James Charles Napier Webb (13 January 1946 – 9 May 1980) was a Scottish historian and biographer. He was born in Edinburgh, and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered primarily for his books The Harmonious Circle, The Occult Underground (originally titled Flight from Reason), and The Occult Establishment.

Life and career

In 1980 his important biography of G. I. Gurdjieff, titled The Harmonious Circle, was published. He spent 8 years researching the book, making contacts with the Gurdjieff community worldwide. The New York Review of Books described Webb's research and knowledge of the subject as "extremely comprehensive", and Mistlberger described the book as "scholarly and occasionally gossipy" with Webb being "unquestionably a sincere researcher" who became "deeply involved in the matter of his subject" while remaining "fundamentally an outsider, an investigative journalist". Tamdgidi wrote that, amongst all the biographers of Gurdjieff, "only Webb claimed to have been independent and outside the circle of Gurdjieff's followers", and in 2004, in Inventors of Gurdjieff, Paul Beekman Taylor described The Harmonious Circle as "the first systematic biographical account by a writer who hadn't known Gurdjieff personally" Webb established that Gurdjieff's writings revealed substantial evidence of familiarity with the languages and cultures of central Asia, but Webb regarded Gurdjieff more as a self-taught innovator than a member of an esoteric Asiatic group, and, although seeing some of its forms having derived from Asia, saw the content of his teachings deriving from western occult traditions.

Webb's theories of Gurdjieff's identity as a Russian foreign agent in Central Asia, and theories on where he actually travelled before 1917, are considered controversial points in The Harmonious Circle.

Webb's work challenges theories of secularism, theories of decline in organised religion and spirituality. Webb argued that the 19th and 20th centuries had also been marked by a revolt against the Enlightenment, and that the rise of irrationalism was much more marked than the rise of rationalism, especially before, during and after the First World War and the Second World War. Webb traced the influence of occult and mystical groups and writers on literature, philosophy and politics.

Webb was generally ignored in his lifetime, but with the increasing rise of New Age spirituality in later years, his work now seems increasingly prescient. After increasing mental health difficulties, Webb committed suicide in 1980.

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has lauded him as a serious researcher of occultism: "By focusing on functional significance of occultism in political irrationalism, Webb rescued the study of Nazi occultism for the history of ideas."

His major works The Occult Underground and The Occult Establishment were translated into German and published in 2009 and 2008 respectively.

Trinity College established the "James Webb Prize for the History of Ideas" in his memory.

Selected works

Flight from Reason (1971) MacDonald & Co., London
2nd ed.: The Occult Underground (1974) Open Court Publishing.
The Occult Establishment: The Dawn of the New Age and The Occult Establishment (1976) Open Court Publishing.
The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers (1980) Putnam Publishing.
Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen: Politik, Kultur und Okkultismus im 20. Jahrhundert – German translation of The Occult Establishment (2008) Marix Verlag.

Further reading

John Robert Colombo, Colin Wilson, Joyce Collin-Smith: The Occult Webb: An Appreciation of the life and Work of James Webb, (1999) Colombo & Company.

References

External links

 Gary Lachman, The Damned: the strange death of James Webb, Fortean Times, September 2001.

1946 births
1980 deaths
20th-century Scottish historians
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
British historians of religion
People educated at Harrow School
Researchers of new religious movements and cults
Suicides by firearm in Scotland
Suicides in Scotland
Western esotericism scholars
1980 suicides
20th-century Scottish male writers
British male non-fiction writers

James Webb (historian)


Palaeoclimatology (or paleoclimatology) is the study of changes in climate over the entire history of Earth. Modern interest in climate change has caused a great increase in the climates of the past.

The climates of the past can only be studied by proxy. Data comes from studying rocks, sediments, ice and tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils. These records are used to work out the past states of the Earth's climate and its atmospheric system.

Studies of past changes in the life and ecosystems of the past may throw a light on the present. An example is the effect of climate on mass extinctions and the recovery of life after those extinctions.

Notable climate events in Earth history
Knowledge of precise climatic events decreases as the record goes further back in time. Some notable climate events:
 Faint young Sun
 Huronian glaciation (~2400 mya Earth completely covered in ice probably due to Great Oxygenation Event)
 Later Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth (~600 mya, precursor to the Cambrian Explosion)
 Carboniferous rainforest collapse (~300 mya)
 Permian–Triassic extinction event (251.4 mya)
 Oceanic Anoxic Events (~120 mya, 93 mya, and others)
 Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event ( mya)
 Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (Paleocene–Eocene, 55mya)
 Younger Dryas/The Big Freeze (~11 kya)
 Holocene climatic optimum (~7-3 kya)
 Climate changes of 535–536 AD
 Medieval warm period (900–1300)
 Little ice age (1300–1800)

References

Climate change
subfields of geology

Palaeoclimatology


A Christmas cake is a heavy cake containing much dried fruit and usually having a covering of icing. It is made to be eaten at Christmas. It can also be called a fruitcake.

A common favorite of many is the traditional Scottish Christmas cake, the "Whisky Dundee." It was named this because the cake came from Dundee and is made with Scotch whisky. It is a light and crumbly cake, and light on fruit and candied peel—only currants, raisins, sultanas and cherries. This Christmas cake is mostly good for people who do not like very sweet and moist cakes. As with all fruitcakes, almonds (or other nuts) can be removed by people who do not like them or those with bad nut allergies.

At the other end of the Christmas cake tradition, the apple cream Christmas cake is a sweet mix of sliced apples, raisins and other fruit, with eggs, cream cheese, and heavy whipping cream.

In the middle of the other two listed above is the mincemeat Christmas cake. It is simply any traditional or vegetarian mincemeat mixed with flour, eggs, and other pastry ingredients, to transform it into a cake batter; or it can also be steamed as a Christmas pudding.

A premade fruitcake mix can be bought at a grocery store.

Cakes
Christmas

Christmas cake


Aminoglycosides are antibiotics used for gram negative infections. Gram-negative means that the bacteria which cause the infection don't hold the color of a particular dye (Crystal Violet) when they're tested.

Since they are not absorbed from the gut, they are usually taken by an injection into the vain or muscle but they can be given as a cream or ointment to prevent and treat skin infections, as eye drops for eye infections, as ear drops for ear infections and as a pill for intestinal infections but not for other internal infections.

Antibiotics from this family can be used in patients who are not able to take some regular antibiotics, such as Penicillin because of allergies.  The most common Aminoglycosides used as alternatives to Penicillin are Erythromycin (lit. Red fungus) and Clarithromycin (lit. Yellow fungus).  They're most commonly used in the treatment of bacterial infections, such as Bronchitis.

Examples

Antibiotics

Aminoglycoside


Guan Yin (also spelled Kwan Yin) is the Chinese name of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva and incarnation of compassion and mercy.
 Her full name is Guanshiyin which means "Observing the sounds (or cries) of the world." She represents mercy and compassion and is popular in the East and the West.

She takes various forms all over the world, in different eras and various forms. She can appear in the world as either male or female.

Names in Asian langauges
 In Macau, Hong Kong, and southern China she is called  Kwun Yum or Kun Yum.
 In Meitei she is called Lailempi Kwaan Yeen (ꯂꯥꯢꯂꯦꯝꯄꯤ ꯀ꯭ꯋꯥꯟ ꯌꯤꯟ).
 In Japanese she is called Kannon(観音) , Kan'on, or Kanzeon(観世音) .
 In Korean she is called Gwan-eum  (관음) or Gwanse-eum (관세음).
 In Thai she is called Kuan Im (กวนอิม), Phra Mae Kuan Im (พระแม่กวนอิม), or Chao Mae Kuan Im (เจ้าแม่กวนอิม).
 In Indonesian she is called  Kwan Im or Dewi Kwan Im. The word Dewi in the name is referring as Devi or Goddess. Sometimes she is called Mak Kwam which means Mother Kwan Yin.
 In Vietnamese she is called  Quan Âm, Quán Thế Âm or Quán Thế Âm Bồ Tát.
 In Khmer, he is called  "Preah Mae Kun Ci Iem".
In Tibet (Vajrayana Buddhism), she is called Chenrezig and the Dalai Lama is often regarded as a present reincarnation.

Iconography

The Threefold Lotus Sutra describes Guan Yin as a Bodhisattva who can take any form. She can transform into a male, female, adult, child, elder, human, or non-human, in order to teach the Dharma. The Threefold Lotus Sutra states that Guan Yin has 33 different manifestations. Seven of these are female.

Representations of Guan Yin in the Song Dynasty were masculine in appearance. Images and statues of Guan Yin during this time later became both genders because of the Lotus Sutra. Because Guan Yin is considered to be the personification of compassion and kindness, and a mother-goddess as well as a patroness of mothers and sailor, the representation of the Bodhisattva became mostly female around the 12th century. In the modern period, Guan Yin is often depicted as a beautiful, young white-robed woman, a depiction which derives from the earlier Pandaravasini form.

In China, she is often depicted as young and beautiful, wearing white robes and a necklace of Indian/Chinese royalty. In the left hand she holds a vase that contains the elixir of immortality and in the right hand, she holds a willow branch. Guan Yin wears a crown with an image of Amitabha Buddha.

Guan Yin is a prominent figure in Journey to the West. One of the four classics of Chinese literature, it tells the tale of Tang Dynasty monk Chen Hui's epic pilgrimage with three other traveling companions. Guan Yin enlists Monkey King (Sun Wukong), previously imprisoned by the Buddha, to aid Chen Hui in his pilgrimage to India for Sutra and Reliquary. She later recruits Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) after his defeat at the staff of Monkey King, and Sha Wujing (Sandy) as a body guard for Chen Hui.

Related pages
Bodhisattva

References

Bodhisattvas

Guan Yin


The Carbide & Carbon Building is a Chicago landmark located at 230 N. Michigan Avenue. The building, which was built in 1929, is an example of Art Deco architecture.

