Above us only smog

Sky of the year 2014

2014 was definitely the year of the sky, so it's only fair to present the sky of the year 2014 award. Skies started getting odd late January and they have been quite embarrassing throughout the year. July had windy spells which blew some blue back and November saw almost natural circumstances for most days, but that was about it. Last weeks have been daily madness all over again.

Early skies were scary yet beautiful, later they became more depressing, with growing difficulty to enjoy the show, not in the least through the ever thickening smog over our heads. Patterns have changed. In the beginning it was all long lines widening out and creating the famed Milky Veil. After summer short fat lines which quickly dissolved but filled the sky with filth nonetheless, certainly nothing like ordinary planes produce, started appearing. On coinciding days they would manage to block the sun out of a cloudfree sky. Those skies have certainly earned their égards for growing into the new normal, but since we are entering a new year, we now may expect to see it happen once more, a year in which a lot of our strength and wisdom will be needed, I propose a beauty contest. Which skies have most awed us? Do you remember? I took pictures to help me. I started in January and took a lot in summer, autumn skies were flatter with the ingreying doing damage. Some are quite dramatic, clouds building a theatre stage high up over the land, enormous spectacles of Dalí inspired sculpture, on the other hand a veil fighting it out with the sun. Yet nothing was done with them. Nobody talked about this daily circus in our skies. I altered some of these pictures, looking for the colours beneath the inevitable grey tones, and made a couple T-shirts with them. The photos presented in my top five are mostly in their original state.

5 Catalunya

Our summer was handsomely wrecked by all the spraying from airplanes and early August felt like November, not in the least considering how dark it sometimes was. These skies are totally fake and they were taking away our sun. For skin protection, they told us in autumn.

4 Through the heart

Milky veil with struggling sun and a fresh chemtrail stabbing it straight through the heart in late afternoon, now there is a classic picture we have seen way too often this year. This one is from June, near Castelldefels. I really like its dreamlike quality.

3 Music

The beauty of those plucky cotton skies is in their ability to allow extreme close ups. With the sun peeping through, the clouds look like an orchestra of barking dogs, well conducted by the voice of the light. Music in the sky, I like to call this one. 't Was on a bright June Saturday, we had a couple of those, with skies we would never see again afterwards, real early stage art live in the making.

2 Tourist spec

When people surface from their metro ride they all look upwards, just to see how far construction has progressed since the last time they trod these steps. Tourists, of course, don't leave it at that. In their well-practiced awe they stop in their stride and grab for their photo camera, with busy locals angrily urging them on. It's a classic display of mutual dislike. But is any one of these people looking beyond the spires to see what's going on further up? I thought it quite the spectacle and deserving of a top spot.

1 Elephant

For all that it represents of the year 2014, this picture receives our award. June at the beach, the water still a bit chilly but the mood uplifting. After horror May everybody was in for a funky summer. Notice how nobody seems too interested in that ridiculous cotton pattern over their heads. They rather turn their face to the oddly white sunlight. But I was lying on my back and I saw this one coming. Call that a cloud? I chose to call it the elephant in the sky. I made a T-shirt out of this picture.

The plight of the gardener (a gardener’s complaint)

An old Chinese saying goes like this. If you want to be happy for an evening, get drunk; if you want to be happy for a week, go travelling; if you want to be happy for a year, get married; if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, grow a garden. I had this in mind when in January I finally set foot on my first roof terrace. I'd had balconies before and a real garden once, but the latter didn't serve for much in the shade of surrounding buildings. This time I got what I'd been looking for. I wanted to balance my sorry life as a western consumer with shooting some green into the world. I was close a long, long time ago, but I hadn't developed any garden feelings yet at that age. The hours spent in my mother's garden still lingered fresh in my memory. I set out with a two shelf terrace, with herbs and paprika on top and carrots with zucchini and albergina below in a wooden ditch. Some more albergina and zucchini in separate boxes, all fixed from leftover wood and filled with large amounts of dirt, the cheapest stuff available at the garden super. It all had to be carried two floors up. Not bad.

