Pin Ups (also referred to as Pinups and Pin-Ups) is the seventh studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 19October 1973 through RCA Records. Devised as a "stop-gap" album to appease his record label, it is a covers album, featuring glam rock and proto-punk versions of songs by British bands from the 1960s that were influential to Bowie as a teenager, including the Pretty Things, the Who, the Yardbirds and Pink Floyd.

The album was recorded from July to August 1973 at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France following the completion of the Ziggy Stardust Tour. It was Bowie's final album co-produced with Ken Scott. Two members of the Spiders from Mars backing band contributed, guitarist Mick Ronson and bassist Trevor Bolder, while Mick Woodmansey was replaced by Aynsley Dunbar on drums. Following a surprise announcement at the end of the tour that the Spiders were breaking up, tensions were high during the sessions, which was reflected in the tracks. The album cover, featuring Bowie and 1960s supermodel Twiggy, was taken in Paris and originally intended for Vogue magazine.

Released only six months after Aladdin Sane and preceded by a cover of the Merseys' song "Sorrow" as the lead single, Pin Ups was a commercial success, topping the UK Albums Chart, but received negative reviews from critics, who criticised the songs as generally inferior to the originals. Retrospective reviewers have described it as uneven, while others believe it had a good premise, but suffered from poor execution. Bowie's biographers have noted it as an experiment in nostalgia. Some publications have regarded it as one of the best covers albums. It has been reissued numerous times and was remastered in 2015 as part of the box set Five Years (1969–1973).

Background
By 1973, David Bowie was at his commercial peak. At the end of July, five of his six albums were in the top 40 and three were in the top 15, according to biographer David Buckley, an "unprecedented feat" for a solo artist. Bowie's most recent LP, Aladdin Sane, came out in April, but his label, RCA Records, wanted a new album by Christmas. Having just completed the Ziggy Stardust Tour, Bowie was exhausted from the extensive touring schedule. His manager at the time, Tony Defries, was negotiating for larger royalties with Bowie's music publisher and recommended he not record any new compositions until negotiations were finished. Although he had intended his next project to be an adaptation of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, he devised a record of cover versions as a "stopgap" album.

On the final day of the tour, 3July 1973, Bowie unexpectedly announced that "this is the last show we'll ever do". Although this was later understood to mean that Bowie was retiring the Ziggy Stardust character, the announcement came as a surprise to the audience, as well as the Spiders from Mars' members Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey, who were not notified in advance of the speech. This created tension between the two and Bowie. They were further aggravated when they found out Mike Garson, who played piano on Aladdin Sane, was being paid a bigger wage than the Spiders, who were being paid the same amount as they were from before Bowie's stardom. Garson subsequently informed Woodmansey over the phone that his services were no longer required. Garson and Mick Ronson were guaranteed positions on the new album, alongside Aladdin Sane players Ken Fordham and Geoffrey MacCormack. Session drummer Aynsley Dunbar replaced Woodmansey and Bolder was invited back after bassist Jack Bruce of the band Cream declined.

Production

Composition
According to biographer Nicholas Pegg, Pin Ups was Bowie's tribute to bands that had inspired him as a teenager. Bowie later explained: "These are all bands which I used to go and hear play down the Marquee between 1964 and 1967. I've got all these records back at home." According to biographer Chris O'Leary, he chose the tracks by "going through a stack of 45s in his rooms at the Hyde Park Hotel before leaving for France". Musician Scott Richardson, a Pretty Things fan, convinced Bowie to cover two of their songs. Other artists selected included the Yardbirds, the Kinks, Pink Floyd and the Who, all of whom O'Leary cites as actual influences on Bowie's music. The final tracklist included the Pretty Things' "Rosalyn" and "Don't Bring Me Down", Them's "Here Comes the Night", Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play", the Mojos' "Everything's Alright", the Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things" and their rendition of Billy Boy Arnold's "I Wish You Would", the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind", the Merseys' "Sorrow", the Who's "I Can't Explain" and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", and the Kinks' "Where Have All the Good Times Gone". Bowie had also considered re-recording his 1966 single "The London Boys" but the idea was discarded.

