Experimentation.
Often drives people crazy.
Often fails.
Often leads to derision.

Occasionally discovers a New World.
And it’s that quest for a new world that drives the unsettled, the unsatisfied to experiment.
Which often drives people crazy.

Below is such an experiment.
Illustrating a chapter of my manuscript, Conflicted, in two parts, one today and one tomorrow.

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Tagging Today
Thursday, October 18, 2018
My 191st consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 48
and it will be sunny and windy.

Dinner is Swordfish garnished with a Cacciatore Sauce.

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Quiz Question of the Day:
What is the correct method of attribution of copyrighted photographs?

I asked Howard for his thoughts and so combine here the Answer to the Quiz Question and Contact from Bloggers.
His response: 

Let’s say there’s a fair use to which you want to put an image of Charles Sheeler’s. 

You capture it, from whatever source, without breaking any laws doing so (like hacking into a site, or stealing the art and taking a photo of it before you sell it to Christie’s, etc. …) and you put it in your layout: 

And you decide, maybe you’d better give it an attribution. If the source is any good, they make it easy to the extent they provide in accessible form the words and other characters you need to do it properly. In the case of the source I used for this example, they actually offer it in all the popular forms (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) 

Thus: 

APA: Sheeler, Charles, U.S.. (1930). American Landscape. Retrieved from https://library.artstor.org/asset/AIC_820026  

MLA: Sheeler, Charles, U.S.. American Landscape. 1930. Artstor, library.artstor.org/asset/AIC_820026  

Chicago: Sheeler, Charles, U.S.. 1930. American Landscape. https://library.artstor.org/asset/AIC_820026. 

You’d simply copy and paste the citation in immediate proximity to the image (which is the easiest and cleanest way to do it), likely in the caption, which may or may not otherwise describe the subject matter or contain remarks you wish to make in your pithy way. Or you can put it in a separate section as endnotes. Or you can put in on the same page, if your layout permits this, as a footnote. Or you can put it in as a sidenote, usually in parentheses in the text referring to the illustration. 

So. 

The good news is, it’s pretty easy with minimal effort, to get the proper citation information. The bad news is, you have to process it manually by the old expedient of cut-and-paste. With stock photos, incidentally, unless there are specific requirements from the stock photo provider, it’s not necessary to say anything more than (stock photo) or (Photo source: stock). Some stock photo providers, paid or free, do require that you name them, e.g., Getty. 

And by the way, providers of visual material do pay increasing amounts of money to have monitoring software on the web seek out their images and when they find them to ensure that they are properly attributed and, if appropriate, paid for. They’re mainly after major offendors, and not the millions of people like us who have very small audience personal blogs. Facebook also monitors their subscriber pages to make sure they are not using purloined materials that may be copyright.

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Here is my experiment: incorporating a generous number of illustrations in my manuscript, hitherto without any illustrations.
Would appreciate any comments.
I am using Chapter Seventeen of the manuscript as the subject, presenting it in two parts, one posted today and one tomorrow.

To update you, after being kidnapped and held for five weeks by minions of the devil and forcibly addicted to heroin, Dee has been rescued, gone through a very short recovery, and is reunited with her friends. They are having dinner at a lovely restaurant.

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CONFLICTED

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

6.00pm, Saturday, 4 February, 2017

Promptly at six, “Ah, yes. Roberto’s special friends. So happy to have you with us tonight,” the lead in a welcoming group of three equally attractive, formally-attired young women. “Eleanor will walk you to your table. Have a wonderful evening.”

The girls, Dee at the end of the file, followed Eleanor, she carrying four large menus, to their table in the center of the dark, deep-pile carpeted dining room with several well-placed, tasteful sconces casting a subdued lighting perfect for both the taupe fabric-covered walls and white-clothed tables set with fine china, silverplate, and sparkling crystal.

Immediately on sitting, Dee found the sommelier and asked if they had a bottle of Dom Perignon, “Mais oui, Mademoiselle. We have a choice of a vintage, 2009, very fine, or a non-vintage.”

“The 2009, please.”  The sommelier went off to arrange the wine, replaced by the captain with the dinner specials.

