of Devore's. I was sorry to feel that way, but I did. The old bastard had dumped me in the lake . . . but before the night was over, he was the one who had drowned. Inside a plastic bag he had drowned, sitting in a tub of tepid water. ‘Any idea how the TV guys got onto it so fast?' It wasn't superfast, not with seven hours between the discovery of the body and the seven o'clock news, but TV news people have a tendency to be lazy. ‘Whitmore called em. Had a press conference right there in Warrington's parlor at two o'clock this morning. Took questions settin on that big maroon plush sofa, the one Jo always used to say should be in a saloon oil paintin with a naked woman lyin on it. Remember?' ‘Yeah.' ‘I saw a coupla County deputies walkin around in the background, plus a fella I reckonized from Jaquard's Funeral Home in Motton.' ‘That's bizarre,' I said. ‘Ayuh, body still upstairs, most likely, while Whitmore was runnin her gums . . . but she claimed she was just followin the boss's orders. Said he left a tape sayin he'd done it on Friday night so as not to affect the cump'ny stock price and wanted Rogette to call in the press right off and assure folks that the cump'ny was solid, that between his son and the Board of Directors, everythin was going to be just acey-deucey. Then she told about the services in Palm Springs.' ‘He commits suicide, then holds a two A.M. press conference by proxy to soothe the stockholders.' ‘Ayuh. And it sounds just like him.' A silence fell between us on the line. I tried to think and couldn't. All I knew was that I wanted to go upstairs and work, aching head or no aching head. I wanted to rejoin Andy Drake, John Shackleford, and Shackleford's childhood friend, the awful Ray Garraty. There was madness in my story, but it was a madness I understood. ‘Bill,' I said at last, ‘are we still friends?' ‘Christ, yes,' he said promptly. ‘But if there's people around who seem a little stand-offy to you, you'll know why, won't you?' Sure I'd know. Many would blame the old man's death on me. It was crazy, given his physical condition, and it would by no means be a majority opinion, but the idea would gain a certain amount of credence, at least in the short run I knew that as well as I knew the truth about John Shackleford's childhood friend. Kiddies, once upon a time there was a goose that flew back to the little unincorporated township where it had lived as a downy gosling. It began laying lovely golden eggs, and the townsfolk all gathered around to marvel and receive their share. Now, however, that goose was cooked and someone had to take the heat. I'd get some, but Mattie's kitchen might get a few degrees toastier than mine; she'd had the temerity to fight for her child instead of silently handing Ki over. ‘Keep your head down the next few weeks,' Bill said. ‘That'd be my idea. In fact, if you had business that took you right out of the TR until all this settles down, that might be for the best.' ‘I appreciate the sense of what you're saying, but I can't. I'm writing a book. If I pick up my shit and move, it's apt to die on me. It's happened before, and I don't want it to happen this time.' ‘Pretty good yarn, is it?' ‘Not bad, but that's not the important thing. It's . . . well, let's just say this one's important to me for other reasons.' ‘Wouldn't it travel as far as Derry?' ‘Are you trying to get rid of me, William?' ‘I'm tryin to keep an eye out, that's all caretakin's my job, y'know. And don't say you weren't warned: the hive's gonna buzz. There's two stories going around about you, Mike. One is that you're shacking with Mattie Devore. The other is that you came back to write a hatchet-job on the TR. Pull out all the old skeletons you can find.' ‘Finish what Jo started, in other words. Who's been spreading that story, Bill?' Silence from Bill. We were back on earthquake ground again, and this time that ground felt shakier than ever. ‘The book I'm working on is a novel,' I said. ‘Set in Florida.' ‘Oh, ayuh?' You wouldn't think three little syllables could have so much relief in them. ‘Think you could kind of pass that around?' ‘I think I could,' he said. ‘If you tell Brenda Meserve, it'd get around even faster and go even farther.' ‘Okay, I will. As far as Mattie goes ‘ ‘Mike, you don't have to' ‘I'm not shacking with her. That was never the deal. The deal was like walking down the street, turning the corner, and seeing a big guy beating up a little guy.' I paused. ‘She and her lawyer are planning a barbecue at her place Tuesday noon. I'm planning to join them. Are people from town going to think we're dancing on Devore's grave?' ‘Some will. Royce Merrill will. Dickie Brooks will. Old ladies in pants, Yvette calls em.' ‘Well fuck them,' I said. ‘Every last one.' ‘I understand how you feel, but tell her not to shove it in folks' faces,' he almost pleaded. ‘Do that much, Mike. It wouldn't kill her to drag her grill around back of her trailer, would it? At least with it there, folks lookin out from the store or the garage wouldn't see nothing but the smoke.' ‘I'll pass on the message. And if I make the party, I'll put the barbecue around back myself.' ‘You'd do well to stay away from that girl and her child,' Bill said. ‘You can tell me it's none of my business, but I'm talkin to you like a Dutch uncle, tellin you for your own good.' I had a flash of my dream then. The slick, exquisite tightness as I slipped inside her. The little breasts with their hard nipples. Her voice in the darkness, telling me to do what I wanted. My body responded almost instantly. ‘I know you are,' I said. ‘All right.' He sounded relieved that I wasn't going to scold him take him to school, he would have said. ‘I'll let you go n have your breakfast.' ‘I appreciate you calling.' ‘Almost didn't. Yvette talked me into it. She said, â€Å"You always liked Mike and Jo Noonan best of all the ones you did for. Don't you get in bad with him now that he's back home.