Early days were good. Everything sprang from seeds and most did well. The daily chemtrailing assault by then was running its first quarter and the sky had not yet been saturated as it is today. (Every week is worse than the last, whatever the days look like. And the same goes for months and for years. It's just a descent into hell.)

Anyway, we weren't so depressed at the start. Just bewildered and angry, scared if you will. I tried to forget about the madness by concentrating on my gardener's plight. To protect the plants from the rain which had started falling and which was of course horribly filthy from whatever it was they were spraying, I had built a plexi glass roof over my little vertical garden, like a cabinet to the sun. Later I extended the roof when indeed albergina was seriously hurt by some showers, burning holes in her beautiful, thick leaves. She managed to recuperate quickly once safe, with zucchini's negro belleza not quite that lucky. May was pure horror with nonstop rain and wind, me having a hard time protecting my herd from horizontal shower attacks. June started the road downwards, away from the dying sun, dry and dirty and not even warm, let alone hot, from all the filth in the air. The layer woven on some days captured our own produce for added pleasure. Only the winds of July kept the skies clean for some weeks, the lower parts that is, where we breathe and live. Higher up you were starting to see a deep platinum veil at perhaps 6 kilometres, it's hard to say how high. In August the deepness was covered with a milky veil which kept most of the sun at bay, and in September, a month with a touch of July in it, the overall background colour had turned a plastic grey and our creator in the sky now was barely able to send us their hope and support, remedies that on the Mediterranean coast have always been abundantly available.

Over the summer, the plants suffered tremendously. Zucchini didn't make it, though she did give me some flowers for dinner. Albergina fared much better. She resisted the intermittent attacks of summer, especially the scorching levels of UV raining down when the sun stood high. That's all gone now. September has been easy and rich with produce, not bad for a first year intent considering the hardships getting them through summer. I will need more than a greenhouse for protection next year, I'll need shade. If there is going to be a next year, that is, because at the rate we are going it's starting to look like a pretty filthy winter. And how are we going to escape from that one come next spring? Will mother nature have any strength left?

I've eaten twenty tiny hot paprikas which turned sweet if you let them go red. I've had an equal number of small but wonderfully fresh tasting albergines, I had two growths of rúcula, one before it all went bad and the other in the aftermath when at least the persistent good temperatures and the much weaker sun created something of a green power ambiance which most of the plants seemed to have picked up and joined in with. One of the marías died while being away for a few days. A sudden July flash flood had seriously damaged her roots. It was all too wet and the leaves were burning. All three marías suffered heavy leave loss at some moment during summer and they sort of scraped through, but for this drowned goddess it wasn't going to be. The other two are fighting to produce enough honey before the lights go out on the season, probably come early this year.

My roof garden will celebrate its first year of the new era shortly after winter. Be it still a while away, already the contract between plant life and caretaker is feeling much like a marriage. I hadn't thought it would be quite as difficult as it turned out to be under the unforeseen circumstances. I had done smaller projects before, to the availability of space and sunshine, and they had mostly worked out to the satisfaction of both plant and man, under the sorry circumstances.

I shouldn't be whining and complaining so much, I know. When I started out, the spraying had already begun so inside I knew it was going to be a very difficult year. I understood anything I managed to get out of my garden would be seriously contaminated. I sensed I was tending a garden not so much as to help reduce the footprint as well as out of despair. Nothing in this world can balance the amounts of poison thrown out over our heads around the world. So what I have been doing up here was never more than a protest, than a cry of anger, than silent, stubborn resistance. Yet I feel betrayed. Whoever are behind the spraying programme, they could have given us a few more years. If they so desperately need to get rid of us, they might as well let us wither away, see what comes.

Unfortunately these days, America seems to be on a death trip and the whole world will go down with her if nobody steps in. There are candidates, I hear, but not all can find everybody's approval. So we'll see how long we last. Meanwhile I continue tilling the soil, squeeze out the last juices and prepare for a winter setup with onions and potatoes and some cabbage, I guess.

I hope it will last.

