Lucinda Stuenkel's, labor-saving innovations, including building a calving barn, relocating winter feeding sites, and installing a video surveillance system, have saved time and energy and positively impacted water quality. The grass-fed beef operation benefits from the integration of no-till with cover crops, which enables the family to graze approximately 60-65 cow/calf pairs year-round on the Stuenkel farmstead near Palmer, KS.
Prioritizing family time, conservation, and efficiency, the Stuenkel farm saves water, improves water quality, saves energy, and leaves plenty of time to enjoy both the family and the farm.
Read on for more information or download the full case study here!
The water was making a channel into the field - starting another finger of the creek into the field. We could have just filled it in and covered it up and kept farming but decided to try to study the problem and choose the method that would work and be better for the soil and water.
One of the biggest fallacies is that cover crops remove moisture. We found the opposite. Covers actually sequester water and hold it in the soil. Covers mean that a root is holding the soil for 12 months a year or as much as possible. The roots provide a long corridor down to the groundwater and the plant roots from the next grain crop follow that corridor down to the deeper water supply. This makes it easier to grow a crop!
In addition to keeping more water on the land, their practices also preserve the rich topsoil and manages for the extremes: "
Amazingly enough, when you do continuous no-till, you don't have the ponding from heavy rains. The moisture stays where it falls so it goes into the ground instead of evaporating or running off. The soil has the ability to act as a sponge and soak it up. By doing the no-till and cover crops to enhance soil health, we are preparing for both droughts and floods.
The Stuenkels are working to increase the number of livestock waterers and also converting existing water sources to frost-free waterers. The goal is for each paddock to have a water source. The cows would then need to go just 500 feet to the nearest water source instead of all the way to the barn. Frost-free waterers will expand the ability to graze cattle on cover crops in the fields during winter. Some of the ponds are fenced to maintain better water quality.
Continuous pasturing year round keeps the cattle from being penned up for long periods of time, which also reduces waste and nutrient run off into creeks. With the assistance of a Tuttle Creek WRAPS grant, Stuenkel had a winter feeding site moved to the top of the hill to be farther from the creek. This provides more of a grass buffer between the dry lots and the creek, filtering and reducing the impact of nutrient runoff. The continuous pasturing saves in other ways, too.
Putting water in pastures helps to minimize manure in dry lots. Now, we only haul manure from dry lots once a year instead of every couple of weeks. It saves fuel and money. We stockpile grass, to save it for grazing in the winter. We try to coordinate the stockpiled grass so they are adjacent to milo stocks and cover crops.
Crop land between two hedge rows seems to produce more in terms of crops. In the summer, cattle congregate under hedge tress during the heat of the day. They do better both in raising healthier calves and in terms of grooming and body condition if they have benefit of some shade in the summer. Also, it is much better if they can be protected from the cold winds in the wintertime.
With rotational grazing and a pasture resting period to regrow, you can have two or three times the amount of grass you would typically have. In that way, we are saving water and energy, too, because we are basically harvesting the sun with animals. The sun causes photosynthesis, causes grass to grow, then we harvest it with cattle, rather than harvesting with machinery.
Plus, rotational grazing means there are fewer bales to bale, resulting in less fuel and machinery in terms of transporting the feed to the cattle. "Basically, the cows have four legs and they go get the food. I have 65 pairs of grass harvesters," Lucinda quips.
The major reason the family switched to no till was for more family time but the side effect was that it cut the fuel cost dramatically and wear and tear on machinery because we were not using as much.
Additionally, healthier soils mean reduced chemicals which are both energy intensive and have negative impacts on water quality. The Stuenkel's try to spray as little as possible, which has also saved them money.
Improvements to the calving system save fuel, time, and energy, and result in healthier cows. Lucinda installed a video surveillance system in the calving lot. With this system, farmers can check on the cows from their houses in town, instead of driving almost ten miles to see if the cow is calving.
They can pull up the video surveillance on their computer or cell phone. This means we have less frequent trips to check on the cows, plus more sleep! This gives flexibility and freedom, but it saves fuel, too.
The calving pasture is situated such that you can drive on all four sides to observe without going into the pasture to bother the animals or distract them. When distracted, the cows shut down the birthing process to prepare to run. "It's a natural instinct. The less we bother them, the better," Lucinda says.
You want the mother to be a calving ease cow, bred to a calving ease bull, so the process is easier. Last year, all the cows calved with no assistance. We simply counted, tagged, and weighed.
Aside from these energy conservation strategies, some of the farm is powered with renewable energy. Most of the electric fencing is solar powered. They use a polywire temporary fence along the road to keep cattle off of neighbor's fields when moving to adjacent fields. Stuenkel puts plastic bags on electric wire. The cattle associate these plastic bags with electric shock, so sometimes they simply put wire up with bags, using no electricity whatsoever. Lucinda is interested in installing electric power from solar and wind. She recently installed pex in the floor for adding solar heat in the sunroom/greenhouse area.
Lucinda Stuenkel is truly a model of success, determination, and innovation – in collaboration with others. Her approach to conservation and efficiency was shaped by a tragedy. In 2010, both her husband and brother-in-law were killed in an accident the week before Thanksgiving. Knowing that if she and her sister-in-law let go of the farm, the kids would have a much harder time getting back into farming as adults, they made quick and sweeping changes to ensure that they could stay on the farm. From the maternity barn to low-stress stockmanship to the video surveillance system to no-till with cover crops, Lucinda has prioritized efficiency, conservation, and family.
The best management decision I ever made was selling some heifer calves to two of my new farmers. They both just turned 30 (and each have wife and three kids). They are highly motivated to be successful, are intelligent, have experience from growing up on small farms with cattle, and are young and strong enough to do what needs to be done. I do not do this solo. I could not begin to do it without these farm partners.
If they attend meetings like the Kansas Graziers Association meetings or Extension service trainings, they will all be more informed in a gentler way to work with animals, with lower costs, more sustainable conservation techniques, lower inputs, and sustainable agriculture, in general. Also, these students provide the muscle that makes it possible for me to do these things!
We planted cover crops the first year for grazing, but each year we saw a ten bushel per acre boost in production just on fields with cover crops. The first year, it was hard for me to convince my new farm partners to plant covers, but as soon as they saw the boost in yield that year, they were eager to plant more cover crops. They could see it improving the soil, plus it put money back in their pockets.
I have found that I like the cows to have three places to go during winter grazing: cover crop, pasture, and milo stocks. They balance their own diet. We save on medical bills, feed bills, trips to the field, machinery, and fuel. Plus, we receive a premium on grass-fed beef.
If you take care of the soil and water, it will take care of you.


NHYBS Girls Fastpitch offers girls a venue to develop their softball skills and teamwork and apply them in competitive games. Girls must be between the ages of 4-14 as of January 1st of the spring season. The spring league fastpitch season runs from April - June and the travel/tournament season runs all year. Pony K-2nd grade, Minors 3rd-5th grade with select 2nd graders. Majors 6th -8th grade with select 5th grades and 14u eligable 9th graders.
NHYBS PRIDE offers a year-round competitive travel softball experience focusing on team spirit and providing ample opportunities for players to further develop their softball skills via advanced training and higher competitive play in both league and tournament play. Each of the teams will have the opportunity to compete for a league and multiple tournament championships. Girls of all ages and can participate in the travel and tournament program.


100 Women: Does sport have a problem with women?
In many cases sportswomen earn less than their male counterparts, and women's sport continues to attract smaller audiences than the men's games.
Are female athletes competing on a level playing field?


text:
Q: Vue centralize scroll- and resize-events (avoiding repetition in components) I have a Vue-structure like this:
App
 |--{ data: { scrollInfo {...} } }
 |
 |--Component1
 |      |--{ data: { sidebarWidth: 500 }
 |
 |--Component2
 |      |--{ data: { overlayItemWidth: 389 }
 |
 |--Component3
 ...
 ...

In each of my components, I have elements that has variables that should change on scroll and resize (such as sidebarWidth or overlayItemWidth ). I found this post here that shows this way of adding a listener for scroll and resize.
I've added it to the main instance, like so:
data: {
  scrollInfo: {
    scrollFromTop: 0,
    viewportHeight: 0,
    viewportWidth: 0,
    pageHeight: 0
  }
},
created() {
  window.addEventListener( 'scroll', this.calculateScroll );
  window.addEventListener( 'resize', this.calculateViewport );
  window.addEventListener( 'resize', this.calculatePageScrollSpecs );
  this.calculateViewport();
  this.calculateScroll();
  this.calculatePageScrollSpecs();
},
destroyed() {
  window.removeEventListener( 'scroll', this.calculateScroll );
  window.removeEventListener( 'resize', this.calculateViewport );
  window.removeEventListener( 'resize', this.calculatePageScrollSpecs );
}

I wont show the contents of the methods (calculateScroll, calculateViewport, ... ), since it's not relevant to this question.
Now... In my components I have variables that should change and reevaluate on scroll and on resize as well. But every time I have such a variable, then I currently add those same listeners in created and destroyed, and then add the same event-listeners to the given component, and then do the calculations from a new method in there. It seems long and clumbsy.
Are there a way that I can get around having those window.AddEventListeners in each component, but only have those in my root instance?
... I was thinking, if I had an array of 'things-that-need-to-be-recalculated-on-scroll-or-resize' in my main instance, but I'm not sure if it would get cluttered, since the variables for the components then actually wouldn't be kept in the component, but instead be referenced with this.$root.sidebarWidth. And this would also make my main instance massive.
Any suggestions?