† ‘Tell her I appreciate it,' I said. I hung up the phone and looked at it thoughtfully. We seemed to be on good terms again . . . but I didn't think we were exactly friends. Certainly not the way we had been. That had changed when I realized Bill was lying to me about some things and holding back about others; it had also changed when I realized what he had almost called Sara and the Red-Tops. You can't condemn a manor what may only be a figment of your own imagination. True, and I'd try not to do it . . . but I knew what I knew. I went into the living room, snapped on the TV, then snapped it off again. My satellite dish got fifty or sixty different channels, and not a one of them local. There was a portable TV in the kitchen, however, and if I dipped its rabbit-ears toward the lake I'd be able to get WMTW, the ABC affiliate in western Maine. I snatched up Rogette's note, went into the kitchen, and turned on the little Sony tucked under the cabinets with the coffee-maker. Good Morning America was on, but they would be breaking for the local news soon. In the meantime I scanned the note, this time concentrating on the mode of expression rather than the message, which had taken all of my attention the night before. Hopes to return to California by private jet very soon, she had written. Has business which can be put off no longer, she had written. If you promise to let him rest in peace, she had written. It was a goddam suicide note. ‘You knew,' I said, rubbing my thumb over the raised letters of her name. ‘You knew when you wrote this, and probably when you were chucking rocks at me. But why?' Custody has its responsibilities, she had written. Don't forget he said so. But the custody business was over, right? Not even a judge that was bought and paid for could award custody to a dead man. GMA finally gave way to the local report, where Max Devore's suicide was the leader. The TV picture was snowy, but I could see the maroon sofa Bill had mentioned, and Rogette Whitmore sitting on it with her hands folded composedly in her lap. I thought one of the deputies in the background was George Footman, although the snow was too heavy for me to be completely sure. Mr. Devore had spoken frequently over the last eight months of ending his life, Whitmore said. He had been very unwell. He had asked her to come out with him the previous evening, and she realized now that he had wanted to look at one final sunset. It had been a glorious one, too, she added. I could have corroborated that; I remembered the sunset very well, having almost drowned by its light. Rogette was reading Devore's statement when my phone rang again. It was Mattie, and she was crying in hard gusts. ‘The news,' she said, ‘Mike, did you see . . . do you know . . . ‘ At first that was all she could manage that was coherent. I told her I did know, Bill Dean had called me and then I'd caught some of it on the local news. She tried to reply and couldn't speak. Guilt, relief, horror, even hilarity I heard all those things in her crying. I asked where Ki was. I could sympathize with how Mattie felt until turning on the news this morning she'd believed old Max Devore was her bitterest enemy but I didn't like the idea of a three-year-old girl watching her mom fall apart. ‘Out back,' she managed. ‘She's had her breakfast. Now she's having a d-doll p-p-p . . . doll pi-p-pic ‘ ‘Doll picnic. Yes. Good. Let it go, then. All of it. Let it out.' She cried for two minutes at least, maybe longer. I stood with the telephone pressed to my ear, sweating in the July heat, trying to be patient. I'm going to give you one chance to save your soul, Devore had told me, but this morning he was dead and his soul was wherever it was. He was dead, Mattie was free, I was writing. Life should have felt wonderful, but it didn't. At last she began to get her control back. ‘I'm sorry. I haven't cried like that really, really cried since Lance died.' ‘It's understandable and you're allowed.' ‘Come to lunch,' she said. ‘Come to lunch please, Mike. Ki's going to spend the afternoon with a friend she met at Vacation Bible School, and we can talk. I need to talk to someone . . . God, my head is spinning. Please say you'll come.' ‘I'd love to, but it's a bad idea. Especially with Ki gone.' I gave her an edited version of my conversation with Bill Dean. She listened carefully. I thought there might be an angry outburst when I finished, but I'd forgotten one simple fact: Mattie Stanchfield Devore had lived around here all her life. She