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"The Comic Life of Cities"
Robert S. Dupree, Ph.D.
What are the uses of literary theory for a description of ordinary life? I wish to answer this question by looking at the relationship between the patterns, themes, and structures we find in the imagined worlds of literature and those we discover in the worlds in which we actually dwell. Literature is the way that humanity presents itself to itself. But how does the city present itself to itself? Publicists, politicians, and Chambers of Commerce might give various versions of their cities, but they seldom attempt to generalize in a theoretical way about what actually goes on in the city. City planning departments work with both specific and general problems and are based in an academic discipline that consists of training in various fields, including a theoretical component, but while they are allowed to take a certain amount of social and individual psychology into account, they are not usually permitted to speculate about what kind of imagination informs the actions and lives of citizens.
City design, however, has for a long time been informed not only by imagination-especially when it turns "visionary"-but even occasionally by whimsy. Still, it is more often characterized by high seriousness. The great French architect Le Corbusier called the house "a machine for living." The goal of classical urban design is to create a city that is a kind of well-oiled, reliable, and, if possible, self-perpetuating and self-sustaining machine. But there is another tradition that views the city as a form of theatre, one in which the denizens are at once or by turns spectators and actors. This notion of the city as theatre is even older than that of the city as machine. We see both described-and the former historically put into practice-in ancient Greece. Apart from the historical documents that tell us what it was like to live in an ancient Greek city and the plays presented in Athens by and for its citizens, there are two outstanding treatises that give us an insight into these two metaphors: Aristotle's Poetics and Plato's Republic. Of the latter I shall say little, other than to note that Plato's ideal city was to be ruled by philosophers and excluded comic poets of all stripes. While The Republic does not conjure up the machine metaphor in any overt fashion, it does suggest a mode of operation that I would style "tragic." As I shall explain in a few minutes, the tragic life of the city is life lived within a machine, but for the moment I need to explain a bit more about Aristotle'sPoetics and the city as theatre.
Drama, as it comes to us from the Greeks, is an inherently urban affair. As developed in Athens in the course of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, it was a civic institution intimately tied to urban religious festivals which, though tracing their origins back to rural ritual practices, had become thoroughly politicized. To attend a play was to participate in both a political and a religious act. The theatre of Dionysus in Athens (or theatres elsewhere) was the place where the city was revealed to itself, as French critic and philosopher Anne Cauquelin points out.
The theatre, a key moment in the constitution of the city-and its importance is marked as much in the festival calendars as in the theory that Aristotle devotes to it-inaugurates a specific space that anchors Athenian soil in its archaic past and yet links it to democratic space.
This was particularly true of comic plays, which were very little restrained by any kind of censorship, either political or moral. Though they were filled with fantastic depictions of what goes on in cities, they offered a critique of urban existence that caused Plato to exclude them and their potentially disruptive effects from his ideal city. Of course Plato also excluded the tragedians for precisely the same reason.
Aristotle, though a pupil of Plato, sought to preserve tragedy and comedy in the city and defended not only their right to flourish there but offered positive reasons to promote them, based on their beneficent political and psychological effects on the citizenry. Tragedy keeps one from supposing that fame, prestige, and power can protect someone of high station from personal disaster. All men, even the best of them, are subject to Fate. The inescapable character of this fatal mechanism is reflected in the very structure of tragedy, in which the plot leads from episode to episode, through a plausible, likely, and causally-linked series of actions, to a terrifying denouement that reveals his fate clearly to the tragic hero for the first time and seals his imminent destruction. Comedy not only ends on a more cheerful note; it also has a looser structure and envisages a different kind of person as its protagonist.
Aristotle traces tragedy and comedy back to two strains in earlier Greek verbal art. One is heroic poetry, which depicts men better than we are; the other is the lampoon, which depicts men such as we are or as inferior to us. Comedy originated with the komos, a festival that celebrated fertility in a rather grotesquely overt manner. Tragedy, however, is concerned with death and the consequences of war. Misjudgments and errors cause the downfall of the tragic hero; they are neither painful nor destructive for his comic counterpart. Tragedy deals with particular, often historic, persons, comedy with universal types .Comedy also reflects the standards of behavior that are observed in everyday life. Aristotle also has something to say about the components of satire and invective or verbal (possibly even physical) abuse in comedy, but he plays it down somewhat. While comedy is not subject to the ethical standards of everyday life, it does have limits to what it should depict. The comic plot, while based on plausibility and structured in terms of causality, is not so closely bound by these requirements as is tragedy.
The tragic life of Athens was that aspect of the city explored in the tragedies and presented as part of its regular urban religious festivals, where the dangers inherent in the illusion of power and control were brought to public attention. But the comic life was presented there as well. Unlike tragic existence, city life is episodic, stop-and-go, full of detours and bypasses. Contrary to the tragic world, which is governed by an implacable destiny, it seems to be impervious to management from above. The city is full of discontinuities, areas of neglect, areas of prominence. Kevin Lynch, in his The Image of the City (1960), wrote of the way in which each of us builds or maps a version of the city within our own experiences and memories. Our daily lives in the city consist of a series of habits that rely on signposts, landmarks, encounters, and recurrent needs determining when and where we navigate through it. The tragic experience of the city would be one that seemed to take us through a secure and unvarying routine, day by day, that culminated in a perfectly defined objective. But one day, that certainty of direction is revealed to be an illusion. The position you thought you had for life, the power you were supposed to yield until retirement, the salary you expected and depended upon–all are suddenly gone in an instant. The path you thought you were pursuing was not the one you have taken. A mistaken identity, a bureaucratic mixup, or, worse, a powerful, secret enemy who has been out to get you all along has been operative from the start and has fostered in you the impression that all was going well when, in fact, you were slowly and systematically going to hell in a handbasket. Crushed and isolated, you have nowhere to go. The city is a vast trap that has doomed you to destruction.
For this plot to function in a city, the urban environment that you experience would have to be far more intricately organized than is normally feasible, and it would have to function for more than one person at a time. It would require a form of tyranny, political and personal, beyond the reach of even the most extreme system of control. It would require the city to be a perfectly constructed, perfectly designed, and perfectly running machine. There is a name for such a city in literature, at least: it is called a "dystopia," and we know it in its pure form only in novels such as Brave New World or 1984, though analogues erupt from time to time in actuality. But though a dystopia is supposed to be the opposite of a utopia–a city so perfectly designed and operated that it brings happiness and the good to all its citizens–both dystopia and utopia are but sides of the same tragic coin. If we take the tragic plot, as described by Aristotle in thePoetics, to be an unbroken chain of necessary causes and effects that lead to an inevitable and overwhelming conclusion, then it doesn't matter. The tragic plot as a structure, not the tragic plot as an outcome, is what matters.
This last point is important. If we take outcome to be the determinant (tragedy has an unhappy ending, comedy a happy one), then it is not possible to distinguish the tragic life of the city from the merely dull or from dark, black, and infernal types of comedy. Democracies are inherently comic, and the messy, unpredictable nature of their operations is full of surprises, but they are not tragic surprises or what Aristotle calls "peripeties," that moment in the tragic plot when the hero suddenly sees his path turn around and his fate revealed for the first time. Comic surprises are about unpredictability, about accident and improvisation, about what the French call "bricolage," or making do with whatever is at hand. If the city were to be a machine, it would be a Rube Goldberg device, full of inefficiencies and crazy turns, not a meat grinder into which are fed individual cuts of meat that come out looking all the same. In fact, it would be a meat grinder in reverse, one that turned the same into the various.
If utopia is the logical outcome of an application of tragic principles to the life of the city, then the adoption of comic principles would lead to another civic and religious institution, one that existed for ancient Greece and Rome under the name of Saturnalia and in the later Christian world as Carnival., Aristotle identifies the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles as the model tragedy, at least in structural terms. Its comic equivalent would be one of the high comedies of Aristophanes, Peace, Lysistrata, or, especially, The Birds. That play has been called "utopian," but it bears only the most superficial marks of the utopic. Far from proposing an efficient machine of a polis, the heroes-whose names are Make-Do (as in "bricolage") and GoodHope-seek to absolve themselves of their civic responsibilities by escaping from imperialistic Athens (which is engaged disastrously in an unprovoked and audacious attack on Syracuse-sound familiar?) into the realm of the birds, where they found a city. Nevertheless, despite their success in establishing this place of freedom, they are besieged by interlopers who simply want to turn it into another Athens. In the end he rejects them all, including even the gods who send emissaries to his bird kingdom, and Make-Do is wedded to Queen Dominion. This is not the utopian realm but the domain of what Mikhail Bakhtin and others have identified as the "carnivalesque," of which I shall speak a bit later as the comic counterpart of city life.
For the influential nineteenth-century German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, a prominent theorist of both tragedy and comedy, Aristophanic comedy reveals the emergence out of the ruins ancient Greek ethical life of a new consciousness, that of the autonomous, self-confident individual. His comedies (Hegel speaks specifically of The Clouds) show how society understands itself as made up of individual human beings who see themselves as the principle of existence and understanding for everything. They signal the historical emergence of a new level of consciousness: the self becomes an absolute essence. Traditional religion, ethical life, and even reason itself are affected by the all-effacing power of laughter. The Greek world is transformed by this consciousness that is perfectly happy within itself. But this light-hearted consciousness of the self as absolute being cannot last long. It soon loses its uncomplicated enjoyment and finds its fulfillment in what Hegel calls the "unhappy consciousness." It is characterized by emptiness and alienation. The gods are absent and the oracles are silent. Art has lost its spirit, the eternal laws are no more. Hymns are only words drained of any belief. Hegel sees this stage-which, by the way, is what Louise Cowan was describing last week as "infernal comedy"-as the prelude to the coming of Christianity, but the notion of the Unhappy Consciousness has had a long and eminent career in modern philosophy ever since his time.
Hegel connects comedy intimately with subjectivity. As is typical of his thought, he distinguishes three stages of the comic. The first is what might be called a "false" subjectivity, in which the hero and his aims are insubstantial and without universal values. The miser, for instance, takes the empty symbol of wealth for an ultimate reality. In the end the hero fails to reach his goal but at least recognizes his error. In a second stage, the hero's aim is valid but his means insufficient. As Hegel himself puts it, "the individuals plume themselves on their substantial characters and aims, but as instruments for accomplishing something substantial, they, as individuals, are the precise opposite of what is required." In order to triumph, the hero has to lower his aim, reducing the substantial to the mere appearance of substantiality. As a third stage, Hegel introduces the element of chance or luck that serves to bring about a harmonious conclusion. Now luck is comedy's answer to tragic fate. Though aims and their achievement, individual character and external circumstances may be at odds, they all lead through some sort of coincidence to a comic and harmonious solution. However, this may be said to represent not a fulfillment but an elimination of subjectivity. Luck-of the good or of the bad variety-is nevertheless a key comic element that is consonant with the structural principles of surprise and episodic order. Reality, it suggests, is rich and unpredictable. It is a cornucopia that comprises both limitless substances and limitless appearances. Hence the Hegelian notion of comedy as representing some sort of fulfillment of the individual-by whatever means, internal or external-contrasts with the tragic revelation of man as fatally limited and unchangeably determined in his existence.
Aristotle's tragic hero came out of the epic figure of the hero, the ultimate individual for the ancient world. But that individuality was closely tied to the only form of immortality that the Homeric world recognized: the individual renown that lives on in human memory through poetry. The comic hero, who tends to be much more of a type than an individual, therefore represents a very different kind of individuality. Achilles is utterly unlike us: son of a goddess and a mortal, he shares with us the limitation of death but towers above us otherwise in ability. The comic hero differs from his tragic and epic counterparts, curiously enough, because he is less of an individual than they. He is, as Aristotle points out, just like us or-in the case of those characters who evince Hegel's "false subjectivity"-even worse than we. How, then, can Hegel speak of subjectivity and the comic hero? What we must reckon with is the problem of being distinctive in a world in which all are more or less the same. This condition is that which we imagine to be modern society, an order in which one seeks not immortality (or ersatz immortality in the form of "deathless fame") but status. "Status," as we now use the word, refers not to an absolute but to a relative value. I have status only in relation to others like me. In a world like Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong and all the children above average, no one has status. But they can have individuality. The distinguishing characteristics, however, are those of character types and occupations: the village idiot, the town gossip, the girl next door, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. People are defined by their roles and positions more than by their achievements. Though we think of this as the world of the village or small town, it is also the world of the metropolis, which is, after all, only a superset of these smaller entities. There the essential comic achievement is to be in the right place at the right time. Opportunity and knowing when to take advantage of it are its main ingredients. The comic hero has no ambition greater than that of living the good life, which is precisely the promised end of all politics and the productive goal of all cities and the promise of all societies to those who comprise them. And beyond the metropolis, beyond even society, there is the whole of life itself.
This is the basis of the argument pursued by another important theorist of comedy and tragedy, Suzanne Langer, whose essay on "the comic rhythm" [in her book Feeling and Form] begins by enunciating insights that echo both Aristotle and Hegel.
It is commonly assumed that comedy and tragedy have the same fundamental form, but differ in point of view-in the attitude the poet and his interpreters take, and the spectators are invited to take, toward the action. But the difference really goes deeper than surface treatment (i.e., relative levity or pathos). It is structural and radical. Drama abstracts from reality the fundamental forms of consciousness: the first reflection of natural activity in sensation, awareness, and expectation, which belongs to all higher creatures and might be called, therefore, the pure sense of life; and beyond that, the reflection of an activity which is at once more elaborate, and more integrated, having a beginning, efflorescence, and end-the personal sense of life, or self-realization.
She goes on to state that this "pure sense of life is the underlying feeling of comedy, developed in countless different ways." The ultimate goal of comedy, as of life itself, is "what sets organic nature apart from inorganic: self-preservation, self-restoration, functional tendency, purpose. Life is teleological, the rest of nature is, apparently, mechanical; to maintain the pattern of vitality in a non-living universe is the most elementary instinctual purpose."
For Langer, then, comedy is about establishing equilibrium; it is ecological, we would now say, in its aims. When this balancing rhythm is disrupted, living things seek to restore it.
This human life-feeling is the essence of comedy. It is at once religious and ribald, knowing and defiant, social and freakishly individual. The illusion of life which the comic poet creates is the oncoming future fraught with dangers and opportunities, that is, with physical or social events occurring by chance and building up the coincidences with which individuals cope according to their lights. This ineluctable future-ineluctable because its countless factors are beyond human knowledge and control-is Fortune.
And so this destiny in the guise of fortune "is the fabric of comedy; it is developed by comic action, which is the upset and recovery of the protagonist's equilibrium, his contest with the world and his triumph by wit, luck, personal power, or even humorous, or ironical, or philosophical acceptance of mischance.
In complex societies, such as those that construct large cities in order to control the natural environment and reduce the play of chance in our lives, comedy plays a role that is correspondingly adapted to the artificial world of human intervention and human invention. Making it in the city is not the same as making it in the wilderness, though the modern city is sometimes called a jungle. The motif of physical control of both physical and social environments-that tragic and mechanical attempt to deal with the fatality of death and desire for dominance guaranteed by our nature-is constantly at odds with the reassurance, as they used to sing on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show," that "you're going to make it after all." Somehow, if not by the grace of God, at least by the adaptability and ingenuity of man, we'll manage to squeak through, despite all the obstacles thrown in our way both by our enemies and by our well-meaning friends or legislators.