A: Okay... No answers at all, - so I dived down into it myself. This is the best I could come up with. I hope it helps others in the need of the same.
I was torn between using extends (source) or mixins (source).
After a bit of research, I ended up using mixins (this video hit the nail on the head regarding what I was trying to achieve and how to solve it). If you want to make the mixin global, for all components, then look at this video around 4:11 and onwards. I'm not doing that in below-written explanation.
Please note, that I'm using webpack alongside laravel-mix with below-written solution. It's used in a WordPress-installation.
Disclosure
This is a mix of a bazillion different answers and articles. It would take forever to credit it all to the correct owners and sources, so I'm not even gonna try. Sorry.
The mixins-file (./mixins/scrollAndResize.js).
export const scrollAndResizeMixin = {
  created() {
    console.log( 'scrollAndResizes loaded' );
    this.calcScroll();
    this.calcPageAndViewport();
  },
  data: function() {
    return {
      scrollFromTop: 0,
      viewportHeight: 0,
      viewportWidth: 0,
      pageHeight: 0
    }
  },
  methods: {
    calcScroll: function (){
      let doc = document.documentElement;
      this.scrollFromTop = (window.pageYOffset || doc.scrollTop) - (doc.clientTop || 0);

      // DEBUG (uncomment and scroll, to check if it works)
      // console.log( (window.pageYOffset || doc.scrollTop) );
      // console.log( (doc.clientTop || 0) );
    },
    calcPageAndViewport: function(){
      // Viewport info
      this.viewportHeight = Math.max(document.documentElement.clientHeight, window.innerHeight || 0);
      this.viewportWidth = Math.min(document.documentElement.clientWidth, window.innerWidth || 0);

      // Page length
      var body = document.body;
      var html = document.documentElement;
      this.pageHeight = Math.max(
        body.scrollHeight,
        body.offsetHeight,
        html.clientHeight,
        html.scrollHeight,
        html.offsetHeight
      );
    },

  }
};

The main js-file (./app.js).
// Vue
import Vue from 'vue';

// Mixins
import { scrollAndResizeMixin } from './mixins/scrollAndResize';

// The Application
const app = new Vue({
  mixins: [
    scrollAndResizeMixin
  ],
  computed: {
    mobile: function() {
      return this.viewportWidth < 992; // This uses the mixin
    }
  },
  created() {
    window.addEventListener( 'scroll', this.calcScroll );
    window.addEventListener( 'resize', this.calcPageAndViewport );
  },
  destroyed() {
    window.removeEventListener( 'scroll', this.calcScroll );
    window.removeEventListener( 'resize', this.calcPageAndViewport );
  }
});

And/or use it only in a component like so...
<template>

 992">
      Desktop

      Mobile

</template>

A: Glad you found a solution for yourself, but for future visitors who may want a little more comfortable/general solution: I had the same problem some months ago and put a Vue mixin on npm that does exactly this — handling global data once-per-lifetime, not once per mounted component.
It's called Reactivator and this is how you'd create a global handler for window.resize with it:
// viewport-width.js

export default {
  // Reactivator uses `getInitialState` to fetch the
  // initial value before any listener was attached.
  getInitialState() {
    return window.innerWidth
  },

  // Reactivator calls `listen` when the first component using
  // it is created and executes the returned cleanup callback
  // when it's the last component using it is destroyed.
  listen(set) {
    const resizeHandler = () => set(window.innerWidth)

    window.addEventListener('resize', resizeHandler)

    return () => window.removeEventListener('resize', resizeHandler)
  }
}

// component.js

import reactivator from 'vue-reactivator'
import viewportWidth from './viewport-width.js'

export default {
  mixins: [
    // `viewportWidth` will now be a reactive property in this component!
    reactivator({ viewportWidth })
  ]
}

That said, watching viewport size is such a common case that I have put it (and other useful things like scroll position or mouse position) in an extra package of common Reactivator implementations. You can find it on npm as vue-browser-state.

A: You should be making a custom component that can accept as props the things that change and that does all the operations needed (such as adding and removing event listeners).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Italy Lifts Travel Restrictions; Other European Countries to Follow
Jun 4, 2020 9:56am
Milan, Italy // Photo by boggy22/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
Italy has lifted its travel restrictions as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) to Europeans, no longer requiring a 14-day quarantine. Free movement of Italians within the country, from region to region, is also now allowed.
In preparation of the reopening, Alitalia previously announced it would be operating 36 percent more flights in June compared to May, flying on 30 routes to 25 airports, including 15 in Italy and 10 abroad. Italy, according to The Telegraph, is facing its worst recession since World War II after three months of lockdown. The domestic and international tourism are expected to provide a much-needed boost to the economy.
Italy also resumed high-speed train service between regions for the first time since early March, checking departing passengers' temperatures.
Additionally, Germany, according to The Associated Press, plans to lift a travel warning for European countries from June 15 but may still advise against travel in some cases—for example, to Britain, if quarantine rules there remain. Officials, according to The Guardian, say that new coronavirus cases in western Europe on in a steady decline.
Austria's foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, announced that the country would be lifting COVID-19-related border restrictions for all neighboring countries except Italy on June 4. Austria borders eight countries and had initially agreed with Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein to reopen their shared borders on June 15 but the date has since been moved up.
France is planning to reopen its borders on June 15. French citizens who visit another country will no longer be subject to a 14-day quarantine upon return. The U.K., however, plans to impose a 14-day quarantine for people arriving in the country, despite criticism that the initiative is being put into effect far too late to help combat the country's outbreak.
This article originally appeared on www.travelagentcentral.com.
Mandarin Oriental, Lago di Como Reopens June 18
Querido Launches Program Pairing Consumers With Travel Advisors
Parma, 2020 Italian Capital of Culture, Extended to 2021
Florence's Il Salviatino Appoints New General Manager
Destination Information Government Regulations Federal Travel Regulations Travel Safety Luxury Travel News Italy Europe Germany Coronavirus Austria France UK Travel
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The Resorts & Residences by CuisinArt Sold, Announces Updates
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Travel Experts Adds 40 ICs, Who Credit Support, Commissions
Travel Experts added 40 ICs—with most of them attributing their move to the agency's "staff support" and having a "no-split pay policy.…
by Matt Turner Jan 21, 2021 10:20am
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris Sworn in as President, Vice President
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been sworn in as president and vice president of the United States. Here's what the travel trade has to say.
Associate Editor, Luxury Travel Advisor
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattturnerny/
http://facebook.com/ayyomattyt
http://instagram.com/ayyomattyt/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In recent years, both in Lithuania and the West, there is much talk about the deepening problems of democracy - decline in voter turnout, increasing distrust in political institutions, transformation of politics into a show and so on.
These problems raise a question about the effectiveness and meaningfulness of traditional democratic mechanisms in modern knowledge based society and encourage the creative use of knowledge-based society possibilities to look for new forms of communication between citizens and governments.
Main results of the project were presented at the international conference "Making Democracy Work in the Digital Age" on November 5-6, 2009 in Vilnius at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science.
At the end of the project two monographs were published - "The end of party democracy? Political representation and ideology" and "Talking at the margins: searching for the alternative public sphere in Lithuania".


In this article, I will describe how you can monitor your CentOS 7 server with Munin and Monit. Munin produces nifty little graphics about nearly every aspect of your server (load average, memory usage, CPU usage, MySQL throughput, eth0 traffic, etc.) without much configuration, whereas Monit checks the availability of services like Apache, MySQL, Postfix and takes the appropriate action such as a restart if it finds a service is not behaving as expected. The combination of the two gives you full monitoring: graphics that lets you recognize current or upcoming problems (like "We need a bigger server soon, our load average is increasing rapidly."), and a watchdog that ensures the availability of the monitored services.
Although Munin lets you monitor more than one server, we will only discuss the monitoring of the system where it is installed here.
This tutorial was written for CentOS 7.2, but the configuration should apply to other distributions like RHEL and Scientific Linux as well.
Our system's hostname is server1.example.com, and we have a website www.example.com on it with the document root /var/www/html.
to ensure that the system is up to date and that the package list from EPEL is loaded before we start to install munin.
Start apache and enable it to be started automatically at boot time.
Next, we must edit the Munin configuration file /etc/munin/munin.conf.
The munin statistics are protected with a username and password (Apache basic auth). In the next step we add a new user and password to the /etc/munin/munin-htpasswd file.
The command will add a new user with the name "admin" and prompt twice for the new password.
Now wait a few minutes so that munin can produce the first statistics output, then go to http://server1.example.com/munin/ in your browser, and you see the first statistics.


The State Bank of Vietnam has bought nearly $8 billion this year, Le Minh Hung said. He expected a continued rise, and said gold reserves are also rising though still at a low level.
"Both gold and foreign exchange markets are well under the central bank's control," Hung said. "The bank would tighten control over imports and exports by foreign companies".
Exports by foreign businesses increased by 7.7 percent year-on-year to $48.3 billion in the first five months, according to figures from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. They accounted for 71.3 percent of Vietnam's total exports.


Rock and roll to your bones baby! This vintage inspired Grateful Dead Skull Pullover Sweater is a relaxed crewneck sweater, with a roomy fit made in our super soft cotton jersey. This sweater features a heavy charcoal pigment wash for a very vintage look and feel. Comes in Charcoal.