knew how things worked. ‘I understand that things will heal quicker if I keep my eyes down, my mouth shut, and my knees together,' she said, ‘and I'll do my best to go along, but diplomacy only stretches so far. That old man was trying to take my daughter away, don't they realize that down at the goddam general store?' ‘I realize it.' ‘I know. That's why I wanted to talk to you.' ‘What if we had an early supper on the Castle Rock common? Same place as Friday? Say five-ish?' ‘I'd have to bring Ki ‘ ‘Fine,' I said. ‘Bring her. Tell her I know â€Å"Hansel and Gretel† by heart and am willing to share. Will you call John in Philly? Give him the details?' ‘Yes. I'll wait another hour or so. God, I'm so happy. I know that's wrong, but I'm so happy I could burst!' ‘That makes two of us.' There was a pause on the other end. I heard a long, watery intake of breath. ‘Mattie? All right?' ‘Yes, but how do you tell a three-year-old her grandfather died?' Tell her the old fuck slipped and fell headfirst into a Glad Bag, I thought, then pressed the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle a spate of lunatic cackles. ‘I don't know, but you'll have to do it as soon as she comes in.' ‘I will? Why?' ‘Because she's going to see you. She's going to see your face.' I lasted exactly two hours in the upstairs study, and then the heat drove me out the thermometer on the stoop read ninety-five degrees at ten o'clock. I guessed it might be five degrees warmer on the second floor. Hoping I wasn't making a mistake, I unplugged the IBM and carried it downstairs. I was working without a shirt, and as I crossed the living room, the back of the typewriter slipped in the sweat coating my midriff and I almost dropped the outdated sonofabitch on my toes. That made me think of my ankle, the one I'd hurt when I fell into the lake, and I set the typewriter aside to look at it. It was colorful, black and purple and reddish at the edges, but not terribly inflated. I guessed my immersion in the cool water had helped keep the swelling down. I put the typewriter on the deck table, rummaged out an extension cord, plugged in beneath Bunter's watchful eye, and sat down facing the hazy blue-gray surface of the lake. I waited for one of my old anxiety attacks to hit the clenched stomach, the throbbing eyes, and, worst of all, that sensation of invisible steel bands clamped around my chest, making it impossible to breathe. Nothing like that happened. The words flowed as easily down here as they had upstairs, and my naked upper body was loving the little breeze that puffed in off the lake every now and again. I forgot about Max Devore, Mattie Devore, Kyra Devore. I forgot about Jo Noonan and Sara Tidwell. I forgot about myself. For two hours I was back in Florida. John Shackleford's execution was nearing. Andy Drake was racing the clock. It was the telephone that brought me back, and for once I didn't resent interruption. If undisturbed, I might have gone on writing until I simply melted into a sweaty pile of goo on the deck. It was my brother. We talked about Mom in Siddy's opinion she was now short an entire roof instead of just a few shingles and her sister, Francine, who had broken her hip in June. Sid wanted to know how I was doing, and I told him I was doing all right, I'd had some problems getting going on a new book but now seemed to be back on track (in my family, the only permissible time to discuss trouble is when it's over). And how was the Sidster? Kickin, he said, which I assumed meant just fine Siddy has a twelve-year-old, and consequently his slang is always up-to-date. The new accounting business was starting to take hold, although he'd been scared for awhile (first I knew of it, of course). He could never thank me enough for the bridge loan I'd made him last November. I replied that it was the least I could do, which was the absolute truth, especially when I considered how much more time both in person and on the phone he spent with our mother than I did. ‘Well, I'll let you go,' Siddy told me after a few more pleasantries he never says goodbye or so long when he's on the phone, it's always well, I'll let you go, as if he's been holding you hostage. ‘You want to keep cool up there, Mike Weather Channel says it's going to be hotter than hell in New England all weekend.' ‘There's always the lake if things get too bad. Hey Sid?' ‘Hey what?' Like I'll let you go, Hey what went back to childhood. It was sort of comforting; it was also sort of spooky. ‘Our folks all came from Prout's Neck, right? I mean on Daddy's side.' Mom came from another world entirely one where the men wear Lacoste polo shirts, the women always wear full slips under their dresses, and everyone knows the second verse of ‘Dixie' by heart. She had met my dad in Portland while competing in a college cheerleading event. Materfamilias came from Memphis quality, darling, and didn't let you forget it. ‘I guess so,' he said. ‘Yeah. But don't go asking me a lot of family-tree questions, Mike I'm still not sure what the difference is between a nephew and a cousin, and I told Jo the same thing.' ‘Did you?' Everything inside me had gone very still . . . but I can't say I was surprised. Not by then. ‘Uh-huh, you