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Meryl Streep Ordre des Arts et des Lettres | |
Streep photographed by Jack Mitchell in the late 1970s. | |
Born | Mary Louise Streep June 22, 1949 Summit, New Jersey, U.S. |
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Actress, producer |
Years active | 1971–present |
Spouse(s) | Don Gummer (m. 1978) |
Partner(s) | John Cazale (1976–78) |
Children | Henry Wolfe Gummer Mamie Gummer Grace Gummer Louisa Gummer |
Website | |
merylstreeponline |
Meryl Streep Ordre des Arts et des Lettres | |
Streep photographed by Jack Mitchell in the late 1970s. | |
Born | Mary Louise Streep June 22, 1949 Summit, New Jersey, U.S. |
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Actress, producer |
Years active | 1971–present |
Spouse(s) | Don Gummer (m. 1978) |
Partner(s) | John Cazale (1976–78) |
Children | Henry Wolfe Gummer Mamie Gummer Grace Gummer Louisa Gummer |
Website | |
merylstreeponline |
Meryl Streep (born Mary Louise Streep; June 22, 1949) is an American actress and producer. A three-time Academy Award winner, she is widely regarded as one of the greatest film actors of all time.[1][2][3] Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville in 1971, and went on to receive a 1976 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for A Memory of Two Mondays/27 Wagons Full of Cotton. She made her screen debut in the 1977 television film The Deadliest Season, and made her film debut later that same year in Julia. In 1978, she won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust, and received the first of her 19 Academy Award nominations for The Deer Hunter. She has more Academy Award nominations than any actor or actress in history, winning Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).
Streep is one of only six actors who have won three or more competitive Academy Awards for acting. Her other nominated roles include The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Silkwood (1983), Out of Africa (1985), A Cry in the Dark (1988), Postcards From the Edge (1990), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Adaptation (2002), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Doubt (2008), Julie & Julia (2009), August: Osage County (2013), and Into the Woods (2014). She returned to the stage for the first time in over 20 years in The Public Theater's 2002 revival of The Seagull, won a second Emmy Award in 2004 for the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003), and starred in the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children.
Streep has also received 29 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations and more competitive (non-honorary) wins than any other actor (male or female) in history.[4] Her work has also earned her two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, two Australian Film Institute awards, five Grammy Award nominations, and five Drama Desk Award nominations, among several others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2011 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2010 National Medal of Arts and in 2014 the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[5] In 2003, the government of France made her a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.[6]
Streep was born in Summit, New Jersey on 22 June 1949.[7][8] Her mother, Mary Wilkinson Streep (née Mary Wolf Wilkinson; 1915–2001), was a commercial artist and an art editor, and her father, Harry William Streep, Jr. (1910–2003), was a pharmaceutical executive.[9] She has two brothers, Dana David and Harry William III.[10] Her father was of German and Swiss-German ancestry. Her father's lineage traces back to Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as a mayor (the surname was later changed to "Streep").[11] Another line of her father's family was from Giswil, Switzerland. Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry.[11] Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were descended from 17th century immigrants from England.[12][13] Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle Rhode Island.[14] Streep is also a distant relative of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and records show that her family is among the first purchasers of land in the state.[14] Streep's maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, were natives of the Hook Head district of Dunfanaghy, Ireland.[13][15][16]
Streep was raised as a Presbyterian[17] in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attended Bernards High School.[18] Author Karina Longworth describes her as a "gawky kid with glasses and frizzy hair", yet notes that she liked to show off in front of the camera in family home videos from a young age.[19] At the age of 12 she was selected to sing at a school recital, which led to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. However, despite her talent, she remarked that "I was singing something I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson—not to do that. To find the thing that I could feel through".[19] She quit after four years. She had many school friends who were Catholic, and regularly attended Mass because she loved its rituals.[20] Although in high school Streep appeared in numerous school plays, she was disinterested in serious theatre until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. [21] Vassar drama professor Clinton J Atkinson noted, "I don't think anyone ever taught Meryl acting. She really taught herself".[21] She demonstrated an early ability to mimic accents and to quickly memorize her lines. She received her BA at the college in 1971, before applying for a MFA from the Yale School of Drama. At Yale she supplemented her course fees by waitressing and typing, and appeared in over a dozen stage productions a year, to the point that she became overworked, developing ulcers, which led her to contemplate quitting acting and switching to study law.[21] She played a variety of roles onstage,[22] from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato.[23][24] One of her teachers was Robert Lewis, one of the co-founders of the Actors Studio, yet Streep disapproved of some of the acting exercises she was asked to do, feeling that the professors "delved into personal lives in a way I find obnoxious".[25][26] She received her MFA from Yale in 1975.[27] Streep later enrolled as a visiting student at Dartmouth College from where she received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree in 1981.[27]
Streep moved to New York City in 1975 where she was cast by Joseph Papp in Trewlawny of the Wells opposite Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow at the Public Theater [25] She appeared in six roles in her first year in New York, including roles in Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival productions of Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew with Raúl Juliá, and Measure for Measure opposite Sam Waterston and John Cazale.[28] At this time she entered a relationship with Cazale, with whom she lived until his death three years later.[25] She starred in the musical Happy End on Broadway, and won an Obie for her performance in the off-Broadway play Alice at the Palace.[29]
Although she had not set out for a film career, Robert de Niro's performance in Taxi Driver had a profound impact on the young actress who said to herself, "that's the kind of actor I want to be when I grow up".[25] Streep began auditioning for film roles, and underwent an unsuccessful audition for the leading role in Dino De Laurentiis's King Kong. Laurentiis stated in Italian to his son: "This is so ugly. Why did you bring me this ".[19] Unknown to Laurentiis, Streep understood Italian, which she had studied for a year while undertaking a drama course at Vassar and remarked "I'm very sorry that I'm not as beautiful as I should be but, you know—this is it. This is what you get".[21] In New York City, she appeared in the 1976 Broadway double bill of Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays. For the former, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured female actor in a Play.[30] Her other early Broadway credits include Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical Happy End in which she originally appeared off-Broadway at the Chelsea Theater Center. She received Drama Desk Award nominations for both productions.[31]
Streep's first feature film role was opposite Jane Fonda in Julia (1977), in which she played a small but pivotal role during a flashback scene. Most of her scenes for the film ended up being cut, but the brief time on screen horrified the actress, who said, "I had a bad wig and they took the words from the scene I shot with Jane and put them in my mouth in a different scene. I thought, I've made a terrible mistake, no more movies. I hate this business".[25] Streep stated however that Fonda was an excellent role model, and took her under her wing during the production.[25]
Streep was living in New York City with Cazale, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer, at the time that they were cast in The Deer Hunter (1978).[32][33] Streep accepted the role of the "vague, stock girlfriend" part of Robert de Niro's character to remain with Cazale for the duration of filming. [34] De Niro had spotted Streep in her stage production of The Cherry Orchard and had suggested that she play his shy girlfriend Linda.[35] Longworth notes that Streep "made a case for female empowerment by playing a woman to whom empowerment was a foreign concept—a normal lady from an average American small town, for whom subservience was the only thing she knew".[36] Due to the success of the film it exposed Streep to a wider audience and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.[37] Pauline Kael, who would later become a strong critic of Streep's, stated that Streep was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance.[38] Later that year she played a leading role in the television miniseries Holocaust as a German woman married to a Jewish artist in Nazi era Germany. She later explained that she had considered the material to be "unrelentingly noble" and had taken the role only because she had needed money.[39] Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while Cazale remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him for four months by his side in hospital until his death on March 12, 1978.[40][33] With an estimated audience of 109 million, Holocaust brought a degree of public recognition to Streep, who was described in August 1978 as "on the verge of national visibility". She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama or Comedy Special for her performance.[41] In a February 1979 interview Streep stated that she disapproved of the award, remarking that "I don't believe performances should be taken out of context and put up against each other for awards".[40] At this stage in her career Streep had not been keen on her film work, stating, "Films are nice, but I don't live in this world. Movies aren't going to be my life. I come in, do my job, and don't hang around. I can put more energy into plays, I can open my mouth and scream."[42]