Rather than provide new arrangements for the tracks, the songs on Pin Ups stay true to the originals, albeit performed in glam rock and proto-punk styles. Regarding this, Bowie explained: "We just took down the basic chord structures and worked from there... Some of them don't even need any working on – like 'Rosalyn' for example. But most of the arranging I have done by myself and Mick, and Aynsley too." Author Peter Doggett writes that only two tracks, "I Wish You Would" and "See Emily Play", contained varied arrangements from the originals.

Recording

Pin Ups was recorded at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France, and lasted for three weeks, from July to August 1973. Having just recorded the album Tanx there, T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan recommended the studio to Bowie. The Château had also become popularised after Elton John recorded his 1972 album Honky Château there. It was co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott and marked the final collaboration between the two. O'Leary writes that rehearsing consisted of playing the band the original track a few times before recording began. Tensions were high during the sessions. Bolder, believing he was unwanted, recorded his bass parts quickly and departed. Meanwhile, Richardson recalled Ronson overworking himself: "He did everything in the studio, he tuned everybody's instruments, he worked on all the arrangements... [he had] a tremendous burden on him"; he also grew wary of his future after the collapse of the Spiders. Scott was facing personal issues on top of pressure from his management company to leave over MainMan not paying him royalties, while Bowie had, in O'Leary's words, an "increasingly remote and truculent attitude in the studio".

A version of the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" was recorded during the sessions. It was never released; Bowie donated the backing track to Ronson for his 1975 solo album Play Don't Worry. The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" was also attempted during the sessions, but was left abandoned. Bowie would later cover it for the aborted Astronettes project in October 1973, while he officially covered it for 1984's Tonight. The sessions were put on hold on 16 July for the recording of Scottish singer Lulu's covers of Bowie's tracks "Watch That Man" and "The Man Who Sold the World". The Pin Ups personnel contributed to the recording, including Bowie, Ronson, Garson, Bolder and Dunbar.

Pin Ups was the first of two "1960s nostalgia" albums that Bowie had planned to release. The second would have contained Bowie covering his favourite American artists, but was never recorded. Rumoured tracks to have appeared for the project include the Stooges' "No Fun", the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" and Roxy Music's "Ladytron". Bowie also considered making a Pin Ups sequel: he had compiled a list of songs he wanted to cover, some of which showed up on his later releases of Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003).

Artwork and packaging

The cover photo for Pin Ups reflected the theme of swinging London by featuring 1960s supermodel Twiggy, who had previously been name-checked on Aladdin Sanes "Drive-In Saturday" as "Twig the Wonder Kid". The photo was taken midway through the sessions at a Paris studio by her then-manager and partner Justin de Villeneuve; he recalled in 2010: "Twiggy and I had first heard David mention her on Aladdin Sane... We loved the album so much I called David and asked him if he would like to do a shoot with Twiggy. He jumped at the idea." Twiggy recalled in her autobiography In Black and White that she was "really quite nervous" meeting Bowie, but "he immediately put me at ease. He was everything I could have hoped for and more". During the shoot, Bowie and Twiggy had different skin tones, partially attributed to the latter just returning from holiday in California. The problem was solved by returning Aladdin Sane make-up designer Pierre Laroche, who used make-up masks to balance the tones out. Twiggy found the final result "enigmatic and strange", later calling it one of her favourite images and "possibly the most widely distributed photograph ever taken of me." The photo was originally slated to appear in Vogue magazine. Twiggy stated that the photo was met with apprehension from Vogue, who didn't want a man appearing on their front cover, so Bowie opted to use it as the album cover instead; de Villeneuve later recalled Vogue being infuriated by the decision.

The original LP's rear sleeve featured two photos by photographer Mick Rock, one of a concert shot from the Ziggy tour and another of Bowie wearing a double-breasted suit cradling a saxophone. Bowie wrote in the book Moonage Daydream: "I chose the performance photos for the back cover as they were favourite Rock shots of mine. I also did the back cover layout with the colour combination of red writing on blue as it again hinted at Sixties psychedelia." A discarded idea for the sleeve came from photographer Alan Motz, who told Sandford that he "wanted to shoot Bowie metamorphosing into an animal". This idea would be used for Bowie's next album, Diamond Dogs (1974).