Ordering dinner just as easy as the wine: each of them buying into the Menu Gastronomique, a ten-course, selected-by-the-chef banquet, leaving them to choose only the meat course from among a selection of four, making that decision, too, simple, Laini saying, “One of each, please.”

Almost immediately after the captain’s withdrawal, the amuse-bouches arrived, tonight’s complimentary single-bite-welcome served in a miniature flute: a tablespoon of white froth. Without any ado, the girls knocked the tastes back.

“Wow! That tasted like a hundred carrots,” Lori-Baby.

Laini, “I never had anything like that before.” Stella and Dee agreed.

“Does that count as one of the ten courses?” Lori-Baby.

“No. That’s a throwaway. A show-off piece with the chef’s compliments. I think later we’ll get a show-off piece from the dessert chef, often a plate of cookies. ‘What every educated girl must know,’” Dee. “I read the book.”

The sommelier returned with the champagne, and after the presentation of the label, the taste – “Delicious,” Dee saying – and the pour, he set the bottle in an ice bucket on a side table and withdrew. The girls raised their glasses and Dee led the toast to Aunt Clara, “…who made tonight’s dinner, and the thousands more to follow, possible. Wish you were here, my dear aunt.”

“All of us do, dear Aunt Clara,” echoed Stella, the group clinking glasses and sipping.

Laini set her glass down saying, “Dee, do you realize that you slept from noon to four this afternoon? Four hours straight?”

“Do you realize I would have slept till tomorrow morning if we didn’t have this dinner planned?”

Lori-Baby, “Dee, you’re so exhausted. How many times when you were missing we wanted to kick ourselves for not protecting you.”

“No. Not an iota of truth in that. No one could have helped. Blame will only fall on you if you turn this conversation away from the really important things we have to talk about tonight.” Dee summarized details of the kidnap, finishing: “So, my kidnappers took me to a cottage in Hyannis, and for a while, kept me tied up like in a cocoon – I could hardly breathe.

“But after a few days of needles I didn’t even consider escape. Where would I get my drugs? Weeks later I heard a commotion. I went outside and saw the rescue party. I wanted to scream. I think I did scream.”

The waiters brought over their first tiny course: “Crispy tofu with fresh soybeans, miso butter and dashi,” which Dee finished in two small bites.

“How are you with the addiction?”

“It’s in the past. No issue.”

“Did they feed you? Abuse you?”

“I ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, MacDonald’s, and Chinese food. But it all tasted the same to me. Abuse me? Not sexually. But I’m full of rage anyway. I’ve never felt so vengeful.”

“You’ve had bad experiences before,” Lori-Baby.

“And with each event a little bit of my innocence dies; and bit by bit the possibility of living a simple life has been taken from me. This time the worst.” She paused. “This time I lost my ability to pray.”

“I don’t understand,” Lori-Baby.

“I hate myself for craving heroin so badly. I can’t deal with the weakness: fear, shame, pride, remorse? I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to ask forgiveness. I know I’ll be forgiven in a flash. And I don’t deserve forgiveness. I deserve punishment.”

Stella, “Is that why you wanted to see Sister Mary Margaret?”

“Yes. She was great, of course. She always is.”

Lori-Baby, “I love her so much. What a sweetheart she’s been. Do you think she felt badly the way we pushed her aside today?”

Laini, “The old bum’s rush.”

Dee, “Couldn’t be helped. We had work to do. She’ll understand in a day or two when she’s thought it out. But hold the questions for a while. Let me share some more background with you,” Dee next recounting details of the Larry Messer take-down knifing incident.

“He committed murder for points? A game? Like a dare?” Lori-Baby.

Dee told them of the word, points, showing up at Armani’s and at Aunt Clara’s workshop.

Lori-Baby, “Sounds to me like a video game for perverts: earn points while you do dirty deeds.”

“But what do the points get them?” Laini.

Dee, “I’ve been thinking about that; as well as asking what does the gamer get out of the crimes he’s soliciting. I’m concluding that our enemy is conducting two distinct lines of attack. The less important one is directed against me, personally: my kidnapping, Grandfather, Aunt Clara, and now my stalker.”

“You have a stalker?” Lori-Baby.