I was looking for an angle plate on fleabay and found this.
no wonder they could afford to buy all Myford stuff if this is any indication of their prices.
I know of one dealer who, when out of stock, amends his Ebay price to a silly figure, rather than withdrawing the listing and then re-listing from scratch when new stock arrives. Maybe that's what RDG are doing here; the item doesn't seem to be listed on their web pages at present.
Price is £26.50 but these rich American multimillionaires-well?
Noticed they do this quite a bit - have an item listed at 10x or more the normal price. I thought it was just for the off chance someone was willing to pay without looking properly.


The counter-argument is that a player picks up bad habits and myths about the Laws, which are hard to overcome. Also the position played can influence what the referee feels about the game - ex-goalkeepers favor keepers, etc.
Since you have some soccer experience, I think you can be a good referee without continuing playing. And cross-country will certainly keep you fit for refereeing. Besides, if you're not that good at soccer, you'll probably be spending most of your time on the bench - what's the benefit of that?
My personal preference is not to specialise and to go with both. I know some very good young players who are also very serious about their running and they are worried about injury while playing soccer.
I would say that playing soccer is important to understand how the game is played, tactics, foul recognition, empathy with players etc. Most of the best referees in the world did not play the game to any high level and many gave up the game due to injury or because they got involved in refereeing and found that they were good at it which encouraged their development. Also it depends on your desire to have a rounded sports career or indeed to specialise. I read an autobiography of the one of the top retired referees in the UK and he had a desire from a very young age to excel in refereeing and all his efforts were towards that goal which resulting in him making it into the FIFA ranks. Only you can make that call. My personal preference is to be involved in everything. As you get older the choices become clearer and perhaps more limited.
Do what you love to do! If you love to run, run.
The advantage of playing the game is understanding what players do and don't do in various situations. Recognizing tactical opportunities and solutions helps you anticipate - - and increases awareness of how (and when) players' cheat. There are alternatives to playing at the highest levels to learn soccer awareness. Soccer coaches know a lot about tactics and strategy: taking coaching classes, and helping as an assistant to a good soccer coach will greatly increase your refereeing awareness. Analyzing (not just watching) lots of matches will provide insights into what is happening off the ball.
Far too many referees do not know how to run. Developing that skill will be very helpful to your future as a referee.


text:
Recherche Publications Chromosomal location and expression of the genes coding for Ku p70 and p80 in human cell lines and normal tissues
Chromosomal location and expression of the genes coding for Ku p70 and p80 in human cell lines and normal tissues
Cai, Q. Q.; Plet, A.; Imbert, J.; Lafage-Pochitaloff, M.; Cerdan, C.; Blanchard, J. M.
Cytogenet Cell Genet
1994 / vol 65 / pages 221-7
Ku protein is a relatively abundant DNA-binding nuclear protein complex composed of two polypeptide subunits, p70 and p80. Ku has been recently identified as the regulatory component of the DNA-dependent protein kinase that phosphorylates RNA polymerase II. To further characterize in vivo regulation of Ku protein, we studied the expression of the transcripts coding for the Ku p70 and p80 subunits in different human cell lines and normal tissues by Northern blot hybridization, using specific cDNA probes. The expression level of both genes was approximately 10-fold higher in established cell lines than in normal tissues. However, mRNA expression levels in permanent cell lines correlated more strongly with their proliferative state than with their level of malignant transformation. In purified T lymphocytes induced to proliferate by the combined action of monoclonal antibodies directed against the CD2 and CD28 adhesion molecules, Ku p70 and p80 mRNA steady-state levels increased as soon as 6 h after activation and lasted at least 72 h. The human genes coding for the Ku p70 and p80 subunits were localized by cytogenetic mapping, using fluorescence in situ hybridization, to 22q13 and 2q33–>q35, respectively.
Humans; Blotting, Southern; Blotting, Northern; Cell Line; In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; Lymphocyte Activation; Chromosome Mapping; Nuclear Proteins/*genetics; *Chromosomes, Human, Pair 22; *Antigens, Nuclear; *DNA Helicases; *Chromosomes, Human, Pair 2; DNA-Binding Proteins/*genetics; Reference Values; T-Lymphocytes/cytology/immunology


HD Radio technology is the digital broadcast of your local AM/FM stations. Many of your favorite stations broadcast a digital signal that allows you additional features that wouldn't exist on an Analog signal.
How does my radio pick up the digital signal?
In order for your radio to receive the digital signal, it needs to be a certified digital receiver. Currently, there are New Car, Auto Aftermarket, Home, and Portable options available to you. Visit the 'Get A Radio' section of HDRadio.com for more information.
No, In order to receive the digital signal, you must have an HD Radio receiver. Visit the 'Get A Radio' section to see what receivers are available.
What can i listen to here?
Our main station is available on DAB digital radio, online, on mobile with our apps, and a few other ways too. You can also listen on 105.8FM in the London area, 105.2FM in the West Midlands or on 1215AM nationwide. Many of our other stations are available on DAB nationwide, and they're all available online. To find out all the ways you can listen to each station, visit the station page for 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, Classic Rock or Absolute Radio.
For all of our stations you can see the music we've played recently, and search by track name, artist, and time played, from the Playlists page. Alternatively you could visit Compare My Radio to see how our station playlists compare to the rest of UK radio.
That's not technically a question but we'll answer it anyway. If you are having trouble listening through our Radioplayer, we recommend running through our handy checklist to see if you can identify the problem. If this doesn't get you listening, it will provide us with a bit more information to try to help you.
Can i listen you on my mobile phone?
Yes! Well, not if it's one of those bricks that businessmen from the 80s lugged about. But if it's a smartphone, have a look at our mobile apps.