It was designed by Burnham Brothers. The architect was Daniel Burnham.  The Carbide and Carbon Building was originally home to the regional office of Union Carbide and Carbon Co., which later became Union Carbide Corp. The skyscraper was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 9, 1996.

It was built as a skyscraper office tower. The building has 37 floors and is  tall. The top of the building is covered in pure gold. It is also modeled as a champagne bottle to show a resistance against the prohibition of alcohol in the United States.

Other websites

 Chicago Landmarks: Carbide and Carbon Building
 Carbide & Carbon Building on Emporis
 Hard Rock Hotel Chicago

Skyscrapers in Chicago
Landmarks in Chicago
1929 establishments in Illinois

Carbide & Carbon Building


A pipe is a tool that people use to smoke tobacco and other drugs. Pipe smokers do not usually breathe in the smoke. They let it go into their mouths and then exhale it. Pipe smoking is not a healthy alternative to cigarette smoking.

Types of pipes
Tobacco pipes are used to smoke tobacco. In some Middle Eastern countries, people smoke tobacco with water pipes, which cool the smoke in water. Different types of pipes are also used to smoke marijuana, hashish, and crack cocaine. Some people who smoke marijuana or hashish use a special water pipe called a bong.

Native American tobacco pipes had two parts: a stone bowl and a wooden stem. Japanese "kiseru" pipes have a metal bowl and mouth piece with a wooden stem. Arabian "midwakh" pipes may be made from different materials. European tobacco pipes have been made from clay, tree root wood, meerschaum stone or even maize cobs.

Pipes to smoke opium may have clay or metal bowls with a wooden stem. Pipes for marijuana or hashish may be metal, wood or glass. Pipes to smoke other drugs may also be made of glass.

History
Pipes were first used by Native Americans in religious ceremonies. When the English came to North America, they tried pipe smoking and liked it. They sent tobacco back to England.

Drug paraphernalia
Smoking

Pipe (smoke)


The Free World is a term that was used during the era of the Cold War. It was often used by non-communist nations to describe themselves. It was used to describe the greater personal freedom that the people of non-communist countries (such as the United States and European democratic countries) had compared to the communist Soviet Union and its Communist Bloc allies.

On the other hand, many of the non-communist countries that were allied with the "Free World" during the Cold War repressed people and sometimes had dictators as their leaders. This included countries in South America, Asia and Africa.

The President of the United States was often called  the "leader of the Free World". This was very common especially in the United States itself. The President of the U.S. is sometimes still called this.

Neil Young sang a song called "(Keep on) Rockin' in the Free World".

International politics
Democracy

Free world


Film noir is a term used to describe crime drama movies from Hollywood that are often focused on sex, crime, and corruption.

Film noir movies were mostly made from the early 1940s to the late 1950s in the United States, and they were usually filmed in black-and-white. The term "film noir" comes from the French term for "black film" or "dark film". Film noir movies include many different genres of movies, such as gangster movies, police movies, and detective movies.

Film noir movies were often filmed so that there were many dark shadows in the movie, even on characters' faces. The Hollywood film noir movies were influenced by German film directors such as Fritz Lang, who used dramatic lighting techniques. Another influence on film noir movies was 1930s French books or movies about heroes who would die at the end of the story or stories with sad endings. Film noir movies were also influenced by crime fiction, such as the detective and crime stories by Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler.

Examples of film noir movies and actors
Some important film noir movies are: Stranger on the Third Floor (1940); The Maltese Falcon (1941) Double Indemnity (1944) The Big Sleep (1946) The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946); Key Largo (1948);Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and Touch of Evil (1958).

The important actors from Hollywood film noir movies were Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, and Peter Lorre.

Movies from after the film noir period
The film noir period was the 1940s and 1950s. Even in the years after the 1950s, some movies were made in the film noir style. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were movies like The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Chinatown (1974), which were influenced by the film noir movies from the 1950s.

In the 1980s and 1990s there were movies that were a bit like film noir movies, like Body Heat (1981), Basic Instinct (1992), Kill Me Again (1989), Red Rock West (1992), and Fargo (1996). In the 2000s, there are also movies that are like film noir movies in some ways. For example, there are films such as Memento (2000) and Sin City (2005).

There are also science fiction movies that look a bit like film noir movies because they look dark and they have a lead character who does some bad things, such as Soylent Green (1973); Blade Runner (1982), which starred Harrison Ford; and Minority Report (2002), which starred Tom Cruise.

Things seen in film noir movies
Film noir movies are often shot in cities at night, and the stories often take place in bars, nightclubs, gambling clubs, casinos, and cheap hotels. This makes film noir movies look very dark, because the scenes are shot at night, or inside dark places like a bar or hotel.

Film noir movie scenes often have a lot of shadows, such as the shadows of window frames, blinds, or stair banisters. There are also often dark shadows on the movie scenes, even on the faces of the actors. All of the shadows and darkness make the film noir movies feel mysterious and stressful.

The characters in film noir movies are often motivated by greed, jealousy, or revenge. The characters in film noir movies are often private detectives or police officers who are investigating crimes committed by bad criminals and gang members such as murder, gambling or prostitution. In film noir movies, there are often stories about robberies, heists, extortion of money (which is called "blackmail"), or murder.

Watching film noir movies
In film noir movies, even the heroes or lead characters are often bad or partly bad in some way. For example, the hero of a film noir movie may help an innocent man or woman who is being threatened by a criminal, or rescue a woman from a criminal gang. Yet the hero or lead character may also do bad things, such as commit crimes, hurt or threaten people, or tell lies.

Often, the hero or lead character of a film noir film will be bitter, sad, lonely, or depressed, because of bad things that happened to them. The person watching the movie has to decide if they think that a hero who does both good and bad things is a good person or not. The stories from film noir movies can make the audience think about how people should act, or how people should make choices in their life. This is one of the things that people like about watching film noir movies.

Film noir movies are not happy movies. In happy movies, like romance movies, people fall in love, get married, and live happy lives. In film noir movies, sad things happen. A good man with a wife might need money for their rent, and borrow the money from a criminal gang leader, because the good man has no other way of getting the money. Then the bad gang leader might force the good man to do bad things to pay back the money. Maybe the bad gang leader will threaten to hurt the good man's wife. Then the good man has to decide between protecting his wife or doing a bad crime.

People who watch film noir movies like to see stories about people who have to make hard choices, or people whose lives have sad things happen in them. Real life is not a romantic comedy; people often have to make hard choices or have sad things happen.

Books about film noir
Robert Ottoson wrote a book in 1981 about film noir called A Reference Guide to the American Film Noir: 1940–1958.

Other websites
 "A Guide to Film Noir Genre" by Roger Ebert
 Aesthetics of film noir

Film noir


Relativity is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in December 1953. The first version of this work was a woodcut made earlier that same year.

It depicts a world in which the normal laws of gravity do not apply. The architectural structure seems to be the centre of an idyllic community, with most of its inhabitants casually going about their ordinary business, such as dining. There are windows and doorways leading to park-like outdoor settings. All of the figures are dressed in identical attire and have featureless bulb-shaped heads. Identical characters such as these can be found in many other Escher works.

In the world of Relativity, there are three sources of gravity, each being orthogonal to the two others. Each inhabitant lives in one of the gravity wells, where normal physical laws apply. There are sixteen characters, spread between each gravity source, six in one and five each in the other two. The apparent confusion of the lithograph print comes from the fact that the three gravity sources are depicted in the same space.

The structure has seven stairways, and each stairway can be used by people who belong to two different gravity sources. This creates interesting phenomena, such as in the top stairway, where two inhabitants use the same stairway in the same direction and on the same side, but each using a different face of each step; thus, one descends the stairway as the other climbs it, even while moving in the same direction nearly side by side. In the other stairways, inhabitants are depicted as climbing the stairways upside-down, but based on their own gravity source, they are climbing normally.

Each of the three parks belongs to one of the gravity wells.  All but one of the doors seem to lead to basements below the parks. Though metaphysically possible, such basements are certainly unusual and add to the surreal effect of the picture.

In popular culture
Relativity is one of Escher's most popular works, and has been used in a variety of ways.

References

1953 prints
Mathematical artworks
Works by M. C. Escher

Relativity (M. C. Escher)


Spirillum (plural Spirilla) is any bacterium that is shaped like a spiral. It is one of the three shapes of bacteria. The other two are Coccus and Bacillus.It can be said as Spiral Bacteria.

Spirillum is also the name of a genus of Gram-negative bacteria in the family Spirillaceae. The two species in the Spirillum genus are Spirillum minus and Spirillum pulli.

Bacteria

Spirillum


The Harlem Renaissance is the name for a movement in African-American culture in the 1920s and 1930s which has had a big influence  on African-American literature, philosophy and music. The Harlem Renaissance is also called the "Black Literary Renaissance", '"The New Negro Movement" and "The flowering of Negro literature".

The movement began in Harlem, New York after World War I. In 1925 a book was published called "The New Negro", edited by Alain Locke. This book was a collection of writing by African-Americans which looked at their people's lives experiences since the Civil War. From 1925 onwards, there was a movement called the "New Negro Movement", named after the book.

The movement began to affect the thinking of many African-American writers and artists of all sorts. They challenged the thinking of many white Americans towards black Americans. They refused to be treated as if they were not equal. They refused to just copy the sorts of writing, art and music that white Americans did. They wanted to celebrate the fact that their African culture had survived through the terrible years of slavery, and was being "reborn". (The word "Renaissance" means "rebirth" and is generally used for a time from 1400 to 1600 in Europe.)