Returning now to Aristophanes' Birds, we can see that the enemy in comedy is not some power above us that is beyond our control but something within us as human beings. Or as Pogo used to say, in Walt Kelly's famous comic strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us." When the city begins to turn mechanical, to threaten its citizens with utopian control or tragic fatalities, where shall we turn? As Dr. John Arbuthnot, friend of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, put it in his essay "The Art of Political Lying," the only way to undo a lie is not by countering it with the truth but by telling another lie: "For example, if it should be reported that the Pretender was in London, one would not contradict it by saying he never was in England, but you must prove by Eye-witnesses that he came no farther than Greenwich, and then went back again." To counter a mechanical city, one must invent a temporary one that exposes its character, as MakeDo and GoodHope manage in The Birds. This temporary city is what I referred to earlier as "carnival," and it has been studied throughout the twentieth century by writers such as F. M. Cornford and Robert C. Elliott, but by no one more imaginatively than the great Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin.
The word "carnival" has thoroughly Christian connotations, though the phenomenon certainly derives from pagan sources and has analogues all over the world. It comes from the medieval Latin meaning "farewell to meat" (or to the flesh) and applies to the period of Lent beginning with Ash Wednesday, when Christians abstained from eating meat from then until Easter Sunday as a form of spiritual discipline. But the period just before Lent-and not just Mardi Gras, its final day-was taken up in an orgy of indulgence of the flesh, sometimes in both senses. The institution of carnival, however, went far beyond its ecclesiastical setting. It merged with ancient festivals such as Saturnalia, which celebrated a return to the Golden Age, when men dined with the gods, and fertility rituals that celebrated the fruits of the earth. Yet since no law goes unchallenged, it also fostered a spirit of freedom from all the disciplines and restrictions that society imposes on its members. In fact the whole structure of official order was not simply disregarded but parodied and inverted. A low person or a fool was crowned king for the day, and many a transgression against acceptable behavior was allowed. Because the king had been crowned, however, he also had to be deposed at the end of his reign as life returned to normal. The ritual inversion and the parodic, satiric, and grotesque mirrorings of officialdom were tolerated because they were only temporary, after all, and rendered tolerable by tradition or loose association with the sacred.
Bakhtin took these and many other aspects of carnival as both themes and structural elements in literature. Like Langer, he sees in the comic world of carnival a symbol of the whole, that is, "a people who are continually growing and renewed." For what he refers to as the "carnivalistic self," death is like the division of cells in a physical body. The old cell dies but it also reproduces. The carnival self conquers death not through everlasting fame but by assuring the continuity of life. Consequently, it can laugh at the dying world, because that world will be resuscitated. Furthermore, high and low are no longer distinguished, since they are all equally parts of one whole, none totally independent of the others. Rather than individuals there are masks-pure appearances-that are meaningful only as momentary identities. It represents an existence without limitations, inhibitions, or fear.
The emphasis on laughter, mockery, abuse (extending even to the physical), on the body (especially what he called "the lower bodily stratum"), on self-indulgence, sex, indecencies and obscenities, the crude, the folk, the collective, the unfinished, the ridiculous, on comic dismemberment, debasement or topsy-turvy exaltation, openness and freedom-all these values, seen in a positive rather than in a negative light-is part and parcel of a world in which people are participants and not merely spectators or cogs in a wheel. However, carnival is important not so much as an annual event as it is as a state of mind and spirit, a counterbalance in the ecology of the imagination. It liberates, refreshes and renews not only the processes of life but also the world of officialdom and rules. By licensing license, carnival allows us to resume our lives as responsible citizens having gained a broader perspective of the whole of things and seen the place that all these partial truths and narrower activities hold in the ongoing continuities of existence.
Normally, when we think of the city, we think of the conveniences and inconveniences it offers. We think of expressways and potholes, garbage collection and property taxes, public schooling and jury duty, shopping and parking tickets, attending sporting events and fighting city hall. But there is also the enormous inventory of things to see and do, the cornucopia of goods and services that makes the city, by and large, not just the seat of officialdom but the headquarters of the comic. Of course there are tragic cities that perish through hubris or miscalculation, from natural disasters or human neglect. Who knows what will be the eventual fate of that most carnivalesque of North American cities, New Orleans (though I suspect, from what I know of Louisiana, that it will survive because of and not in spite of incompetence and corruption)? But Samuel Johnson, who reveled in the variety of eighteenth-century London, once said that when a man tired of London, he was tired of life, and James Joyce, who chose not to live there, held his "dear, dirty Dublin" in his imagination all his life. Cities are essentially comic because they persist even after they cease to exist. If they are buried, we delight in digging them up. Desert them and they become tourist attractions. Destroy them utterly and plow them under, as Scipio did Carthage, and we build another on top and call it by the same name.
Yet the comic life of the city, for me, has another meaning. I understand the phrase as referring to the kind of human existence to which the city gives life. Though New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro are most readily associated with carnival-as was Venice once-they have their infernal comic undersides as well. Though Las Vegas is associated with empty glitter, trashy display, and the mob, it houses perfectly normal folk who earn a living like the rest of us and live in ranch-style homes in neighborhoods that would not look inconspicuous in most western American cities. Indeed, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown shook up the architectural world by declaring that we had much to learn from Las Vegas, a city that may well be the most carnivalesque of all, since it does not appear to have much of a raison d'etre other than pure entertainment and an appeal to human greed that is the stock in trade of many a dark comedy.
However, I wish to turn instead to what we might call "the other side of town." By that I mean not necessarily a seedier aspect of the comic life but a set of themes explored by the French writer Anne Cauquelin, who is all but unknown in this country. A Google search reveals only scant few references in English to this professor of philosophy at Amiens, yet she has written two books on the city that are especially illuminating. The first, The City at Night [La Ville la nuit, 1977], is about the total shift in character that cities undergo after dark. The second, An Essay on Urban Philosophy [Essai de philosophie urbaine, 1982], explores temporality and memory in the city and the pivotal role of doxa (or, roughly, opinion) in its establishment.
The modern concept of urban space, Cauquelin notes, is of an open, unlimited domain that one cannot escape. From the peripheries of one city zone, you plunge into another. The only escape from it is in the temporal order, at the beginning and close of each day. "Opposed to the open prison of space is the secret temple of all freedoms: the Night." The opposition that night people evoke are between the orderly or rational and the magical and wild: the urbanity of the day and the forests of the night. What gives the city at night its allure, for those who find it oppressive in its uniformity and controlled spaces during the daytime, is the sense of freedom that it offers.
But this freedom, she adds, is paralleled by a strict establishment of norms, codes, and a closed network. Where daytime space is open, spread out for all to see, that of the city at night is closely guarded, contained, under surveillance. The night stalkers find in it a time of fantasy and magic, a time of liberation from the conventional. Why do they not mind the tighter control over space? Because there is a relaxation of the control over time. The great clocklike mechanism of the city seems to slow down, even to stop as it waits to be rewound. The night obscures all in a city except for its monuments, its hotels, and a few places of late evening entertainment. The prostitutes are out in full force, but so are the police and the street cleaners. These knights of the night are a sign of the adventure, of the danger that the darkness invites or represents.
Urban activity, so coordinated and synchronized during the day, becomes what Cauquelin calls, using the English word, a "patchwork." The logic and connections of daytime labor become sporadic and episodic. Identities are changed, masked, or rendered ambiguous as to gender, age, occupation, or social status. For noctambules it can be a time of revolt, of transgression, of counter-cultural gestures. And while many of Cauquelin's interlocutors (she quotes many that she had encountered at night) admit that the special qualities of the city at night are a myth, they also agree that it is the only time one can see the city as a whole, live in and with it, take pleasure in it. Above all, the city at night introduces the notion of a double city, opposed to that of the day, but locked to it ritually and giving access to its secrets and its true face which remain hidden in broad daylight by the superficial machinery of its inexorable operations.
Cauquelin's second examination of the nature of the urban looks for this duplicity in another temporal domain, no longer that of the night and day complementarity but that of the temporal and invisible as opposed the spatial and visible as they coexist in the fullness of the daylight. She explores the way in which the past, present as memory, shapes the physical appearance of the city, even though it may persist only in what she calls its "folds." There are areas of a city that receive highlights, others that are utterly neglected. The elements deemed important are better lit, more accessible, publicized. But throughout there are dark, empty bands where nothing seems to be going on. These spaces are not necessarily the result of undesirable physical properties or inaccessible terrain. They can be produced by memory and by language.
Each of us lives in a neighborhood or, more precisely, in a fragment of a neighborhood that is bordered by a few blocks and identified by one or two streets. We bestow upon this space, patterned by our daily activities and forged by repeated experiences, an image that helps determine the way we decorate inside and outside, a sense of identity given the place which can even be partially transferred when we move elsewhere. The result is a new space that bears marks of the former dwelling zone in our memories. Those who live in adjacent housing also bear images that overlap our own, and out of this there emerges a kind of collective image that is not only common to those who share it in the present but which can be passed on to future inhabitants or enshrined in language and visual or palpable embodiments that remain for generations, to be transformed into stories, pictures, or memories lasting sometimes for centuries.
Beyond the immediate neighborhood, there are those hidden forms that, as Kevin Lynch has said, help organize the urban sprawl of our cities, even though they were neither planned nor particularly evident to the casual observer. The city wears a whole crowd of masks; it is like a carnival ball where the identities of the dancers, though not the dance nor the area in which they dance, are constantly changing. This constant shifting of perception, identity, and memory is responsible for the way that time and place intersect with our individual lives to produce an urban character nowhere accounted for by the mere physical design of the place. It is only when the theatre is filled with actors-who are also the audience-that it comes into play. Each of us plays a role in that theatre which is determined by an often unrecognized history of uses and images that have preceded our own participation in its spectacle. Over time a kind of plot, even a legend emerges, that gives the place not only an identity but a local habitation and a name. In the names of streets, squares, places, even in mere numbers or unofficial nicknames for districts we see the shaping and carving out of space not only by the imagination but by actual physical intervention driven by language and collective memory.
Over time these places become quasi personified and acquire the traits we normally attribute to living beings. Neighborhoods suffer assaults, contract diseases, die and are resuscitated, are given head to toe makeovers, and take on the personalities of dramatic characters in a comedy of errors, mistaken identities, heartbreak, and newfound love. The comic plot can energize urban renewal, bring about change for the better (or the worse), and drive economic growth simply because it has been imposed on a groundplan that would otherwise be a tabula rasa. Ignore that long-established plot, however, and no amount of money, political clout, or goodwill can revive a dying neighborhood or city.
The reactions to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans show just how powerful the comic myth of survival can be in helping a city to recover. No one who has lived there is ignorant of the political cronyism, the inequities among different districts and neighborhoods, the neglect of obvious structural weaknesses in both the infrastructure and the levee systems. Yet the comic spirit associated with everything from Bourbon Street and the Quarter, the infectious joy of its music, and even the distinctive ritual of a Dixieland funeral meant that, whatever personal suffering we may have witnessed (and there was plenty of it), the world was also mourning a city as though a real person had been dealt a deadly blow. Anne Cauquelin is surely right to insist that these aspects of time and memory are the driving forces that produce the physical city; no machine, however perfect and efficient, would inspire that kind of hope. It is doxa, the common impression of what a thing is, rather than its statistical and legal official reality, that keeps a city alive and thriving, that makes it an organism that will continue to develop and build a future.
Both Cauquelin's city at night and her city shaped by memory, myth, and doxa (or popular opinion) partake of the essence of carnival. They are composed of unofficial space and time, yet they are given a role to play in the order of the urban. By staging images of freedom from rules and constraints and offering us the chance to choose other roles than those imposed on us, if only for a short while, it satisfies our need to step away and see the city and its life as a whole before we are plunged back into its thick currents and constant swirlings.
Each city, then, aspires to a comic identity of its own. We tend to personify urban conglomerations for that reason; we want to believe that a city is somehow more than a mere machine for living. No city is tempted to propose itself as a tragic hero, lest it predict its own demise. We cannot escape imagining our cities as protagonists in a struggle for survival, and we know that they are often driven by whatever myth they are fortunate enough to foster. After the television version of "Dallas" became available worldwide, so that even Berber women in North Africa were avid viewers, the representatives of the city were startled to see what large crowds they were drawing every time they appeared at a European trade show or conference. Everyone knows that the real Dallas is nothing like its fictional counterpart-a tawdry version of the tragic life of the city, perhaps-but still, people were fascinated that a place by the same name actually exists. That is the power of doxa indeed, and there is no reason to think that cities can communicate with one another in any other way, just as real people depend on their reputations to establish relationships.
I want to close by mentioning a place just a stone's throw away from where I live that strikes me as an amusing example of the deliberate cultivation of the comic life. It has the usual characters: the suitor, the rival, the difficult circumstances that seem to forestall any hope of success, and the clever manipulator who brings all the parties together and allows them to live happily ever after. I am speaking of the Town of Addison, as it currently exists largely the creation of one man, though its origins go back to as early as 1842. Though some modest industry was attracted to the area (a cotton gin) around the turn of the century, and the community boasted a post office and, by 1914, a school, it was not incorporated until 1954. Two years later, an airport was built. But it was the carnivalization of the City of Addison (strategically and, I might add, doxally changed to the Town of Addison in 1982) that made the difference. Sensing an opportunity, a businessman with a vision canvassed all the voters in the city (population 595) and persuaded them to elect him mayor and legalize alcoholic beverages. This public access to libations occurred in 1976.
Suddenly the town grew to a population of 8,783 in the next two decades. The business structure changed as well, from manufacturers and suppliers of airport equipment to hotels, restaurants, and corporation headquarters. Within a five-year period, from 1986 to 1991, the number of restaurants alone grew from forty-nine to 118, and from 1990 to 2000 the number of businesses from 251 to 1,981, almost an 800% growth rate. Wise to the importance of memory but lacking any palpable remains of its history, the town had a city hall built in colonial style and some Victorian-looking buildings constructed here and there to give some of the shops a look of faux urban renewal, a sort of stage-set that does not pretend to be truly antique. The city has since become a kind of festival center, with food, jazz and movie festivals, an Octoberfest, Shakespeare in the Park, an impressive fireworks display on July 4th, a playhouse (the Water Tower Theater), a Bookworm Bash, and European-style apartment buildings with squares, restaurants, and shops alongside, and a large public park with a monumental work of sculpture at the center of a roundabout called Addison Circle. What particularly impresses me about the Addison I watched emerge from virtually nowhere is the self-assured comedy of its various and knowing masquerades and its clever maneuverings not only for survival but for prominence. It is surely unique in the region, not least because its 14,000 residents are swollen to some 100,000 diners, businessmen, and other visitors daily. Above all, it attracts the young and must be a good place to live-at least temporarily. I would know. Two of my children each have apartments there. If that isn't a year-round carnival and a perfect illustration of the comic life of cities, I don't know what is.
Since I am speaking on Halloween, I thought that it might be appropriate to close with a poem I wrote recently which is very much about this phenomenon of the life that persists in doxa and imagination, whatever may happen to the original city and its denizens:
Ghost Story
That part of me
so hard to see,
that innermost
we call my ghost
and may presume
death won't subsume,
all cities share,
however bare.
I do not mean
some spectral scene
we face undaunted
(a space that's haunted)
but a strange grace
called "spirit of place"
that dwellers tend
to comprehend.
Our real estate,
plain or ornate,
small or immense,
brings residence
and personality
to its locality
and gives us groundings
for our surroundings.
Its soul remains
deep in earth's veins,
where our life stories
trace territories
no matter what
now fills the plot:
from Rome's first hut.
© The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture – Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this lecture on the condition that the content remains complete and full credit is given to the author.