bet.' ‘What did she want to know?' ‘Everything I knew. Which isn't much. I could have told her all about Ma's great-great-grandfather, the one who got killed by the Indians, but Jo didn't seem to care about any of Ma's folks.' ‘When would this have been?' ‘Does it matter?' ‘It might.' ‘Okay, let's see. I think it was around the time Patrick had his appendectomy. Yeah, I'm sure it was. February of '94. It might have been March, but I'm pretty sure it was February.' Six months from the Rite Aid parking lot. Jo moving into the shadow of her own death like a woman stepping beneath the shade of an awning. Not pregnant, though, not yet. Jo making day-trips to the TR. Jo asking questions, some of the sort that made people feel bad, according to Bill Dean . . . but she'd gone on asking just the same. Yeah. Because once she got onto something, Jo was like a terrier with a rag in its jaws. Had she been asking questions of the man in the brown sportcoat? Who was the man in the brown sportcoat? ‘Pat was in the hospital, sure. Dr. Alpert said he was doing fine, but when the phone rang I jumped for it I half-expected it to be him, Alpert, saying Pat had had a relapse or something.' ‘Where in God's name did you get this sense of impending doom, Sid?' ‘I dunno, buddy, but it's there. Anyway, it's not Alpert, it's Johanna. She wants to know if we had any ancestors three, maybe even four generations back who lived there where you are, or in one of the surrounding towns. I told her I didn't know, but you might. Know, I mean. She said she didn't want to ask you because it was a surprise. Was it a surprise?' ‘A big one,' I said. ‘Daddy was a lobsterman ‘ ‘Bite your tongue, he was an artist ‘a seacoast primitive.' Ma still calls him that.' Siddy wasn't quite laughing. ‘Shit, he sold lobster-pot coffee-tables and lawn-puffins to the tourists when he got too rheumatic to go out on the bay and haul traps.' ‘I know that, but Ma's got her marriage edited like a movie for television.' How true. Our own version of Blanche Du Bois. ‘Dad was a lobster-man in Prout's Neck. He ‘ Siddy interrupted, singing the first verse of ‘Papa Was a Rollin' Stone' in a horrible off key tenor. ‘Come on, this is serious. He had his first boat from his father, right?' ‘That's the story,' Sid agreed. ‘Jack Noonan's Lazy Betty, original owner Paul Noonan. Also of Prout's. Boat took a hell of a pasting in Hurricane Donna, back in 1960. I think it was Donna.' Two years after I was born. ‘And Daddy put it up for sale in '63.' ‘Yep. I don't know whatever became of it, but it was Grampy Paul's to begin with, all right. Do you remember all the lobster stew we ate when we were kids, Mikey?' ‘Seacoast meatloaf,' I said, hardly thinking about it. Like most kids raised on the coast of Maine, I can't imagine ordering lobster in a restaurant that's for flatlanders. I was thinking about Grampy Paul, who had been born in the 1890s. Paul Noonan begat Jack Noonan, Jack Noonan begat Mike and Sid Noonan, and that was really all I knew, except the Noonans had all grown up a long way from where I now stood sweating my brains out. They shit in the same pit. Devore had gotten it wrong, that was all when we Noonans weren't wearing polo shirts and being Memphis quality, we were Prout's Neckers. It was unlikely that Devore's great-grandfather and my own would have had anything to do with each other in any case; the old rip had been twice my age, and that meant the generations didn't match up. But if he had been totally wrong, what had Jo been on about? ‘Mike?' Sid asked. ‘Are you there?' ‘Yeah.' ‘Are you okay? You don't sound so great, I have to tell you.' ‘It's the heat,' I said. ‘Not to mention your sense of impending doom. Thanks for calling, Siddy.' ‘Thanks for being there, brother.' ‘Kickin,' I said. I went out to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water. As I was filling it, I heard the magnets on the fridge begin sliding around. I whirled, spilling some of the water on my bare feet and hardly noticing. I was as excited as a kid who thinks he may glimpse Santa Claus before he shoots back up the chimney. I was barely in time to see nine plastic letters drawn into the circle from all points of the compass. CARLADEAN, they spelled . . . but only for a second. Some presence, tremendous but unseen, shot past me. Not a hair on my head stirred, but there was still a strong sense of being buffeted, the way you're buffeted by the air of a passing express train if you're standing near the platform yellow-line when the train bolts through. I cried out in surprise and groped my glass of water back onto the counter, spilling it. I no longer felt in need of cold water, because the temperature in the kitchen of Sara Laughs had dropped off the table. I blew out my breath and saw vapor, as you do on a cold day in January. One puff, maybe two, and it was gone but it had been there, all right, and for perhaps five seconds the film of sweat on my body turned to what felt like a slime of ice. CARLADEAN exploded outward in all directions it was like watching an atom being smashed in a cartoon. Magnetized letters, fruits, and vegetables flew off the front of the refrigerator and scattered across the kitchen. For a moment the