Important writers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance

Novels

 Jessie Redmon Fauset – There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1928), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), Comedy, American Style (1933)
 Rudolph Fisher – The Walls of Jericho (1928), The Conjure Man Dies (1932)
 Langston Hughes – Not Without Laughter (1930)
 Zora Neale Hurston – Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
 Nella Larsen – Quicksand (1928), Passing (1929)
 Claude McKay – Home to Harlem (1927), Banjo (1929), Gingertown (1931), Banana Bottom (1933)
 George Schuyler – Black No More (1930), Slaves Today (1931)
 Wallace Thurman – The Blacker the Berry (1929), Infants of the Spring (1932), Interne (1932)
 Jean Toomer – Cane (1923)
 Carl Van Vechten – Nigger Heaven (1926)
 Eric Walrond – Tropic Death (1926)
 Walter White – The Fire in the Flint (1924), Flight (1926)
Paul Laurence Dubar - The Old Cabin (1905)

Drama
 Charles Gilpin, actor
 Eugene O'Neill, playwright–Emperor Jones, All God's Chillun Got Wings
 Paul Robeson

Poetry
 Langston Hughes, poet
 Jessie Fauset, editor, poet, essayist and novelist
 Countee Cullen, poet – The Black Christ and Other Poems (1929)
 Claude McKay, poet
 James Weldon Johnson, poet
 Arna Bontemps, poet
 Richard Bruce Nugent, poet

Musicians/Composers

Nora Douglas Holt Ray
Billie Holiday
Duke Ellington
Count Basie
Louis Armstrong
Eubie Blake
Bessie Smith
Fats Waller
Aretha Franklin
Ella Fitzgerald

Popular entertainment
Cotton Club
Apollo Theater
Black Swan Records
Small's Paradise
Connie's Inn
Speakeasies
Rent party

1920s in the United States
African-American history
American music history
American literature

Harlem Renaissance


HMS Otus was a Royal Navy Oberon-class submarine launched in 1962. She was decommissioned in the early 1990s and is now a naval museum in Germany.

Design and construction

The Oberon class was a direct follow on of the Porpoise-class, with the same dimensions and external design, but updates to equipment and internal fittings, and a higher grade of steel used for fabrication of the pressure hull.

As designed for British service, the Oberon-class submarines were  in length between perpendiculars and  in length overall, with a beam of , and a draught of . Displacement was 1,610 tons standard, 2,030 tons full load when surfaced, and 2,410 tons full load when submerged. Propulsion machinery consisted of 2 Admiralty Standard Range 16 VTS diesel generators, and two  electric motors, each driving a  3-bladed propeller at up to 400 rpm. Top speed was  when submerged, and  on the surface. Eight  diameter torpedo tubes were fitted (six facing forward, two aft), with a total payload of 24 torpedoes. The boats were fitted with Type 186 and Type 187 sonars, and an I-band surface search radar. The standard complement was 68: 6 officers, 62 sailors.

Otus was laid down by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company on 31 May 1961, and launched on 17 October 1962. Sea trials were undertaken in Scottish waters, mainly Loch Long and Loch Fyne. The boat was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 5 October 1963.

Operational history
The first commission of Otus included large-scale missile trial exercises in the Atlantic Ocean and visits to the United States and Halifax, Canada.

Otus attended the 1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review off Spithead when she was part of the Submarine Flotilla.

In July 1987, a team of British, Commonwealth and international submariners took part in trials in Bjornafjorden, near Bergen, Norway, aboard Otus. They ran a series of progressively deeper escapes, starting at . At , individuals started to drop out. At the end of the trials two submariners reached a depth of . This set a new world record which to date has not been broken. Of the two record breakers, the first (the commander of the Submarine Escape Training Tower at HMS Dolphin) was a regular ascent under control. The second, a petty officer instructor from the Submarine Escape Training Tower suffered an emergency release having given the alarm signal whilst flooding up the chamber. It was considered safer and quicker to escape him rather than depressurise and drain down. Both escapees suffered no lasting effects and returned to normal service. Both received military honours of the British Empire in the following years for this act.

Otus was deployed to the Persian Gulf during the 1991 Gulf War under Operation Granby. On her return to Gosport, she was flying a Jolly Roger; the only indication that the submarine had been involved in deploying and recovering Special Air Service and Special Boat Service personnel.

Decommissioning and museum
Otus was decommissioned in the early 1990s and resided at Pound's scrapyard in Portsmouth for several years. She was later purchased by a German entrepreneur, who moored her in the harbour of the town of Sassnitz on the island of Rügen in Germany to act as a floating naval museum.

References

Publications

Oberon-class submarines of the Royal Navy
Ships built on the River Clyde
1962 ships
Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom
Museum ships in Germany

HMS Otus (S18)


Magic is the performance of tricks or the creation of illusions. It is a type of performing art that entertains audiences. It is done by a magician or an illusionist. The magician does things that look impossible or supernatural by ordinary means. Card tricks, disappearing beauties, pulling a rabbit from a hat, and sawing a person in half are examples of this kind of magic.

References

Magic
Illusions

Magic (illusion)


Big Trouble in Little China (juga digelar Big Trouble in Little China John Carpenter) ialah sebuah filem komedi/aksi Amerika 1986 yang diarah oleh John Carpenter. Ia dibintangi oleh Kurt Russell sebagai pemandu gerabak Jack Burton, yang membantu kawannya Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) untuk menyelamatkan teman wanita Wang (Suzee Pai) dari para penjenayah di Pekan China San Francisco. Mereka memasuki dunia misteri di bawah Pekan China, di mana mereka menghadapi seorang bomoh silam bernama Lo Pan (James Hong).

Walaupun filem ini asalnya dibayangkan sebagai sebuah set Western pada 1880-an, pengarang skrin W. D. Richter telah diupah untuk mengarang semula skrip secara menyeluruh dan memodenkan semua perkara. Studio menggunakan Carpenter untuk mengarah filem dan mencepatkan pengeluaran Big Trouble in Little China supaya ia dapat dibebaskan sebelum filem bertema mirip Eddie Murphy, The Golden Child, yang dijadualkan dikeluarkan pada masa yang sama. Projek ini menemukan keinginan lama Carpenter untuk membuat sebuah filem seni mempertahan diri. Filem ini bagaimanapun merupakan kegagalan komersil, mendapat $11.1 juta di Amerika Utara dan jauh di bawah belanjanya yang dianggar $25 juta. Ia menerima ulasan kritikal yang bercampuran yang meninggalkan Carpenter kecewa dengan Hollywood dan mempengaruhi keputusannya untuk pulang ke pembuatan filem bebas. Akan tetapi filem ini sejak itu telah menjadi sebuah filem kultus sebahagian besarnya kerana kejayaannya pada video rumah.

Jalan cerita
When truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) go to the airport to meet friends arriving on a flight from China, bandits from Chinatown kidnap Wang's green-eyed Chinese girlfriend (Suzee Pai). To rescue her, Burton and Wang go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face a number of dangerous challenges and battle kung-fu masters and a 2,000-year-old man – an ancient sorcerer named Lo Pan (James Hong). Centuries ago, Lo Pan was put under a curse, and the only way that he can break it and become human again is to marry a woman with green eyes and then sacrifice her. Lo Pan is served by a ruthless street gang, the "Wing Kong", and by the "Three Storms" – three mystical henchmen named Thunder, Lightning and Rain. Jack and Wang are aided in their quest by lawyer Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall), a tour bus-driving sorcerer named Egg Shen (Victor Wong), Wang's friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li), and a helpful street gang, the Chang Sing.

Lakonan utama
 Kurt Russell as Jack Burton
 Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law
 Dennis Dun as Wang Chi
 James Hong as David Lo Pan
 Victor Wong as Egg Shen
 Al Leong as Wing Kong Hatchet Man
 Kate Burton as Margo
 Donald Li as Eddie Lee
 Carter Wong as Thunder
 Peter Kwong as Rain
 James Pax as Lightning
 Suzee Pai as Miao Yin
 Chao Li Chi as Uncle Chu

Penghasilan

Lakon layar
The first version of the screenplay was written by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Weinstein. Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities". They had written a Western originally set in the 1880s with Jack Burton as a cowboy who rides into town. Goldman and Weinstein envisioned combining Chinese fantasy elements with the western. They submitted the script to producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982. Monash bought their script and had them do at least one rewrite but still did not like the results. He remembers, "The problems came largely from the fact it was set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, which affected everything – style, dialogue, action". Goldman rejected a request by 20th Century Fox for a re-write that asked for major alterations. He was angered when the studio wanted to update it to a contemporary setting. The studio then removed the writers from the project. However, they still wanted credit for their contributions.

The studio brought in screenwriter W. D. Richter, a veteran script doctor (and director of cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) to extensively rewrite the script, as he felt that the Wild West and fantasy elements didn't work together. The screenwriter modernized everything. Almost everything in the original script was discarded except for Lo Pan's story. Richter realized that "what it needed wasn't a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there's no intention that the original writers will stay on". Richter used Rosemary's Baby as his template, presenting "the foreground story in a familiar context – rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately – and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience". He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks. Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".

Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit and eliminated their names from press releases. They wanted only Richter to have credit. In March 1986, the Writers Guild of America, west determined that Richter would not receive credit for his work on the script and it would go instead to Goldman and Weinstein. Director John Carpenter was disappointed that Richter did not get a proper screenwriting credit on the movie because of a ruling by the Writers Guild of America that gave it to Goldman and Weinstein based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers. Carpenter made his own additions to Richter's rewrites which included strengthening the Gracie Law role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans. The characters in the film reminded Carpenter "of the characters in Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. These are very 1930s, Howard Hawks people". The rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law, is an example of what the director is referring to.