Release

RCA issued the lead single "Sorrow", featuring a cover of Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" as the B-side, on 12 October 1973; it had been delayed from its original release date of 28 September. The single was a commercial success, peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart and stayed on the chart for 15 weeks, becoming one of his biggest hits. Pin Ups followed suit a week later on 19 October, issued with the catalogue number RS 1003, only six months after his previous album Aladdin Sane. On the album sleeve, Bowie was simply referred to as "Bowie". In America, the advertising campaign read: "Pin Ups means favourites, and these are Bowie's favourite songs. It's the kind of music your parents will never let you play loud enough!" The album's release coincided with former Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry's covers album These Foolish Things. As Ferry had recorded his album weeks before Bowie began work on Pin Ups, Ferry was annoyed at the perceived copying of his project, calling it a "rip-off". According to Sandford, he allegedly went to his label Island Records to request they file an injunction to prevent Pin Ups from being released before These Foolish Things. Instead, O'Leary writes that Bowie phoned Ferry to inform him of Pin Ups and requested permission to record a Roxy Music song. Ferry later told Buckley, "At first I was a bit apprehensive, but Bowie's record turned out to be very different. I myself was always very anxious to be different from other people... and to forge my own furrow." In the event, both albums were released as planned and charted on the same day, 3November 1973.

In the UK, Pin Ups came at the height of Bowie's popularity there. The album had advance copies of 150,000, which was 50,000 more than Aladdin Sane. Upon release, it spent 39 weeks on the UK Albums Chart and peaked at number one, remaining there for five weeks, matching the performance of Aladdin Sane. It brought the total number of Bowie albums concurrently on the UK chart to six. In the US, the album peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart and remained on the chart for 21 weeks. O'Leary writes that Pin Ups was essentially a "new Bowie album" in America since only three of the original tracks that were released as singles had reached the top 40. Sandford writes that by Christmas 1973, the album was selling 30,000 copies a week. Upon release of the massive commercially successful Let's Dance (1983), Pin Ups returned to the UK chart again, peaking at number 57.

Critical reception
Pin Ups received primarily negative reviews from music critics on release, with many criticising the songs as generally inferior to their original counterparts. In Rolling Stone, Greg Shaw was unfavorable, believing that all the tracks were underproduced and Bowie's vocal performance was the album's "true failure", further saying his "excessively mannered voice" was "a ridiculously weak mismatch for the material" and that they were mixed too high to give the tracks the "edge" or "punch" they need to be effective. He concludes his review by saying, "while Pin Ups may be a failure, it is also a collection of great songs, most of which are given a more than adequate, and always loving, treatment. Maybe the fairest conclusion to draw is that Bowie can't sing any other way, did the best he could, and the result isn't all that bad." In the NME, Ian MacDonald felt that by not differentiating the songs from the originals, the renditions lack value, ultimately stating the record failed to live up to expectations and predicted that "unless he puts a banger under his own behind, I can foresee nothing but artistic frustration for Bowie in the next few years." Loraine Alterman of The New York Times was also negative, saying the album "suffers from too much style and technique and not enough musical substance".

Discussing Pin Ups as a whole, Record Mirror found the album "unsatisfying, too cluttered musically and over-produced". A writer for Sounds magazine also reacted negatively, declaring that Bowie "used R&B as a prop, not a springboard". In Christgau's Record Guide, veteran critic Robert Christgau found the idea of the record good, but its overall execution subpar. On the other hand, Billboard responded positively, stating that, "there's humor in this music if you want to take it as a look back in musical time." Robert Hilburn was also positive in the Los Angeles Times. Describing it as a "light, unpretentious, high-spirited album", he hailed Pin Ups as "one of the year's most inviting albums" and one that deserves special attention.

Legacy

Pin Ups continues to receive mixed-to-negative reactions in later decades. When reviewing the album as part of the 2015 box set Five Years (1969–1973), Pitchfork Douglas Wolk was unfavorable. He cited sloppy execution and the overall idea "more interesting in theory", believing that all the originals were "vastly" superior and Bowie added nothing interesting to any of them. He further believed that it didn't help that the Spiders from Mars were falling apart when recording it. Bruce Eder of AllMusic similarly found the album to be out of place with Bowie's output up to that point. He continued, "Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane had established Bowie as perhaps the most fiercely original of all England's glam rockers, so an album of covers didn't make any sense and was especially confusing for American fans," further criticising the song choices as unknown. However, Eder did praise Bowie's cover of "Sorrow" as a "distinct improvement" over the original.