“With a neon sign proclaiming. But these personal attacks are red herrings, a strategy to occupy or deflect me. If I were their intended target they’d be sneakier. Instead, their attacks are public, overt, like my stalker saying, “Hey, look at me; here I am.’ Through it all, I’ve never felt my own life threatened. Somehow, the word is out that killing me is not an option. So, I must be alert for my safety but I think we have to look to crimes involving points to discover what the enemy is really about. His ‘Plan B,’ which we can talk about later.”

“Do you have any early thoughts about points?” Stella.

“Other than points for money, no. But, obviously, there’s a tie-in to a devilish plan to encourage crime. To what end? Not sure. We’ve seen the word pop up in unrelated events: Auntie Clara’s, Armani’s, Officer Messer. We came closest with him, except that the perpetrator was killed before he could say much.” She sipped her champagne, set her glass down, and looked at her girlfriends saying, “My point is war has begun; and I don’t intend to sit back and wait for the enemy’s next move.”

The next course arrived: hominy fritters with fiddlehead ferns, brown butter, maple whipped cream, and spiced boiling onions. Admiring the presentation took Dee more time than eating the miniscule portion, she finishing before the sommelier had divided the remaining champagne into the four glasses. “Awesome,” her comment. The girls agreed.

Laini picked up her glass and looked at Dee, saying, “Wherever you go with this, we go together.”

“Give no quarter,” Lori-Baby raising her glass.

“I am beginning to feel exhilarated,” Stella, lifting her glass to the center of the table, the girls clinking.

“But I do have one last thought about the points crimes: their randomness. So, dozens of windows were broken on Newbury St. A lot of effort if all you wanted was to target one merchant and hide the true target. And the string of murders that Messer stopped were random. The victims happened to be near when he snapped.”

“Random. Where does that take us?” Lori-Baby.

Stella, “So if the victim isn’t the reason for the crime, the crime itself must be the reason.”

Dee nodding, saying, “Like that.” She paused. “Let’s talk about something else,” Dee.

Excited small talk followed for several moments ending with the arrivals of the fifth course – Fluke sashimi with cucumber dumplings, maple radish, and sweet and sour soy glaze –and the sommelier, he offering the wine book. Dee turned the pages to the red Bordeaux, racing through the offerings, stopping, thinking, ordering a bottle of 1966 Chateau Petrus, handing the book back to the visibly blanching sommelier, he fumbling as he reopened it, bending over a bit to hold it in front of Dee pointing to the line listing her selection, his finger sliding across the page, stopping close to the price, saying, “Is this the wine that mademoiselle would like?”

Dee’s eyes never left his face, “That’s right. The ’66 Chateau Petrus.”

He nodded and withdrew. From the corner of her eye Dee watched him huddle with the restaurant manager, noted the manager’s face tighten, saw him nod. In resignation?

“Dee, that wine costs seventeen hundred dollars,” Laini, whose eyes, unlike Dee’s, did follow the sommelier’s finger to the price column.

“What better time to taste an amazing wine than on the night we reunite and dedicate ourselves to the defeat of our enemies? Don’t worry, my dear. The extravagance simply marks a special night in our lives, not my transformation into a spendthrift. Let’s enjoy the moment.”

Dee saying after a pause, “A special night on many levels.” Saying after a pause, “Did my parents tell you that I’ve said ‘Goodbye’ to Tyngsborough? That I live in Boston?” For a moment, no one spoke. Lori-Baby and Laini frowned, each of them glancing at Stella for a clue, but she, too, perplexed.

            “Your mother seemed a little off last night when she called. We put it down to fatigue but you must have just told your parents and they’re trying to absorb it.” Lori-Baby’s voice low, she looking down at her plate. Laini too, looking away, across the dining room at nothing. Stella confused.

            “I did. They needed to be the first to know.”

Laini misting, her mouth downturned, “Did you think of us when you decided that?”

“Our lawyer will find something temporary, ready in the next several days when I leave rehab.” Laini and Lori-Baby close to tears; Stella not reacting, Dee continuing, “The only detail I insisted on: both the temporary and the permanent places must have at least one exceptionally large bedroom…Ooops. Sorry, I’ll continue after this.”

The second half of this chapter will continue tomorrow.
The experiment testing interest.

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And so “Good Morning!” my friends.

We’ve learned how to attribute copyrighted photographs and we read several pages of a story with illustrations.

Enjoy the day.

Love

Dom