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Are the long days of winter beginning to get to you? It may be time to brew up some potions! Our favorite rainy day or cold weather activity is to have a "Potions Day". All the oils, waxes, herbs and tools come out, a good Witchy movie or audio book goes on, and we create soaps, ointments and balms, candles, perfumes, bath salts and much more.
As a carpenter, my partner works outdoors a lot, and likes to make balms (like lip balm) and ointments to keep his skin protected. We also do a considerable amount of gardening and enjoy making our own soap to help reduce poison ivy reactions, or eliminate the garlic odor after cooking. With the Imbolc Sabbat close, we enjoy making about a dozen candles to use during Sabbats and Esbats in the coming year.
A basic ointment is four parts oil to one part wax. For example a cup of olive oil and a quarter cup of melted beeswax. To make a balm (firmer ointment like lip balm) simply use more wax or less oil. For a softer ointment similar to petroleum jelly, use a bit more oil or less wax. You can add calendula or herbs to your oil to infuse it first, and strain it to make ointment, or you might enjoy adding essential oils to make a heel and elbow lavender ointment or a solid perfume.
For recipes and ideas for your Potions Day, check out the site search at the top right of every page, or see the Potions & Brews: Recipes & Formulary section of the site. If you would like a specific recipe, just ask on the Forum. If you'd like to delve even deeper, the Herbalism course in the Members Area appear this week so keep a look out!