What Does The Course Actually Say?
On Sunday, August 15, 2010 Rev. Tony Ponticello addressed the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco, CA. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of his talk.
When I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, I kept getting the guidance that, in some indirect way, I wanted to do something that sums up A Course In Miracles. I didn't quite know what that guidance meant. Eventually I got the thought, "What does the Course actually say?" So what does ACIM actually say?
Of course, A Course In Miracles says a lot of things. It says that God is all that there is and not to think of God as some super natural being up in the heavens manifesting an exter-nal world. The Course teaches us that we are all extensions of God, just like my arm is an extension of myself. My arm is still part of me. We are an extension of God. We are still connected to God. We are actually a part of God. We are still part of the Totality. There is no outside world that we live in.
Now these are very lofty thoughts. They are very hard to conceptualize. They are abstract; they belong in the realm of knowledge. A Course In Miracles actually says that these thoughts are not important for us to study. The Course say, "This course will lead to knowledge, but knowledge itself is still beyond the scope of our curriculum. Nor is there any need for us to try to speak of what must forever lie beyond words." (Tx.Or.Ed.18.95) These lofty ideas about Heaven, Reality, and Oneness are beyond the scope of the curriculum of ACIM. ACIM mentions them here and there, but they are not one of the main themes that ACIM is teaching us. In another place the Course says, "What is everything leaves room for nothing else. – Yet is this magnitude beyond the scope of this curriculum. Nor is it necessary we dwell on anything that cannot be immediately grasped." (Tx.Or.Ed.26.18.19) This is saying actually the same thing about the "scope of the curriculum." The Course even uses the same phrase, and these two quotations are eight chapters apart. They are not right after each other. They are quite a distance apart. Yet they are very similar.
Here is another quotation. It doesn't use they same words, but it has the same idea, "This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned. Its scope does not exceed your own, except to say that what is yours will come to you when you are ready." (Tx.Or.Ed.24.69) Again, A Course In Miracles is saying not to dwell upon what is exceeding our scope. The Course tells us that when we are ready we will be "there," and we will understand this.
I like this idea that A Course In Miracles keeps repeating its themes. I have heard Ken Wapnick describe A Course In Miracles as symphonic in nature. A symphony will repeat a theme. The symphony will repeat it a little differently each time. The symphony will repeat the theme with different instruments. The symphony may repeat the theme in a different tempo at different times. Maybe the symphony will repeat the theme in a different key, but the symphony keeps repeating and manipulating the theme. This is a big part of what joins the symphony into a whole unified work. This repetition is part of what make the musical piece belong together and not just three or four independent songs. It's a symphony.
I have always liked Ken Wapnick's idea that A Course In Miracles is symphonic in nature. The Course's themes are continually repeated with a little different flavor each time. What idea we didn't get one time, we may get the next time when it's expressed differently. If it doesn't sink in the second time, maybe the third time will be the charm. Eventually we will get these themes because they are always repeated.
I, as a Course teacher, think this symphonic idea is very important when it comes to teaching. To me, it means it is not necessary to dwell on every paragraph until the students have "gotten it." Some A Course In Miracles classes read every single paragraph of the Course very slowly. These classes discuss every paragraph that they read. They don't go on to the next paragraph until they feel like they have gotten everything that single paragraph has to say. Only when that paragraph is all talked out are they ready to move on. It takes many, many years to get through the Course when it is taught this way. This is great, if that is what the class is guided to do, and am sure that it is. Our ACIM-1 class moves much faster through the material. Our ACIM-1 class takes only one year, 52 weeks, to get through the Text. I like moving fast through the material. One of the reasons I do our class this way is because I recognize the symphonic nature of the Course. It is not necessary to dissect every paragraph because we're going to get the same theme a couple of pages later, or a couple of chapters later.
There is another reason why I like to read a whole section before discussion. It is because, like a symphony, A Course In Miracles is music, or as some people say, it's poetry. To stop at every paragraph and dissect it would miss the music of the Course. It would miss the poetry of the Course. Think about music. If we were to just play one bar of a musical work then stopped to appreciate that single bar, to figure out the notes and the chords before we heard the next bar, we would miss the music. We would not hear the music. There is music: there is a symphony to the Course. This is why I, personally, think it is a good thing to read whole sections and not to get hung up on what I might have missed, because as the symphony goes on that theme will be repeated.
While preparing today's lecture I also had some thoughts about the ancient Chinese philosopher named Lao Tsu. That's Lao Tsu on the cover of your program. One of Lao Tsu's more quoted statements is, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a signal step." That is an ancient Chinese sayings that is attributed to Lao Tsu. It's in the book that he apparently wrote, so many centuries ago, named The Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching formed the foundation for a couple of our worlds well known religions. I'm sure Lao Tsu would not have thought that he was forming a religion, or even a spiritual philosophy, when he wrote The Tao Te Ching.
We have a well known, world spiritual program named Taoism. It is spelled with a "T" but it is pronounced more like a "D." Taoism also figures prominently in Zen Buddhism. There are many translations of what "Tao Te Ching" actually means. I have read that "Tao" means "the way" or "the path" and in Taoism it is used to refer the to the essential, unnameable process of life – the way life moves, the path life follows. "Te" means "personal virtue" or "integrity." "Ching" means "great book" or "classic." "Tao Te Ching" can thus be translated as "the great classic book about the way, or path, of personal virtue and integrity." I like the Taoist idea of the way or the path because it reminds me of how A Course In Miracles talks about the journey. The Course talks about moving along, one step at a time. The practice is not about a particular goal or the end as I was talking about a few minutes ago. That's beyond the scope of the curriculum. The Course is about moving along one step at a time through the journey. Sometimes, ACIM talk's about this journey poetically and abstractly. The Course says, "The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed." (Tx.Or.Ed.8.51) That's a very beautiful, poetic idea that resonates with a creative part of our mind. However, sometimes it talks about the journey very technically. The Course says, "To you who seem to find this course to be too difficult to learn, let me repeat that to achieve a goal you must proceed in its direction, not away from it. And every road that leads the other way will not advance the purpose to be found." (Tx.Or.Ed.31.39) Here the journey is a very practical. Keep going in the direction; keep taking that next step.
A Course In Miracles teaches us that the world is not real and all the people in it are projections of our own minds. When they do things that appear to hurt us we have to remember that. We have to remember that people in the world are only projections of our own mind. In one ACIM Workbook lessons it says, "I trust my brothers, who are one with me. – Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself." (Wk.Or.Ed.181) Every year we come across this lesson and I think that it gets misinterpreted a lot. I think what we can trust our brothers to do is to bring us the exact lesson that we need to learn in that moment. That's what we can absolutely trust them to do. It's not that we trust them to continually to be nice to us, because certainly that's not the experience we all have in the world. However, we can trust that whatever is going on with them is what we need to experience. It is the next step in our journey, the next single step we have to take in that journey of a thousand miles Lao Tsu was talking about.
In another place A Course In Miracles says, "Your brother is the mirror in which you will see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows itself as whole." (Tx.Or.Ed.7.73) Our brothers are mirrors. We see an image of ourselves in them. Whatever they are doing is something inside of us. That's why we are not to get to upset about it. That's why we have to offer it up. That's why we must perceive it as something that is going on within us that we have to look at and reperceive.
You know I always like to talk about practical things that are happening to me. Many of you know that I am involved in a legal process. My lawyer and I have made our legal petition challenging Rev. Larry's will/trust that was drastically changed just three days before he died. We presented our petition to the court. Yesterday we got in the mail the legal response from the other side that is going to defend their position. Of course they're going to defend their position and say that our petition is wrong. In our petition we talked about the relationship I had with Rev. Larry and how our relationship was a romantic relationship for the first sixteen years. In the response that we got yesterday it said Rev. Larry and I never had a romantic relationship, and we had a strictly a business relationship for the twenty six years that we knew each other. That's a lie. It's just a lie. I, of course, know that the person who wrote this statement knows the statement is a lie. Rev. Larry and I did have a romantic relationship. I could get an untold number of people to testify that Rev. Larry and I had a romantic relationship. We spent nights together. We don't have to talk about the sexual part of our relationship. We spent nights together. We went on trips together. We were affectionate with each other. We had affectionate names we called each other. People know these affectionate names because they heard them a lot. Rev. Larry and I had a romantic relationship and our relationship continued to have an element of romance even after we were not partners any more.
There was this lie, and there was a temptation, of course, to hold a grievance about this. This person told a lie, told a lie to hurt me. Why did he do that? I was upset. Yet, A Course In Miracles is saying there isn't anybody out there telling a lie. It is actually something that I have manifested because I have to learn a particular lesson. That's why the event is there. This person is bringing me a lesson. The obvious lesson brought to me yesterday was when have I lied? The truth is I have lied, and I have hurt people with lies that I have said. Now I get an experience of what it is like to be on the other side, and this is a big experience. I guess I needed a big lesson because I was ignoring the little ones. I needed a stronger one to wake me up. So, I got it! I have not always told the truth and I have done pain and damage because I did not. That has a lot to do with why this is happening to me. The Course says, "Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you." (Tx.Or.Ed31.87) This legal lie is a learning device. It's another step on the journey of a thousand miles that I am taking.
This event is a lesson. It's a lesson God wants me to learn. I need to forgive. If I forgive and offer up my thoughts I will see this differently, and I will get the learning. I will be able to move past this lesson. This will be another step along this journey of a thousand miles that I need to make. I think that is what Lao Tsu was talking about. Don't focus on the end goal of the journey. We just have to keep taking the steps. We will eventually get to the end, but the end isn't the important thing now. The important thing is to continue to take the steps. We will eventually have knowledge. We will eventually know our eternal nature. That's not what A Course In Miracles is primarily about. The Course helps us to take the small single steps.
Lao Tsu apparently wrote the book we call The Tao Te Ching. There is some dispute about the authorship, but it truly doesn't matter to me. Lao Tsu was an ancient Chinese philosopher. No one knows exactly when he lived, anywhere between 600 years B.C. to 300 years B.C. There's a three century window for his life. The Tao Te Ching is a very small book as many of you probably know. It has eighty one small chapters. A few of the chapters are very small, only a couple of sentences. Many chapters are longer, a few paragraphs. Some chapters are a page or more. These chapters are like eighty one poems. The lessons are symbolic in nature, and often use nature itself as a symbol. These chapters make the mind think in different ways. They teach.
I did find out today when I was doing a little research that The Tao Te Ching is the second most translated book in the world. Obviously, the most translated book in the world is the Bible, but The Tao Te Ching is the second most translated book in the world. I also learned that the story of Lao Tsu and his book is all a legend. It's all a myth. Nobody knows anything about it for sure. Nobody knows if there even was a person named Lao Tsu. Maybe somebody else wrote The Tao Te Ching. Nobody knows any of it for sure. I like that, because I think that's the way I relate to Jesus. I have talked about that many times. What do we really know about Jesus? We can't truly know what happen or what Jesus really said. It is an interesting myth, and we can learn from the myth. We can keep holding the myth in our minds, but we can't actually know any of it.
One of the myths about Lao Tsu says that he once met the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Historians do have a better idea of when Confucius lived. He was born in 531 B.C. and died in 479 B.C. That would date Lao Tsu's life mostly in the sixth century B.C., because the myth about their meeting says that Lao Tsu met Confucius near the end of Lao Tsu's life when Confucius was a younger man. The most accepted myth about Lao Tsu tells us that he was the librarian for the emperor of the kingdom. He had access to all the books of knowledge that the kingdom had. Therefore, Lao Tsu was a learned man who could read, a rare ability for that time in history. Lao Tsu learned a lot as librarian. People kept coming to him for wisdom and advice. People kept asking him to write his wisdom down, but he kept refusing thinking that wisdom needed to be free. Wisdom had to come up from deep within. To write wisdom down would, in some way, ruin it.
At a certain time, in his elderly years, Lao Tsu decided to retire. The myth says that Lao Tsu got weary of the evil ways of the world. Some myths simply say he was old, and it was time for him to retire. When Lao Tsu left the emperor's palaces he rode north on a water buffalo. You can see a water buffalo in the picture. He rode up to the Great Wall of China. Somebody at the Great Wall, maybe a guard who knew who Lao Tsu was, begged and pleaded Lao Tsu to write down the knowledge that he had. Lao Tsu finally relented. He took a little time and wrote down these eighty one little chapters. Lao Tsu gave his writings to the person who had asked, and then he moved on north, past the Great Wall. No one knows what happen to him after that.
When there is agreement about what beauty is then, by definition, there is something that isn't beautiful and therefore ugly. When there is agreement about what good is then, by definition, there is something that we call evil. A Course In Miracles actually says something very similar to that. The Course says, "... remember that a 'good world' implies a 'bad' one, and a 'satisfying world' implies an 'unsatisfying' one." (Wk.Bk.Or.Ed.5) In many ways, just like all of are great spiritual teachings: ACIM, The Tao Te Ching, Taoism, ..., there are a lot of similarities. They also have certain ways that they are different. They all can teach us.
If I said that there was a person who told the honest truth and that really helped me, I also set myself up for saying that there was one who lied and that really hurt me. I have to see it all as neutral. I have to able to meet the world without judgment. I have to be willing to learn both from the things that I think are truthful and helpful and I have to also learn from things I think are lies and harmful. A Course In Miracles says, "When you have learned to look upon everyone with no reference at all to the past, either his or yours as you perceived it, you will be able to learn from what you see now." (Tx.Or.Ed.12.46) That's what ACIM actually says. We have to be able to look at everyone with no reference at all from the past as if we were meeting them new for the first time. In another place, four chapters away from the previous quotation, the Course says, "When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself." (Tx.Or.Ed.8.19) Again, the symphonic nature of the Course is shown. Ideas are presented and repeated in later chapters and then in other even later chapters. We have to learn to look on everyone with no reference at all to the past like we are meeting them anew. Then, we are able to be open to them.
If I meet this person who said what I think are lies about me during these legal proceedings – let's say that we find ourselves in the bathroom together at adjacent urinals – could I say, "Hi" to him with a genuine smile on my face? Now, that does not mean I have to say "Hi" to him. The point is, if I am guided to say "Hi" to him, could I? If I got that guidance, could I look over, say "Hi", and have a smile. As I think about that, I think I could. I truly do think I could. I think it would be a genuine smile. That actually gives me a lot of peace. That means, in many ways, I do actually know what A Course In Miracles says. I have taken it into my heart. I get a lot of peace and calm because of that, and I am very grateful for that. I am grateful for that realization. I am looking at the blessing that all of this is bringing into my life.
© 2010 Rev. Tony Ponticello, San Francisco, CA – All rights reserved.
This article appeared in the September 2010 (Vol. 24 No. 7) issue of Miracles Monthly. Miracles Monthly is published by Community Miracles Center in San Francisco, CA. CMC is supported solely by people just like you who: become CMC Supporting Members, Give Donations and Purchase Books and Products through us.