Streep spoke of her grief of Cazale's death and her hope that work would provide a diversion; she accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda, later commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park, and also played a supporting role in Manhattan (1979) for Woody Allen, later stating that she had not seen a complete script and was given only the six pages of her own scenes,[43] and that she had not been permitted to improvise a word of her dialogue.[44] Asked to comment on the script for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), in a meeting with the producer Stan Jaffee, director Robert Benton and star Dustin Hoffman, Streep insisted that the female character was not representative of many real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles, and was written as "too evil". Jaffee, Benton and Hoffman agreed with Streep, and the script was revised. Streep later professed that she still felt a high degree of insecurity during production and was grateful that Benton had served more like a theatrical director than a film director in acknowledging her own thoughts and input.[45] In preparing for the part, Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a mother and housewife with a career,[46] and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set, watching the interactions between parents and children at playgrounds.[45] Benton allowed Streep to write her dialogue in two of her key scenes, despite some objection from Hoffman.[47] Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep's tirelessness, with Hoffman commenting, "She's extraordinarily hardworking, to the extent that she's obsessive. I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she's doing."[48] Streep's initial impression of Hoffman had been a negative one, thinking him to have been an "obnoxious pig" when she had first met him on stage several years earlier, and Hoffman had admitted that he initially "hated her guts" but respected her as an actress.[45] The film, upon release in December 1979, was a controversial one for many feminists, particularly the conception of Streep's character and the bitter divorce between her and Hoffman, but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed had displayed Streep's "own emotional intensity", considering her to have been one of those "rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery".[49] She drew critical acclaim for her performance in each of her three films released in 1979: the romantic comedy Manhattan, the political drama The Seduction of Joe Tynan and the family drama, Kramer vs. Kramer.[28] She was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress,[50] National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her collective work in the three films.[51][52] Among the awards she won for Kramer vs. Kramer were the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.[28]
In 1979, Streep began workshopping Alice in Concert, a musical version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with writer and composer Elizabeth Swados and director Joseph Papp; the show was put on at New York's Public Theater from December 1980. Frank Rich of The New York Times referred to Streep as the "one wonder" of the production. but questioned why she had devoted so much energy to it.[42]
After supporting roles in two of the 1970s' most successful films, the consecutive winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer, and praise for her versatility in several supporting roles, Streep progressed to leading roles. As the decade began, she was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine with the headline "A Star for the 80s", with Jack Kroll saying of her inside the magazine, "There's a sense of mystery in her acting; she doesn't simply imitate. (although she's a great muimic in private). She transmits a sense of danger, a primal unease lying just below the surface of normal behavior".[53] Streep denounced the fervent media coverage at this time as "excessive hype".[53] Her first was The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981). A story within a story drama, the film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. Streep perfected the English accent for the part.[54] A New York Magazine article commented that, while many female stars of the past had cultivated a singular identity in their films, Streep was a "chameleon", willing to play any type of role.[55] Streep had been content with her performance but was concerned that she had been miscast, commenting, "Watching the film, I couldn't help wishing that I was more beautiful. There comes a point when you have to look the part, especially in movies..I really wishes I was the kind of actress who could have just stood there and said it all".[53] Streep was awarded a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work.[56]
Her next film, the psychological thriller, Still of the Night (1982) reunited her with Robert Benton, the director of Kramer vs. Kramer, and co-starred Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy. Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, noted that the film was an homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, but that one of its main weaknesses was a lack of chemistry between Streep and Scheider, concluding that Streep "is stunning, but she's not on screen anywhere near long enough".[57] Later in 1982, Streep starred in Sophie's Choice (1982), portraying a Polish holocaust survivor caught in a love triangle between a young naive writer (Peter MacNicol) and a Jewish intellectual (Kevin Kline). Streep's emotional dramatic performance and her apparent mastery of a Polish accent drew praise.[28] Streep said that the inspiration for her Polish accent in "Sophie's Choice" was Polish actress, Elżbieta Czyżewska.[58] William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Streep was very determined to get the role. After she obtained a pirated copy of the script, she went to Alan J. Pakula and threw herself on the ground begging him to give her the part.[59] Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take and refused to do it again, as she found shooting the scene extremely painful and emotionally exhausting.[60] Among several notable acting awards, Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.[61] Roger Ebert said of her performance, "Streep plays the Brooklyn scenes with an enchanting Polish-American accent (she has the first accent I've ever wanted to hug), and she plays the flashbacks in subtitled German and Polish. There is hardly an emotion that Streep doesn't touch in this movie, and yet we're never aware of her straining. This is one of the most astonishing and yet one of the most unaffected and natural performances I can imagine."[62] Pauline Kael on the contrary called the film an "infuriatingly bad movie" and thought that Streep "decorporealizes" herself, which she believed explained why her movie heroines "don't seem to be full characters, and why there are no incidental joys to be had from watching her".[63]
She followed this success with a biographical film, Silkwood (1983), in which she played her first real-life character, the union activist Karen Silkwood, opposite Cher. Filming began in Texas in early September 1982, just two weeks after she had returned from Yugoslavia.[64] Streep noted that she was drawn to playing "prissy women, disagreeable women, women whose motives are easily misconstrued",[21] and felt a personal connection to Silkwood, believing herself to be very close to her with her background.[64] She discussed her preparation for the role in an interview with Roger Ebert and said that she had met with people close to Silkwood to learn more about her, and in doing so realized that each person saw a different aspect of Silkwood.[65] She concentrated on the events of Silkwood's life and concluded, "I didn't try to turn myself into Karen. I just tried to look at what she did. I put together every piece of information I could find about her... What I finally did was look at the events in her life, and try to understand her from the inside."[65] Upon release in December 1983, the film earned $35.6 million at the box office and topped the box office charts after seven weeks. Streep was praised by most critics and was nominated for an Oscar. Jack Kroll of Newsweek considered Streep's characterization to have been "brilliant", adding that "we feel [her] awakening in our own nonradioactive bones", although Pauline Kael believed that Streep had been miscast.[66] The real Drew Stephens expressed approval in that Streep had played Karen as a human being rather than a myth, although Karen's father Bill thought that Streep and the film dumbed his daughter down when she had been a Grade-A student.[66]
Her next films were a romantic drama, Falling in Love (1984) opposite Robert De Niro, and a British drama, Plenty (1985). Roger Ebert said of Streep's performance in Plenty that she conveyed "great subtlety; it is hard to play an unbalanced, neurotic, self-destructive woman, and do it with such gentleness and charm... Streep creates a whole character around a woman who could have simply been a catalogue of symptoms."[67] In 2008, Molly Haskell praised Streep's performance in what she considered to have been "one of Streep's most difficult and ambiguous" films and "most feminist" role.[68]
Academy Award-winning Out of Africa (1985) starred Streep as the Danish writer Karen Blixen and co-starred Robert Redford. Director Sydney Pollack was initially dubious about Streep in the role as he didn't think she was sexy enough, and had considered Jane Seymour for the part. Pollack recalls that Streep impressed him in a different way: "She was so direct, so honest, so without bullshit. There was no shielding between her and me. I thought, "If this comes out of the screen—Wow!".[69] Streep and Pollack often clashed during the 101-day shoot in Kenya, particularly over Blixen's voice. Streep had spent much time listening to tapes of Blixen and began speaking in a very old-fashioned and aristocratic fashion, which Pollack thought excessive. Streep and Redford on the other hand "probably got on too well" according to Redford.[70] Longworth considers the film to have marked the end of the first phase of Streep's career and transition from stage actress to Hollywood superstar. A significant commercial and critical success, earning her another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and winning Best Picture. One journalist remarked that the film was the "first-time pairing of Meryl Streep, the finest actress of her generation, and Robert Redford, the leading screen heartthrob of his generation".[68] Critic Stanley Kaufmann wrote, "Meryl Streep is back in top form. This means her performance in Out of Africa is at the highest level of acting in film today".[71]
Longworth notes that the dramatic success of Out of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time such as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, Streep "never seemed to play herself", and some felt that she had too much technique as an actress to the point that you could see her acting.[72] Her next films were not successful ones and didn't appeal to mass audiences; she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the dramas Heartburn (1986) and Ironweed (1987), in which she sang onscreen for the first time since the television movie, Secret Service, in 1977. In A Cry in the Dark, aka Evil Angels (1988), she played the biographical role of Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman who had been convicted of the murder of her infant daughter despite Chamberlain claiming the baby had been taken by a dingo. Filmed in Australia, Streep won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role,[73] a Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.[74]
In 1989, Streep lobbied to play the lead role in Oliver Stone's adaption of Evita from the stage, but in September, just two months before filming was due to commence she dropped out, citing "exhaustion" initially, although it was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary.[75] When the film was eventually released in 1996, Streep reportedly expressed her distaste of Madonna's performance, stating, I could rip her throat out. I can sing better than she can, if that counts for anything.[75] In She-Devil (1989), Streep played her first comedic film role, opposite Roseanne Barr. Streep jumped at the chance of playing the role which she saw as a parody of Hollywood's obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery[76] Richard Corliss, writing for Time, commented that Streep was the "one reason" to see the film and observed that it marked a departure from the type of role for which she had been known, saying, "Surprise! Inside the Greer Garson roles Streep usually plays, a vixenish Carole Lombard is screaming to be cut loose."[77] Of her poorly received films of the late 1980s and in response to critics which blamed her for their failure, Streep said in 1990, "Audiences are shrinking, As the marketing strategy defines more and more narrowly who they want to reach—males from 16 to 25—it's become a chicken-and-egg syndrome. Which came first? First they release all these summer movies, then do a demographic survey of who's going to see them".[75]