Funky clouds

Check out some of the pictures we took in the greater Barcelona region over the last couple months. Some have been adultered, but only colour wise. 

Don't forget to check out earlier months. Lots of interesting stuff!

laying their milky veil

this is what passes for normal in 2014

Peñiscola sunset

 

Climate Gone - surreal isms under a surreal sky

The Climate Gone trilogy (see entries for April and May) originally appeared in agitadoras.com, April to June 14 issues respectively. Check out www.agitadoras.com

As before, you're never quite sure what kind of weather to expect when you're stepping outside, especially not in this transitional season towards summer. Will it be warm, cold, dry, dripping, sunny, cloudy, overcast, harsh, mellow, windy or still? But different from when the weather still was made by what we with a mixture of fondness and awe would call the elements, these days when the elements have turned into the ones from the periodic table our choice has been severely restricted to a mere handful of standardised rain/sun types with a few funky mix-ups. As if we have changed back the pantone disc for a box of crayons.

The subterranean traveller that particular morning was offered scattered rainclouds under a high milky sky with plenty of sun shining through. He noticed how under the clouds temperatures rapidly went down a wholly ten degrees and then shot back up in the next stroke of sunshine. It made him want to evade the rain ever so fervently, nothing but danger coming from the skies these days. Not that he longed for the hot spells either. The air would get very dry and dusty under those hazy curtains, with airplanes further up busy spraying the remaining holes. The air had got so dirty it came to notably hurt his lungs and skin and bones. He recognised his fellow sufferers in growing numbers. Some days he did wish for rain, as dirty as it be. Tap water now also had begun to stink after half an hour standing, a feat best avoided when maintaining a pleasant atmosphere in the flat.

People walking the streets from having nothing else to do, spending only dimes. The shopkeepers are losing their smile. Nobody talks about the surreal weather, though it clearly affects everybody. Nobody talks about the government either, though it clearly aims to hurt the majority. The climate has been fully artificial since late January when the massive daily spraying campaign began, going into its fifth month soon. How much longer were they supposed to hang on? Would there be relieve after summer or was this meant to continue for the rest of ever? Questions people rather not dealt with when their money problems were scarcely solved.

Neus Eddict this time round firmly believed the aliens were doing it to us and it were not going to end good, the traveller carefully dodging the subject. How are the plants?

They suffer from chlorophyll shortage. Can you imagine, the sun has already lost twenty percent of her strength. They've made the air so fucking dirty the plants can't even get green. How's that for a climate change?

There are no climates any longer, just weather types, the subterranean mixed in. This crazy thing is the same everywhere you go. Hot sunshine, cold rain and those off-limits ice winds, everybody has them.

Why must they destroy everything, asked Neus, why can't they just let it rot? We're not going anywhere, in the state we're in.

They had been called to the ballot box once again, this time by Europe. In Spain the race was nationalised and cut down to the usual two unsightly figures, offering law and crackdown the one and utterly nothing the other. Just being there apparently was regarded the alternative approach. Where the traveller lived there was the added bonus of the lately somewhat withering campaign for independence, a concept contraire to Europe's devouring manners. Now Ukraine had been taken, snatched from under the nose of Russia. Power was handed to a bunch of nazi warriors whom the talking heads of their countries quite shamelessly referred to as well-behaved liberals. They soon enough started taking liberties against their compatriots; like when in 1936 the war got going here, the subterranean speculated. It also looked a lot like Libya counting. All over the place the war machine was creating havoc. Everybody were losing from it.

A couple appeared, introduced to the subterranean as Poma Carne de los Bítel and Adamán. The woman was a soft spoken friend who automatically joined in with prevailing beliefs and inviting the traveller to embed, the man looking like he was going to want to outsmart him with unfunny witticisms.

Neus showed some clips with HAARP action, explaining how the jetstream was botched by laying chemical high pressure zones at the right altitude, causing those unseasonal temperatures, and then pointed upwards. The sky was now a metallic light blue with creamy, evenly sized clouds, much like the sky over Springfield, USA. It's the same everywhere, she said, there are no climates any longer.