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text:
The Freaks Show: Exhibit 4
Filmography/Stage Credits
Sound Page
DVD Reviews:
The Man Who Laughs
Picture Gallery:
Stills From Olga's Films
Portraits and Publicity
Olga Scrapbook
The Freaks Show:
Script Synopsis (from the MGM archives)
Spurs (Short Story)
The Making of Freaks
Freaks: Re-evaluating a Screen Classic
Freaks Photo Gallery
FREAKS:
Re-Evaluating A Screen Classic
by Ronald V. Borst
Reprinted from Photon #23 (Published 1973)
© 1973 by Mark Frank; used by permission of the author and the publisher. The author requests that the reader keep in mind that this thesis is based on the prints available at the time of the article's publication, which did not include the now-available final sequence in Hans' estate (see Footnote 16 in the Freaks script synopsis for more on this).
The opening title card for Freaks. This title card is suddenly torn away by the carnival barker, whose spiel about the freaks introduces the film.
Over the period of the last forty years, one particular horror film from the early thirties has continued to garner increasing laurels and plaudits until it has eventually arrived at such a pinnacle of respect and awe that it is considered to be almost singularly immune from any form of criticism, safely enjoying a reputation of being the most startling and terrifying example of cinematic horror of all time. A film so supposedly shocking, that most contemporary critics panned it as being "too repulsive" and "nauseating," leading many exhibitors of the day to refuse to book the picture after its initial openings; so horrifying, that even subsequent reissues of the film under various other titles (i.e., THE MONSTER SHOW; FORBIDDEN LOVE; NATURE'S MISTAKES), including the original, failed to draw any greater crowds than the first release had. The film was banned in Great Britain until 1963 and, to this day, has never been televised in any country anywhere in the world. Subsequently, its absence from television coupled with the general audiences' massed reaction against it has made the film something of a hard-to-screen item until recent times, when its legendary fame as the "ultimate" in horror films led to frequent showings in metropolitan art houses and college campuses across the nation. But the years of condemnation coupled with that old film argument (i.e. that any major old horror film from the thirties is automatically regarded as a "classic") have sustained a legend . . . a legend which has never quite been justified by the film itself.
This then, is a broadly-stated, personal interpretation of the fame which has grown up over the years around Tod Browning's 1932 production of FREAKS. That there at least was a legend there is no doubt. Early issues of the professional monster magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland and The Castle of Frankenstein lauded the film's merits, the latter publication citing period reviews and running a half-score of graphs in their fourth number which only served to further what the appetites of these who had not yet had the opportunity of seeing the film for themselves. As with other unseen films of the time, such as THE GHOUL and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, the publication of choice stills, reinforced with lavish praise, served only to perpetuate the legend that the film was an unqualified masterpiece to a great many people who had only recently become interested in early horror films. Since that time the greatness of both THE GHOUL and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM has been somewhat shattered by the rediscovery of both films, but while the weaknesses of these films have been discussed along with their laudable qualities, the deficiencies of FREAKS have all but been ignored or purposely overlooked. It is with this view in mind . . . to place FREAKS in a more proper perspective as a horror film . . . that this review is being undertaken.
Regarding the legend surrounding FREAKS, Carlos Clarens has written: "That FREAKS was made at all is extraordinary. That it was made at Metro . . . seems hard to believe." The author's statement may be a bit of hyperbole. FREAKS went into production during a time when the sincerity, creativity and quality of screen gothism was perhaps at its all-time highest peak. With the near-phenomenal success of both DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN, is it to be wondered that all of Hollywood's major studios immediately sensed the box-office gold that lay in the making of these grim tales of escapist fantasy? Surely, there can be no denying that M-G-M was anxious to reap the profits that horror films offered to provide, and although they never geared production towards a set program of films in the macabre genre (as Universal, RKO and other studios did), M-G-M, it may be recalled, had released an impressive number of weird melodramas in the previous decade, featuring, as often as not, Lon Chaney in some new and bizarre role, with Tod Browning at the helm. The M-G-M silents, THE UNHOLY THREE (1925), THE SHOW (1927) and THE UNKNOWN (also 1927), all directed by Browning, depicted physical abnormalities within the context of a melodramatically devised screenplay when horror films were more commonly classified under the general heading of mysteries. With the arrival of the talkie era and the straight supernatural thriller replacing the standard old house cloaked killer vehicles, FREAKS emerges as a logical, if indeed, ultimate extension of these previous films, not to mention M-G-M policy.
Bob Thomas' recent biography, Thalberg—being an account of the life and times of Irving G. Thalberg, Metro's production genius of the twenties and thirties—reveals one anecdote of how FREAKS came about. "I want you to give me something even more horrible than FRANKENSTEIN," Thalberg ordered scenarist Willis Goldbeck. Goldbeck collaborated with Leon Gordon in developing a script "about bizarre happenings among freaks of a circus sideshow," based on an obscure Tod Robbins story entitled Spurs which had appeared in Munsey's Magazine some nine years before. Their original draft was then submitted to the youthful M-G-M executive who was said to have replied, "I asked for something horrifying and I got it." Thalberg went on to personally sponsor the production against massive studio opposition, eventually convincing Louis B. Mayer that the film had the potential to equal the financial success of the Universal vehicles.
Another story—this version related in Peter Haining's anthology of filmed gothic fiction, The Ghouls, and vaguely supported by text in the original studio pressbook—places the inspiration of the film with Harry Earles, the midget actor who had appeared in both film versions of Robbins' novel, The Unholy Three. According to this account, Browning had been searching for a property he could adapt to the screen in which he could prominently feature his old friend, and the actor in turn had suggested Spurs to the director, who then approached M-G-M via Thalberg.
Whichever story is true (if either; although it seems more logical to believe that Browning would have been connected with the project from the beginning if only for his prior acquaintance with Robbins ' work and former background with traveling circuses [see Footnote 1]) there is no room for argument that FREAKS owes its entire basis to Spurs and it is fascinating not only to compare the original fiction with the finished celluloid work, but to speculate what kind of film FREAKS might have come off as had it been faithfully translated to the screen. Like the film, the original story is set within a small traveling circus somewhere in the contemporary French countryside. A circus midget, Jacques Courbé, falls hopelessly in love with the troupe's bareback rider, the lovely Jeanne Marie, who accepts his proposal of marriage only when she learns that he has just inherited a huge sum of money. She and her lover, the strong man Simon Lafleur, plan to wed as soon as Jacque dies from old age, which Jeanne believes will be soon. During the wedding celebration, Jeanne becomes drunk and belittles her small bridegroom, declaring loudly that she could carry him on her shoulders from one end of France to the other. A year passes, a year in which Jeanne Marie and her "Hercules" are separated from one another, Jacques having retired from the circus and taken his wife with him to his large inherited estate. One day, Simon is startled to find a haggard and barely recognizable Jeanne Marie standing before his wagon door. The woman pleads with him to protect her from her midget husband, declaring that he has never forgotten nor forgiven her for her callous remark that she should carry him on her shoulders from one end of the [French] country[side] to the other. Each day, a virtual prisoner, she has been forced to carry Jacques from dawn till dusk down lonely stretches of rural road, after which he has accordingly marked off the miles traversed, this to be continued until the total distance has been covered. Jeanne has been unable to resist or escape because of the midget's powerful and intelligent wolf-dog, St. Eustache, who accompanies his master everywhere. As Jeanne concludes her woeful tale, Jacques enters the wagon, mounted on his canine steed, a little sword at his side. Simon attempts to prevent Jacques from retaking Jeanne, but the strong man's brute strength is of little use as the ferocious animal pins him helplessly to the floor, and Courbé silently dispatches him with his blade. Jeanne, completely humbled and resigned to her fate, places her small mate upon her shoulders and weakly trudges off in the direction of their home, Jacques' tiny "spurs" threatening to prick her if she falters in her pace. The final irony of the narrative comes when the owner of the circus notices the departure of his old friends from a long distance off. He mistakenly remarks to himself how unkind it is of Jeanne Marie to continue to henpeck her husband in such a cruel manner as carrying him around on her shoulders.
For the screen adaptation, Browning and his writers not only chose to discard the story's original title, but vastly altered the characters of Jeanne Marie, Simon and Jacque as well. (See Footnote 2) Hence, Jeanne Marie and Simon became Cleopatra and Hercules, names which perfectly suited their physical beauty and strength. Conversely, the Jacques Courbé character became Hans and, rather than being a somewhat vindictive fiend, he is a thoroughly pitiable but proud man, thereby making the contrast between goodness and evil all the more apparent and rendering: it is impossible for audiences to mentally ally themselves with Cleopatra or Hercules in the film's finale, as it was possible to do with Jeanne and Simon in the original story.
This publicity still of Tod Browning posing with some of the freaks clearly demonstrates the director's love and compassion for the "living monstrosities" he was working with.