In the 1990s, Streep continued to play a great variety of roles. Biographer Karen Hollinger described this period as a downturn in the popularity of Streep's films, attributing this partly to a critical perception that her comedies had been an attempt to convey a lighter image following several serious but commercially unsuccessful dramas, and more significantly to the lack of options available to an actress in her forties.[78] Streep commented that she had limited her options by her preference to work in Los Angeles, close to her family,[78] a situation that she had anticipated in a 1981 interview when she commented, "By the time an actress hits her mid-forties, no one's interested in her anymore. And if you want to fit a couple of babies into that schedule as well, you've got to pick your parts with great care."[55]
Also in 1990, at the Screen Actor's Guild National Women's Conference, Streep keynoted the first national event, emphasizing the decline in women's work opportunities, pay parity, and role models within the film industry.[79] She criticized the film industry for downplaying the importance of women both on screen and off.[74] Streep played a drug-addicted movie actress in Postcards from the Edge, a screen adaptation of Carrie Fisher's novel of the same name, with Dennis Quaid and Shirley MacLaine. Streep and Goldie Hawn had established a friendship and were interested in making a film together. After considering various projects, they decided upon Thelma and Louise, until Streep's pregnancy coincided with the filming schedule, and the producers decided to proceed with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. They subsequently filmed the farcical black comedy, Death Becomes Her, with Bruce Willis as their co-star. Streep persuaded Koepp to rewrite several of the scenes, particularly the one in which her character Madeline has an affair with a young stud, which she believed was "unrealistically male" in its conception. The seven-month shoot was the longest of Streep's career, during which got into character by "thinking about being slightly pissed off all of the time". [80] Due to Streep's allergies to numerous cosmetics, special prosthetics had to be designed to age her by ten years to look 54, although Streep believed that it made her look nearer 70.[81] Longworth considers Death Becomes Her to have been "the most physical performance Streep had yet committed to screen, all broad weeping, smirking, and eye-rolling".[82] Although it was a major commercial success, earning $15.1 million in just five days, Streep's contribution to comedy was generally not taken well by critics.[83] Time's Richard Corliss wrote approvingly of Streep's "wicked-witch routine" but dismissed the film as "She-Devil with a make-over" and one which "hates women".[84][83]
In 1995, Streep starred opposite Clint Eastwood in the love story The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Based on a best-selling novel by Robert James Waller,[85] it relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for National Geographic, who has a love affair with a middle-aged Italian farm wife in Iowa named Francesca (Streep). When Streep received the script she knew it presented her with a special opportunity, given that Streep professed that in most scripts coming her way, the female is treated as a sex object.[86] However, she was critical of the novel, which she viewed as a "crime against literature", failing to complete it.[87] Streep and Eastwood got along famously during production and such was their on-screen chemistry that a number of people believed that the two were having an affair off-camera, although this was denied by both.[88][89] She gained weight for the part, and wore traditional housedresses, unlike the T-shirts and jeans that the character wore in the book, with the belts fastened tightly to emulate those of voluptuous Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren. Both Loren and Anna Magnani were an influence in her portrayal, and Streep viewed Pier Paolo Passolini's Mamma Roma (1962) prior to the shooting to draw some inspiration.[90] The film was a hit at the box office and grossed over $70 million in the United States.[91] The film, unlike the novel, surprised film critics and was warmly received. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Clint had managed to create "a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill", while Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal described The Bridges of Madison County as "one of the most pleasurable films in recent memory".[91] Longworth believes that Streep's performance was "crucial to transforming what could have been a weak soap opera into a vibrant work of historical fiction implicitly critiquing postwar America's stifling culture of domesticity".[92] She believes that it was a role in which Streep became "arguably the first middle-aged actress to be taken seriously by Hollywood as a romantic heroine".[93]
In 1996, Streep starred as Lee in Marvin's Room, an adaptation of the play by Scott McPherson. Diane Keaton played her estranged sister Bessie, a woman battling leukemia, and Streep recommended Keaton for the role.[94] The film also starred a young Leonardo DiCaprio as Streep's rebellious son. Roger Ebert stated that "Streep and Keaton, in their different styles, find ways to make Lee and Bessie into much more than the expression of their problems."[95] Although critically acclaimed, the film was not released on a wide scale. Streep, however, earned another Golden Globe nomination for the film.[96]
In 1999, Streep portrayed Roberta Guaspari, a real-life New Yorker who found passion and enlightenment teaching violin to inner-city kids in East Harlem, in the music drama Music of the Heart. A departure from director Wes Craven's previous work on films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, Streep replaced singer Madonna who left the project before filming began due to creative differences with Craven.[97][98] Required to perform on the violin, Streep went through two months of intense training, five to six hours a day.[97]
Streep entered the 2000s with an uncredited voice cameo in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a science fiction film about a childlike android, played by Haley Joel Osment, uniquely programmed with the ability to love, voicing the Blue Fairy.[99] The same year, Streep co-hosted the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert concert with Liam Neeson which was held in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2001 in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the United Nations and Kofi Annan.[100][101]
In 2002, Streep returned to the stage for the first time in more than twenty years, playing Arkadina in The Public Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.[102] The same year, she began work on Spike Jonze's comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), in which she portrayed real-life journalist Susan Orlean. Lauded by critics and viewers alike,[103] the film won Streep her fourth Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category.[96] Also in 2002, Streep appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, based on the 1999 novel by Michael Cunningham. Focusing on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the film was generally well received and won all three leading actresses a Silver Bear for Best Actress the following year.[96]
The following year, Streep had a cameo as herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You (2003) and reunited with Mike Nichols to star with Al Pacino and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's six-hour play Angels in America, the story of two couples whose relationships dissolve amidst the backdrop of Reagan Era politics. Streep, who was cast in four roles in the mini-series, received her second Emmy Award and fifth Golden Globe for her performance.[96] In 2004, Streep was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award by the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute.[96] She appeared in Jonathan Demme's moderately successful remake of The Manchurian Candidate,[104] co-starring Denzel Washington, playing the role of a woman who is both a U.S. senator and the manipulative, ruthless mother of a vice-presidential candidate.[105] The same year, she played the supporting role of Aunt Josephine in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events alongside Jim Carrey, based on the first three novels in Snicket's book series. The black comedy received generally favorable reviews from critics,[106] and won the Academy Award for Best Makeup.[107] Inspired by her love of Giverny in France and Claude Monet, Streep did the narration for the film Monet's Palate, with Alice Waters, Steve Wynn, Daniel Boulud and Helen Rappel Bordman.[108]
Streep was next cast in the 2005 comedy film Prime, directed by Ben Younger. In the film, she played Lisa Metzger, the Jewish psychoanalyst of a divorced and lonesome business-woman, played by Uma Thurman, who enters a relationship with Metzger's 23-year-old son (Bryan Greenberg). A modest mainstream success, it eventually grossed US$67.9 million internationally.[109] In August and September 2006, she starred onstage at The Public Theater's production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.[110] The Public Theater production was a new translation by playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America), with songs in the Weill/Brecht style written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, or Change); veteran director George C. Wolfe was at the helm. Streep starred alongside Kevin Kline and Austin Pendleton in this three-and-a-half-hour play.[111][31]
Also in 2006, Streep, along with Lily Tomlin, portrayed the last two members of what was once a popular family country music act in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion. A comedic ensemble piece featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Woody Harrelson, the film revolves around the behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film grossed more than US$26 million, the majority of which came from domestic markets.[112] Commercially, Streep fared better with a role in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. Streep portrayed the powerful and demanding Miranda Priestly, fashion magazine editor (and boss of a recent college graduate played by Anne Hathaway), and her performance drew rave reviews from critics and earned her many award nominations, including her record-setting 14th Oscar bid, as well as another Golden Globe.[113][114] Upon its commercial release, the film became Streep's biggest commercial success yet, grossing more than US$326.5 million worldwide.[115]
In 2007, Streep was cast in four films. She portrayed a wealthy university patron in Chen Shi-zheng's much-delayed feature drama Dark Matter (2007), a film about a Chinese science graduate student who becomes violent after dealing with academic politics at a U.S. university. Inspired by the events of the 1991 University of Iowa shooting,[116] and initially scheduled for a 2007 release, producers and investors decided to shelve Dark Matter out of respect for the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.[117] The drama received negative to mixed reviews upon its limited 2008 release.[118] Streep played a U.S. government official who investigates an Egyptian foreign national suspected of terrorism in the political thriller Rendition (2007), directed by Gavin Hood.[119] Keen to get involved in a thriller film, Streep welcomed the opportunity to star in a film genre for which she was not usually offered scripts and immediately signed on to the project.[120] Upon its release, Rendition was less commercially successful,[121] and received mixed reviews.[122]
Also in 2007, Streep had a short role alongside Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close and her eldest daughter Mamie Gummer in Lajos Koltai's drama film Evening, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot. Switching between the present and the past, it tells the story of a bedridden woman, who remembers her tumultuous life in the mid-1950s.[123] The film was released to lukewarm reactions by critics, who called it "beautifully filmed, but decidedly dull [and] a colossal waste of a talented cast."[124][125] Streep's last film of 2007 was Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, a film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor.