Pemilihan pelakon

Barish and Monash first offered the project to Carpenter in July 1985. He had read the Goldman/Weinstein script and deemed it "outrageously unreadable though it had many interesting elements". To compete with rival production The Golden Child's casting of box office draw Eddie Murphy, Carpenter wanted a big star of his own and both Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson were considered but were busy. The studio wanted to cast Kurt Russell because they felt that he was an up-and-coming star. Initially, Russell was not interested in the screenplay and the character of Jack Burton because he felt that there were "a number of different ways to approach Jack, but I didn't know if there was a way that would be interesting enough for this movie". After talking to Carpenter and reading the script a couple more times, he gained insight into the character and liked the notion of playing "a hero who has so many faults. Jack is and isn't the hero. He falls on his ass as much as he comes through. This guy is a real blowhard. He's a lot of hot air, very self-assured, a screw-up". Furthermore, the actor felt that "at heart he thinks he's Indiana Jones but the circumstances are always too much for him". Russell felt that the film would be a hard one to market. "This is a difficult picture to sell because it's hard to explain. It's a mixture of the real history of Chinatown in San Francisco blended with Chinese legend and lore. It's bizarre stuff. There are only a handful of non-Asian actors in the cast".

John Carpenter had seen Dennis Dun in Year of the Dragon and liked his work in that film. He met the actor twice before casting him in the role of Wang Chi only a few days before principal photography. The martial arts sequences were not hard for Dun who had "dabbled" in training as a kid and done Chinese opera as an adult. He was drawn to the portrayal of Asian characters in the movie as he said, "I'm seeing Chinese actors getting to do stuff that American movies usually don't let them do. I've never seen this type of role for an Asian in an American film".

The studio pressured Carpenter to cast a rock star in the role of Gracie Law, Jack Burton's love interest and constant source of aggravation. For Carpenter there was no question, he wanted Kim Cattrall. The studio was not keen on the idea because at the time Cattrall was primarily known for raunchy comedies like Porky's and Police Academy. She was drawn to the movie because of the way her character was portrayed. "I'm not screaming for help the whole time. I think the humor comes out of the situations and my relationship with Jack Burton. I'm the brains and he's the brawn".

Fotografi utama
Kurt Russell lifted weights and began running two months before production began in order to get ready for the physical demands of principal photography. In addition, Carpenter and his cast and crew did a week's rehearsals that mainly involved choreographing the martial arts scenes. 20th Century Fox was afraid that the production would create major overruns and hired Carpenter to direct because he could work fast. He was given only 10 weeks of pre-production.

Problems began to arise when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Golden Child, featured a similar theme and was going to be released around the same time as Big Trouble in Little China. (As it happened, Carpenter was asked by Paramount Pictures to direct The Golden Child). He remarked in an interview, "How many adventure pictures dealing with Chinese mysticism have been released by the major studios in the past 20 years? For two of them to come along at the exact same time is more than mere coincidence". To beat the rival production at being released in theaters, Big Trouble went into production in October 1985 so that it could open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child's Christmas release.

Production designer John Lloyd designed the elaborate underground sets and re-created Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights, sewers and so on. This was necessary for the staging of complicated special effects and kung fu fight sequences that would have been very hard to do on location. This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget. For the film's many fight scenes Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who literally planned out every move in advance. Says Carpenter, "I used every cheap gag – trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside down sets. It was much like photographing a dance". According to Carpenter, the studio "didn't get it" [his film] and made him write something that would explain the character of Jack Burton. Carpenter came up with the prologue scene between Egg Shen and the lawyer.

Kesan visual
Carpenter was not entirely satisfied with Boss Films, the company in charge of the film's visual effects. According to the director, they took on more projects than they could handle and some effects for the film had to be cut down. Richard Edlund, head of Boss Films, said that there were no difficulties with the company's workload and that Big Trouble was probably its favorite film at the time, with the exception of Ghostbusters. The effects budget for the film was just under $2 million, which Edlund said was barely adequate. One of the more difficult effects was the floating eyeball, a spy for Lo-Pan. It was powered by several puppeteers and dozens of cables to control its facial expressions. It was shot with a special matting system especially designed for it.

Runut bunyi

With the soundtrack, Carpenter wanted to avoid the usual clichés as he found that "other scores for American movies about Chinese characters are basically rinky tink, chop suey music. I didn't want that for Big Trouble". Carpenter instead opted for his trademark synthesizer score mixed with rock 'n' roll music.

Rujukan kepada mistisisme Cina
Some of the Chinese mythology in the film is based on actual history. Lo Pan is a famous legend in Chinese history. He was a "shadow emperor" appointed by the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Lo Pan was put on the throne as an impersonator because the Emperor was afraid of being assassinated. However, Lo Pan tried to take over and was cursed by the Emperor to exist without flesh for 2,000 years until he could marry a girl with green eyes. Egg Shen defines "difficulty at the beginning" which is a hexagram from the Book of Changes or I Ching. Lo Pan is the name of the compass used for geomancy or feng shui. It literally means everything bowl – the device that reveals the secrets of the universe. There are also several allusions – and even earthly representations – of several elements from Diyu, the Chinese depiction of Hell.

Tema
In an article on The Huffington Post, David Sirota analyzed the movie in terms of the United States' role in the world. He argues that the film casts Jack Burton as the United States while Lo Pan and his gang are "the Rest of the World, and more specifically, the Non-Aligned Countries, otherwise known as the Axis of Evil". Sirota suggests that "the tongue-in-cheek flavor of the film suggests Carpenter is using the Burton character to deliberately ridicule American hubris (and let's not forget the very end of the movie just before the credits roll: the crazy-eyed demon about to get his final revenge on Burton could be the world taking revenge on that hubris)", and that the film was "a prescient warning - one that's more relevant today than when it first came out. China and India are both on the ascent economically and militarily, and the global power game has gone stateless and transnational".

Reaksi

Pecah panggung
Opening in 1,053 theaters on July 4, 1986, Big Trouble in Little China grossed $2.7 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $11.1 million in North America, well below its estimated budget of $25 million.

Penerimaan kritikal
The film received critically mixed reviews when it was first released but has since enjoyed a reappraisal. It currently has an 83 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Ron Base, in his review for the Toronto Star, praised Russell's performance. "He does a great John Wayne imitation. But he's not just mimicking these heroes, he is using them to give his own character a broad, satiric edge". Walter Goodman in the New York Times wrote, "In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it". Harlan Ellison praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives". In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Little China offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves".

However, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, "special effects don't mean much unless we care about the characters who are surrounded by them, and in this movie the characters often seem to exist only to fill up the foregrounds", and felt that it was "straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes". Paul Attanasio, in the Washington Post, criticized the screenwriters for being "much better at introducing a character than they are at developing one". David Ansen wrote, in his review for Newsweek, "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre". In his review for The Times, David Robinson felt that Carpenter was, "overwhelmed by his own special effects, without a strong enough script to guide him".

After the commercial and critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker. He said in an interview, "The experience [of Big Trouble] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won't work for them again. I think Big Trouble is a wonderful film, and I'm very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I'm too old for that sort of bullshit". Since its initial release it has developed a cult following and is now well received by critics. Empire magazine voted Big Trouble in Little China the 430th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.

Barang niaga
A tie-in video game of the same name was published in 1987 by Electric Dreams Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Critical reception was mixed.

Big Trouble in Little China was released on a two-disc special edition DVD set on 22 Mei 2001. Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "The highlight of this two disc set – which also features deleted scenes, an extended ending, trailers, and a 1986 featurette – is the pitch perfect Russell and Carpenter commentary, which delves into Fox's marketing mishaps, Chinese history, and how Russell's son did in his hockey game". In his review for the Onion A.V. Club, Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for Big Trouble cultists; it's packed with articles from Cinefex and American Cinematographer that only a genre geek would appreciate".

A Blu-ray Disc edition of the film was released on 4 Ogos 2009. It contains the same film and features as the DVD.

Rujukan

Pautan luar

 Big Trouble in Little China  at John Carpenter's official website
 The Wing Kong Exchange''  discussion of film influence.
 Erasing Clouds retrospective article

Filem 1986
Filem Amerika Syarikat
Filem bahasa Inggeris
Filem aksi 1980-an
Filem komedi aksi
Filem komedi fantasi
Filem arahan John Carpenter
Filem seni bela diri
Orang Asia dalam filem dan teater
Permainan ZX Spectrum
Filem berlokasi di San Francisco, California

Big Trouble in Little China


John Peter Sichel (21 September 1937 – 5 April 2005) was a British director of film, stage and television, and, later in life, a film, television, and theatre trainer.

Early in his career, he became known for translating the classical theatre repertoire to the screen. After he directed Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson in a television version of Twelfth Night (1969), he was asked by Laurence Olivier to direct the National Theatre Company in the film of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters (1970) with Olivier, Joan Plowright and Alan Bates. He subsequently directed Olivier in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1973), again from a National Theatre Company production. This was remounted for CBC in Canada in 1976 with a Canadian cast which included A. E. Holland as Shylock, Allan Grey, Micki Maunsell, Jack Rigg and Barney O'Sullivan. He also produced the first three series of Thriller (1973–74) for the British  Associated Television (ATV) company for whom the two Shakespeare adaptations had also been produced.

His experience as a commissioner and director of drama and drama-documentaries enabled him to work with numerous prominent performers including (in addition to those already mentioned) Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Sean Connery and Sir Michael Caine.

He also worked as a director and trainer at several of the UK's leading theatres and institutions including the Young Vic, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, RADA, the Shaw Theatre, the Italia Conti Academy, the London Film School and the Edinburgh Festival.

During the latter years of his career, he established ARTTS International in Bubwith, East Riding of Yorkshire, a training facility supporting artists in employment with the stage, film and television industry. Along with wife Elfie, they helped 500 young people gain employment from afar as Indonesia and Iran.

After his death, aged 67, in Bubwith in 2005, hundreds of these trainees came from all over the world to pay their respects in a tribute arranged by his family.

Family
He was the father of British psychologist and TV presenter Tanya Byron and TV producer Katrina Sichel.

References

External links

1937 births
2005 deaths
English film directors
English film producers
English male screenwriters
People from Bubwith
20th-century English screenwriters
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English businesspeople

John Sichel


James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, KG (31 January 160715 October 1651) was an English nobleman, politician, and supporter of the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Before inheriting the title in 1642 he was known as Lord Strange. He was feudal Lord of the Isle of Man ("Lord of Man"), where he was known as "Yn Stanlagh Mooar" ("the Great Stanley").