The director's intentions seem two-fold in retrospect; firstly, to film an entirely different and unique type of horror film . . . utilizing actual "monstrosities" culled from circuses and sideshows the world over. Secondly, to show audiences—many of whom were unquestionably familiar with traveling freak shows at this time—that the "things" they paid a dime to laugh or shudder at were completely normal in every respect but their bodies, and were governed by a "code" which was " . . . a law unto themselves. Offend one . . . and you offend them all!" Through the barker's spiel in the opening reel, Browning carefully sets his stage not only for the terrors that follow, but for what he apparently hoped would lead to a far greater understanding and acceptance for the select minority of people he has spent so much of his early life among. From the beginning of the film our curiosity is aroused (we do not see the "thing" which was once the beautiful Cleopatra in the enclosed pit, just the crowd's horrified reaction as the barker points her out), and our nerves set to witness the strange and unusual. Not entirely surprising, the first of the horrors released comes as the horror of revulsion. After a short introductory sequence in which Cleopatra, Hans and Frieda (Hans' midget love) are presented to us, the film cuts to a wooded glade in which a landowner and his caretaker are briskly walking towards a place where the caretaker warns there are "horrible, twisted things . . . crawling, whining, laughing!" The description is nearly as unnerving as the freaks' first appearance . . . as weird, contorted shapes dancing about in a small clearing. The audience has been prepared for this but the sequence is handled adroitly with a great amount of restraint and finesse in an effort to minimize the revulsion. Browning immediately achieves this effect through the character of the circus owner, Madame Tetrallini, a woman who easily gains our sympathy when she pleads her "children's" plight to the landlord. Any revulsion we may have felt vanishes at the sight of the freaks fleeing to their guardian in fear of the two men who have momentarily entered their world, and when the compassionate landowner understandingly permits the circus people to remain on his land . . . to play in the sunshine like normal children . . . he is graciously thanked by all the freaks. In the many brief scenes which follow this throughout the first half of the film, Browning continues to play upon our sympathies on behalf of the freaks, striving to illustrate how completely ordinary and similar their everyday lives are to our own, dwelling alternately on their moments of happiness and misery. We come not only to side with the freaks, but to accept them as our friends without reservation and after a while their appearance no longer serves to terrify or startle, since each sequence is so subtly framed with humor, rather than horror, in mind.
It is by approaching his work in such a manner that Browning commits a major error from a horror standpoint. He sacrifices a strong gothic theme and provides instead a large number of disjointed trivial scenes, many of which last no longer than a minute or two, and which have little bearing on the primary plot thread—that of Cleopatra's scheme to marry little Hans, then murder him for his money. The result is that in trying to present too much of a portrayal of circus life and its performers, the director has partially failed to sustain a mood of horror. He only initiates this atmosphere during the latter portion of the film and, even then, there are occasional cuts to unneeded comic relief.
Gregory Zatirka makes a few noteworthy points in his review, "FREAKS—A Study In Revulsion," in an old issue of Cinefantastique written around 1967, when he relates a particular trait inherent in most of Browning's films, this being that "the story in a Tod Browning film was always of secondary importance." Browning himself admitted this in an interview conducted in 1928, and it manifests itself in all of his sound horror films. His strength was in the creation of a death-like atmosphere, usually conceived and executed at a remarkably slow pace, unrelieved (or perhaps unhampered?) by a musical score. Zatirka went on, stating: "Browning's inability to keep the story value of his work up to the standards set by his atmosphere of doom and horror has always been a drawback to his sound films." Once again, unfortunately correct. The most often recalled portions of his greatest films from the thirties, such as the first reel of DRACULA; the sequences with the vampires stalking silently about cobwebbed halls in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE; or the shrunken human "dolls" scurrying about in the dead of night on their missions of vengeance in THE DEVIL-DOLL, are all examples of Browning at his best.
I personally find it somewhat peculiar that no one (to my knowledge) has ever dissected all the facets which compose the memorable highlights from FREAKS, for an examination reveals that these scenes do not singularly rely on the appearance of the freaks themselves. The horror in FREAKS is not, and should never be confused with, the horror of "revulsion," as Zatirka implies, for Browning does everything in his power to see that this feeling of initial revulsion towards the freaks is destroyed . . . does so very early in the film, and continues to harp upon their inner normality throughout while stressing the hypocritical characters of Hercules and Cleopatra. There is no rebuking that there may be a feeling of revulsion connected with FREAKS, but I find it far more related to still photographs than to the film itself. When I first saw the pinheads pictured within the pages of The Castle of Frankenstein, it had a profound impact on me. I was not frightened by the stills, but having never been exposed to this type of "monster," and assuming that they committed crimes as horrendous as their appearance, the feeling within me could only be described as revulsion, a distaste in looking at them. Of course, I was much younger at that time and somewhat naïve as well, but I continued to harbor these uncomfortable feelings, believing that when I ultimately did see the film, that I would leave the theater with a similar revulsion. You may imagine my surprise when, after having finally seen FREAKS, I left the film with a combination of disappointment and appreciation; disappointment in the film as a so-called horror "classic," but somewhat of an appreciation for its director who was able to destroy this previously held distasteful feeling. The reason that the film's effect is incomparable to the stills not only stems from Browning's sympathetic character development, but also because he never allows his camera to dwell upon the freaks' appearances for any great length of time in an effort to shock or horrify. The protracted closeups of the freaks are those in which they are portrayed as harmless and friendly beings; when at last they are provoked into evoking the code which bands them together against the outside world, the scenes are horrifying in the extreme, but so too, are they exceptionally brief.
Looking back at another of Zatirka's comments, that "The most moving scenes that make this film stand out, all belong to the freaks," one must acknowledge that the more unique sequences (such as the wedding feast) are perhaps the "most moving" ones, however, the segments of horror within the film belong as much to Browning's feeling for the macabre and thespians Henry Victor and Olga Baclanova as they do the actual freaks. Baclanova's line, "Midgets . . . are not strong!" delivered shortly after Cleopatra has learned of Hans' inheritance and the inspiration to use poison to kill him, is far more horrible in its mere implication than the continual appearance of the malformed attractions in their daily activities, whether it be the birth of the bearded lady's baby, or one of the several romantic encounters between stuttering comic Roscoe Ates and the charming Siamese twins. Another sequence which is particularly effective in terms of mood, is the one near the conclusion of the film in which the midget, dwarf and legless boy are assembled in Cleo's wagon after the artist returns from her evening performance. The ominous playing of the ocarina is terribly reminiscent of Ygor's similar melody in the much later SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, but far more chilling in evoking a mood of eminent peril, not so much because of the characters' deformities (midgets and dwarfs having been used in many films prior to FREAKS and thereby familiar to film-goers), but because of the way in which Browning has staged the scene: the trio calmly waiting for Cleo's return . . . her subsequent fear of their intentions . . . the mounting storm outside . . . all embraced by long stretches of prolonged silence.
There is also no denying that the shot of the human torso, a knife held tightly between his teeth, squirming through the mud towards the mortally wounded Hercules is a peak of filmatic terror, but again, a great deal of the scene's success lies with the staging of the sequence during the storm-filled night, and in a mob of menacing people slowly moving towards a helpless individual. The brief camera shot of the freaks coming after Cleopatra is terrifying as well, but it is the way in which they are revealed to us (for just a fraction of a second . . . in a flash of lightning) that momentarily shakes us. We have not seen any of the freaks pursuing the woman, and it is only when she pauses to turn back to confirm her safety, that we share in her disbelief, and the horror becomes all the more appalling when we realize that her pursuers are our new-found friends.
This raises an important question. Would FREAKS have been any less powerful a horror film per se if Browning had not made use of the more unfamiliar of the freaks? Surely, the film's uniqueness would have been reduced, if the director had replaced the pin-heads, armless girl, half-man/half-woman, et al with physically normal actors in makeup (resulting in an effect perhaps, not unlike the one achieved in ISLAND OF LOST SOULS), but would the sequence have been any the less frightening? Stretching the thesis even further, the film as a whole may have been improved upon, for had Browning been able to forsake his self-imposed task of building audience respect for the freaks, it would have permitted him to dwell on his atmospherics and major theme to a much greater extent, thereby accentuating the grand guignol.
What else might Browning have altered for the better? He could have aroused the shame of his viewers (and painted a more complete picture of circus life as well) had he presented the freaks performing in their actual acts along with the abundance of behind-the-scenes events. This is one phase of the performers' existence Browning tends to almost entirely ignore. Although the Dwain Esper prints may be lacking some footage (including a scene in which Hercules is depicted wrestling a lion [Actually a bull. –ed.]; only a second or so of this scene remains in the standard available prints), it is questionable that there were many other such sequences incorporated into the original version. Would not scenes of massed audiences . . . gaping . . . peering . . . hooting . . . at the freaks, have served as well in arousing the audiences' respect and understanding for the carnival people as well as illustrating all the more clearly which group actually is the more monstrous?