subset: commoncrawl


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- おすすめ
Rakuten Music
Rakuten TV
Divers should be the fittest people on the planet! They expose their bodies to the physical stresses inherent to diving, face countless perils, and even after a successful immersion; they incur obligations not present in other sports. Their physical fitness is paramount to their safety and enjoyment of the sport.
Alas, the statistics show that 7 out of 10 divers are overweight, and over 52% of diving fatalities are attributed to poor fitness.
But let's be fair.
Between the obligations of daily life and off-gassing after the dives, scuba divers have only a small time window to take care of their fitness. Unfortunately, many don't know how to maximize this window and find only frustration as they start a fitness program. They soon feel they don't have the time to get fit or the money to buy expensive equipment and stop.
That's why Kettlebells For A Fit Diver came to existence. It has been showing divers that superb diver fitness can be achieved with only:
* A kettlebell.
* A space without obstructions.
* About 3 hours per week.
* The desire for permanent changes.
That's it. Kettlebells have reclaimed their place in mainstream fitness for one undeniable fact: They work!
The book Kettlebells For a Fit Diver is the heart of The Kettlebells for a Fit Diver System. It was designed for the busy diver serious about fitness and looking to get started or fed-up with the lack of results. The author Israel "Coach Izzy" Sanchez is a renowned strength coach, pain therapist, and an avid diver himself who has made it his mission to simplify the diver's fitness journey and remove the clutter getting in the way of results.
The book is only part of an extensive fitness system designed exclusively for divers by divers. Instructions to activate Premium Diver Access to The Kettlebells For a Fit Diver System are inside the book. You will get access to video courses, video exercise demonstrations, performance tools, and additional fitness resources.
The value you get from the book Kettlebells For a Fit Diver by itself is immense! You will learn about:
* Debunking strength and cardio - So evident, their true nature gets easily overlooked.
* How to select the proper kettlebell size - No more random rules!
* The foundations for successful and safe kettlebell lifting - What you thought was common sense may not be.
* Detailed week-by-week, day-by-day, step-by-step training program to guide you from novice to proficient through fun and effective workouts.
* Detailed descriptions and pictures of featured exercises.
* Strategies and tools to get 2, 3, or more cycles out of the system.
*Debunking 8 myths in diver fitness.
*Debunking the misunderstanding of flexibility.
And a lot more!
You will see parameters familiar to you - like sets and reps- but they won't be arranged in the boring and ineffective nonsense to which most people are exposed. In seven weeks you will notice a substantial difference in your strength, flexibility, endurance, energy, and body composition. No wonder scuba diving legend John Chatterton and kettlebell authorities Vincent Metzo and David Ganulin give Coach Izzy their enthusiastic thumbs up.
Coach Izzy's nearly two decades of experience and education as a strength coach and pain therapist have shown him that most folks get poor results not because they are lazy but because their efforts are guided by myths and misinformation. He offers a provocative perspective that has already transformed the lives of thousands and crushes myths in the process. Your attitude to fitness will never be the same with this fitness system designed just for divers.
この商品にはまだレビューがありません レビューを書く
東條 チカ


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The Baylor Bears could once again be in the middle of a scandal.
On Friday, it was reported that Baylor offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, the son of disgraced ex-head coach Art Briles, met with the NCAA over possible recruiting violations.
ESPN.com was first to share the news.
While there are few details, it was reported that Briles' potential violations stem from making improper contact with a recruit. Baylor is trying to get "the level of the infractions reduced."
Since learning of the news, Baylor released a statement on the situation.
Since being notified more than a year ago by the NCAA about potential violations involving two assistant football coaches, we have worked cooperatively with the NCAA and Thursday's hearing was just the next step in the process to bring it to closure. We take all NCAA inquiries seriously and look forward to putting this behind us in the near future.
Briles was suspended for one game to start the year.
With all of the uncertainty surrounding the Baylor coaching staff moving into the future, we will have to wait and see whether Briles gets his third year as a coordinator with the Bears.
Baylor takes on Oklahoma Saturday afternoon on ABC and ESPN2.
Can't get enough of Campus Sports? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay updated with the latest news and exclusive giveaways!


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Veede Trailer (2003)
06 November 2003
Yedu is a responsible citizen of Bobbarlanka, a place where everything is in place but for the polluted water that is coming from the factory. Everybody in the village complained, but of no use. Then the village head forms a team of three comprising of Yedu, Manga and her grandmother and sends them to Hyderabad so that they could meet the minister and express the villages problem to him. Can they change things?
Watch the official Veede 2003 trailer in HD below or find more Veede videos on Vidimovie.