In 2008, Streep found major commercial success when she starred in Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia!, a film adaptation of the musical of the same name, based on the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård and Colin Firth, Streep played a single mother and a former girl-group singer, whose daughter (Seyfried), a bride-to-be who never met her father, invites three likely paternal candidates to her wedding on an idyllic Greek island.[126] An instant box office success, Mamma Mia! became Streep's highest-grossing film to date, with box office receipts of US$602.6 million,[127] also ranking it first among the highest-grossing musical films for now.[128] Nominated for another Golden Globe, Streep's performance was generally well received by critics, with Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe commenting "the greatest actor in American movies has finally become a movie star."[129]
Streep's other film of 2008 was Doubt featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. A drama revolving around the stern principal nun (Streep) of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who brings charges of pedophilia against a popular priest (Hoffman), the film became a moderate box office success,[130] but was hailed by many critics as one of the best of 2008. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, for its four lead actors and for Shanley's script.[96]
In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. The first major motion picture based on a blog, it contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking.[131] Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was "quite possibly the biggest performance of her career while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth the story of a late bloomer".[92] The same year, Streep also starred in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy It's Complicated, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both of these films and won the award for the former, Streep later received her 16th Oscar nomination for Julie & Julia.[132] She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox.[133]
Streep's first film of the 2010s was Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady (2011), a British biographical film about Margaret Thatcher, which takes a look at the Prime Minister during the Falklands War and her years in retirement.[134] Streep, who sat through a session at the House of Commons to observe British MPs in action in preparation for her role,[135] called her casting "a daunting and exciting challenge."[136] While the film had a mixed reception, Streep's performance got rave reviews, earning her Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs as well as her third win at the 84th Academy Awards.[137][138][139] Former advisers, friends and family of Thatcher criticized Streep's portrayal of her as inaccurate and biased.[140] The following year, after Thatcher's death, Streep issued a formal statement criticizing Thatcher's "hard-nosed fiscal measures" and "hands-off approach to financial regulation," while praising her "personal strength and grit."[141]
In 2012, Streep reunited with Prada director David Frankel on the set of the comedy-drama film Hope Springs, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell. In it, Streep and Jones play a middle-aged couple, who attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics praising the "mesmerizing performances [...] which offer filmgoers some grown-up laughs — and a thoughtful look at mature relationships".[142]
In 2013, Streep starred alongside Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, and others in the black comedy drama August: Osage County about a dysfunctional family that reunites into the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Based on Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, Streep received positive reviews for her portrayal of the family's strong-willed and contentious matriarch, who is suffering from oral cancer and addiction to narcotics, and was subsequently nominated for another Golden Globe, SAG, and Academy Award.[143][144][145] At the National Board of Review Awards in 2013, Streep labeled Walt Disney (d. 1966) as "anti-semitic" and a "gender bigot."[146] Former actors, employees and animators who knew Disney during his lifetime rebuffed the comments as misinformed and selective.[147] The Walt Disney Family Museum issued a statement rebuking Streep's allegations indirectly, citing, among others, Disney's contributions to Jewish charities and his published letters stating that women "have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men."[148] However, Disney's grandniece, Abigail Disney, wholeheartedly agreed with Streep's statements, stating that he was an "anti-Semite," and "racist" who was also an exemplary filmmaker whose work "made billions of people happy."[149]
Streep's first film of 2014 was the motion picture adaptation of the young adult novel The Giver.[150] Set in 2048, the social science fiction film tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, where a young boy is chosen to learn the real world. Streep, who plays the community's leader, was aware of the book before being offered the role by co-star and producer Jeff Bridges.[151] Upon its release, The Giver was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics.[152] The same year, she also had a small role in the period drama film The Homesman, Tommy Lee Jones' sophomore directorial effort. Set in the 1850s midwest, the film stars Hilary Swank and Jones as an unusual pair, who helps three women driven to madness by the frontier to get back East. Streep appears not until the end of the film, playing a preacher's wife, who takes the women into care.[153] The Homesman premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it garnered largely positive reviews from critics.[154]
Her final film of 2014 was the Disney film adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall.[155] A fantasy genre crossover inspired by the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, it centers on a childless couple, who sets out to end a curse placed on them by a vengeful witch, played by Streep.[156][157] Streep's performance earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress.[158][159][160][161]
Streep agreed to play Emmeline Pankhurst, a supporting role in the film Suffragette, which started shooting during late February 2014.[162] In July 2014, it was confirmed that Streep has agreed to play Maria Callas in Master Class and that she would have reunited with former director Mike Nichols for this HBO film, though after the death of Nichols in November, the status of this project is unknown.[163] It was also confirmed that Streep will begin shooting in October 2014, Ricki and the Flash. In the film Streep will play a grocery store checkout lady by day and by night a fading rock musician who has one last chance to reconnect with her estranged family. The film's director will be Jonathan Demme and the screenwriter attached to this project is Diablo Cody.[164] On October 2014, it was confirmed that Streep had agreed to star in a biopic of the famously awful opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins for director Stephen Frears, which will title: Florence.[165]
"Women are better at acting than men. Why? Because we have to be. If successfully convincing somebody bigger than you of something he doesn't know is a survival skill, this is how women have survived through the millennia. Pretending is not just play. Pretending is imagined possibility. Pretending or acting is a very valuable life skill, and we all do it. All the time."