fury which fuelled that scattering was something I could almost taste, like gunpowder. And something gave way before it, going with a sighing, rueful whisper I had heard before: ‘Oh Mike. Oh Mike.' It was the voice I'd caught on the Memo-Scriber tape, and although I hadn't been sure then, I was now it was Jo's voice. But who was the other one? Why had it scattered the letters? Carla Dean. Not Bill's wife; that was Yvette. His mother? His grandmother? I walked slowly through the kitchen, collecting fridge-magnets like prizes in a scavenger hunt and sticking them back on the Kenmore by the handful. Nothing snatched them out of my hands; nothing froze the sweat on the back of my neck; Bunter's bell didn't ring. Still, I wasn't alone, and I knew it. CARLADEAN: Jo had wanted me to know. Something else hadn't. Something else had shot past me like the Wabash Cannonball, trying to scatter the letters before I could read them. Jo was here; a boy who wept in the night was here, too. And what else? What else was sharing my house with me?

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The consumer protection law of Qatar - Essay Example When it comes to the relationships between business and their consumers, there are many laws, which protect these relationships. A consumer is described as an individual or entity that acquires products for direct ownership or use instead for resale or use in manufacturing and production (Fayyad, 2012). In Qatar, one of these laws is the Consumer Protection Act that was signed into law back in 2008. The consumer protection law is a field of law, which regulates private relationships between businesses and their individual clients, who purchase those goods and services that they produce (Fayyad, 2012). The law covers a lot of topic, comprising of, but not necessarily restricted to privacy rights, product liability, unfair business practices, misrepresentation, fraud, as well as other business and consumer interactions. It is means of preventing scams and fraud from sales and service contracts, pricing, bill collector regulation, utility turnoffs, consolidation, and personal loans, whi ch might cause bankruptcy to both the business and the consumer (ILO, 2012). Consumer interests and welfare can also be safeguarded through enhancing competition in the markets that indirectly and directly serve clients, consistent with financial efficiency, but this matter is treated in competition law. This paper will discuss the consumer protection law of Qatar and its elements. The Consumer Protection Law was passed to respond to the demands of Qatar citizens who were slowing turning into victims of corrupt merchants. Earlier on, safeguarding had been provided under the Combating Commercial Fraud Law of 1999 (ILO, 2012). Normally, during a malpractice or fault, consumers used to have little or no recourse against any business; thus, adverts informing clients concerning products had over-exaggerated messages (ILO, 2012). Other underhand malpractices were utilized like selling sub-standard or defective

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Theory of knoledge - How does banking in venice during the 1300 to the 1400 compare to mondern day banking in venice - Essay Example The town life in Italy cities was bigger than in any other country. During this renaissance period, the governments of various nations were under dictatorship. However, due to the wealth created in the Italian cities such as Venice and Milan, they became autonomous city-states, each of which included an enclosed metropolitan center and the neighboring countryside. In addition, this modernization drove the city-states to create a new social system in the country. Wealth and ability was more important than aristocratic titles and ownership of land. During these times, the wealth merchants of the country together with bankers played a huge role in replacing the aristocrats in the upper class. According to their systems, shopkeepers and artisans were classified below the wealthy merchants, therefore forming a moderate and prosperous middle class that created and gave jobs to most of the poor people. The poor people from the countryside were classified at the very bottom of their social and economic ranking together with the peasants who worked in the co untry estates (Hildreth 5). During the same centuries of spiritual exploration, trade and industry revolution, and territory building, Venice was also a center of intellectual and artistic activity. The city had a huge number of mathematicians, philosophers, historians, and even humanists thrived from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. The availability of such intellects paved way for major developments in the country. Venice became the printing hub of the country and was the most important printing press anywhere in the world at that time due to its high level of technology innovation. The development of a printing press paved way for the creation of receipts, which would then be used to acknowledge payments. The receipts would then be developed and be used as money to pay or settle for depts. This noble innovation paved way for the creation of banks in Italy