Bowie's biographers have given Pin Ups mixed reactions. Buckley describes it as "uneven but beloved by many". O'Leary attributes its "scattershot feel" and "lack of a coherent style" to the dysfunctional nature of its recording, while Sandford acknowledges the album's lack of originality in the song arrangements. Doggett calls Pin Ups "an exercise in Pop Art", meaning it was "a reproduction and interpretation of work by [another artist], intended for a mass audience". James Perone, on the other hand, argues that Pin Ups predated the release of covers album by other English artists, such as John Lennon with Rock 'n' Roll (1975) and Elvis Costello with Almost Blue (1981) and Kojak Variety (1995). Perone also recognises the album's musical influence, stating that Bowie's version of "Here Comes the Night" was a forerunner in the post-punk and new wave sound of the late 1970s and early 1980s, presaging songs such as Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" (1983). Furthermore, he contests that "Here Comes the Night" foreshadowed the soul oriented directions of Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1976), while "See Emily Play" evokes the avant-garde experimentations of the artist's late 1970s Berlin Trilogy.

Some biographers have analysed the album as an experiment in nostalgia, which Doggett states "was already emerging as one of the dominant themes of the early seventies". Furthermore, Pegg writes that "it remains perhaps glam rock's most cogent expression of its own inherent nostalgia, an affectionate reminder of the process that had led to the charts of 1973." Meanwhile, Buckley states that the album "began an era of pop archeology" and that it "came at a time of uncertainty, a time when many cast backward glances as pop entered its first retroactive phase". In the Spin Alternative Record Guide, critic Rob Sheffield agreed, characterising the album's "Swinging London oldies" as "atrophied nostalgia".

In 2013, in a ranking of Bowie's albums up to that point, Gabriela Claymore of Stereogum placed Pin Ups at number 18 (out of 25), calling it "The only one of Bowie's '70s records you can safely call 'inessential'. She felt it was out of place coming off of Aladdin Sane, but stated, "For what it is, it's quite good". Following Bowie's death in 2016, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock ranked all of his 26 studio albums from worst to best, placing Pin Ups at number 21. He praised the song choices as "excellent", describing "Sorrow" as the highlight. However, he found that Bowie went "way, way, way over the top" on every other track. He concluded by stating: "In spite of all the effort, Pin Ups remains a slight affair." In the context of Bowie's entire career, Eder views Pin Ups as an artistic statement, in that it represented a "swan song" for the Spiders from Mars and an "interlude" between the first and second phases of his international career, with his next album Diamond Dogs being the end of his glam rock era: "It's not a bad bridge between the two, and it has endured across the decades."

Despite mixed reactions overall, some publications have praised Pin Ups as a covers album, calling it one of the finest in the genre. Pierre Perrone of The Independent and the writers of NME would classify Pin Ups as one of the best cover albums in 2013 and 2019, respectively, with the former describing it as "[t]he covers album that launched a thousand copycats." Eder states that today it is still dismissed by many as just another covers album, including Wolk, who in 2015 described it as "quick-and-sloppy".

Reissues
Pin Ups has been reissued several times, on vinyl and other media. The album was first released on compact disc by RCA in the mid-1980s. In 1990, it was reissued by Rykodisc with two bonus tracks: a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up" (recorded during the sessions for Diamond Dogs and featuring Ronnie Wood on guitar) and "Amsterdam", the B-side to "Sorrow". This reissue charted at number 52 on the UK Albums Chart for one week in July 1990. It was remastered in 1999 by Peter Mew at Abbey Road Studios for EMI and Virgin Records, and issued on CD with no bonus tracks. It was again remastered in 2015 for inclusion on the box set Five Years 1969–1973 by Parlophone and rereleased separately, in 2015–2016, in CD, vinyl and digital formats.

Track listing

Songs marked with a * were not recorded for the first time by the acts listed, but were popularised by them.