Origins

He was born at Knowsley, near Lathom House, on 31 January 1607, the eldest son of William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby (1561–1642), KG, by his wife Elizabeth de Vere, a daughter of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Through his paternal grandmother, he was a great-great-grandson of Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, thereby making him a direct descendant of Henry VII.

Early life
After travelling abroad he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Liverpool in 1625. On 2 February 1626 he was created a Knight of the Bath on the coronation of King Charles I. 1626 he served jointly with his father as Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire and Chamberlain of the City of Chester. He assisted in the administration of the Isle of Man and in 1627 was appointed Lord of Mann, a position first awarded in 1405 by King Henry IV to his ancestor John Stanley (–1414), KG. Subsequently, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of North Wales.

Created Baron Strange

The ancient title Baron Strange of Knockyn, created in 1299, as it had been created by writ, was capable of being inherited by females. It had become abeyant in 1594 following the death leaving no sons of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, 13th Baron Strange (1559–1594), who however left three daughters and co-heiresses legally capable of inheriting that ancient title, whereupon it became abeyant between all three. They were not, however, as females, legally capable of inheriting the earldom, which went to his younger brother William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby (1561–1642). By modern reckoning, the abeyance of the barony of Strange of Knockyn was not terminated until 1921.

However, in 1594 the status of this barony was not apparent to the family nor to the authorities in the House of Lords, and all parties assumed that the 6th Earl had also become 14th Baron Strange of Knockyn. On 7 March 1628 his son and heir apparent, James Stanley (later 7th Earl of Derby), was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration as Lord Strange, the supposed subsidiary title of his father. When it was discovered that his father's assumption of the barony was erroneous, it was deemed that there were two baronies of Strange, one created in 1299 then in abeyance, and another created "accidentally" in 1628.

Civil War

He took no part in the political disputes between King and Parliament and preferred country pursuits and the care of his estates to the royal court or public life. Nevertheless, when the Civil War broke out in 1642, Lord Strange devoted himself to the king's cause. With the death of his father on 29 September 1642 he succeeded as 7th Earl of Derby.

His plan of securing Lancashire at the beginning and raising troops there, which promised success, was however discouraged by Charles, said to be jealous of his power and royal lineage, who commanded his presence at Nottingham.

His subsequent attempts to recover the county were unsuccessful. He was unable to get possession of Manchester, was defeated at the battles of Chowbent and at Lowton Moor, and, in 1643, after gaining Preston he failed to take Bolton and Lancaster Castle. Finally, after successfully beating off the attack by Sir William Brereton on Warrington, he was defeated at the Battle of Whalley and withdrew to York, whereupon Warrington surrendered to the Parliamentarian forces.

In June 1643 he left for the Isle of Man to attend to affairs there. In the summer of 1644, he took part in Prince Rupert's successful campaign in the north. The Siege of Lathom House was relieved (the defence of which had been led by his wife Charlotte de la Tremoille), and the town of Bolton was taken with much bloodshed, in what became known as the Bolton Massacre.

He followed Rupert to the Battle of Marston Moor, and after the complete defeat of Charles's cause in the North, withdrew to the Isle of Man, where he held out for the king and offered asylum to royalist fugitives. His administration of the Isle imitated that of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford in Ireland. It was strong rather than just. He maintained order, encouraged trade, remedied some abuses, and defended the people from the exactions of the church; but he crushed opposition by imprisoning his antagonists, and aroused a prolonged agitation by abolishing the tenant-right and introducing leaseholds.

In July 1649, following the execution of Charles I, he refused with scorn the terms offered him by Henry Ireton. On 12 January 1650, he was made a Knight of the Garter by the late king's exiled son the future Charles II. He was chosen by the future Charles II to command the troops of Lancashire and Cheshire, and on 15 August 1651, he landed at Wyre Water in Lancashire in support of Charles II's invasion, and met Charles on 17 August 1651. He proceeded to Warrington but failed to obtain the support of the Presbyterians due to his refusal to take the Covenant, and on 25 August was totally defeated at the Battle of Wigan Lane, being severely wounded and escaping with difficulty.

Capture, execution and burial
He was with Charles at the Battle of Worcester, after which on 3 September 1651 he accompanied him to Boscobel House. While on his way north alone he was captured near Nantwich and was tried by court-martial at Chester on 29 September and was found guilty of treason under the terms of the Act of Parliament passed in the preceding month (which declared those who corresponded with Charles II guilty of treason), and he was condemned to death. His appeal to Parliament for pardon, although supported by Oliver Cromwell, was rejected. He endeavoured to escape but was recaptured by Captain Hector Schofield. He was taken to Bolton for his execution because of his part in the Bolton massacre.

He was beheaded on 15 October 1651 at the market cross in Churchgate, Bolton, near the Man and Scythe Inn, owned at the time by the Earl of Derby's family. Today the market cross bears an inscribed tablet commemorating the execution. In the Inn survives a chair inscribed "15 October 1651: In this chair James, 7th Earl of Derby sat at the Man and Scythe Inn, Churchgate, Bolton, immediately prior to his execution".

He was buried in the Derby Chapel, built in about 1572 in accordance with the will of the 3rd Earl of Derby, in the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Ormskirk.

Marriage and children

On 26 June 1626 he married Charlotte de La Trémoille (1599–1664), a daughter of Claude de La Trémoille, duc de Thouars by his wife Countess Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau. Her maternal grandparents were William I, Prince of Orange (1533–1584), founder of the House of Orange-Nassau and ancestor of the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose wife was Charlotte de Bourbon, a daughter of Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier. Lady Strange was naturalised by Act of Parliament in 1629.

They had six sons and four daughters, three of whom died young and two of whom died unmarried:

Sons
Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby, 2nd Baron Strange (1628–1672), eldest son and heir, who had two sons:
William Stanley, 9th Earl of Derby, 3rd Baron Strange (c. 1655–1702), eldest son, who left only female children who inherited the barony of Strange;
James Stanley, 10th Earl of Derby, 6th Baron Strange (1664–1736), who having inherited the earldom from his brother and the barony of Strange from his brother's descendant Henrietta Ashburnham, 5th Baroness Strange (d. 1732), died childless, when the barony of Strange passed to James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl, 7th Baron Strange (1690–1764), the grandson of his sister Amelia Stanley, and the earldom of Derby passed to his cousin Edward Stanley, 11th Earl of Derby (1689–1776), a descendant of Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby. The present Earl of Derby is his descendant.
Edward Stanley (7 January 1639October 1664), died unmarried;
William Stanley (18 October 164025 October 1670), died unmarried;
John Stanley (4 November 164110 September 1719), married a commoner Alice Biddle;
two sons (died young)

Daughters

Charlotte Stanley (died young)
Henriette Stanley (17 November 163027 December 1685), who married William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, but died childless;
Amelia Stanley (163322 February 1702/3), who married John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. She was, in her issue, heiress of her father's Barony of Strange, which as it was deemed (like that created in 1299) to have been created by writ, was able to pass to females. In 1736 the title passed to her grandson James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl. Today the Dukes of Atholl still quarter the arms of Stanley, Strange of Knockyn and the arms of the Lord of Man.
Catherine Stanley, who married Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester, but died childless

Character
Lord Derby was a man of deep religious feeling and of great nobility of character, who though unsuccessful in battle, served the king's cause with single-minded purpose and without expectation of reward. His political usefulness was handicapped in the later stages of the struggle by his dislike of the Scots, whom he regarded as guilty of the death of Charles I and as unfit instruments of the Restoration. According to Clarendon he was "a man of great honour and clear courage", and his defects "the result of too little knowledge of the world".

Literary works
Lord Derby left in manuscript A Discourse Concerning the Government of the Isle of Man (later printed in the Stanley Papers and in Francis Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations and devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book.

Notes

References

Attribution

External links

Book 2 chap 2 – History of Isle of Man, 1900
Note 21 – ManxSoc Vol 12 Parr's Abstracts
A genealogy of the Stanley family
Stanley's patronage of theatre and/or music: Patrons and Performances Web Site

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1607 births
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Knights of the Garter
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Lord-Lieutenants of Cheshire
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People executed under the Interregnum (England) by decapitation
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James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby


A Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 British-American heist comedy film. Charles Crichton directed the movie. John Cleese wrote the screenplay.

It stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin as a gang of diamond thieves. They double-cross one another to find stolen diamonds hidden by the gang leader. A barrister (Cleese) becomes a main character as femme fatale Wanda (Curtis) uses him to locate the loot.

It was Crichton's last movie.

Kline won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Cleese and Crichton received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Crichton was nominated for Best Director.

Cleese won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Palin won for Best Supporting Actor. Curtis received a nomination for Best Leading Actress. Maria Aitken received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Cleese received a nomination for best actor and Curtis received a nomination for best Actress at the Golden Globes

Another movie called Fierce Creatures came out in 1997. The same actors star in it but play different characters. It does not continue the story of A Fish Called Wanda.

Plot
George Thomason and Ken Pile are gangsters in London. Ken loves animals and he has a stutter. They plan to steal a jewels. They ask two Americans for help: con artist Wanda Gershwitz and weapons expert Otto West. Otto is a stupid and mean. Also, he does not like British people. Wanda and Otto are lovers. They hide this from George and Ken by pretending to be siblings. This frees Wanda to work her charms on them.

The robbery is successful and the gang escapes with a lot of diamonds. They hide them in a safe in an old workshop. Wanda and Otto betray George to the police and he is arrested. They return to collect the diamonds. Wanda plans to double-cross Otto as well. She finds that George has moved the diamonds. Wanda discovers the key to the safe deposit box containing the diamonds in Ken's fish tank. She hides it in her pendant.