The film's climax—the night in which the freaks wreak their justice upon the strong man and trapeze artist, followed by the epilogue showing the horrendous hen-creature—have long been touted as supreme examples of screen horror, and are unquestionably a major reason why FREAKS has remained a cinematic legend. They are indeed highlights of the film, the torrential downpour being a Browning tour-de-force in which the only sounds are assorted groans, screams and the elements of nature. Nevertheless, for all that can be said of it, the chase sequence is far too brief. We must be content with the one glimpse of Cleo's face and the freaks in pursuit the camera affords us, although a longer series of shots, with Cleo racing . . . falling . . . struggling to make her way through the forest with various innocent shadows playing amongst the trees and undergrowth, climaxing in a similar way, would have made the sequence even more memorable. There remain, admittedly so, the couple of marvelous close-ups of the freaks propelling themselves through the mire towards the mortally wounded Hercules (there appears to be some footage missing here, for the strong man's fate is never actually explained in action or dialogue; an original plan was to have him emasculated, but as the film exists now, it is assumed that the freaks murdered him). Had Browning chosen to insert additional shots such as these, the result would have been even more satisfying.
A still frame of the duck girl lifted directly from the picture.
The closing shot of Cleopatra—now something not entirely human, or so it appears—has long been a source of lengthy commentary as well. While most critics have readily agreed that the scene is utterly superb from the standpoint of sheer shock and surprise, the ridiculousness of the costume has long fallen under debasement. How could a lovely woman be turned into a feathered monstrosity? The answer is amazingly simple. . . . She wasn't! The freaks have obviously mutilated her face, cut out her tongue, and amputated her limbs, however the feathered costume is nothing other than something she has been clothed in to give her the appearance of a hen-woman. Taking this one step further (an exaggerated step, I fully realize, although there is nothing that disproves this theory), it is entirely possible to view the entire story the barker relates to his customers—from the flashback to the carnival up until the time of the freaks' revenge—as a purely fictional account dreamed up by the showman to dupe the crowd at the film's off-set. Looking at the climax in this way makes it entirely conceivable that the creature is no more than a human actress disguised to appear as horrible as the actual freaks in the sideshow, hardly a unique trick even by today's standards. One remark in the film somewhat serves to substantiate this surmise; the barker reveals in his introduction that a royal prince shot himself for love of Cleopatra, a statement which cannot possibly be rationalized when we realize that the gold-digging female would never have allowed such a life of luxury to escape her grasp, even if it meant marrying a midget! This may be an inconsequential flaw, but if it is, and we accept the film's final denouement as shown, then we must in turn reject Browning's continual plea that the freaks are normal in every respect save the physical. The question which then immediately arises is whether mentally adjusted people would resort to such a terrible revenge; or rather, would they inform the authorities and allow the law to take its due course (as one of the physically normal friends of the freaks threatens Hercules she will do if the villainous pair will not abandon their scheme of slowly poisoning Hans). Even if one does decide to accept Browning's conclusion, it is impossible to imagine most of the freaks as potential torturers or murderers, even under the most extreme of circumstances. Browning has given us too much of a detailed look into their lives to convince us otherwise. By suggesting that FREAKS may be regarded in a way other than the one intended, I realize I am leaving myself open to the same criticism leveled at these critics who have imposed an abundance of Freudian phallic symbols upon KING KONG, but while the implications regarding the Cooper-Schoedsack production seem far-fetched in an unrealistic way, accepting FREAKS as a tall tale devised by a loud-mouthed showman makes the M-G-M film more believable . . . as both THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and DEAD OF NIGHT are made more convincing by having their horror content justified through the devices of a "madman's mind" or "recurring nightmare."
Technically, FREAKS is a primitive example of film-making, even by 1932 standards. The camera work and settings are hardly on the same level as other genre efforts of the day, notably Fox's CHANDU THE MAGICIAN, Paramount's ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, United Artists' THE BAT WHISPERS or Metro's own MASK OF FU MANCHU. The previously mentioned over-abundance of trivial sequences indicate that Browning or editor Basil Wrangell erred in allowing the first half of the film to plod along so dismally through the countless barely related scenes. On the other hand, the lack of a musical score does not detract from one's enjoyment of the film, for like Browning's other horror films, music was an unnecessary quality in sustaining the director's particular type of mood. Of the featured performers, Olga Baclanova and Henry Victor individually distinguish themselves in their roles of beauty and strength personified. Not only are they overbearing in their characterizations, but they deliciously over-act throughout their scenes, adding yet another dimension to their villainy by infusing their roles with crass and semi-moronic qualities. Witness Victor's constant booming and pride in his physique, or Baclanova's side-splitting howls of delight whenever a freak is humiliated or injured in even a minor way. Top-billed actor Wallace Ford and femme co-star Leila Hyams are also effective in much more restrained characters, their major function being to provide yet another link between the theater audience and the freaks themselves. The freaks—the superbly cast Harry and Daisy Earles excluded—are not called upon to display any abundance of thespian talents but merely to display themselves as if to silently illustrate that they are not as inhuman as they visually appear. (See Footnote 3) In minor roles, Michael Visaroff (the innkeeper in both DRACULA and MARK OF THE VAMPIRE) and Albert Conti (the Lieutenant in THE BLACK CAT) are ideally cast as caretaker and landowner respectively.
Since its release some forty years ago, FREAKS has inspired one off-shoot as well as a semi-remake, these films being 20th Century-Fox's 1961 release, HOUSE OF THE DAMNED, and the independently distributed SHE-FREAK (1967). The former was set in the traditional bizarre castle, the spooks in this case being no more than a group of displaced circus freaks comprising a Giant (Richard Eegah Kiel), Fat Woman, Legless Woman and Legless Man, who had remained on at the castle after the death of the last tenant, a former carnival showman who had befriended them and given them a home. When a young architect and his wife arrive to survey the castle for a friend's law firm which handles the estate, they are met with the expected haunted house gimmicks in an attempt to frighten them away. Dependent on dark stairways and shock appearances of the freaks to terrify, HOUSE OF THE DAMNED emerged as little more than a horror programmer. Far more intriguing was SHE-FREAK, produced by the then-king of sex and sadism horror films, David E. Friedman. As in former Friedman vehicles, BLOOD FEAST, COLOR ME BLOOD RED and TWO THOUSAND MANIACS, the screenplay was devised to exploit the horror elements to their fullest. The basic theme of a callous woman who joins a traveling freak-show, marries its owner for his money, then joins with the ferris-wheel foreman in murdering him was lifted without credit from FREAKS, as was the film's climax, in which the freaks band together to revenge themselves upon the girl, turning her into a scarred reptile-woman. Bathing in delights such as a jar containing a pickled two-headed baby, Friedman's production failed to garner the film any special critical notice coming as it did, at a time when the blood and guts horror film was a generally accepted thing. Lacking the intelligence and sincerity that went into FREAKS, it serves to prove, if nothing else, that a film like FREAKS would not be condemned by the public in our modern world, a world which has experienced far too many horrors, fictional and actual, to be disturbed over a film featuring circus freaks.
Today, the original FREAKS can only be regarded as an exceptional curiosity from the early days of the horror talkies, relying on two or three scenes to sustain its "classic" status. However, for 1932 audiences . . . the same movie-goers who shrunk back in fear at the sight of Chaney's unmasked visage in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, who found such primitively filmed efforts as DRACULA truly horrifying and who had yet to experience real-life monsters, such as Hitler & Eichmann, the sight of such monstrosities as displayed in FREAKS must have had far greater effect than the reaction it has on current audiences. Browning's efforts to make the unnatural attractions appear more normal obviously did not succeed with those contemporary masses; the feeling of revulsion and the unfamiliarity with horror films being too difficult to overcome for too many of them in spite of Browning's immense talents. Nowadays, these talents are far more successful in attaining their original goal, and much of what was horrible is minimized. By accepting his work as he originally intended, at least in part, with a great deal of sympathy and understanding, Browning is revealed as a director who was, in his own way, far ahead of his peers. That Irving Thalberg supported the project also says a lot for his own sophistication towards the film medium.
1. One mystery concerning FREAKS, which has yet to be satisfactorily explained, is the existence of a production still, circa 1930, showing Tod Browning helping Lon Chaney into a hen costume similar to that which Olga Baclanova wore in the film's climax. The still (reproduced in Famous Monsters #22) might imply that Browning had the concept of the film in mind before Chaney's death in August of 1930. If true, this would cast grave suspicion on the ''Thalberg Story." (Return to Text)
2. The title FREAKS was not as original as it appears. Walt Lee's Reference Guide to Fantastic Films: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (Vol. I) reveals that Joker Films produced a silent FREAKS in 1915. The film was produced & directed by Allen Curtis, featured William Franey and Max Asher, among others, and could be termed a borderline horror film because of its use of actual circus freaks. (Return to Text)
3. Angelo Rossito, the dwarf in FREAKS, later went on to play in several other minor horror roles, usually as one of Bela Lugosi's familiars, including SPOOKS RUN WILD (1941), THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942) and SCARED TO DEATH (1947). For years a familiar sight as a Hollywood newsboy, he recently appeared with Lon Chaney and J. Carroll Naish in DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN. (Return to Text)