Personnel
Album credits per the Pin Ups liner notes and biographer Nicholas Pegg.
David Bowie vocals, guitar, tenor and alto saxophone, harmonica, arrangements, backing vocals, Moog synthesiser
Mick Ronson guitar, piano, vocals, arrangements
Trevor Bolder bass guitar
Aynsley Dunbar drums
Mike Garson piano, organ, harpsichord, electric piano
Ken Fordham baritone saxophone
G. A. MacCormack backing vocals

Production
David Bowie producer
Ken Scott producer
Dennis MacKay engineer
Andy Scott engineer

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Notes

References

Sources

External links

1973 albums
David Bowie albums
Albums produced by David Bowie
Albums produced by Ken Scott
Albums with cover art by Mick Rock
Covers albums
EMI Records albums
Parlophone albums
RCA Records albums
Rykodisc albums
Virgin Records albums
Albums recorded in a home studio
Protopunk albums

Pin Ups


Raw! Raw! Rooster! is a 1956 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The cartoon was released on August 25, 1956, and features Foghorn Leghorn. The voices were performed by Mel Blanc and an uncredited Daws Butler.

Plot
The opening shows Foghorn Leghorn lounging in the barnyard at "Cocamunga" California, being fanned and serenaded by several hens, when a telegram arrives saying that his old college roommate, Rhode Island Red, will be paying him a visit. Red is voiced by Daws Butler, and is a takeoff on Jackie Gleason's "Loudmouth" character, Charlie Bratten ("Here's CHARLIE!!"). Foghorn decides that he had enough of "that loudmouth" Red in college, and puts up several signs and barbed wire outside the barnyard fence to discourage Red from visiting. Meanwhile, Foghorn does not realize that the delivery man that brought the telegram is actually Red in disguise, so Red sees everything that Foghorn is trying to do to prevent his visit. Foghorn sees Red, who extends his arm for a handshake. Foghorn shakes hands and receives an electrical shock from an unseen joke buzzer in Red's hand. Red then pulls another joke by squirting Foghorn with a fake carnation on his lapel. Red sees the hens and tries to impress them by singing and playing a rendition of Freddy the Freshman. Foghorn tries to get back at Red by rigging a camera with a boxing glove in it and asking the self-absorbed Red if he wants to have his picture taken. Red obliges, but Foghorn cannot get the glove to fire from the camera. Red then reverses positions with Foghorn and gets him to squeeze the shutter mechanism on the camera, which causes Foghorn to get punched by the glove. Foghorn then falls backwards into a hole that he dug and is hit on the head by a boulder, traps that were intended for Red. Foghorn breaks the fourth wall by looking at the viewer and saying: "I thought I had a sitting duck, but turned out he had a pigeon". Red then asks if Foghorn is going to take his picture and this time Foghorn gets behind the camera and points a double-barreled shotgun at Red, who puts his fingers into each barrel, causing the shotgun to backfire on Foghorn.

Red is then seen walking with the hens outside of the barnyard and asks them if they want to see the "star halfback at Chicken Tech" in action. He asks Foghorn to replicate an old football play, the "23 Skidoo", which is a long pass. Unable to find a football, Red gets a casaba melon and hikes it to Foghorn, then goes out for a pass. While Red is waiting for the pass, Foghorn cuts an opening into the melon, lights a stick of dynamite, and stuffs it in the melon before throwing it to Red. In the distance Red is seen catching the melon but quickly yells "punt formation" and kicks it back to Foghorn, who catches the melon right before it explodes. Foghorn then tries to get back at Red by challenging him to a game of golf, and sneakily replaces the golf balls with fake ones that are supposed to explode on impact. Foghorn gives Red a ball then runs into the distance with a flag stick. Instead of the ball exploding on impact, Red hits it right to Foghorn and the ball explodes when it lands. Feeling cheated that he has been victimized again, Foghorn runs back and takes one of the balls and tries to tee off. This time, the ball explodes on impact as it was supposed to before.

Foghorn then finally figures out how to get rid of Red. He disguises himself (using the same costume that Red used in the opening scene) and delivers a fake telegram to Red saying that he must leave immediately to claim a large inheritance. Red is anxious to leave but Foghorn stalls him, saying that Red can't leave without a gift. Foghorn then gives Red an "electric" bowling ball with a clock attached to it (to tell Red when it's time to bowl). The ball is really a time bomb, but Red does not realize it because he is in such a hurry. Red leaves as the bomb detonates, leaving Foghorn to finally getting his revenge on Red who returns and says to Foghorn: "With a friend like you, I'll never need an enemy".