Wanda seduces George's barrister, Archie Leach. Archie is in a loveless marriage. He quickly falls for Wanda. She gets him to persuade George to plead guilty and to tell the location of the diamonds. Otto is jealous. His interference causes Wanda and Archie's liaisons to go disastrously wrong. Wanda accidentally leaves her pendant at Archie's house. Archie's wife, Wendy, mistakes it as a gift for her. At Wanda's insistence, Archie recovers the pendant by staging a burglary. Archie feels guilty and ends the affair.

George asks Ken to kill Mrs Coady. She is the Crown's only eyewitness to the robbery. Ken tries three times. Each time he accidentally kills one of her dogs instead. This causes him great distress. The last dog's death gives her a fatal heart attack. So Otto is successful. With no witness, George seems poised to get off soon. He reveals the location of the diamonds to Ken. Otto learns Ken now knows where they are. Otto tries to force Ken to reveal where the diamonds are by eating his pet fish. He leaves Ken's favourite, named Wanda, until last. Ken reveals that the diamonds are at a hotel near Heathrow Airport.

With Otto's knowledge and Wanda's key, the pair want George to remain in jail. At his trial, defence witness Wanda unexpectedly gives evidence against him. Archie is stunned. He is flustered and messess up his questioning. He inadvertently calls Wanda "darling". Wendy realises that Archie has had an affair. She declares their marriage over.

With no career and no marriage, Archie resolves to cut his losses, steal the diamonds for himself and flee to South America. George tells Archie that Ken knows where the diamonds are. Archie sees Wanda fleeing the courthouse. He pulls her into his car and races to Ken's flat. As Archie runs into the building, Otto steals Archie's car, taking Wanda with him. Ken and Archie give chase. Otto and Wanda recover the diamonds. Wanda double-crosses Otto and leaves him unconscious in a broom cupboard. After recovering, Otto shoots his way out and is confronted by Archie. Otto is about to kill Archie. Archie stalls him by taunting Otto about American failures such as the Vietnam War. Ken arrives, driving a steamroller, seeking vengeance for his fish. Otto, who has stepped in wet concrete and cannot move, is run over but survives. Archie and Wanda board the plane. Otto clings to the outside of the plane. He curses them until he is blown off as the plane takes off.

Cast

 John Cleese as Archie Leach
 Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda Gershwitz
 Kevin Kline as Otto West
 Michael Palin as Ken Pile
 Tom Georgeson as George Thomason
 Maria Aitken as Wendy Leach
 Cynthia Cleese as Portia Leach
 Patricia Hayes as Mrs Eileen Coady
 Geoffrey Palmer as Judge
 Roger Brierley as Davidson
 Llewellyn Rees as Sir John
 Stephen Fry as Hutchison
 Al Ashton as Warder

Production
In 1969, Cleese and Crichton tried to make a film together but it never got started.
They promised each other that they would work on a film in the future.

In June 1983, they began writing the script for Wanda. For the next two and half years they met three times a month to work on the script.
According to Crichton, "We had a week of rehearsals and then a gap of two weeks in which to incorporate any new ideas which had been thrown up and to polish the script."
According to Michael Palin, the original title was "A Goldfish Called Wanda."

Cleese told an interviewer why he called his character Archie Leach. Cary Grant's real name was Archie Leach. Cleese said "I feel this film is as near as I'll ever get to being Cary Grant."

Cleese served as co-director as the studio executives at MGM were worried about Crichton's age. He was 78 years old at the time. On the set, Crichton wore a T-shirt presented to him by Cleese and inscribed "Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill".

The film was shot in London during the summer of 1987.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 93% approval rating, based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10.
"Smartly written, smoothly directed, and solidly cast, A Fish Called Wanda offers a classic example of a brainy comedy with widespread appeal."

On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 80 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Six weeks after release it reached number one at the box office in the United States. It eventually grossed $62,493,712 in the US. It was the number one rental video in the US in 1989.

During the initial run of the film, a Danish audiologist named Ole Bentzen died during a screening when his heart rate rose to an estimated 250–500 beats per minute from laughing at a scene too hard, leading to a fatal heart attack.

In 2016, Empire magazine ranked A Fish Called Wanda 35th on their list of the 100 best British films. They called it "a must-own for any British comedy fan". They said, "it made possible Richard Curtis's later Brit-com oeuvre by establishing that British eccentricism can sell, revived the world's interest in Ealing comedies, and allowed a character with Cary Grant's real name – Cleese's bumbling lawyer Archie Leach – to live again on the big screen".

Accolades

The film is number 27 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It is also included in the Reader's Digest "100 Funniest Films" list.

In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it 39th of the BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century

In 2000, the American Film Institute placed the film 21st on its 100 Years...100 Laughs list.

In 2003, AFI nominated Otto West as a villain from this film for AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains.

James Berardinelli of ReelViews awarded the film four out of four stars in his review; it is also number 10 on his "Top 100" list.

Sequels and adaptations
The main actors worked together again in 1997 to make Fierce Creatures. It is not a sequel or prequel, but is similar in style to A Fish Called Wanda. It is called a spiritual sequel. The actors played different characters. Fierce Creatures was not as well received by critics or audiences as A Fish Called Wanda.

The novelization of Fierce Creatures, written by Iain Johnstone, who co-wrote the film, begins with a letter from Archie (John Cleese's character in the first film) to his brother Rollo. According to the letter:
 Archie and Wanda are still living happily in Rio, and Wanda enjoys having a new child (or multiple children) each year;
 Otto visited them once, having left South Africa after Nelson Mandela's election and the end of the apartheid regime; he is looking for like-minded individuals to form a similar group of National Socialists, and Archie and Wanda are both heartily glad when he is gone;
 Ken is still master of ceremonies at the London Sea World; before visiting Rio, Otto "looked him up" as if they were old friends, but did not even get close before Ken had security guards throw Otto out of the park.

A loose Indian adaptation, Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav, was released in 2005.

In 2008, it was reported that John Cleese and his daughter, Cynthia (who played his screen daughter, Portia), had started to work on a stage musical version of the film.

References

Other websites

 A Fish Called Wanda at The Numbers

1988 comedy movies
British comedy movies
English-language movies
American comedy movies
MGM movies
Movies directed by Charles Crichton

A Fish Called Wanda


Calixto García Íñiguez (August 4, 1839 – December 11, 1898) was a Cuban general in three Cuban uprisings, part of the Cuban War for Independence: the Ten Years' War, the Little War, and the War of 1895, itself sometimes called the Cuban War for Independence, which bled into the Spanish–American War, ultimately resulting in national independence for Cuba.

Ancestry and progeny
García was born in Holguín to parents of Cuban Criollo descent. He was a large, strong, educated man with a short fuse. García was the grandson of Calixto García de Luna e Izquierdo, who had fought as royalist in the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 during Venezuelan War of Independence. His grandmother was Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez, said to be the daughter of a cacique from Valencia, Venezuela. His grandfather (who had dropped the aristocratic "de Luna" upon taking refuge in Cuba) had been jailed on March 18, 1837 for demanding emancipation of slaves, constitutional freedom for all, and allegedly trying to hang a priest who opposed him. As befitted a man of importance of that time, Calixto had a wife, Isabel Velez Cabrera, and a good number of mistresses; these women gave birth to many children both legitimate (about 7) and illegitimate (at least six, each to a different woman). A number of his sons, most notably Carlos García Velez and Calixto Enamorado, fought in his armies.

War record
Around the age of 18, taking after his grandfather, García joined with a Cuban uprising which became the first war of independence (Ten Years' War). García fought against Spanish colonial rule for five years until his capture. Far from his troops, protected only by a small detail who soon lay dead or dying around him, Garcia, in an attempt to avoid giving the Spanish the satisfaction of seizing him, shot himself under the chin with a .45 caliber pistol. Although the bullet went out of his forehead and knocked him unconscious, he survived; the wound left a great scar and gave him headaches for the rest of his life. When the Spanish authorities came to Holguín to inform Calixto's mother, Lucía Iñíguez, she said that he was not her son. When the officials explained to her Calixto tried to commit suicide, she replied that he was her son, "better dead than captured!" He was imprisoned until the Pact of Zanjón ending the Ten Years' War was signed in 1878. García travelled to Paris and New York between imprisonments. In keeping to his quest, García joined with Antonio Maceo Grajales in the Little War from 1879 to 1880 as well as the 1895 War for Independence. He, and at least three sons, separately escaped from Spain and arrived with a well-supplied expedition in 1896. In that last conflict he succeeded Maceo, once his subordinate in the Ten Years' War, as the second in command in the Cuban Army.

Garcia had a long string of victories in this war, which included the taking of Tunas and Guisa, and the emotionally significant re-occupation of Bayamo. García made liberal use of spies to prepare for his attacks. These include Dominador de la Guardia father of Ángel de la Guardia and María Machado, illegitimate daughter of Spanish General Emilio March who helped prepare the taking of Tunas; Frederick Funston later US Major General and José Martí y Zayas Bazán son of José Martí the major Cuban National Hero directed artillery; Mario García Menocal a to-be president of Cuba who was wounded in a principal assault. Angel de la Guardia, also a major Cuban national hero, died in this battle on August 30, 1897.

At the time of the U.S. landings, García, with skilled use of mobile artillery, controlled the interior of old Oriente Province, and prepared the landing places for the U.S. Army near Santiago. His troops effectively supported the Marine forces at Guantanamo who, once out of range of the guns of the , had difficulty dealing with Spanish guerrilla tactics. He was the general who dealt with the American troops and joined them in military actions, only to be denied entrance into Santiago de Cuba when the Spanish surrendered.