Adamán is suffering terribly from these surreal skies, Poma Carne announced, sharing hands with Neus. He is losing his thoughts and can't concentrate, getting this empty head feeling.

Empty head?

And just this week he's been chased by lightning.

We had a mean storm, we're from the mountains, Adamán duly served up. I was returning from a neighbouring farm with eggs and cheese. Really nice weather, perhaps a few clouds, when suddenly one cloud grew a lot bigger and closed in on me. It started raining from just that cloud, I could see sunny patches further downhill. And then it struck several times, from that lonely cloud above my head, always very near though it never touched me. I looked up and I thought, what if there's a machine inside that cloud, and I got very scared.

The subterranean smugly smiled at the other's celebrated fear. Had you given them reason to distrust you?

Maybe I was just the odd one out, Adamán offered.

The traveller, lacking kindness here: maybe you happened to be on a similar route as the storm.

The weather surreal, nazism hailed, elections that nobody seemed to care much about, politicians telling their lies without the public listening: EU is Dead. And the skies keep filling and bodies start to respond with stress related illnesses and fatigue.

But it wasn't true.

Or so they said.

The subterranean traveller shared a smile with Poma Carne, who looked much younger than she probably was. She had beautiful hips, he noticed, round and firm, as was her smile, and she seemed to want to show him some more of herself. The traveller now feeling the heat of Adamán's downfall, who was he to give the last push when he didn't even know these people?

It was not hip to be aware of the other and it certainly brought little gains in the economic reality, yet the desire to be good was irresistible in what looked to be the dying moments of Earth's atmosphere. The traveller didn't want to go out shagging around, is what he meant. He wanted to go out on his back, conscious and comfortable. When he was young they would never bother to be good, with very few people realising where it all were heading for of course. Now the least they could do was repent their foolishness. In the end the only thing they were ever going to be able to take out of this planet was consciousness. Why would one want to interrupt such a process when not feeling personally attracted?

As always, why the damage?

The subterranean traveller must leave it here.

For weather updates, check out the HAARP report

WEAR SOME WEATHER THIS SUMMER

Here in Barcelona (Catalunya) 2014 is the year of artificial skies. Since mid January they have been chemtrailing us on a daily basis. Result: everybody is sick from the air pollution, plants won't grow and the clouds look totally fantastic - or horrible, if you are sensitive to the planet's well-being. Ever since it started we have been taking pictures and now we have turned some of those images into T-shirt designs. Why? Because nobody seems willing to discuss what is going on above their heads, so we thought we might attract people's attention by putting some weather on our chests. As weird as the pictures may look, we want to stress that all we've changed are the colours. What you see is what we get.

I made this one in late June on Mar Bella, people staring at the white sunlight while these clouds were passing overhead.

Have a look at our other shirts. If you are interested in wearing them, you can either have us produce you one and send it by mail or ask for the design and do it yourself. We know this debilitating spraying is going on around the planet. If you're feeling lousy, you're not alone. So if you'd be interested in bringing out similar T-shirts be our guest. We would like to know about it though. Anyway, time to send us an email at: jpjhamminga@gmail.com. This summer we'll all be wearing the weather on our chests. Below you'll find our first prints. More designs are in the making. Further down there is other stuff we are engaged in.

Take good care.

It's just too big not to see it.

Intelligence Deficiency Gap

For additional information, see ufo or plane?  and  possible reasons

After some dire weeks with steadily increasing pollution levels leading to severe respiration difficulties for many, two days of rain had at least cleared the skies a bit. Strange, upside down hanging doomsday clouds would give off their load and disappear in under half an hour when their task was apparently done. The resulting fine layer of orange dust which remained over plants and streets alike was sold to the public as Sahara sands, though the winds had been predominantly westerly. When the subterranean traveller checked out on Neus Eddict again, once more watching planes laying new blankets in the wonderfully old-fashioned clean air, he was in reasonably high spirits.