Home media
Raw! Raw! Rooster is available on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6, Disc 1.

References

Succession

1956 animated films
1956 short films
1956 films
Looney Tunes shorts
1950s Warner Bros. animated short films
Films directed by Robert McKimson
Films scored by Carl Stalling
Films produced by Edward Selzer
1950s English-language films
Foghorn Leghorn films

Raw! Raw! Rooster!


Beau Kazer (May 22, 1951 – December 30, 2014) was a Canadian actor who worked primarily on television. He was best known for his recurring role as Brock Reynolds on the American soap opera The Young and the Restless.

Kazer studied drama at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. After graduation, Kazer landed his first acting job in 1974 on the fledgling CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. His character, Brock Reynolds, was the adult son of Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper).

Kazer had appeared on Y&R semi-regularly since the character's introduction to the show. He played the role of Brock from 1974 to 1980, then again from 1984 to 1986. Brock returned to Genoa City in 1988 and stayed through 1992, then returned in 1999 before departing in 2003. He had appeared occasionally since then, including a brief return in November 2008 to deliver the eulogy at "Katherine's funeral." However, Brock's mother did not die (instead it was Katherine's look-alike, Marge). Kazer reprised the role temporarily in April 2009.

In the 1976 film Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro's character Travis Bickle is shown kicking over a television set that is playing a scene from an episode of Y&R featuring Kazer as Brock and Brenda Dickson as Jill. Both Kazer and Dickson are credited in the film as "Soap Opera Man" and "Soap Opera Woman", respectively.

Outside of Y&R, Kazer had roles on General Hospital (where he played Dr. Bunny Wilson), Hart to Hart, B. J. and the Bear and Barnaby Jones.  He was married to photographer Sharon Alkus, and the two owned a ranch in central California. Kazer died on December 30, 2014, in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 63.

Partial filmography
November Children (1972)
Taxi Driver (1976) - Soap Opera Man

References

1951 births
2014 deaths
Canadian male soap opera actors
Male actors from Toronto

Beau Kazer


Sozin's Comet: The Final Battle is the series finale for the Nickelodeon's television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was directed by Ethan Spaulding, Giancarlo Volpe, and Joaquim Dos Santos, and written by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Aaron Ehasz. Though intended to be split into three parts, the finale aired as a two-hour four-part movie on 19 July 2008. Prior to the week of 14–19 July, no episodes had been shown since 30 November 2007. The Saturday airing of Sozin's Comet acted as a climax to a week of ten new episodes that concluded Avatar's third season.

The finale focuses on series protagonist Aang's non-violent personality and his reluctance to kill Fire Lord Ozai. The finale also follows the exploits of many of Aang's friends and allies, including Sokka, Toph and Suki's struggle to destroy a Fire Nation airship armada, Zuko and Katara's battle against Zuko's sister Azula, and Iroh, King Bumi, and the Order of the White Lotus' attempt to reconquer Ba Sing Se.

Sozin's Comet received positive reception from critics and fans alike. The initial showing averaged 5.6 million viewers, a 195% increase in ratings compared with ratings from mid-July 2007. The premiere of episodes 52–61 (episodes 12–21 of Book 3: Fire throughout the week of Sozin's Comet'''s release received over 19 million views, of which 5.6 million were from the premiere of Sozin's Comet. At the 2008 Annie Awards, the director of the third part of Sozin's Comet (Episode 20 – Sozin's Comet, Part 3: "Into the Inferno") won an award for "Best Directing in an Animated Television Production".

Plot

Part 1: The Phoenix King

Aang suddenly abandons his Firebending lesson with Zuko to have a beach party with his friends, causing Zuko to attack him in his frustration. Aang explains he plans to challenge Fire Lord Ozai only after Sozin's Comet and its enhancement of Firebending have come and gone, due to his own self-perceived lack of Firebending skills at the moment. When Zuko tells the group Ozai plans to use the comet's power to burn down the Earth Kingdom, Aang resolves to face him before the comet arrives. The entire group advises Aang to kill Ozai, but Aang refuses to kill him due to his pacifistic nature and non-violent upbringing.