The Development and Applications of the Zoom Lens in Cinematography Essay Example for Free

The Development and Applications of the Zoom Lens in Cinematography Essay With the birth of cinema just over a hundred years ago, the progresses made between now and then on the techniques of cinematography have never ceased to amaze audiences. Certainly, many of us could remount moments in our lives when we have felt awed by the movies and satisfied that our money’s worth was redeemed in a flurry of special effects; however, very few of us would be inclined to understand just how much effort was put into designing a very necessary part of any film production: the lens. Not only is a properly designed lens crucial to the quality of picture, but it could also save valuable time and money for the DP and Producer, respectively. This is especially true for the zoom lens, and serves as a main initiator for the constant research that is going into the instrument. Unlike fixed focus lenses, zoom lenses are image-forming optical systems which are capable of producing images of different sizes of an object from any definite distance (Clark, 4) How it achieves this effect is by moving groups of lenses within the system in a carefully coordinated fashion, using the lenses to appropriately bend the light and focus for our viewing purposes. As simple as it may sound, the science of zoom lens design is an extremely complicated subject that involves rigorous mathematical calculations that are beyond the scopes of this term paper. The zoom lens has always been essential and existent all-throughout the history of film and cinematography and it has been used it so many films that can help depict various elements such as character emotion and setting tones. However, in order to provide a general understanding of key aspects in zoom lens design, an attempt will be made to summarize one hundred years of technological advancements. Perhaps the very first hints of a zoom lens may be spotted in an 1834 article from the Proceedings of the Royal Society, by Peter Barlow (Clark, 3). Barlow noticed that by combining a negative lens (bi-concave lens) with a telescope, which contained positive lenses (bi-convex lens), he could vary the magnification of the viewed object in any proportion while never having to lose sight of the object. Although interesting, this was a discovery made only for applications on a visual instrument, and not one which could be used in combination with the photographic camera. In the 1890’s, the development of the varifocal telephoto lenses produced the first camera-associated zoom-like lenses (Kingslake, 4). These lenses used a similar two-lens system when compared to Barlow’s, yet they provided more readily varied focal lengths by utilizing a rack and pinion mechanism to control the distance of separation between the two lenses. Unfortunately, these lenses proved to be extremely cumbersome to operate, a possible attribution to its lack in popularity at that time. Not only was the image quality inadequate due to the focusing limitations of the photographic plate, a large bellows extension was required to compensate for the varying image distance during zooms (Clark, 4) At around the same period in 1902, C. C. Allen took a different approach towards creating a variable-focus lens (Clark, 4). The â€Å"Allen lens†, as it came to be known, utilized a three-lens system that contained an axially movable middle lens and two stationary outer lenses. This system was unlike the telephoto lens in that it did not require a bellows extension as its image distance remained identical for two positions of the middle lens. While there was the presence of focus defects with lens movement beyond these two positions, they were usually tolerable over a narrow range of focal lengths. This narrow focal range inevitably placed great limitations on this system’s zooming capacity. The stage has been set for the two major types of zoom lens that shall remain in constant competition with each other over the next 100 years: Machinally compensated and optically compensated zoom lenses. The telephoto lens could be thought of as the ancestor of all mechanically compensated lenses (Clark, 5). These lenses are heavily dependent on the use of cams to produce an independent, non-linear relationship between the movements of its zoom elements, which in turn achieve the change in power of the lens and maintain the image at some fixed plane (Clark, 12). On the other hand, the Allens lens could be thought to be the originator of all optically compensated lenses (Clark, 5). These lenses maintained a fixed, linear relationship between the movements of its zoom elements, often though means that directly connect the elements together. Like the Allen lens, all optically compensated zoom lens inescapably produces focus defects, resulting in a final image which oscillates around a mean focusing position (Clark, 30). With the above designs nowhere near perfect, subsequent improvements in lens design all worked to improve both the zoom range and the correction of lens aberrations. In 1932, the Bell Howell Cooke â€Å"Varo† zoom lens became the first ever true zoom lens developed for 35mm cinematography (Warmisham and Mitchell 339). The â€Å"Varo† was