I recently reviewed the Benchmade Griptilian, a model I consider to be a classic Benchmade knife. The Benchmade 710 is another one of those classic Benchmade knives.
The 710 was designed by knife makers Bill McHenry and Jason Williams. This is a father and stepson team that invented the Axis lock. They subsequently and then sold the rights to the Axis lock to Benchmade. Benchmade asked McHenry & Williams to design a knife to feature this new locking mechanism and the 710 is what they came up with. The 710 is the first Benchmade knife to ever feature the Axis lock.
Since it's introduction the 710 has received a lot of praise. Most notably the 710 earned the Shooting Industry Magazine's Knife of the Year Award after it was introduced in 1999.
Needless to say both the 710 and the Axis lock went on to become big hits, and now more than a decade later both the knife and the locking system are still wildly popular among users and enthusiasts alike.
The 710 is on the large side. The overall length is 8.8″ with a 3.9″ blade, a blade thickness of .115″ and a weight of 4.5 ounces. Obviously this is not a feather light every day carry (EDC) blade. Personally I find this more of a "nights and weekends carry" when I can carry a bigger knife. That said I know plenty of people EDC the 710.
The blade is a modified clip point shape with an elegant unsharpened swedge that comes to a fine point, ideal for piercing and thrust cuts. The edge has a slight recurve which helps with draw cuts and allows the already long blade to perform like a slightly larger knife. The 710 has a hollow grind which begins high on the blade and makes this an excellent slicer.
Benchmade went with D2 steel for the blade. D2 is a "semi-stainless" high carbon tool steel known for its toughness and edge retention. Benchmade has heat treated the blade to a rockwell hardness of 60-62 which is quite hard, especially before the introduction of super steels like S90V. The nice thing about D2 is that it can actually handle this kind of hardness without becoming brittle and chippy.
One potential issue with D2 is because it is such a hard and tough steel it is more difficult to sharpen. The recurve doesn't help. This is the kind of knife that you will want to maintain regularly. Allowing this knife to get completely dull will make it difficult to resharpen without diamond stones. I would recommend a Spyderco Sharpmaker with diamond rods to maintain this knife. While I am able to keep a decent edge on my 710, I readily acknowledge that it is not the easiest knife to sharpen.
Another potential issue is corrosion. Like all steels, D2 can rust. D2 has a high chromium content, which helps to prevent rust, but there is not enough chromium to classify it as a stainless steel. D2 is comprised of approximately 12% chromium, and a stainless steel is usually classified as 13% or above. This is why D2 is often referred to as a "semi-stainless" steel. Regular cleaning and a little preventative maintenance will go a long way to combating issues with corrosion. However, you can see in the pictures of my knife some patina and staining that has formed.
The 710 has a G10 and stainless steel handle with a Fiberglass Reinforced Nylon (FRN) backspacer. The 410 stainless steel liners have been skeletonized to reduce the weight and the machined G10 is very handsome. Generally, I like the handle a lot, although I do have some criticisms. First of all, I prefer open (pillar) construction with my handles. It makes the knife much easier to clean so to see a FRN backspacer here is a bit of a disappointment. That said, this isn't a deal breaker and ultimately what we have here is a very strong handle.
What may be more concerning is the texturing on the G10 handle. The texturing is not that aggressive and the handle can become slippery when wet. On a tactical knife, this bothers me. Also, there isn't a finger choil, which again can compromise the integrity of your grip. The McHenry and Williams flared the handle (in both the thumb ramp and finger choil area), this does help the grip, even in the absence of any functional jimping (which is typical for Benchmade and not an issue for me). If you are seriously considering the 710 as a weapon, I would try one out in person before committing the $140+ this knife retails for.
That said, the handle feels great with it's rounded edges and lightly textured scales. For an EDC / user knife, the handle will be adequate for most purposes. I imagine Benchmade went with a slightly less grippy texturing to give the knife a more refined look and in order to appeal to a wider audience.
The pocket clip is a standard blackened Benchmade clip. The 710 allows for ambidextrous tip up carry. Some might lament the lack of a "4 corners" pocket clip, but personally, I only use tip up anyways so this is not a big deal (I'd love to hear some comments if this is truly an issue for you). The knife rides low in the pocket, with about a half inch of the handle poking out of the top. For me, this is perfect. I like something to grip onto when I am trying to pull the knife from my pocket.
Not a whole lot needs to be said here, the deployment and lock of the 710 is excellent. This is largely due to the Axis lock and Benchmade's stellar quality control. If I was writing this review back when the 710 first came out, this probably would have been the longest part of the review, but the Axis lock has been proven and I have written at length about it.
Just to cover a couple points however, the axis lock on the 710 is as smooth as butter. The knife has beefy phosphor bronze bushings which provide a low friction environment to allow the blade to fly out when deployed. With a little practice this knife can deploy almost as fast as an automatic. The lockup is very solid with out any play. I'll also say the blade retention on this knife is also very good so you don't need to worry about it accidentally opening in your pocket.
The Benchmade 710 is a true workhorse of a knife. I have put my 710 through a lot over the years, and it has never failed me. It's large and comfortable handle matches up to an equally large and sharp blade. The end result is a tool that is ideally suited for outdoorsmen, law enforcement, and military personnel. I enjoy the simplicity of the 710. It sort of reminds me of Glock handguns. It's not a fancy design, but it works, and it forged the way for many excellent Benchmade knives featuring the axis lock.
With that said, the 710 is far from perfect. D2 steel was probably a great choice back when this knife first came out, but these days there are better options. Also the recurve makes this knife more difficult to sharpen. The recurve adds subtle elegance to the 710, but I'd be willing to sacrifice some classiness for ease of sharpening. Finally, the texturing on the handle is a little weak. For a work knife I'd like to see grippier G10.
The 710 is a classic with much deserved reputation. This is a design that has stood the test of time, and is still an excellent knife after all these years. At the end of the day, the 710 it cuts well and feels good in the hand. What else do you need from a big folding knife? If you are a fan of folding tactical knives, then you should check out the 710 at some point. This modern classic still gets the job done.
I recommend purchasing the 710 from Amazon. Buying anything through any of the links on this website earns BladeReviews.com a small commission (at absolutely no cost to you) and helps support the site. Any and all support is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.
It would probably have been an improvement on the scales if there was a bit of contour like the 860 or the 580. I think all larger flat knives could use a bit of curve across the handle, even though it bulks them up a bit. Sometimes the straight slab construction seems like a bit of a cheat… With that said, it's both a classic and an over all beauty. I'll surely buy one at some point!
I think a little more contour would definitely make this knife feel a little better in hand. As one of the older and more enduring designs I love it's classic appeal, but it would be very cool if Benchmade updated it a little with some of their sculpted scales.
I've bought my NIB LE 710 for $200+ here in Russia, but I guess that prices should be much lower in the US.
Thanks for the great comment man. That is very interesting to hear that your LE version is of higher quality! I have not had a chance to play around with many Limited Edition Benchmade's yet so that is quite a surprise. I'll have to hunt around and see what a 710 in M390 would cost, it might be a little under $200 but that's if you can find one!
BM also produced "regular" m390 710's, which I found similar to the D2 ones in every aspect (except for the blade material of course).
model 710 introduced the world to AXIS for unprecedented features an ambidextrous hand.
Greetings Dan, I just bought one ten min. ago on Ebay.
Black G10, plain edge all black ATS-34 blade.
Never used, never carried, in great condition.
I'm going to try doing it once I receive the knife.
As always, great to visit your site.
Congrats on the purchase, man! The 710 is a real workhorse and I hope you end up enjoying it. I like the modification you linked to. It's subtle, but it should help you get at the thumb studs a little easier. If it works, then I think BM should have done that right in the factory. If you get a chance, let us know what you think of the knife and the modification after you have had some time. Thanks for stopping by and for leaving the cool / informative comment.
I love the concept of the 710 but can't seem to pull the trigger on it after hearing about sharpening the recurve. Is it easy enough the touch up with a Sharpmaker like mine?
Any advice would help, thanks!
Not going to lie, this is one of the more difficult knives to sharpen. D2 can be pretty stubborn and the recurve doesn't help. I struggled to get an edge I was 100% satisfied with on my 710 with the Sharpmaker.
Thanks Dan still going to pick one up! Such a gorgeous knife to have in the collection! Keep up the great reviews!
My 710 is ATS-34 sharpens very well.
Hey man, thanks for the advice!
is this model being discontinued?
I don't think so. This is a classic for Benchmade and one of their best sellers. The first to have an axis lock. Hard to believe they would discontinue it. Where did you hear this?
That's what I thought too but I came accross this website called "Knifeworks.com".
"This items is being discontinued by Benchmade" under the price.
Again, thanks for replying to my comment.
Hi Jonathan, Very interesting. Thank you. I'll look into it further.
It does in fact seem Benchmade no longer offers the 710 on its website. The question now is simple, have they lost their minds at Benchmade? Such a classic folder..
Shared, If I grab it by the tip of the blade I can muscle out a little play. The closer to the pivot, the less play.