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The CPWG Pedagogical Approach. Session 3 – . What is Pedagogy?. Pedagogy is the art and science of how something is taught, the method behind the learning.
Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author.While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server.
Session 3 –
Adults learn best when…
- There is mutual respect
- They actively collaborate in the learning process
- The learning relates to an issue they are experiencing
- The learning relates to a goal they wish to achieve
- They have the opportunity to critically reflect
- They and their experiences are valued


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My Lucky Dragon
Strawberry Cheesecake Whipped Soap Sugar Scrub, Scrub, Soap, Sugar, Strawberry, Sugar Scrub
Regular price $ 12.00
This creamy whipped soap scrub is just what your body needs!
It's a moisturizing exfoliant which makes it perfect for the hands, feet, arms, legs, knees and elbows. Apply a small amount and scrub, scrub, scrub!
This scrub has nourishing moisturizing ingredients such as Organic Shea Butter, Organic Coconut Oil, Aloe, Jojoba Oil, Silk Amino Acids and Vitamin E oil, guaranteed to leave your skin silky smooth.
***This contains Real Strawberry Seeds
Fragrance: Strawberry Cheesecake-Sinfully delicious, without the sinful calories -- no regrets.
This listing is for one 8oz jar
Contains vanilla, browning may occur


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Minster FM News
Four in Five Minster FM Area MPs to Vote Against Gay Marriage
4:26pm 5th February 2013
Ahead of a vote of gay marriage in the House of Commons tonight four out of five MPs in the Minster FM area say they'll be voting against the proposals.
Labour MP for York Central Hugh Bayley is the only MP in our area in favour he says on his website:
"In Government Labour did a lot to legislate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans equality. When we came to power it was illegal for public bodies – teachers or local government officers – to promote homosexuality. That mind set is now history.
There are hundreds, or maybe even thousands of same sex couples in my constituency, and they should have an equal right to marry and the same recognition from the state as anyone else.
I support Labour's campaign for equal marriage and will continue to press the Government for equal treatment of heterosexual and same-sex partnerships, and will vote in favour of gay marriage if and when there is a vote in the House of Commons."
The MP for York Outer Julian Sturdy says he was initially in favour of the plans but after much thought has now changed his mind over concerns about the implications on religious freedom.
Anne McIntosh, who represents Thirsk and Malton will be voting against, she says:
"As there were no such proposals in the Conservative Party manifesto in the last General Election, I do not believe that such a Bill is appropriate at this time."
"The Government's attention should now be focused on reviving the economy at this time and fulfilling our commitment made at the time of the last election of implementing the married couple's tax allowance."
"My understanding of marriage is very clear; it is the union of a man and a woman, for their comfort, safety and sustenance, and for the upbringing of children. Civil partnerships ensure that there is no discrimination. In my view, marriage is special and should be respected and celebrated as such."
"While it is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals, I believe it is equally wrong to discriminate against those with strong religious beliefs, such as believing that marriage between a man and a woman is special."
"I therefore will not be supporting the same sex marriage proposals in this Bill. Our main focus should be on the economy and ensuring we reduce the deficit and the country's debt for the long term interests of the country."
The office for Selby & Ainsty MP Nigel Adams confirmed he would be voting against the plans but the MP was in meetings and unavailable for an interview.
A spokesman for Greg Knight, who represents Pocklington and Market Weighton said the MP "is unconvinced the case has been made for change and so will be voting against in the second reading tonight."


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Port Vila, Vanuatu (PressExposure) June 16, 2009 -- Toted as the biggest social event in Port Vila, Vanuatu, is the annual Kiwanis Charity Race Day. It is a colorful tropical island version of the Melbourne Cup. It stops the nation for 8 heart stopping, lung yelling races, run on a track like no other.
With around 10,000 race goers, compiled of locals, as well as visitors from all over the world, the event is the beginning of the Independence celebrations. "Race day in Vanuatu beats Flemington's party atmosphere hands down", said one enthusiast. The race even draws Aussie stewards and race callers.
Jockeys are very competitive and train to the best of their ability. However, most of them have grown up riding wild horses without bridles, helmets and for the most part like to go bare foot.
⢠Gala Charity Ball Thursday 16th July 2009 ⢠Calcutta Dinner Friday Night 17th July 2009 ⢠Race Day Saturday 18th July 2009
Wendy Hargreaves says, "As a Port Vila race week survivor, I highly recommend attending every event. It's a great way to meet the locals. It's also a fun way to raise funds for local schools".
Numerous locals and overseas visitors dress up in all their finery for the opportunity to win prizes in the fashion parades, while other punters simply wear shorts, shirt and thongs. The temperatures hover around the mild mid 20's. Of course if it has rained the night before you might have to watch out for the odd large patch of mud.
Punters are able to have a place their bets on the eight races, at a tote supervised by local bank clerks. Proceeds from the day going to assist local schools, who get very little help from the government.
The Vanuatu Kiwanis Club has Peter Wilson, a well known local entity, as race chairman. Peter has had involvement with the races since its inauguration in 1985. All in the fun of a once-been-to-never-forgotten tropical island bush one-day charity horse race. You don't have to be a race-goer to enjoy this really great day.
Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO's of YouMe Support Foundation ([http://youmesupport.org]) providing high school education grants for children who are without hope. They would like to help you get a couple of tickets to the great event, the Kiwanis Race Day. Contact Wendy on email@example.com. This offer is strictly limited.


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Diverse sources are critical of Kurdish declaration of autonomy in Syria
The Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria have voted to seek autonomy. The vote was to unite three Kurdish-controlled provinces into a federal system. The move could complicate UN-backed peace talks, in which Kurds are not included.
|The Kurds in Syria have had an autonomous area in northern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The vote has brought criticism from diverse sources including the Assad regime, Turkey, and the United States.
"We don't support self-ruled, semi-autonomous zones inside Syria. We just don't. What we want to see is a unified, whole Syria that has in place a government that is not led by (President) Bashar al-Assad that is responsive to the Syrian people. Whole, unified, nonsectarian Syria, that's the goal."While the U.S. has given strong support to the Kurdish PYD party they nevertheless hope for a unified Syria. Turkey considers the PYD terrorists and is angry at American support for them. The Kurds, with American help, have wrested considerable territory from the control of the Islamic State. The Kurds seem less concerned with replacing Assad than with consolidating power over areas they control.


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The Beginning: 1992 & 1993
- School Superintendent Carl Holmstrom's speech to St. Louis Park Rotary Club inspires Rotarians to push for an initiative to benefit kids and families.
- Formation of At-Risk Families Committee (school staff).
- Back-to-school workshop held for all school staff on Children First and asset survey results (September 2,1993).
- Members of a communitywide Steering Committee identified.
- First monthly Children First newsletter (October, 1993) and publicity in local newspaper.
- First Steering Committee meeting (October 29, 1993). Discussed plans for town meetings.
- City Council resolution supporting Children First (November 15, 1993).
- School Board resolution supporting Children First (November 29, 1993).
- Town meetings (November 30 and December 2, 1993) with approximately 150 residents. Discussed strengths and concerns about St. Louis Park and vision for community.
- Search Institute staff conducted focus group interviews with 35 community groups of all types. Focus group components: obstacles, improvement, and vision.
- Steering Committee meeting (December 16). Worked on plans for neighborhood conversations.
The Early Years
- Volunteers conducted one dozen home meetings (neighborhood conversations) -"mini-town meetings." Hosts had volunteered at town meetings.
- School faculty workshop on "Building Assets Through Teamwork." (January 17, 1994).
- Focus group interviews and surveying continued. (Completed February, 1994.)
- Senior High School student newspaper, The ECHO, lead article on Children First. (February, 1994)
- Local clergy developed a draft document on "Core Values for the Children of St. Louis Park" (February, 1994).
- Steering Committee meeting (February 17, 1994). Discussed design plan for Children First.
- Identification of a Design Team comprised of school and Search Institute personnel to assist in analyzing data and drafting a proposal (March, 1994). Design Team meetings were held on March 9, 15, and 23, 1994.
- Steering Committee meeting (March 17, 1994). Discussion of tentative Design Document for Children First and future role of Steering Committee. Completion of first draft. (April 1,1994).
- Special Steering Committee meeting (April 7, 1994). Agenda items included: Review final draft of proposal, evaluation of the process and future steps. Completion of final draft of proposal (April 11-12, 1994).
- Grant proposals submitted to corporate foundations.
- Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social and Community Celebration of Children First (May, 1994)
- Money secured to hire a coordinator (Fall, 1994).
- Children First Transition Team (including representatives from each founding partner) writes a job description, interview and select a coordinator for Children First.
- Coordinator starts (October 1, 1994).
- Transition Team becomes permanent Executive Committee responsible for organizational and fiduciary integrity of Children First.
- Executive Committee members draft individuals from a variety of backgrounds to serve on Children First Vision Team with responsibility for visioning what Children First should be in St. Louis Park.
- Vision Team has initial meeting in December 1994, including representatives from the city, education, health, business, clergy, Rotary, social service agencies and parents and students (grades 5 – 11).
- A Marketing Committee for Children First begins work in April 1995. Charged with determining how to make every citizen in St. Louis Park aware of Children First, the committee is comprised of marketing professionals, school and city personnel, clergy, business people and students.
- Second annual Ice Cream Social, a community-wide event is held for family fun and to celebrate St. Louis Park's efforts to put Children First. An estimated 1,500 people consumed 2,900 free ice cream cones.
- To respond to inquiries from other communities about Children First, a Children First Workshop is piloted June 15, 1995.
Late 1990s
- Congregations organize a workshop dealing with how to keep kids safe in congregations.
- Central Clinic opens, a clinic offering free health services for all St. Louis Park youth, via a partnership between Park Nicollet and the school district.
- Awareness efforts include meetings with St. Louis Park's private schools and including Children First information in the orientation for new staff at St. Louis Park District 283.
- Building local and national media coverage includes U.S. News & World Report's cover story on resiliency includes Children First, November 11, 1996.
- University students begin working with Lenox Neighborhood on an Awareness to Action campaign.