Neus had been reading all kinds of new things and was beginning to see the larger picture, she told, and this information, as hard to swallow as it was, was giving her the tranquillity of knowing what to expect. We are being sprayed by aliens, is what she claimed. The pilots are humans, of course, most likely American soldiers, but the program is clearly commissioned by extraterrestrials. Neus looked completely earnest, not at all trying to be smart or sound particularly unsettling.

So, what's it good for, then? the traveller asked joyously, the levels of oxygen in the air putting an inerasable smile on his face.

Our demise, I'm afraid, answered Neus Eddict. They want us dead. They're not interested in new smarties in the universe. So, before we can enter the game they want to get rid of us. They must have been checking out on us for some time when they decided to approach the europeans and the americans in the nineteen thirties, them being in control of affairs clearly. Neus told how aliens had been sharing technology with some of the more repressive regimes they encountered, knowing and appreciating these new possibilities would be used against the own and enemy populations of those regimes, and all this was perceived as standard alien presence information.

But they can't do it without help, the traveller pointed out.

What's in it for our complying elites, you wonder? Salvation, of course, in the underground hideouts which have been built the world all over or on Mars or something, plus a vain believe they might one day hook up with our destroyers and become part of the universal problem. Neus chuckling girlishly.

This is all going rather fast for me, the subterranean responded. I mean, how do you know this information is correct?

I don't, admitted Neus with the broad grin her small face was unexpectedly capable of. That is perhaps our biggest problem, isn't it? She was smoking heavily from a hand-cut wooden pipe. We have no idea how far we've been left behind since digitalisation made knowledge a tradable good. We don't know what we're not supposed to know.

With some private knowledge on the side, I hope, the traveller erupted.

Neus put a hand on the subterranean's knee. Can you believe it possible, she asked, pointing up at some sudden pitch black clouds on the once again hazy blue sky, the relieve of clean air short-lived and an unseasonably cold fall wind reminding them what such clouds were dragging along. Can you see the american war machine creating this technology and then using it against the human population? Do you perhaps need an alien in command, to render the story more trustworthy?

Like you? But do you then, for real?

Neus Eddict held her answer back for as long as she deemed it acceptable. What do I know, man, she let go. Again she touched the traveller. I see the daily assault. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop soon, so I'm wondering how many people will die from this? What are the aims? Couple of billions, maybe all of them?

Have you thought of the possibility of a serious environmental disaster, the subterranean traveller offered. Your methane story or perhaps a completely vanished ozone layer, so that they have to do this to at least postpone the end another while.

Methane's not a story, it's a very scary truth. Have you noticed how hot the sun feels when she is shining through as she still sometimes is. That's not an April sun.

Winter sun was also warmer this year.

There you have it. Not sure where her argument was leading, Neus handed over her pipe and the traveller reluctantly took what he hoped would be an unsubstantial drag. Neus then was watching him for a while. What's your name, she suddenly demanded.

I have no name.

No name?

I'm known as the subterranean traveller, but there's no person behind the word.

No person? Do you mean you don't exist?

Only as character.

Neus chewed on those words for a while. Is it possible to have uncompromising sex with an empty character, she informed.

I would certainly think so.

She already had her arms around him. You don't mind me being older than you?

I mind preciously few things about you, the subterranean came through. It earned him a hot kiss. You are younger than most beyond age 25. A second kiss, with a good grab in his crotch. The subterranean, as usual, felt slightly awkward, though it was promising to know she still wanted him with the truth out.

Neus led the traveller to her bedroom. I believe we are done for and it's making me hot as hell. The traveller at that same moment did not want to admit this whole weather modification madness was sucking all life's juices out of his body. Just pretend everything is hunky dory and you will do all right, he told himself.

After something of a performance they cruised the streets of Neus' neighbourhood. It's so hard to look at people these days, commented Neus. Are they blissfully unaware of what is happening above their heads? Are they too afraid to speak out? What's going on with us?

The subterranean traveller had no answer. He was suffering from a severe intelligence deficiency gap.

He's just told her

“He’s just 

told her 

there’s going 

to be war.”

close-ups stolen from jewel samad