a mechanically compensated zoom lens which used cams to operate a variable three-element system, and provided a maximum 3:1 zoom (40 to 12 mm); however, the design was flawed in that with an increasing focal length, the aperture would decrease, creating difficulties in maintaining corrections (Clark, 6). It was still too early and too ambitious of a move for mechanically compensated zoom lenses to be wielding three elements at a time, and lens designers soon reverted back to using only two zoom elements at a time (Clark, 26). After a slow start in the 1930’s, optically compensated zoom lenses came zooming back with the announcement of the â€Å"Zoomar† lens in 1946, developed by F. G. Back for Zoomar Incorporated (Clark, 8). This lens, made for motion-picture cameras, was in improved optically compensated zoom lens that had five positive-component optical elements, the second and fourth being coupled to move together axially. This arrangement allowed the decrease of image shift that is typical of optically compensated zoom lenses (Kingslake, 5). Unfortunately, with as many as twenty-two optical elements altogether, the Zoomar lens suffered from an inability to correct for the Petzval sum, a lens aberration which results in a severely curved image plane. As if to answer for this flaw, in 1949 the SOM-Berthiot â€Å"Pan-Cinor† lens was introduced (Kingslake, 5). Developed by R. H. R. Cuvillier, this was yet another optically compensated zoom lens; however, it differed from the Zoomar in that instead of using an all-positive lens system, the Pan-Cinor lens coupled a pair of positive components with a negative component in between them (Kingslake, 5). This simple addition of a negative component provided the necessary correction to lens aberration such as the Petzval sum, and ultimately made the Pan-Cinor lens far superior to the Zoomar lens (Clark, 9). Meanwhile, led by H. Hopkins, the mechanically compensated zoom lenses had their share of progress from 1945-1950 (Clark, 9). H. Hopkins was able to design a system that was basically symmetrical, with two negative middle units which mirrored one another’s movements and two identical, fixed positive outer units, this symmetry greatly aided in the correction of lens aberrations (Clark, 24). One of the most renowned advances in the field of optically compensated zoom lens was made in 1953 by L. Reymond (Clark, 9). By reversing the powers of the Pan-Cinor lens, he created a system comprised of two coupled negative elements moving with a positive stationary element between them; in addition, Reymond added another stationary positive element to the front of the unit, making it a four-lens optically compensated zoom unit. What this setup was able to achieve was a drastically reduced image plan oscillation as well as four points of correct focus throughout the zoom range instead of the traditional three points (Clark, 9). This was truly a breakthrough for optically compensated zoom lenses. For the mechanically compensated zoom lens, it had to wait until 1971 for its next breakthrough (Clark, 26). In response to the demands made for a zoom lens optimized with a wider angle of view and shorter working distance, G. H. Cook and F. R. Laurent introduced a three-zoom-element system. This lens was capable of covering the most frequently used focal lengths of the fixed-focus lenses in 35 mm cinematography, and produced comparable image quality to fixed-focus lenses (Clark, 27). This brings us to the end of a period in zoom lens development in which there is a clear-cut difference between one class of lens versus the other. Although many cinematographers may prefer the sharp focus of the mechanically compensated lens over the simplistic operation of the optically compensated lens, a merging of their best qualities was inevitable in pursuit of perfection (Clark, 28). As the complexity of zoom lens design increased with higher expectations for performance, manual design would no longer suffice. Soon, lens designers found the perfect solution: the computer. With the progression of zoom lens development into the 1970’s, computer optimization programs became a standard tool for lens designers (Kienholz, 1443). These programs increased the efficiency of lens design drastically, as observed when Kienholz re-designed a 1956 lens using the Grey program on a CDC 6600 computer in 1970. Post-optimization, it was shown that the final lens had 11. 8%, 4. 9% and 9. 