That night, Aang sleepwalks to a forest not to be found in the morning. After the group fails to locate him, Zuko takes them to June, a tracker who might be able to locate Aang, using his smell. Meanwhile, Fire Lord Ozai proclaims himself to be ruler of the world, under the title "Phoenix King", and declares Azula to be the new Fire Lord, setting off to burn the world and rebuild it under his New Order.

Part 2: The Old Masters

Zuko's tracker, June, is unable to locate Aang, but does find Zuko's uncle, Iroh. He and several other characters (Pakku, Jeong Jeong, King Bumi and Piandao) are part of an otherwise non-aligned group known as the "Order of the White Lotus", which plans to liberate the Earth Kingdom capital, Ba Sing Se, from Fire Nation rule. Zuko and Katara decide to fight Azula in the Fire Nation capital while Sokka, Toph, and Suki attempt to destroy the airship fleet of Ozai.

Meanwhile, Aang awakens on a floating island. Frustrated with his inability to find a way to defeat Ozai without killing him, he asks four of his past lives for advice. Unsatisfied with their answers, he asks the island for help. The island, which is actually a giant "lion-turtle", provides Aang with the power of energybending and leaves him on the Earth Kingdom shores.

Part 3: Into the Inferno

The Comet appears in the sky, and Azula's coronation takes place. Azula banishes nearly all of her subjects (including her Dai Li agents) in fear of betrayal. Her paranoia and loneliness begin to drive her insane. Before she is crowned, Zuko and Katara arrive. Zuko accepts Azula's challenge of an Agni Kai, because he feels that something is wrong with Azula and he does not want Katara injured. Just as Zuko is on the verge of defeating Azula, she shoots a bolt of lightning at Katara instead of Zuko. Zuko intercepts the lightning, preventing Katara from getting hurt, but injures himself after he fails to correctly redirect the lightning.

Meanwhile, Sokka, Toph, and Suki hijack a Fire Nation airship, and use it to destroy many others, effectively stopping Ozai's plan of incinerating the Earth Kingdom. In Ba Sing Se, the Order of the White Lotus, led by Iroh, lay siege to the Fire Nation forces within the city, with the sole intention of re-conquering it in the name of the Earth Kingdom. Aang reappears and begins to duel the Fire Lord. However, when Aang successfully redirects lightning he purposely misses Ozai to avoid killing him. Because of his pacifism, Ozai begins to gain the advantage.

Part 4: Avatar Aang

Zuko lies on the ground twitching as Katara and Azula fight. After several minutes of running, Katara freezes Azula and chains her to the ground. After doing it, Katara revives Zuko.

After a fierce battle, Ozai slams Aang into a rock inadvertently releasing his locked seventh chakra and enters the Avatar State. With the power of his past lives, Aang overwhelms Ozai. Although Ozai is subdued, Aang refuses to kill him; instead, he locks Ozai down with earth. He realizes what the lion-turtle had meant and uses Energybending to strip Ozai of his Firebending powers, ending his ability to wage war. Afterwards, Aang raises and lowers nearby water to undo the damages that the Fire Nation caused.

The Order of the White Lotus liberates Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King. During his coronation, Zuko promises to aid the world in the postwar reconstruction. Sometime after the ceremony, Zuko visits Ozai's prison and demands he tell him the location of the banished Ursa, Zuko's mother. A final scene depicts the main cast gathered in Iroh's new tea shop, the Jasmine Dragon. Aang and Katara kiss passionately upon the shop balcony as the series ends.

Production

Co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko wrote the majority of the finale; DiMartino wrote parts one, three, and four, and Konietzko assisted with parts three and four. Aaron Ehasz, a frequent writer for the series, wrote part two. Ethan Spaulding directed part one (The Phoenix King), Giancarlo Volpe directed part two (The Old Masters), and Joaquim Dos Santos directed parts three and four (Into the Inferno + Avatar Aang). Dos Santos was nominated for an Annie Award for his directing of part three, "Into the Inferno". Although Sozin's Comet was originally written as a three-part story, the creators noticed that the length had grown beyond what they had predicted from the initial script. To avoid pacing issues, they split the final part in two, adding several scenes to fill the remaining time.