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I have started the AI project for the community and also with dream of having my own/everyones personal AI and would like to help as much people as I can. So here is the very first and basic question that arises before starting to develop an AI.
AI/ML being one of the hottest topic around in these days, and with everyone trying to do the same thing, very few are succeeding in it.
If any of you have an experience with AI development, please do share your thoughts on the mistakes people do in general, and how to avoid the pitfalls?
Provided some really useful insights on Artificial Intelligence and fields associated with it, helping understand the real meaning of AI.
Kabadi this writing is beautiful! I propose you write for the Collaborizm blog. I will as well if you are in!
Vincenzo Panella: Actually that is needed to understand the conversation in a proper way, as we have a habit of shorting things very unconventionally.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2013/02/08/the-world-in-2033-big-thinkers-and-futurists-share-their-thoughts/#4293f2fd1f8b Ah! Ray K! One of the most brilliant minds ever! Thanks again for sharing this Kabadi!
Cynthia Artin, thank you for your comments, i believe i am a learner at any time, only the thing is that, if the process is of help to someone advantageously it brings in a pleasure of smile and satisfaction that it has been of use to a fellowship and that is the step of learning for me in sharing.
On Education: Khan Academy
"Global Access: In twenty years, almost everyone on the planet will have access to the world's best educational materials. Almost every subject will be available for free online. A child in Mongolia would be able to learn anything from Algebra to String Theory to Greek History.
Personalized learning: Students won't be forced to learn in a "one-size-fits-all" model with everyone the same age learning the same thing at once. Rather, technology will allow the system to adjust to every student's needs. A 35-year old would easily be able to brush up on Trigonometry. A 4th grader would be able to learn Algebra. Everyone will be able to focus on their own needs.
Interactive classrooms: Teachers will spend less time lecturing, and much more time mentoring. Classrooms will be highly engaging environments with almost all time spent on valuable human interactions (e.g., mentorship, peer tutoring) and more hands-on, cross-disciplinary, project-based learning.
Competency-based credentials: Students will be able to prove what they know, not by seat-time, but with competency-based credentials. An out-of-work 40 year old would not need to go back to school and pile up thousands of dollars of debt before employers took him seriously. Instead, he would be able to take an accounting course online for free, prove what he knows, and get a job."
Shantanu Sinha is President and COO of Khan Academy, a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. For additional insights, go to www.khanacademy.org.
Love the Khan Academy! Perhaps we should partner. Please email me at [email protected], Kabadi, as I am doing quite a few wonderful projects in India where I believe you are currently located (at least in the 3D world!)


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October 28, 2011 BY John Kim
Still going strong in its year-long tour, Sneaker Pimps will now make a stop at one of the largest sneaker epicenters in the world – New York City. This November 11th, immerse yourself in NYC sneaker culture at Sneaker Pimps, which will feature live performances by Kendrick Lamar, Stalley, and a third headlining guest artist. Additional features include an art installation by Brooklyn's own Stash as well as a dope photography exhibit by Kicks Japan. More event information is right ahead, so take a look if you're interested in attending, or click here to buy your tickets in advance!
Filed under: Events


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Nidalee General Guide by
Not Updated For Current Season
This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page.
Thank You!
Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.
Tanky Cougar (mid lane/top lan
Nidalee Build
1st Back
Tank Items
Ability Sequence
Not Updated For Current Season
The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.
Hi, this is my Nidalee tanky AP bruiser build. The idea of this build started when I knew she was getting "nerfed" for 4.10 patch, analyzed her kit, and found out that besides it was a nerf for the human form, it was a great buff for cougar. Basically, this kit makes her more efficient now in teamfights, asSwipe andPounce are easier to cast (now your cursor directs them, rather than where Nidalee is facing), and get a
massive huge initiation with the new passive "Hunted" enemy debuff.


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Discussion in 'Couples and Women Seeking' started by Looking4u2167, Aug 17, 2016.
Who in here is looking for a cuck mature couple?
It's good to see some people in the houston area
Yes it is!
I'm in the area hit me up
Hi. I live in the memorial/galleria area. Message me.
In Houston Get at tme
How you doing?
Good and you?
What part of town you in..
Kind of far we are west
have any pics?
I live in Houston. Got any pics?
Message me I'm in the area
Katy area
Any BBC to breed bi
Separate names with a comma.


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Debt-ridden ex-England star jailed for armed robbery as sobbing family watch on
A FORMER England and Prem footballer with spiralling gambling debts has been jailed for 15 years for armed robbery.
Nathan Ashton, 29, who played for Fulham before moving to Crystal Palace and Charlton, targeted betting shops across London and the South East.
Along with former Scottish Premier League player Ohmar Pike, the pair netted nearly £15,000 from eight raids.
In one raid, a cashier "fell to his knees and had a panic attack and begged for his life", a court heard.
A robber then put a gun to the back of his head and said: "I'm going to blow your head off if you don't open the safe."
Ashton, who made 20 appearances for England teams from under-16 to under-19 level, developed a gambling habit as a footballer.
His debts apparently reached £100,000 last August.
To pay off debts he started robbing betting shops after a friend suggested it was an easy way to raise cash, Kingston Crown Court heard.
Ashton carried out two robberies alone in February last year, and carried out eight raids with former Gretna FC player Pike, 27, between May and October 2015.
Father-of-two Pike played for the Scottish club for 18 months before they went into administration in 2008.
He then became involved after he fell into debt.
Roughly £14,500 in cash was stolen from Paddy Power, William Hill and Coral betting shops during the spree.
"You were armed with a weapon, usually in a plastic bag or wrapped in plastic"Judge Susan Tapping
Branches targeted included the King's Road in Chelsea, Woking, Putney, Isleworth, Hammersmith, Acton, Watford and High Wycombe.
Ashton, who admitted his role in the raids, was jailed for 15 years and Pike, found guilty by a jury last week, was jailed for 11 years.
Judge Susan Tapping told Ashton: "You were armed with a weapon, usually in a plastic bag or wrapped in plastic.
"You carried what two witnesses described as a black handgun.
"It may well have been an imitation, but it looked realistic so was very frightening."
Both Ashton and Pike made no reaction as the sentences were passed, while their family members wept in the public gallery.
At the time, Ashton was already carrying out a three-month suspended sentence.
He pleaded guilty last August to stalking his ex-girlfriend.
In mitigation Michelle Clarke, defending Ashton, said: "Mr Ashton was a very talented young footballer.
"Unfortunately, whilst he was playing football, he got into gambling. He obviously had money.
"He could cope with the gambling whilst he was still earning.
"He was trying to maintain a lifestyle that he plainly could not sustain."


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Whether you are a teacher just out of college, and beginning your teaching tenure, or you are parents looking to home school your child who may be showing signs or has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. You may want to read carefully to some information I have looked up.
Children at any age from being a child to adolescent or to becoming a teenager often display a strong academic strength due to the effects of the disorder. However, there cannot become a "cookie-cutter" template that you would teach a normal student. There are far too many obstacles in relationship building and interaction for this to be a start.
Secondly, to capitalize on those strengths and avoid the weaknesses presents serious tests. It can be very unseen by trained teachers or to parents, but children look and act much like their developing peers. These children tend to perform well or better than their classmates do. However, the danger is it can prove a dangerous mask as it hides the effects of having Asperger's Syndrome.
According to my research, there is a six-step plan in understanding how to make things easier for you as the teacher, but also to the student.
- Operate on "ASD" Time: Twice as much time, half as much has done. Students with ASD require additional time to complete assignments as they work to make things done perfectly rather than a rushed unfinished task.
- Manage the Environment: Any small or subtle change to a classroom can increase anxiety for a student with ASD.
- Create a Balanced Agenda: By developing, a visual schedule for the student to view that includes daily activities. This makes an easier day for the student. Monitor and restructure the plan as needed.
- Share the Agenda: Students with ASD would have difficulty distinguishing between information that is essential, and information that is not. Also, information that others [as normal students] have acquired as like common sense, the disabled student with ASD may need to have the information provided or repeated to them again. Ask the student if he/she understands what is going on or about to occur?
- Simplify Language: Keep your language simple and concise. Speak at a slow and steady pace so as the student can take notes as needed. Students with ASD tend to have difficulty reading between the lines understanding abstract concepts such as sarcasm and having difficulty interpreting facial expressions.
- Manage Change of Plans: One major problem with ASD students is they like a rhythm. They evolve their day around a set schedule as they make in their minds. Make sure as the parent homeschooling or teaching if in an open school environment that you monitor their rhythm. Verify that the student understands planned activities can be changed, canceled, or rescheduled. Always have a backup plan and share them with the student in advance. Be sure to inform them about upcoming scheduled fire drills, assemblies, guest speakers, testing plans. Recurring breaks such as at an end and beginning of a school term or semester cause anxiety for a student.
- Provide Reassurance: Students with ASD cannot predict upcoming events. Always provide feedback and reassurance of them frequently. Use frequent check-ins to monitor student progress and stress levels.
- Be Generous with Praise: Tell your student what he/she did right throughout the day. Compliment them on successes and honest attempts at Be specific.
- Teachers who are monitoring students' with ASD should reach out to the parents as your first and best source of information. Parents can help informing you about the child's activity and behavior at home. It is also highly recommended that mutually agreed upon teaching methods are given.
- Having understood from monitoring the students' and talking with the parents, you now have that information provided in organizing your classroom. By making it more comfortable for children, adolescents, and teenagers with ASD and making it workable for non-disabled students as well. The Educator's Guide to Asperger's Syndrome is a great resource for information like this.
- Students with ASD have social deficiency making it difficult for them to establish a friendship. They are more likely than their peers to be victims of teasing and bullying. School faculty must be aware that students with ASD are potentially prime targets and must watch for signs. Many social interactions occur during unstructured times in settings outside the classroom, where students with Asperger's Syndrome may end up being isolated. You may want to create a "circle of friends," or a rotating group of responsible peer buddies for the student with Asperger's Syndrome.
- Schools with autism and Asperger's Syndrome require an Individualized Education Program [IEP] to make progress through school go better. It is recommended that school faculty, psychologists, all teachers, and parents meet once at the beginning of the school term and end to focus on the pros and cons and how to prepare the student for the academic term that is upcoming.
- Tantrums or meltdowns (terms that are often used interchangeably) typically occur in three stages that can be of variable length. Students with Asperger's Syndrome rarely indicate (verbally) that they are under stress. While they may not always know when they are near a stage of the crisis, most meltdowns do not occur without warning.
I hope the guide that I put together for you from extensive research helps you whether you are graduating from college going into teaching or you are already a teacher, and experiencing a student with ASD coming into your class for the first time. Please share this by social media and e-mail for those that need to be understood on how those with ASD communicate, work, and need stability.