Despite her success, Streep has always been modest towards her achievements in cinema and own acting. She has stated that she has no particular method when it comes to acting, learning from the days of her early studies that she can't be articulate. She said in 1987, "I have a smattering of things I've learned from different teachers, but nothing I can put into a valise and open it up and say 'Now which one would you like'? Nothing I can count on and that makes it more dangerous. But then the danger makes it more exciting.[166] She has stated that her ideal director is one which gives her complete artistic control, and allowing a degree of improvization and her to learn from her own mistakes. Karina Longworth notes how "external" Streep's performances are, "chameleonic" in her impersonation of characters, "subsuming herself into them, rather than personifying them".[166] In her early roles such as Manhattan and Kramer vs. Kramer she was compared to both Diane Keaton and Jill Clayburgh, in that her characters were "baldy unsympathetic", which Streep has attributed to the tendency to be drawn to playing women who are difficult to like and are devoid of a mutual emotional understanding with others.[166] Streep has stated that many consider her to be a technical actor, but she professed that it comes down to her love of reading the initial script, adding, "I come ready and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable".[92]
Mike Nichols, who directed Streep in Silkwood, Heartburn and Postcards from the Edge praised Streep's ability to transform herself into her characters, remarking that "in every role she becomes a totally new human being. As she becomes the person she is portraying, the other performers begin to react to her as if she were that person".[167] He said that directing her is "so much like falling in live that it has the characteristics of a time which you remember as magical but which is shrouded in mystery".[168] He also noted that Streep's acting ability had a profound impact on her co-stars and that one could improve by 1000% purely by watching her. [167] Longworth believes that in nearly every film, Streep has "sly infused" a feminist point of view in her portrayals.[169] However, film critic Molly Haskell has stated, "None of her heroines are feminist, strictly speaking. Yet they uncannily embody various crosscurrents of experience in the last twenty years, as women have redefined themselves against the background of the women's movement".[92]
Streep is well known for her ability to imitate a wide range of accents,[28] from Danish in Out of Africa (1985) to English received pronunciation in Plenty (1985), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and The Iron Lady (2011), Italian in The Bridges of Madison County (1995), a Minnesota accent in A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Irish-American in Ironweed, and a heavy Bronx accent in Doubt. After A Cry in the Dark (1988), critics were impressed with her ability to master an Australian accent with shades of New Zealand English.[170]
For her role in the film Sophie's Choice (1982), Streep spoke both English and German with a Polish accent, as well as Polish itself.[171] In The Iron Lady, she reproduced the vocal style of Margaret Thatcher from the time before Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister, and after she had taken elocution lessons to change her pitch, pronunciation, and delivery.[172][171]Streep has commented that using accents as part of her acting is a technique she views as an obvious requirement in her portrayal of a character.[173] When questioned in Belfast as to how she reproduces different accents, Streep replied in a perfect Belfast accent: "I listen."[174][173]
After Streep appeared in Mamma Mia!, her rendition of the song "Mamma Mia" rose to popularity in the Portuguese music charts, where it peaked at #8 in October 2008.[175]
At the 35th People's Choice Awards, her version of "Mamma Mia" won an award for "Favorite Song From A Soundtrack".[176] In 2008, Streep was nominated for a Grammy Award (her fifth nomination) for her work on the Mamma Mia! soundtrack.[177][178]
Streep is the spokesperson for the National Women's History Museum, to which she has donated a significant amount of money (including her fee for The Iron Lady, which was $1 million) and hosted numerous events.[179]
On October 4, 2012, Streep donated $1 million to The Public Theater in honor of both its late founder, Joseph Papp, and her friend, the author Nora Ephron.[180] She also supports Gucci's "Chime For Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment.[181]
In 2014, Streep established two scholarships for students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell - the Meryl Streep Endowed Scholarship for English majors, and the Joan Hertzberg Endowed Scholarship (named for Streep's former classmate at Vassar College) for math majors.[182]
Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death in March 1978. Al Pacino remarked that "I've hardly ever seen a person so devoted to someone who is falling away like John was. To see her in that act of love for this man was overwhelming."[183] Streep said of his death, "I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it".[49] Streep married sculptor Don Gummer six months after Cazale's death on September 30, 1978.[184] They have four children: musician Henry (born 1979), actresses Mamie (born 1983) and Grace (born 1986), and model Louisa (born 1991).[9][185] In August 1985 the family moved into a $1.8 million private estate in Connecticut, with an extensive art studio to facilitate her husband, a lived there until they bought a $3 million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles in 1990.[186] They later moved back to Connecticut in 1994 until the end of the decade. Author Karina Longworth notes that despite her "high level of stardom" for decades, Streep has managed to maintain a relatively normal personal life.[19]
When asked if religion plays a part in her life in 2009, Streep replied: "I follow no doctrine. I don't belong to a church or a temple or a synagogue or an ashram."[187] In an interview in December 2008, she also alluded to her inability to follow a religion when she said: "So I've always been really, deeply interested, because I think I can understand the solace that's available in the whole construct of religion. But I really don't believe in the power of prayer, or things would have been avoided that have happened, that are awful. So it's a horrible position as an intelligent, emotional, yearning human being to sit outside of the available comfort there. But I just can't go there."[172]
When asked from where she draws consolation in the face of aging and death, Streep responded: "Consolation? I'm not sure I have it. I have a belief, I guess, in the power of the aggregate human attempt – the best of ourselves. In love and hope and optimism – you know, the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why we are the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from?"[172]
Streep is a graduate of Bernards High School in Bernardsville...
The Grammy-nominated singer (for Mamma Mia!) talks about a Broadway gig in the past.
Her second year, the rage was "emotional recall" by a teacher who "delved into personal lives in a way that I found obnoxious.
Media from Commons | |
Quotations from Wikiquote | |
Database entry Q873 on Wikidata |
Awards and achievements | ||
Preceded by Maggie Smith | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1979 | Succeeded by Mary Steenburgen |
Preceded by Katharine Hepburn | Academy Award for Best Actress 1982 | Succeeded by Shirley MacLaine |
Preceded by Natalie Portman | Academy Award for Best Actress 2011 | Succeeded by Jennifer Lawrence |


text:
The Myths Of Network Utilization
The Interpath Technologies Networking Myths Series™
This artilce is also availabe as a Podcast of "The Sniffer Guy" though iTunes.
Mythology is not fantasy or lies. It describes a basic truth-but as metaphor. If you understand that it is describing a fundamental reality-by telling a story-you know to look for the reality behind the story. If you believe the story-you will chase your tail until you decide to ignore everything. So, when I say that automated testing and metrics like utilization are myths, I mean that they are metaphors-stories that can direct you to the truth. They are not the truth in themselves.
What is the IT person's mission? The mission is to keep a set of instructions (apps) interfacing with humans (users), over an enormously complex environment (enterprise networks and the Internet itself). Many senior and seasoned IT professionals have developed a sense over the years that something isn't quite right. There is too much "hoping" going on and not enough "knowing."
An IT support person is attempting to visualize the transport of discrete units of data flowing across an "Interpath" between all the applicable components--for hundreds of applications and thousands of users. How is that done? Black magic mostly--and a bag of black box tools.
Often these tools are purchased by less technical management and the support personnel receive little training. Even if they do receive training, that training is focused on how to manipulate the console and install the product. Seldom is there much raw technology exchanged. Let's face it, most of the time we don't really know what the tool is doing--only how to run it--yet we take their results as law.
Tools poll and push and query and ask a selection of the components involved to report in about themselves. Then, by algorithms known to only a few people at the vendor's office, (if they are still employed there), the data is SUMMARIZED and presented to you, the IT professional who has received that week of training.
Once you think about the fact that the information is just a summarization--the problem--and mythology--begins to come clear.
Picture a business user sitting at a PC workstation in a remote office of your company. Many times a day--a network transaction that should take 15 seconds--instead takes 90 seconds--maybe longer.
You have an automated tool that "simulates" that transaction every hour. In 24 polls we see the following:
* 4 Samples show 10 seconds (much faster than normal)
* 16 Samples show 15 seconds (expected)
* 4 Samples show 90 seconds (long enough to drive a user crazy.)
* The average is 26.7 seconds.
Would an alarm sound in your monitoring system? With an expectation of 15 seconds--would you be concerned enough to escalate this issue? Sure, it's nearly double what is expected--but there are times that are quite excellent and anyway--it's still not even 30 seconds! Maybe it's not so critical...
It is Critical--to that user experiencing 90 second delays from time to time--or more frequently!
What is your Polling Interval? Hourly? -- Does that include night-time hours? If so, your metrics are already mostly useless (unless you have equal activity at night as during the day).
If it is hourly--and day time only hours--it still means that 4 out of 24 business hour polls are 90 seconds. That does NOT mean 4 times--it means 4 times "POLLED." What about in-between polls? It is happening many more times than the 4--that were able to be seen!