Death
García died of pneumonia at the age of 59 on December 11, 1898 while on a diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C.  He was buried temporarily in Arlington National Cemetery in the U.S., then transported on the heavily armed seagoing warship  to Cuba. His final burial in Cuba was preceded by a number of emotional incidents, and his statues and busts are found throughout Cuba. A major statue is found on the Malecón near the US Interests Section in Havana. After his death, a large bronze tablet prominently inscribed with the phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" was erected by the Freemasons at the place of his demise—the Raleigh Hotel in Washington, D.C. Today, this tablet resides at the private residence of one of García's direct descendants.

The essay "A Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard was written in reference to U.S. intelligence officer Andrew Rowan's successful mission, against great odds, to establish contact with García early in the Spanish–American War. According to language expert Charles Earle Funk, "to take a message to García", meaning to accept an extremely difficult challenge, was a popular U.S. slang expression for years. The essay was made into two American films, the 1916 silent A Message to Garcia with García played by Charles Sutton and the 1936 film A Message to Garcia featuring Enrique Acosta.

In 1976 a municipality in Holguín Province was named Calixto García after him. His portrait is on the 50 Cuban peso banknote.

Print sources
 Castellano García, Gerardo 1927. Tierras y Glorias de Oriente (Calixto García Iñiguez) Editorial Hermes Havana
 Escalante Beaton, Anibal 1946. Calixto García Su Campaña en el 95. Arrow Press Havana.  (Introduction by General Carlos García Velez, son of the mayor general and a firsthand witness to many of the events described.)
 Rice, Donald Tunnicliff, 2016. Cast in Deathless Bronze: Andrew Rowan, The Spanish–American War, and the Origins of American Empire. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press. (This volume contains more information regarding García's life and career than any other English-language publication.)

References

External links

1839 births
1898 deaths
Spanish generals
People of the Spanish–American War
People of the Ten Years' War
Cuban people of Spanish descent
Cuban people of Basque descent
Cuban independence activists
Deaths from pneumonia in Washington, D.C.

Calixto García


Leyland Bus was a British bus and train manufacturer.  It emerged from the Rover Group (formerly British Leyland) as a management buyout of the bus business.  It was subsequently acquired by Volvo Buses in 1988 and the Leyland name disappeared in 1993.

History
 1896 Formed as the Lancashire Steam Motor Company.
 1907 Name changed to Leyland Motors.
 1968 Merger with British Motor Holdings to form British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC).
 1975 BLMC was nationalised and became British Leyland (BL).
 1986 BL changed its name to Rover Group.
 1987 The bus business of Rover Group became independent as Leyland Bus following a management buyout.
 1988 The business was acquired by Volvo Buses.
 1993 Volvo discontinues Leyland ending all production of the buses and the Workington factory, where they were built.

See also
 List of Leyland buses
 Ashok Leyland
 Leyland Trucks

References

Defunct bus manufacturers of the United Kingdom
Leyland buses

Leyland Bus


Robert F. Thompson (born June 19, 1971) is a former Democratic member of the Arkansas Senate. He represented the 11th District of Arkansas from 2007 to 2013. After senate districts were reorganized, he went on to represent District 20 from 2013 to 2015. Both districts included several counties in northeast Arkansas. From 2005 to 2007, he was a State Representative for the 78th district of the Arkansas House of Representatives, representing the city of Paragould in Greene County, Arkansas. Thompson currently practices law at the Paragould law firm of Branch, Thompson, Warmath, & Dale P.A.

Biography
Thompson is a native of Paragould. Born at Community Methodist Hospital (now Arkansas Methodist Medical Center) in June 1971, he was reared in Paragould and attended Paragould public schools. He attended Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, graduating summa cum laude in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. Following college, Thompson attended the University of St Andrews in Scotland on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship. He graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1997. In law school, he served as editor-in-chief of the Arkansas Law Review and graduated first in his class .

From 1997 to 1998, Thompson served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Richard S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Later, as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, following the death of Judge Arnold in September 2004, Thompson was a sponsor of a House Resolution celebrating the life of Judge Arnold and his contributions to the American legal system.

Thompson has been awarded two honors by the Arkansas Historical Association for his writings about Arkansas history. In 1993 he won the Lucille Westbrook Award for an essay about debt slavery in Arkansas in the 1930s.  In 1998, he won the Violet Gingles Award for his  short biography of the Arkansas legislator Paul Van Dalsem.

In 2008 Thompson was named as one of 24 fellows in the 2008 class of the Aspen Institute's Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership.

Thompson is married to the former Tori Gibson of Osceola, Arkansas. They have two sons and a daughter. He is an active member of the First United Methodist Church of Paragould.

Political career
In November 2004, Thompson was elected to the Arkansas State House of Representatives, District 78, which includes the city of Paragould. As a member of the House, he sat on the House Judiciary Committee, the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs, and the Joint Public Retirement Committee. During the 2005 legislative session, Thompson sponsored bills that created a Drug Court for Greene County, strengthened laws on prosecuting sexual offenders, and addressed financial problems of recently consolidated school districts .

In June 2004 he was one of Arkansas Business's "40 Under 40" up-and-coming young leaders.  In December 2004 he was selected as NEA Business Today's 25 Outstanding Young Professionals in northeast Arkansas. In May 2005 Thompson was named one of five "promising legislative newcomers" by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette .

In 2006, Thompson ran for the District 11 state senate seat being vacated by State Senator Tim Wooldridge, who was forced out of office due to term limits. On May 23, Thompson defeated Paragould resident and former state representative Gary Biggs in the Democratic primary election for the District 11 seat. As the Democratic nominee in the general election, Thompson defeated Republican Lloyd Clark in a landslide, 72.36% to 27.64%.
Thompson was the Majority Leader of the Senate prior to the Republican takeover in 2013. He was defeated in a rematch with Republican Blake Johnson of Corning (Clay County) in the 2014 General election. Thompson had defeated Johnson by less than 600 votes in 2012.

In the senate, Thompson served as vice-chair of the Legislative Council, the committee that oversees legislative operations when the Arkansas legislature is not in session.  Thompson was also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs, and the Senate Efficiency Committee, which administers the internal operations of the Arkansas Senate.

Bibliography
"The Strange Case of Paul D. Peacher, Twentieth-Century Slaveholder." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 52:4 (Winter 1993): 426-451.

"McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co.: The Masquerading Doctor, the 'Greatest Treason,' and After-Acquired Evidence in Employment Discrimination Suits." Arkansas Law Review 49:3 (1996): 625-660.

"The Arkansas Products Liability Statute: What Does 'Unreasonably Dangerous' Mean in Arkansas?" Arkansas Law Review 50:4 (1998): 663-690.

"Barefoot and Pregnant: The Education of Paul Van Dalsem." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 57:4 (Winter 1998): 377-407.

References

External links
Arkansas State Legislature - Senator Robert Thompson official government website
Project Vote Smart - Senator Robert Thompson III (AR) profile
Follow the Money - Robert F. Thompson
 Hendrix College 2007 Outstanding Young Alumni Awards
2008 2006 State Senate campaign contributions
2004 State House campaign contributions

1971 births
Living people
Democratic Party Arkansas state senators
Democratic Party members of the Arkansas House of Representatives
Arkansas lawyers
Alumni of the University of St Andrews
University of Arkansas alumni
American United Methodists

Robert F. Thompson


A Unix shell, also called terminal or console, is a program that accepts Unix commands from the keyboard and executes them. These commands can be installed programs, for example:
 ls to list files
 cp to copy files
 man to get more information on commands

The commands do not need to come from the keyboard. They will, generally speaking, come from stdin. A Unix shell is a command line interface made especially for the control of a Unix system. There are different Unix shells, most notably bash, sh, C Shell and zsh. Their syntax is similar, for example the following dialog to find out your CPU type would be possible with all of them:
 # cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep --max-count=1 "model name"
 model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz
Unix

Unix shell


Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), or Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer born in the province of Auvergne in south central France.  Lafayette was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution.

In the American Revolution, Lafayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still managed to organize a successful retreat. He served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he returned to France to negotiate an increased French commitment. On his return, he blocked troops led by Cornwallis at Yorktown while the armies of Washington and Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, prepared for battle against the British.

Back in France in 1788, Lafayette was called to the Assembly of Notables to respond to the fiscal crisis. Lafayette proposed a meeting of the French Estates-General, where representatives from the three traditional classes of French society — the clergy, the nobility and the commoners — met. He served as vice president of the resulting body and presented a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Lafayette was appointed commander-in-chief of the French (Garde nationale) National Guard in response to violence leading up to the French Revolution. During the Revolution, Lafayette attempted to maintain order, for which he ultimately was persecuted by the Jacobins. In 1791, as the radical factions in the Revolution grew in power, Lafayette tried to flee to the United States through the Dutch Republic. He was captured by Austrians and served nearly five years in prison.

Lafayette returned to France after Bonaparte freed him from an Austrian prison in 1797. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies under the Charter of 1815, during the Hundred Days.  With the Bourbon Restoration, Lafayette became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1815, a position he held until his death. In 1824, President James Monroe invited Lafayette to the United States as the "nation's guest"; during the trip, he would visit all of the then twenty-four states. For his contributions to the American Revolution, many cities and monuments throughout the United States bear his name (Fayetteville, North Carolina was the only one of those he actually visited in person). During France's July Revolution of 1830 Lafayette declined an offer to become the French dictator; instead he supported Louis-Philippe's bid as a constitutional monarch. Lafayette died on 20 May 1834, and is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil from Revolutionary War battlefield Bunker Hill. He became a natural born citizen of the United States during his lifetime and received honorary United States citizenship in 2002.

Itokasi

àwọn ọjọ́ìbí ní 1757
Àwọn ọjọ́aláìsí ní 1834
àwọn ará Fránsì

Marie-Joseph Motier, Marquis de Lafayette


A flower pot is a container in which flowers and other plants are grown. They are traditionally made from terracotta, but are now often also made from plastic, wood or stone. The flower pot is filled with soil and have a plant planted in them. Often there are holes in the bottom, to allow water to flow out, sometimes into a saucer that is placed under the flowerpot. If the plant becomes too big for the pot, it is moved to a bigger one.