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Katie Barker-Dovison
Psychotherapist in Shardlow - Registered 5+ Years
Full address provided upon booking, Millfield
Show Map
Engagement rate - 19% of enquirers became verified clients
Working Hours
- Thursdays9am - 1pm
- Fridays9am - 5:30pm
Issue Covered
- Abuse
- Anger
- Bereavement
- Depression
- Relationship Problems
- Self Esteem
- Self Harm
- Stress
- Psychotherapy
- Counselling
- Integrative Therapy
More Detail
5+ Years Post-Registration Experience
Welcome. I am Katie Barker-Dovison. I'm a registered psychotherapist - I support individuals with their emotional wellbeing. I hold private sector experience as a psychotherapist. My focus includes relationship problems, self esteem and stress, and the specific problems encountered by men and women.
What to ExpectAn introductory assessment meeting allows you to see if you are comfortable with me, discuss what troubles you, ask questions, understand confidentiality, and assess if therapy could assist you. Please use a contact option on the right to arrange an initial assessment session in Shardlow, Derby.
Counselling centres on listening to you, and assisting you. You decide what matter concerning your childhood or adulthood you explore. The objective of counselling is to enable you to talk about a problem and find a solution that is right for you.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (England and Wales) recommends counselling for depression.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (England and Wales) recommends counselling for depression.
Integrative Therapy
Integrative therapy combines therapeutic approaches to suit your needs and the problems you encounter. It explores your subjective experience and options. The aim of integrative therapy is to help you develop your self-understanding.
Psychotherapy focuses on you, and you gaining insight into the problems you face. It considers your thoughts, emotions and significant moments in your history. Psychotherapy aims to help you develop or find suitable ways of coping.
Thoughts on Mental Health
If you have experienced historic trauma that you haven't been able to process, or if you find yourself experiencing current trauma, such as an accident, crime, or illness then therapy can help you to learn healthy ways to cope.
Read More: 10 signs you could benefit from therapy
Read More: 10 signs you could benefit from therapy
Qualifications Timeline
|Master of Science
Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling
Coventry University Studied at Sherwood Psychotherapy Training Institute (SPTI) (UK)
|UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) Registered Psychotherapist
Katie abides by the Code of Ethics of the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and the Code of Ethics of the Sherwood Psychotherapy Training Institute (SPTI) Nottingham.
Location Detail
My Consulting Address is in easy reach ofShardlow, Hemington, Sawley, Castle Donington, Lockington, Breaston, Thulston, Elvaston, Risley, Ratcliffe on Soar, Kegworth, Long Eaton, Isley Walton, Diseworth, Ockbrook, Kingston on Soar, Alvaston, Boulton, Sandiacre, Chellaston
Nearest Train Stations
- Long Eaton (2.4 miles)
- East Midlands Parkway (3.6 miles)
- Spondon (4.2 miles)
- Peartree (6 miles)
- Attenborough (6 miles)
- Beeston (6.4 miles)
- Conisbrough (6.8 miles)
- Derby Midland (7.6 miles)
- Loughborough (8.7 miles)
- Willington (9.5 miles)
Wheelchair access: No
Updated 06 September 2017


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Browse other items in the Lighting Fixtures collection from Wayside Furniture in the Akron, Cleveland, Canton, Medina, Youngstown, Ohio area.
The linear complexity of this design is unique, intriguing, yet somehow very simple with its own quiet elegance. This collection can move easily from casual thru contemporary,, the classic shape of the Scavo glass softens, relaxes the effect to
The Lighting Fixtures Legato Mini Pendant by Uttermost from Wayside Furniture. We proudly serve the Akron, Cleveland, Canton, Medina, Youngstown, Ohio area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
This item has been tagged as: Lighting, Desk Lamp, Floor Lamps, Task Lamp, Table Lamps, Free Standing Lamp, Hanging Lamps, Wall Lamps, Room Lighting, Home Accent Lighting, Accent Lighting, Home Accessory, Home Accessories, Indoor Lamps, Living Room Lighting, Luminaire, Light, Artificial Light, Electric Lighting
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of ZzzQuil for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
I have a very active brain. I am constantly thinking. No matter what time of the day it is, it seems like it is going non stop. When I'm driving in the car I'm thinking about my next project or what I'm going to write in my new blog post. Sometimes I love having a very active brain, but when I can't turn it off in the middle of the night, it drives me crazy.
I have always had issues falling asleep my whole life. I remember just laying in bed awake when I was a child. The worse for me is when I get woken up around 3 or 4 in the morning by a kid, if there is something on my mind I cannot go back to sleep. And then I'm a zombie the next day.
I take sleeping aids pretty often. When I heard that the makers of NyQuil where coming out with product just for sleeping (and no other symptoms), I was pretty excited to try it out. I just need something for sleep, not for a cold or headache, just for sleep. It's called ZzzQuil and it comes in liquid or pill form.
P&G let me sample ZzzQuil and along with that gave me a robe and sleep mist to help me get nice and relaxed.
I was impressed with how it worked. The main thing for me is how fast it starts working, because the longer it takes to keep in, the less sleep I get. I got the liquid form because it would be faster. Within 15 minutes of taking it I could tell it was working. Another thing that I liked about the liquid is that I could take a half dose if I needed. Sometimes I just need to have it in my system but I don't need a lot. The taste wasn't bad at all. I had no problem taking it or it making me gag (like some other liquid medicines do). I guarantee that I am going to be taking ZzzQuil again and that it's going to be something in my medicine cabinet.
If you have problems sleeping, you should try out ZzzQuil and then tweet about your experience using hashtag #ZzzQuilNight. And to keep up on the latest, you should like ZzzQuil on Facebook.


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An excerpt from www.HouseOfNames.com archives copyright © 2000 - 2017
Anglo-Saxon in origin. It was a name given to a treasurer, or a person who made coffers. Ancient records reveal the name Cofferey is derived from the Old English word coferer, which meant as above.
Cofferey Early Origins
Somerset, where they held a family seat from ancient times.
Cofferey Spelling Variations
Cofferey Spelling Variations
Until the dictionary, an invention of only the last few hundred years, the English language lacked any comprehensive system of spelling rules. Consequently, spelling variations in names are frequently found in early Anglo-Saxon and later Anglo-Norman documents. One person's name was often spelled several different ways over a lifetime. The recorded variations of Cofferey include Coffer, Cofrer, Coffere, Coffare, Coffery and many more.
Cofferey Early History
Cofferey Early History
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Cofferey research. Another 413 words (30 lines of text) covering the years 1275, 1298, 1299, 1327, 1377 and 1500 are included under the topic Early Cofferey History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Cofferey Early Notables (pre 1700)
Cofferey Early Notables (pre 1700)
More information is included under the topic Early Cofferey Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration
Thousands of English families boarded ships sailing to the New World in the hope of escaping the unrest found in England at this time. Although the search for opportunity and freedom from persecution abroad took the lives of many because of the cramped conditions and unsanitary nature of the vessels, the opportunity perceived in the growing colonies of North America beckoned. Many of the settlers who survived the journey went on to make important contributions to the transplanted cultures of their adopted countries. The Cofferey were among these contributors, for they have been located in early North American records: Henry Coffer, who sailed to Philadelphia in 1753. Thomas Coffery journeyed to America in 1771; D. Coffer traveled to New York in 1820; and Fred Coffers sailed to San Francisco in 1864..
Cofferey Family Crest Products
Cofferey Family Crest Products
See Also
See Also
Other References
The Cofferey Family Crest was acquired from the Houseofnames.com archives. The Cofferey Family Crest was drawn according to heraldic standards based on published blazons. We generally include the oldest published family crest once associated with each surname.
This page was last modified on 3 June 2014 at 09:49.
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Audi automobile enthusiasts have grown accustomed to a certain level of a reputation for performance when driving their 80 around town. While it's not hard to locate replacement parts for Audi vehicles, these days only the highest quality are required to repair your car or truck. You bought your 80 because its sporty handling and European styling agreed with your nature; so why would you settle for second rate when it comes to superior quality auto parts? Obviously, you didn't buy your 80 unless you understood you would be getting best-in-class service and dependability both impeccably combined into one car, truck, or SUV.
On each car and truck today, the wheel lug studs must be intact in order to keep the wheels attached to the hubs. Your Audi 80 wheel lug studs are pressed into the back of the wheel hub, and the threaded shaft pokes out past the mounting holes in your wheel. Then, the lug nuts screw onto the lug studs; fastening the wheel to your Audi 80 wheel hub. When one of these breaks, you will suffer noticeable alignment issues as you drive.
Don't let a Wheel Lug Stud repair spell the end of your car, truck, or SUV, and don't risk lowering its resale value by installing anything but the best repair parts. When your Audi requires the best replacement Wheel Lug Stud, there's no need to trust any store other than the authority, Car Parts Discount. Given all the hassles associated with fixing broken parts on your car or truck, let www.carpartsdiscount.com be the number one store you go to make purchasing it easy. Just choose your year from the list below to find the right Audi 80 Wheel Lug Stud for your 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988 model.
Vehicle Install Locations: Front, Rear
Raybestos Wheel Studs are sold in packages of five.
Vehicle Install Locations: Front, Rear
Vehicle Install Locations: Front, Rear