It could be happening more than enough to significantly damage production and good will.
Is the logic in your automated tool really taking this into account? If so, what does it really tell you anyway? It can't say why--and it can't say how. It's a fire alarm that only rings if you pull it at the right time and frequently enough.
That discussion opens the door to wondering about metrics in general.
What does it mean when a tool tells you that your network/segment/WAN is 42% utilized? Does it mean that the wire is only used 42%? No.
If you are measuring a transport medium, that medium is utilized 100%--whenever it is used. If you put an electrical current on a wire-can you use only 42% of that wire? No. It is either hot or cold. On or off.
Does it mean that you only used it 42% of the time? No.
It is getting closer though. To say that it means that the segment is 100% utilized-but only 42% of the time-is ALMOST correct. Time is the key word here. How is it measuring time? Is it always monitoring or is it polling? It is polling--probably.
(Sorry--polling and metrics are always hand-in-hand).
What is your polling interval? Every 10 minutes-every hour-once per day? How long do you monitor between polls? Is it a "continuous" value or is it only checked on every hour? Is it an interval that the manufacturer has never even disclosed or acknowledged?
For the sake of discussion--let's answer these questions.
Imagine we have a tool that monitors a wire for 1 minute every hour. That tool reports that your "Utilization" is 42%.
That means that for the one minute every hour--that your wire is monitored--for that one minute ONLY-- it is 100% utilized. In other words--42% of those polls showed 100% (rather than 0%) utilization-for 1 minute per hour.
Does that mean that it has 58% more room and all is well? No.
So, what do you know about the utilization of your wire that can help you? Not as much as the monitoring tool's manufacturer would like you to think.
Are you attempting to reconcile the results of two different tools? That is extremely difficult--impractical--and possibly ruinous.
How much money are you spending-not only on the tool itself-but on decisions made as a result of that tool's reports? However, this doesn't mean that there is no point to those metrics. They are signpost pointing towards reality--fire alarms. Nevertheless, you should certainly not quote them when reality seems to imply different things. Reality is going to be more accurate that such metrics-every time.
This is the reason for the Interpath Transactional Analysis approach to monitoring and reality based testing.
About the Author
Barry Koplowitz founded
Interpath Technologies Corporation
in 1999. He was an instructor for Network General and NAI traveling around the USA teaching for Sniffer University ® and is a consultant to large enterprise environments in the area of Network & Application Analysis and Troubleshooting. He is the writer and host of
The Sniffer Guy
podcast. http://www.interpathtech.com
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Jermey Millsop
Primary tabs
My career at the Brainerd Dispatch began May 11, 1999 after graduating from North Dakota State University.
My areas of emphasis includes local high school sports, Central Lakes College, the lakes area golf mecca and once a year I dabble in the NHRA when the Lucas Oil Nationals come to Brainerd International Raceway.
Contact Email
- Member for
- 4 years 3 months
Author Content
It wasn't easy, but it was much needed. Despite 18 turnovers and 63-percent shooting from the foul line and watching a 14-point first half lead evaporate into just a five-point halftime edge, and seeing the St. Cloud Tech Tigers claw back to grab a 53-51 lead late, despite all that the Brainerd Warriors won 67-61 Friday at Brainerd High School. The victory snapped a six-game losing streak and brought some life back into the beleaguered Warriors. "This was huge," said Brainerd junior Jack Geraets. "We had lost six straight and we finally got one now. We have a lot of home games now. I think we only have one more road game and a lot of home games. This was a huge win for us."
Blake Connell Year: Senior School: Staples-Motley Sport: Basketball Position: Point Guard Highlights: Scored 30 points against Crosby-Ironton and 18 against Verndale It hasn't been easy even though Blake Connell has made it look that way. After transferring from rival Wadena-Deer Creek, Connell has assimilated himself into the Staples-Motley Cardinals culture and added his own flair to the boys basketball team. The senior point guard has brought a fearless confidence to a team that went 10-16 and lost in the second round of the Section 6-2A playoffs last season. Connell's confidence
Shania Glenz Year: Sophomore School: Verndale Sport: Girls Basketball Position: Forward Highlights: Tallied 39 points and 13 rebounds against Bertha-Hewitt It was a loss, but it showed how versatile Shania Glenz can be. With older sister Jordyn Glenz nursing an ankle injury, Shania Glenz transformed from a perimeter player to a post player to help the Verndale Pirates girls basketball team. The result was 39 points and 13 rebounds in a 66-65 Park Region Conference loss to Bertha-Hewitt Bears Jan.
Staples-Motley 70, Pequot Lakes 64 Key: Grace Wolhowe scored 36 points for Cardinals Conf: PL 5-2, SM 4-2 Overall: PL 13-6, SM 15-3 Next: Pequot Lakes hosts Crosby-Ironton 7:15 p.m. Tuesday; Staples-Motley at Sauk Centre 7:30 p.m. Friday PEQUOT LAKES - Alphabetically they're close. Throw in experience, position, height, ability and hair color and Grace Wolhowe and Haley Wiebolt are almost mirror images of each other.
One place separated a good day from a great day. One rank point put the Brainerd Warriors jazz routine in fourth place behind third-place St.
Staples-Motley 81, Crosby-Ironton 73 Key: Cardinals hit 14-of-20 from 3-point Conf: C-I 6-2, SM 5-3 Overall: C-I 13-5, SM 10-9 Next: Crosby-Ironton hosts International Falls 7:15 p.m. Tuesday; Staples-Motley hosts Melrose 7:15 p.m. Thursday CROSBY - Execution, plus effort, plus making a boat-load of 3-pointers was Staples-Motley's recipe for success Friday. The Cardinals worked their game plan to perfection and pulled off an 81-73 Mid-State Conference upset of the Crosby-Ironton Rangers in the Ranger gym. Blake Connell made seven 3-pointers to finish with 30 points.
Norm Gallant has a unique perspective about the Mid-State Conference. It's probably why the Wadena-Deer Creek activities director had mixed emotions concerning the Wolverines leaving the conference to join the Park Region Conference next fall. Gallant is a Staples-Motley High School graduate so he competed in the Mid-State. All of his life Crosby-Ironton, Detroit Lakes and Park Rapids have been rival schools. W-DC was his biggest rival until he joined the school district in 1998. At that time, W-DC was graduating 130 students, said Gallant.
Kendal Hendrickson Year: Sophomore School: Little Falls Sport: Nordic skiing Highlights: Won the Bemidji Pursuit Invite Fifty five seconds can be a long time. That was the time difference Kendal Hendrickson needed to make up during the Jan. 24 Bemidji Pursuit Invite at Mt. Itasca in Coleraine. The odds were stacked against the Little Falls Flyers sophomore Nordic skier. With a snowless winter, Little Falls has barely practiced on hills.
Dylan Phillips Year: Junior School: Wadena-Deer Creek Sport: Hockey Position: Forward Highlights: Reached 100 career points during a three-goal game against Worthington He scored three, but the first one was the kicker. Dylan Phillips registered a hat trick Jan. 23 in an 8-5 victory over Worthington, but his first goal gave the Wadena-Deer Creek Wolverine 100 career points. His unassisted goal came 51 seconds into the first period and tied the non-conference game at 1-1. "It was the first shift of the game and I just went down into the corner to get the puck," Phillips said.
LAKE SHORE - It's been a pack mentality for the Brainerd Warriors girls this season. Brainerd won for the sixth time this season as the Warriors landed six girls in the top seven of Monday's Brainerd Invite at Mount Ski Gull. The Brainerd boys, led by Grant Kosobud's third-place time of 49:01, finished second behind St. Cloud Central. Alex Stone won the girls' division with a time of 48.91. She raced to 24.89 on her first run, with a second-run time of 24.02. Both runs were the fastest of the event. "Coming into today, I knew Nicole Bloch of St.


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Galena to Commemorate Sesquicentennial of Surrender at Appomattox in April, 2015
Thank you to the sponsors that have made these programs available.
Printable calendar of events.
Emmy-winning film "Mysteries of the Driftless" Screening on February 21st
The public is encouraged to attend a special screening of the 2014 Emmy-winning film, "Mysteries of the Driftless," on Saturday, February 21st, at 6:30 p.m. at the Galena Territory Owners' Club, 2000 Territory Drive, Galena. Parking is ample, and the event is free.