Gardening
Containers

Flower pot


MTV Live (formerly Palladia) is an 24-hour American pay television music video channel owned by Paramount Global. The channel, which broadcasts exclusively in 1080i high definition, broadcasts music videos and music-related programming from Paramount owned networks MTV, MTV Classic, VH1 and CMT, along with other concert and live music programming from outside producers.

History
In the winter of 2005, F. Stone Roberts (director and producer), Agent Ogden (editor and post supervisor), Colin Oberschmidt (director of photography), Sonia Taylor (production assistant), and George Oliphant (VJ) took residence in Vail, Colorado to launch the channel. The team produced live concerts and a one-hour weekly music show, called Uncompressed, from a lookalike ski lodge built inside the Eagle's Nest at the top of Vail Mountain. The channel's original executive producer was Morgan Hertzan, who had worked with mtvU. Olympic bump skier, pro football player, George Oliphant and Jeremy Bloom were VJs during the original run in Vail. Original concerts produced at Vail Resorts included James Blunt, Jamie Cullum, Yellowcard, Train, P.O.D, Hoobastank, Goo Goo Dolls, Gary Allan, The Fray, Death Cab For Cutie, and Mat Kearney.

The network officially launched on January 16, 2006 as Music: High Definition (MHD). At its debut, the channel had limited distribution with Verizon FiOS being the only provider to carry MHD. Two months later, Cox Communications reached an agreement to carry the channel, which was subsequently added to Cox systems in New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Phoenix. Around the same time, Comcast started carrying the channel on its systems in Boston and Atlanta.

Charter Communications began carrying the channel on its St. Louis system on July 18, 2006, adding the channel to its systems in the northern Midwest in early November of that year. Time Warner Cable began carrying the channel in some regions in late December 2006. In 2007, Service Electric Cable Television began to carry the channel on its systems in northeastern and central Pennsylvania. On October 4, 2007, DirecTV began carrying the network nationwide.  The channel changed its name to Palladia on September 1, 2008. Initially, Mitsubishi Electric Digital Televisions was the exclusive sponsor.

In January 2015, Viacom Media Networks gave notice to subscription providers that they would rebrand Palladia as MTV Live on February 1, 2016, making it the fifth all-music channel Viacom has rebranded in the last year. Currently no other details outside of the rename notice, along with the addition of "best of" episodes of the PBS/KLRU music series Austin City Limits, have been revealed. Despite the rebranding, network officials made clear no change in focus towards any reality programming (as has been seen with MTV and VH1) is planned. MTV Live and MTVU are currently used for video premieres and spotlight of new videos.

Programming
Specials formerly broadcast on MTV Live included the HD simulcasts of the MTV Europe Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, CMT Music Awards and VH1 Hip Hop Honors. As carriage of the MTV, CMT and VH1 HD simulcast networks expanded, these programs became exclusive to their parent channel's HD broadcast streams.

The majority of the network's content consists of music video programming, which airs in the overnight, early morning, and daytime hours each day. Additionally, MTV Live airs a music video block on weeknights from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET. Since May 11, 2019, MTV Live has expanded music video programming across each whole weekend.

In addition to the programs listed below, MTV Live frequently broadcasts concert footage and music documentaries.

List of programs broadcast by MTV Live

Current programming
 Epic.Awesome.Videos (Music video programming)
 MTV Unplugged
 MTV World Stage (MTV Europe)
 Push Showcase (October 31, 2017–present)
 Rock Icons
 The Ride (MTV Europe)
 VH1 Storytellers (VH1)

Former programming
 Best of Austin City Limits (PBS/KLRU)
 Classic Albums
 CMT Crossroads (CMT)
 Front and Center

 Life & Rhymes (BET Jams)
 Live from Daryl's House (September 6, 2012 – June 23, 2016)
 Later... With Jools Holland
 Live from the Artists Den
 MTV Jams (Hip hop and urban contemporary music video block)
 MTV Live Setlist (October 21, 2016 – June 17, 2017)
 nugs.net Live Stash (October 2, 2016 – November 20, 2016)
 Soulstage (BET Soul)
 Soundstage (PBS)
 That Metal Show, originally a VH1 Classic program, reruns of the show aired on the network.
 The Live Room
 TRL (May 21, 2018 – 2019)
 TRL Recap (October 31, 2017 – March 23, 2018)

References

External links

 Vail Daily Article
 USA Today Article

MTV channels
Music video networks in the United States
English-language television stations in the United States

MTV Live (TV network)


Hurricane Lili was the strongest hurricane during the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season in terms of winds. However, Hurricane Isidore was actually stronger in terms of barometric pressure. Lili had winds of 145 miles an hour at her peak. Thirteen people were killed because of this hurricane over the Caribbean islands. The storm hit Louisiana as a Category One hurricane with winds between 90 and 100 miles an hour. There were no direct deaths in the United States, though two indirect deaths did happen due to Lili. Property damage totaled between $750 million and $1.5 billion, making Lili the costliest of the season. The name Lili was later retired and replaced by Laura.

Hurricanes in the United States
2002 Atlantic hurricane season
2002 in Louisiana
Hurricanes in Louisiana
Retired tropical cyclone names

Hurricane Lili (2002)


Grand Manner refers to an idealized aesthetic style derived from classicism and the art of the High Renaissance. In the eighteenth century, British artists and connoisseurs used the term to describe paintings that incorporated visual metaphors in order to suggest noble qualities. It was Sir Joshua Reynolds who gave currency to the term through his Discourses on Art, a series of lectures presented at the Royal Academy from 1769 to 1790, in which he contended that painters should perceive their subjects through generalization and idealization, rather than by the careful copy of nature.  Reynolds never actually uses the phrase, referring instead to the "great style" or "grand style", in reference to history painting:
How much the great style exacts from its professors to conceive and represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fact, may be seen in the cartoons of Raffaelle.  In all the pictures in which the painter has represented the apostles, he has drawn them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of receiving yet we are expressly told in Scripture they had no such respectable appearance; and of St. Paul in particular, we are told by himself, that his bodily presence was mean.  Alexander is said to have been of a low stature: a painter ought not so to represent him.  Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance.  None of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero.  In conformity to custom, I call this part of the art history painting; it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is.

Originally applied to history painting, regarded as the highest in the hierarchy of genres, the Grand Manner came thereafter also to be applied to portrait painting, with sitters depicted life size and full-length, in surroundings that conveyed the nobility and elite status of the subjects. Common metaphors included the introduction of classical architecture, signifying cultivation and sophistication, and pastoral backgrounds, which implied a virtuous character of unpretentious sincerity undefiled by the possession of great wealth and estates.

If Roman sculpture and Italian Renaissance painting provided the gestures for the genre, it was the court portraiture of Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck that came to exemplify the urbane portrait style practised by Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and Pompeo Batoni, and then in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Sir Thomas Lawrence, John Singer Sargent and Augustus John. In the late nineteenth century the rhetoric of the Grand Manner was adopted not only by the nouveaux riches, but by ambitious middle class sitters as well. When especially ostentatious in presentation, typically in full-length works, this has also been referred to as the swagger portrait.

See also
Grand style, a comparable concept in rhetoric

Notes

References
The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
National Gallery of Art
Tate glossary

Painting

Grand manner


Peddocks Island is one of the largest islands in Boston Harbor. Since 1996 it has formed part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. Managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the island is home to the now-defunct Fort Andrews, active in harbor defense from 1904 to the end of World War II, on its eastern end, and a group of privately owned cottages on its western end. Campsites are also on the eastern end. Ferry service between Peddocks Island and Georges Island (where Fort Warren stands) is provided on a seasonal basis.

Topography
Peddocks Island lies across Hull Gut from the Pemberton neighborhood of Hull to the north and across West Gut to Nut Island & Houghs Neck to the west. The island is located at 42° 17' 32.6" North latitude and  70° 56' 21.6" West longitude. The area of the island is , its total acreage at low tide is 288, and its highest elevation is 80 feet. Boasting the longest island shoreline in Boston Harbor, Peddocks Island comprises four headlands connected by gravel or sand bars known as tombolos.

History

One of many Boston Harbor Islands inhabited by Native Americans prior to European settlement in America, Peddock's Island was primarily used for farming since 1634. Its closeness to mainland Boston enabled its use for military purposes as well. During the American Revolutionary War, more than 600 militiamen were stationed on the island to guard against the return of British troops following their evacuation of Boston by the hand of Gen. George Washington on March 17, 1776. A patriot infantrymen's raid on a Loyalist (Tory) farm is also believed to have taken place on the island.

In 1887, a fishing community, the predecessor to the cottages, started on the island.

In 1904, Fort Andrews was built on the island, and it served as an active harbor defense fort until the end of World War II. As of 2008, 26 of the original buildings of Fort Andrews were still standing — guardhouses, prisoner-of-war barracks, stables, a gymnasium, a firehouse, etc. — although most of them were in decrepit shape and were closed to the public for safety reasons.

In 1993, current cottage owners were granted life tenancy in the park, after which the park would take over the cottages.

In 2008, Peddocks Island was used for filming scenes in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

In 2011, Boston granted $7.8 million to renovate the island. This will fund a program in which 11 buildings will be demolished and a further 11 restored, in an attempt to make the island more visitor-friendly as a historical museum and nature reserve. Additionally, walking and hiking trails will be provided, along with tours of the historical buildings.

Natural resources
There is a freshwater marsh on the southern end of Peddocks Island.

Predominant tree and shrub species on the island include maple, birch, oak, pine, poplar, sumac, and apple. The island is also populated with wild roses and poison ivy.

Deer and coyotes are also found on the island.

References

 Island Facts: Peddocks Island U.S. National Park Service website
 Peddocks Island wikimapia

External links

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area
Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Guide

Boston Harbor islands
Hull, Massachusetts
Islands of Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Peddocks Island