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Thanks to the week-long vacation, I feel very relaxed right now at work-but not too relaxed in dealing with everyday issues at work. I need to work on this and I need to work on that. All of this and that, in a monthly report.
I'm giving myself a breaker right now to ease this a bit and its quite an opportunity right now to discuss a certain topic such as "hacking". Although I won't let you know how to "hack" or why do people "hack", I'm posting something that's on the lighter side of it...
Take for example this kinda silly question I got from a friend of mine. The message (translated in "English" goes like this:
my friend:
how do i hack a computer
me (gil villamater) :
it's easy. 1) first, you need to have a lot of money to pay me so i could tutor you 2) second, if you can't do number 1, you have to find me some cutie out there which you'll be introducing me so that she could be my girlfriend eventually 3) third, make sure that you've followed either number 1 or number 2 4) fourth, if you're able to accomplish number 3, i can now teach you "hacking"
my friend:
Now look guys, the word "hack" or "hacking" has two sides. It's like a coin. Either which way you'll be, think first on what you actually intend to accomplish about this? Are you going to use it to establish a more secured and safe world? or are you trying to pin somebody down? This post might be worth laughing, but just like in the Spider man movies: "with great power, comes great responsibility". So, are you responsible enough?
Think of these things...
Monday, November 05, 2007
How to learn "computer hacking" from me
Posted by Gil Villamater at 12:42 AM
1 comment:
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Antique Japanese Boro Textile Noragi Work Wear Edo period 19c (Dealer: Sezuan antiques & art) – Patched and sewn, piece-by-piece, and used again and again…, as Japanese mingei folk textiles so-called 'Boro', and it's a 'Noragi' (work wear), in aesthetic worn-out condition, with some stains as seen. approx. L 85 cm (33.46in), W (sleeve to sleeve) 120 cm (47.24in)
Item price: $850
More items from Sezuan antiques & art
*** Please read and understand ☞"Policy" before purchase, since your order will be assumed to have fully acknowledged our Sales Policy under any circumstances.


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"Adults can develop type 1 diabetes too, but are sometimes misdiagnosed as having type 2. A term you may not have heard is LADA: latent autoimmune diabetes in adults."
Every day during Diabetes Awareness Month, I will share a fact, tip, or thought on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Please remember that I never give medical advice. Ask your endocrinologist or pediatrician for advice about your own child. Make your own informed decisions for your own child.


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Wow, this looks awesome. Into The Badlands just jumped up my must-watch list.
"Into the Badlands" is a genre-bending martial arts series very loosely based on the classic Chinese tale "Journey to the West." In a land controlled by feudal barons, "Badlands" tells the story of a great warrior and a young boy who embark on a journey across a dangerous land to find enlightenment.


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MOVIE SYNOPSIS [ General Audiences ] With direction of F. Javier Gutiérrez, this film in English (original language) was presented in 2008. This film written by F. Javier Gutiérrez and Juan Velarde was produced in Spain. You can watch Tres días online on TV cable or theaters with original audio in Spanish at different dates. This film premiered in theaters in 2008.
Rating: 5 by 1655 users./
Runtime: 93 minutes
Víctor Clavijo, Mariana Cordero, Eduard Fernández, Elvira de Armiñán, Ana de las Cuevas, Juan Galván, Daniel Casadellà, Vicente Romero, Pepe Salas, Antonio Dechent, Miguel Zurita, Asunción Ayllón, Sebastián Haro, Cachito Noguera and Nani Jiménez.
Drama, Criminal, Science fiction.
93-minute film (full movie) directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez.
The original audio of Tres días has dialogues in or Spanish, it was produced in Spain.
It premiered in cinemas or television in 2008.
Screenplay written by F. Javier Gutiérrez and Juan Velarde.
Miguel Ángel Mora.
Antonio P. Pérez, Antonio Meliveo, José Ibáñez, Ignacio Santamaría, Antonio Banderas, Ernesto Chao, Javier Domínguez and Francisco Fortes.
This film was produced and / or financed by Green Moon Productions, Pentagrama Films and Maestranza Films.
Composed by Antonio Meliveo.
IFC Films, SP Films, Universal Pictures, Klock Worx Company, The, IPA Asia Pacific and CDI Films.
Without commercial breaks, the full movie Tres días has a duration of 93 minutes; the official trailer can be watched in streaming on the Internet. You can watch this full movie free in English or Spanish in movie TV channels, renting the DVD or with VoD services (Video On Demand player, Hulu) and PPV (Pay Per View, Netflix).
See the page of this full movie, Tres días in FULLTV Movies.


text: Hey fellas, I'm in search of some sort of walk behind bush hog/brush cutter. I know I've seen them before but i'm guessing they are far and few between as my searches on here yielded no results. Please let me know what you recommend. He's looking for something in the 40+ inch range Thanks, Ryan


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New director wants to expand offerings at MRC
Rockport — On Monday, June 30, his first day as executive director of Midcoast Recreation Center (MRC), Craig Wilson said, "I'm real excited to be up here."
That is good, because he will need to hit the ground running. Among Wilson's first tasks will be to put together a break-even budget for the fiscal year that started July 1. He comes to MRC from the Central Lincoln County YMCA in Damariscotta, which he ran for 10 years. During his time there, he opened a new branch, tripled the program offerings, increased membership by more than 20 percent and raised what he called a "significant amount" of money.
Wilson said he left the Damariscotta Y in good financial shape, with a strong staff.
He was not always in finance, though. After taking a bachelor's degree in physical education from Springfield College in Massachusetts, he became director of physical education programs for the parochial schools in Lawrence, Mass. From there, he became program director for the Lawrence YMCA, and then associate executive director for the Y in Haverhill, Mass. His next stop was in Damariscotta.
He and his wife live in Bremen with their daughter, 16, and son, 14.
By the time of MRC's most recent director search, Wilson was ready to leave the YMCA organization and was looking for a nonprofit with a good mission, a strong board of directors and a desire to grow. "MRC looked like a good fit," he said.
A lot of people do not know that MRC, which was started as a for-profit organization, has been a nonprofit since 2010, he said. The organization does not turn anyone away because they are unable to afford its fees. Part of its mission is to provide access to athletic opportunities for anyone in the greater Rockland area who wants them, regardless of their ability to pay, Wilson said.
With an economy that is still sluggish, the center gets an increasing number of requests for scholarship help from people of all ages, he said.
In order to support that mission, MRC wants to develop an endowment and strengthen its finances, Wilson said. He recently played in a golf tournament fundraiser that raised about $6,500 to support scholarships for children at the facility.
MRC's strength is in its people, Wilson said. "We have great staff here." In addition, it has a dedicated board of directors drawn from local businesses and nonprofits.
"I'm amazed at how much time and energy [the board] has been willing to put in to maintain this facility," he said. He will draw on that devotion to increase MRC's strength and broaden its offerings. For example, Penobscot Bay YMCA CEO Troy Curtis is on his board; Wilson hopes to collaborate on some programs with the Y.
Unlike the Y, MRC is not a membership organization, but simply charges users for classes or time on the ice or the tennis courts.
Wilson said his top three goals for the facility are to expand the scholarship program, increase program offerings and establish MRC as the charity of choice for the greater Rockland area.
"MRC is a great challenge for [me] professionally," he said.


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3 Responses
it really does seem like the end on an era – she was a real star the likes of which may never be seen again, and such a great beauty. jx
The old stars had talent, class and style.
Elizabeth Taylor had even more.
She will always be in our hearts.
George Vreeland Hill
That's beautiful, George and so true. Elizabeth did have even more. xx


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Having seen a couple of productions of Les Miserables on stage I was keen to see how this musical would adapt to the big screen and overall I wasn't disappointed.
The film is based on the musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, which is based on the 1862 French novel, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. Whilst ideas for adapting the musical into a film began in the late 1980s it wasn't until after the musical's 25th anniversary in 2010 that development of the film commenced with Tom Hooper as Director and William Nicholson along with Boublil, Schonberg and Herbert Kretzmer as scriptwriters.
A fine ensemble cast was put together for this film adaptation with the standouts being Hugh Jackman's performance as prisoner turned business man and mayor, Jean Valjean, and Ann Hathaway as the tragic Fantine. Hathaway's singing was sublime and brought tears to many an eye the day I saw the film, including my own! Her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" was full of emotion and was totally heartfelt: moving from soft tender moments to climatic note striking highs. Jackman's rendition of "Bring Him Home" likewise moved the audience to tears.
Look, I was even pleasantly surprised with Russell Crowe's performance as police inspector Javert. Certainly it is a long way from his rock band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts but he managed to pull off most the songs with a certain amount of ability, however it was his characterization as the relentless pursuer Javert that pulls him through.
The comedic roles of Thenardier and Madame Thenardier played by Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are wonderful and had the audience laughing especially with their version of "Master of the House."
The rest of the ensemble cast are all strong in their performances and you'd be a pretty strange person if your foot doesn't tap a little to the stirring version of "Do you hear the People Sing?" which undoubtedly sums up the Revolutionary movement.
If you're a first timer to a musical be aware, that yes, they sing all the dialogue not just signature tunes. While there are a few moments in the film where the running melody becomes a little repetitive and the telling of the story through "singing" seems awkward and contrived, overall the bad moments are few and far between.
It will be interesting to see how this film goes with the upcoming round of awards ceremony's including the Oscars with many of the actors and production staff up for nominations including the film itself. Great to see Jackman already taking out the Best Actor Award at the Golden Globes!
Of course a film with two Australians in lead roles should be enough to get some home country support, so if you haven't popped along to see it do so, but remember, if you're a softy like me, take the tissues!