The film will be presented by Executive Producer Tim Jacobson. In this 27-minute science adventure, a team of movie-making scientists kayak, rock climb, go caving, hike and hop a prop plane in order to experience the natural wonders of the unique geology of the driftless region and the habitats for plants and wild life it provides. Jo Daviess County is at the southern end of the driftless, or unglaciated region.
After the showing, Jacobson will be joined by University of Dubuque geologist Dale Easley and Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation (JDCF) Executive Director Steve Barg for a Q&A and to identify locations close to Dubuque and Galena where some of the "mysteries" can be experienced. Popcorn, cookies and coffee will be served and wine, beer and soda will be available for purchase. The evening is co-sponsored by JDCF and the Galena-Jo Daviess County Historical Society. To help defray the cost of this free event, two Mississippi River Cruises, donated by the owners of the Twilight Riverboat, will be auctioned.


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World experts urge UN to take up mental health
WASHINGTON – Mental illness and drug abuse can wreak havoc in global societies and economies, and the UN General Assembly should devote a special session to the matter, global health experts said on Tuesday. Every country in the world is affected by the burden of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) disorders, but often sufferers face discrimination and human rights abuse, said the article in PLoS Medicine.
"The time has come for recognition at the highest levels of global development, namely the UN General Assembly, of the urgent need for a global strategy to address the global burden of MNS disorders," said the article.
Lead authors were Vikram Patel from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Judith Bass from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in the United States.
Investment is needed in three key areas, they argued: expanding knowledge about mental health disorders, better access to evidence-based programs of care and treatment, and protection of human rights.
A list of key needs to be addressed and steps to take could be enshrined inn a "People's Charter for Mental Health" accounting for input from policy makers, families, researchers and other advocates.
The article said neuropsychiatric disorders will account for the loss of some $16.1 trillion US dollars globally over the next two decades, with "dramatic impacts on productivity and quality of life," particularly as the population ages.
About 25 million people have dementia worldwide, a number set to skyrocket to 80 million by 2040, with close to three quarters of dementia patients concentrated in low and middle income countries.
Meanwhile, suicide claims at least one million lives per year and nearly four percent of all deaths around the world are attributable to alcohol.
Mental illness can also boost risky behaviors that result in disease.
"Depressive disorders markedly increase the risk for noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, and dementia," said the article.
"Conflict, displacement, poverty, gender-based violence, and other social determinants of ill health increase the risk for MNS disorders," it added.
"MNS disorders are, in turn, associated with worsening of social and economic circumstances, setting up a vicious cycle of poverty and illness."
A majority of world governments would have to agree that the issue is important enough that it deserves a special session at the UN General Assembly.
"The fact that MNS disorders affect people in all countries should offer considerable incentive for investments by both public and private sectors in this initiative," the authors wrote. AFP
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The National Traffic Safety Committee plans to sell motorbikes and bicycles driving on expressways that have been banned for their use.
A member of a motorbike escort group for the Binh Duong Open International Women's Bike Race died yesterday after being hit by a motorbike tour group.
The five-star Furama Resort has released a 120-page cookbook titled A Journey Through Viet Nam's Cuisine, featuring recipes from the resort's culinary library.
A series of activities on climate change and energy have been launched by 350.org Viet Nam aimed at raising people's awareness about the threat of a carbon bubble.
The history of Da Nang and its relationship with the Hoang Sa Archipelago (Paracel Islands) will be introduced into the curricula at secondary and high schools in the central coastal city this year, officials have announced.
Outlook Viet Nam News Monthly Publication
Sunday Việt Nam News The National English Language Daily


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New dipsute in Roger Clemens trial
WASHINGTON -- There's a new issue in the Roger Clemens trial over what the jury will hear from the exchange before Congress that caused a mistrial last year.
But this time the defense wants to show a portion of that exchange between Clemens and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. In a filing Friday, the government pointed out a section to the judge "that could be viewed as commentary from Congressman Cummings."
Under questioning from Cummings, Clemens denied he told then-teammate Andy Pettitte that he had taken human growth hormone. The section flagged by the government includes Cummings asking, "Mr. Clemens, do you think Mr. Pettitte was lying when he told the committee that you admitted using human growth hormones?"
In a response filed on Friday night, Clemens' lawyers indicated they would not use the entire exchange between Cummings and Clemens.
Ironically, it was the prosecutor's decision to show jurors another portion of that exchange last year -- when Cummings referred to Pettitte telling his wife that Clemens confessed to using a drug -- that caused the mistrial.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press
- Harvey: Six Up, Six Down
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- Law: Updated Top 100 prospects


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OAKVILLE — There's no denying the fact that a lot of talented girls'...
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If you are passionate about baseball and you enjoy working with youth, then this may be a great opportunity for you.
Oakville Little League is accepting applications for the position of Manager/Head Coach for each of our eleven Whitecap All-Star and Select teams.
We have revamped our selection process and our mandate is to ensure that we find the best possible coach at every level. Currently, Oakville Little League has approximately 1100 boys and girls playing in our house league program. The house league program has eleven divisions and ranges in age from 4 to 20.
The Whitecap All-Star and Select program is in addition to playing house league. The Whitecap program has five District/Provincial teams and six select teams.
The teams range from age 7 to 18. The District teams participate in regional play downs to represent Oakville at the Provincial and possibly National levels. The Whitecap teams play between 3 to 6 tournaments throughout the summer as well as playing exhibition games.
The ideal candidate is someone who has coached baseball for several years.
He or she will have a good understanding of how Little League rules impact the game and how to manage within the required parameters.
The chosen candidate will have successfully completed PCA coaching clinics or equivalent. The successful candidate will have demonstrated the ability to instruct youth, with an emphasis on sportsmanship, skill development and team play.
The Manager must have the following skills; effective communicator, well organized, conflict resolution, disciplined, multi-tasking, and above all honest and fair.
Oakville Little League does have specific requirements for their All-Star and Select Managers. In addition to completing the required PCA or equivalent training, the All-Star manager must also coach at the house league level, either as head coach or assistant. All Managers are required to submit security clearances. For complete details please refer to the Oakville Little League Website.
If coaching is in your blood then go to the Oakville Little League Website, www.ollb.org, and click on the "Whitecaps Information" tab on the left side of the page.
Here you will get all the information that you need to apply, as well as information regarding the Manager and Player Selection process.
The deadline to apply is January 31, 2013. Interviews will be conducted in early February.
All applicants will be notified of the interview results prior to the announcement date of April 1, 2013.
To be clear, at Milton's Mrtazzy Motorsports it's not all about performance, carburetors,...
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Andrew and Lisa recently joined forces and have created the Roach Family Real Estate team with...
Half off a Teppanyaki Dinner
Up to 52% off an Escape Room Challenge
$120 towards Prescription Eyeglasses or Sunglasses
Up to 82% off Studio Recordings
52% off Mexican Cuisine
Up to 61% off Car Detailing
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80% off 20 Units of Injectable Filler


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MY #1 FOR TUB, TUB SURROUND, TUB TILING; one of the best
I want one
I like the opaque shower walls/door
this is not enough frost!
we should design our shower without a curb - they can be tripped over; plus this design will work when we're older
example of undermount tub, finally! it's perfect except I'd want the front edge to be wide also
ironing board in a drawer! sold by Cornerstone Hardware
Integrated Electrical Drawer
RD Architecture, serene
caesarstone countertop in 'concrete'; Concrete connection/steel structure from DalTile.
The floor tile material is called black ash slate. From Thorntree Slate in Houston. They have it cut in a "planking" pattern which makes it appear to be random widths like wood planks. Because it is a slate, the tile feels soft on your feet and is naturally slip resistant. In this case, the homeowners elected not to seal the tile because slate is pretty impervious and they didn't want any sheen to appear. The wall tile is primarily 3x6 ceramic subway but it is accented with a 1" strip of carrara marble mosaic. Your eye tends to go to the carrara and the ceramic trim pieces which dress up the look without adding a huge expense.