7% reduction in lens distortion for the wide-angle, intermediate, and telephoto positions of the zoom lens (Kienholz, 1451). In addition, there were improvements in almost all parameters including lateral color and image quality throughout the zoom range. Computer optimization programs can also be seen to work in tandem with other technological advancements. In the early 1990’s, â€Å"aspherical lens† became hot research item due to its exceptional ability to correct aberrations that were commonly associated with conventional spherical lens (Betansky, 657). The use of aspherics would therefore provide ways to decrease the number of lens elements originally used for the purposes of aberration correction, making a zoom system more compact (Yatsu, Deguchi and Maruyama, 663). At the same time, the design of zoom lenses containing aspherical components became even more complicated due to an increased in design parameters. Here, computer optimization programs were used to analyze the parameters one by one and generate a proper design solution (Yatsu, Deguchi and Maruyama, 663). Today, computer programs have become so powerful that precise prediction of various aberrations is possible (Usui et al. , 389) These new simulation programs allow DP’s to give input as to what â€Å"look† they think the perfect zoom lens should produce while allowing researchers to translate their expectations into technical designs. We have truly arrived at a new era for the design of zoom lens, where lens designers, with help from DP’s, can create very practical technical masterpieces that convey artistic ideas from the director’s mind into the audience’s eyes. Now the a general history of the zoom lens has been provided, now we will be looking at how the zoom lens has been used in film productions. With its varifocal properties, the original purpose of a zoom lens was to allow cinematographers to use one lens only throughout the entire shooting process, thereby generating more efficiency. However, the ability of the lens to zoom during shots and the visual effects generated in such shots became much more valuable tools for creative directors. Film makers often choose to employ zoom lens due to its ability to relay a sense of realism to the audiences- by zooming in from a distance, it is possible to simulate the effect of watching someone or some act in secrecy. One example of a film that used this effect extensively is Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005), which depicted the trauma that hits an Israeli assassin who was seeking revenge from the terrorists responsible from the 1972 Munich massacre. Spielberg and his DP not only used the zoom effect to depict a more realistic fitting sense of espionage, but they also wanted to make the film feel as if it were really taking place in the 70’s. This gave the setting of the film a more authentic feel to the audience. A similar usage of the zoom lens can be seen in Alan Rudolph’s Afterglow (1997). Being a film with a plot that revolves around adultery and emotions, Rudolph wanted to give his shots a voyeuristic feeling (A Luminous Afterglow). By combining long takes with well-choreographed zoom shots, Rudolph was able to guide the audience through performances developed during the course of a shot and allow them to â€Å"watch† the actors, exploring the scenes in ways they would never dare. Perhaps one of the most well-known zoom effects is the â€Å"dolly zoom†, or alternatively called the â€Å"Vertigo zoom†. This technique was pioneered by Alfred Hitchhock in his classic film Vertigo (1958). This effect basically stimulates the dizzying sensation of vertigo by zooming in one direction and dollying in another direction (Ashcer and Pincus, 98). In Vertigo, the main character John â€Å"Scottie† Ferguson develops a severe case of altophobia. The dolly zoom is used to show an altophobic reaction in Scottie’s point of view to show the audience what the character is experiencing due to his case of vertigo. Thus far, this same effect has been widely popularized in features from the Thriller or Horror genres, commonly used to express extreme emotions of the subjects (Valluri). Another example is a film again by Steven Spielberg. In Spielberg’s thriller film Jaws (1975), he was able to re-popularize the â€Å"Vertigo zoom† in a memorable shot of a dolly zoom into a character’s stunned reaction at the climax of a shark attack on a beach (after a suspenseful build-up). With the widespread application of zoom lenses in the film industry today, it is hard to imagine that even just thirty years ago, it was considered impossible to produce a zoom lens whose image quality is comparable to ones generated by fixed focus lenses (Clark, 2). Indeed, the application of zoom lens has always been essential and existent all-throughout the history of film and cinematography and it has been used it so many films that can help depict various elements such as character emotion and setting tones. Zoom lenses have come a long way in over a hundred years, and it is without a doubt that with the progression of cinematic technology, even more picture-perfect zoom lenses would be developed to fit the needs of the motion picture production communities. Works Cited Ascher, Steven, and Edward Pincus. The Filmmaker’s Handbook. New York: Plume, 1999 B, Benjamin. â€Å"The Price of Revenge. † American Cinematographer 87. 2 (2006) 1-3. 6 April 2010 http://www. theasc. com/magazine/feb06/munich/page1. html. Clark, A. D.. Zoom Lenses, Monographs in Applied Optics Vol. 7. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company Inc. , 1973. Fumiaki, Usui, Jun Osaya, Ken Ito, And Laurence Thorpe. â€Å"A New HD Cine Zoom Lens For Digital Motion Pictures. † SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal. Oct/Nov (2005): 383-395 Kienholz, D. F.. â€Å"The Design of a Zoom Lens with a Large Computer. † Applied Optics. 9(6)(1970): 1443-1452. Kingslake, Rudolf. â€Å"The Development of the Zoom Lens. † Journal of the SMPTE. 69(1960): 534-544.