This is a pretty, traditional bath. The backsplash is a good way to get some decorative tile in w/o it taking over. Paint is the only other color. Excellent choices. Love the design. The tile here is an Izo Silk tile from Mosaic Source online, may also be at Walker Zanger. The paint color is Sherwin Williams "Interesting Aqua" SW 6220.
Lunada Bay Tile online appears to have some nice glass tile that might work for you.
Lunada Bay Tile online appears to have some nice glass tile that might work for you.
Pretty upon entering
Blue wall tile
well done remodel in mcm
tub surround
tub surround
tub surround
tub surround
tub surround
tub surround
tub surround - really like this particular tile


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Things to Bring to a Job Interview
5 Things to Bring to a Job Interview
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Missed it. Feel free to merge or such.
We'll just skip that part and send you straight to the guillotine
- cptx PIE'd this
TheRed hasn't added any friends yet.
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 05:41 PM
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 05:09 PM
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 05:06 PM
look at that...people getting butthurt over who started a thread made me pie a post by TheRed. I feel dirty.
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 04:59 PM
I think Jeremy should explain why he deleted my thread and started one of the same..fuq that noise
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 04:44 PM
almost as much as Andrew Luck wipes his butt with daily
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 04:39 PM
Man, fug Dave Gettleman. The dude can draft and manage the cap, but he sure does have a knack for releasing some of our best players like Smitty, Beason and D-will and creating a whole bunch of dead money in the process. Having Deangelo on the roster, if only for depth, definitely would have been worth the 2 million or so this will save us against the cap.
I hope, if he doesn't retire, Williams goes to a team we play next year so he can kick our ass, à la Smitty last year. Maybe then Gettleman will learn to not release players when they still have something left in the tank, or else next year it might be Kalil or Davis who gets the ax.
Posted by TheRed on 23 February 2015 - 10:35 AM
Sounds like Florio could just be making a story out of nothing, which PFT has been known for.
Sure, Cam's agent used to be Wilson's agent, but does Florio know him personally?
Exacly. This is what Florio does, he knows as much as people here on the huddle, pretty much nothing.
Posted by TheRed on 22 February 2015 - 11:10 AM
I like Mo Williams. Damn you guys are ruthless about Al, lol 20 points and 12 rebounds.. "HE SUCKS!!!".
Posted by TheRed on 22 February 2015 - 10:33 AM
As far as DA goes, he managed to squeak out a few wins against the worst team in the NFL.
He almost got hurt in the second one.
Do people honestly think we could have kept him healthy all season behind that OL against the better teams in the NFL?
Posted by TheRed on 20 February 2015 - 10:19 AM
You may be taking the BPA thing a bit too literally.
I'm fine with his approach. We've seen what drafting for need and being desperate to fill a position has done to a franchise.
Posted by TheRed on 18 February 2015 - 02:00 PM
Uhhhh, who gives a poo?
I reiterate... Wow! He kept his nose clean for one year?! Damn. He must have fixed his ways then!!! Yes, let's draft the kid who has made Blackmon and D. Rogers appear tamed.
Hitler hasn't killed any Jews in 50+ years. Let's pardon him too.
I mean, I admit DGB has some things to work on, but... Hitler?
CarolinaHuddle is not affiliated with the Carolina Panthers or the NFL.


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Offbeat Artist: The Faces of Phone Sex Operators
David Silverberg
Jun 21, 2008 in
Phone sex finally gets its own photo essay. Phil Toledano's book of phone sex operators and their stories gives these workers a voice in a society that looks down on shadowy sex jobs. Toledano explains why he's fascinated by phone sex devotees.
In a four-part series, Digital Journal is profiling edgy and unusual artists who are breaking the rules of art and design. Discover how these bold artists are creating epic masterpieces in various media.
Digital Journal — "We don't really know what phone sex is, which is why I was interested in it." That statement by
Phil Toledano
sums up his idea to photograph phone sex operators for his new book to be released in September.
Phone Sex
(Twin Palm Publishers) gives us an inside look into the men and women behind the masturbatory fantasies of callers hungry for some late-night lovin'.
To Toledano, a 39-year-old New York resident, shooting phone sex workers was a natural extension of his artistic philosophy: "shine the light on the hidden dim corners of society," he says in an interview with DigitalJournal.com. Toledano isn't interested in commonplace subjects; look at how he illustrated the concept of
in his first book. He also offered us a glimpse into the
orgasmic faces
of video game players in another concept series.
Toledano photographed 26 phone sex operators, who told him fascinating stories about their on-the-job quirks.
Courtesy Phil Toledano
Phone Sex
, he wanted to showcase an intriguing "mass delusion," as he calls it. "The caller agrees to delude himself," he says, "and the operator participates in that delusion. The operator plays the part."
And playing a role is akin to theatre, Toledano notes. It's a suggestion that relates to several of the stories that accompany the book's photos. As one phone sex operator tells Toledano: "To the caller, when I first answer, I am the inanimate Barbie…I view every question the callers asks me as a command for me to transform."
The motivations to work in this shadowy industry vary, Toledano found out. One woman admitted: "I got into phone sex because I thought 'Why not get paid for talking dirty, instead of doing it for free?'" Another woman, who said she does phone sex for twice the money she made in her previous job, waxed philosophical about the need for her line of work: "It's not sex. It's a cocktail of testosterone, fueled by addiction to pornography, loneliness, and the need to hear a woman's voice."
After interviewing 26 New York phone sex operators for the book, Toledano earned himself a self-education on a profession often marginalized and rarely discussed. He says the people he spoke to enjoyed their job, not only because they believed they were helping callers personally and sexually, but also because of the lessons they learned. One woman discovered she was a lesbian after working in phone sex, Toledano adds.
And what about guys working as phone sex operators? "It's out there and it was a fantastic surprise, even though I later thought, 'Why not?'" Toledano says. "Why wouldn't a woman want to call up a straight guy to talk dirty?"
Not all phone sex workers are women, Toledano points out. Joseph was proud of his work as a straight guy helping women achieve their fantasies.
Courtesy Phil Toledano
Toledano shocked himself, too, when he realized his sexual adventuring was extremely vanilla compared to the wild kinks phone sex lovers requested. "In phone sex, there are no limits to what people can explore."
He met several phone sex operators who found unique niches. One guy specialized in sound effects during the calls — for example, he smacked a chair against a table to mimic a bed's headboard banging against the wall during sex. A virgin phone sex girl had to watch porno films to learn about certain moves and phrases in order to convey realistic fantasies to her callers.
Toledano has always been interested in concept photography and telling poignant stories through his lens. His
Hope & Fear
series featured subjects covered in suits made of ears or guns or breasts, suggesting we've become an all-surveillance society (ears) or overly violent (guns). In Bankrupty, he wanted to visually interpret a term often thrown around but rarely showcased; his photos of rooms piled high with office chairs and discarded phones on cabinets say more about failed businesses than any financial earnings report.
Toledano's next project will feature kitschy items such as a "terrorist bobblehead."
Courtesy Phil Toledano
Always the provocateur, Toledano has politics on his mind for his next project. He wants to create an installation of kitschy objects that depict American foreign policy. America: The Gift Shop will remind Americans of what they've endured for the past eight years, Toledano says. The installations would include an inflatable prison cell (think Guantanamo meets Bouncy Castle), a bobblehead of an Abu Ghraib prisoner complete with hooded face, and a snowglobe encasing Dick Cheney shredding "top secret" papers. When you shake the snowglobe, the shredded documents float around Cheney's body.
When asked what spurred him to create this soon-to-be-completed project, Toledano replies, "People need to be woken up. They've been fooled by the government."
Judging by Toledano's CV, he dives into projects revolving around overlooked topics. "I love the ideas of ideas," he says. "And I want to expand the vocabulary of art, even if I only add a syllable outwards through observation."
Offbeat Artist Series
This is the first profile in a four-part series on unique talents who are rattling the artistic cage. Every day, read about a new rebel artist. Tomorrow, find out how an innovative sculptor plays with celebrity culture...and candy.
Other offbeat artists:
- Jason Kronenwald, the artist who creates
celebrity portraits out of chewed bubble gum
- Arvind Narale, the Topsy Turvy Master:
Meet the man who makes upside down art
- Jay Shafer, the man who builds
homes that are under 100 square feet
. Could you live in a tiny house?
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