Although Avatar is not considered anime because of its American origin, Tasha Robinson of the SciFi Channel observed that "Avatar blurs the line between anime and (USA) domestic cartoons until it becomes irrelevant." An IGN reviewer commented that Sozin's Comet "had that classic anime-look that I've always loved to see when watching old anime movies. The story through the animation was perfectly done." The special's music was written and composed by "The Track Team", led by Jeremy Zuckerman. However, unlike past episodes, a music track produced by a live orchestra was used, rather than one in midi format.

During the San Diego Comic-con, it was announced that a reunion between Zuko and his mother, Ursa had been arranged, and made into a storyboard. However, it was dropped just before the finale was finished, as requested by show co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino.

The cast of Sozin's Comet includes all of the key characters from season three. Protagonists Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph are voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, Jack DeSena, and Jessie Flower respectively. Iroh is voiced by Greg Baldwin and Zuko is voiced by Dante Basco. Grey DeLisle and Mark Hamill voice the two antagonists, Azula and Fire Lord Ozai, respectively. The co-creators also lend their voices to two minor characters in the third part, "Into the Inferno".Avatar: The Last Airbender borrows extensively from East Asian art to create its fictional universe. Four "bending" arts exist in the universe; they are based on different styles and variations of Chinese martial arts: Baguazhang for Airbending, Hung Gar and Southern Praying Mantis for Earthbending, Northern Shaolin for Firebending, and Tai Chi for Waterbending. Additionally, series borrows heavily from the Taoist concept of balance and order. The Avatar, an incarnation of a divine being, is supposed to maintain the world's order.

Nickelodeon originally broadcasted Sozin's Comet from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm EST on 19 July 2008. Just ten days later, on 29 July, the "Book 3: Fire – Volume 4" DVD was released, which contained the four episodes as well as episodes 56 and 57 (episodes 16 & 17 of third season), audio commentary from the series' co-creators, cast, and crew, and a comic book.

ReceptionSozin's Comet received many positive critical reviews; Ed Liu of Toon Zone stated that it made Avatar "one of the finest animated television series ever made", and IGN stating that this "film" deserved an Academy Award. Toon Zone praised the skill of the animation directors in designing the sweeping movements of the battle scenes, as well as the slower scenes, "including one moving reconciliation and the quiet coda that ties off many of the remaining loose ends of the series". IGN reviewer Tory Ireland Mell wrote that she would "put it in the top ten films of all time". She also praised the artistic skill of the designers, stating that the "whole dark tone was gorgeous to look at", especially the "art of the Lion Turtle". She thought that Sozin's Comet lacked plot holes, as well as unnecessary plot devices, stating that the "story moved and kept us moving right along with it from beginning to end". She gave Sozin's Comet a 10 out of 10 "Masterful" rating.Sozin's Comet has received its share of criticism as well. Reviewers commented about the difficulty in understanding the voice of a new character: the Lion Turtle. The Lion Turtle was designed by Bryan Konietzko and character designer Jae Woo Kim. Bryan Konietzko disliked how the Lion Turtle turned out; he felt that the art was not up to standards of the original design he had received. CraveOnline felt that because "the series was for children, the writers were at a loss of ideas to work around the murder angle," and the decision not to kill the Fire Lord introduced "so many convenient plot twists [that] set us up for a humongous deus ex machina that allows the Fire Lord to be thwarted without dying".

The premiere of Sozin's Comet averaged 5.6 million viewers, 195% more viewers than Nickelodeon had received in mid-July 2007. During the week of 14 July 2008, it ranked as the most-viewed program for the under-14 demographic. The premiere of episodes 52–61 (episodes 12–21 of third season) throughout the week of Sozin's Comet's release received a total of 19 million views, and Avatar reached Nielsen's list of Top 20 Cable Results for the week ending 20 June 2008 four times. It also appeared on iTunes' top ten list of best-selling television episodes during that same week. Sozin's Comet's popularity affected online media as well; "Rise of the Phoenix King", a Nick.com online game based on Sozin's Comet, generated almost 815,000 game plays within three days. A video game loosely based on the third season, Avatar: The Last Airbender - Into the Inferno'', was released on 13 October 2008.

Joaquim Dos Santos won the "Best Directing in an Animated Television Production" caption in the 2008 Annie Awards for his directing in "Into the Inferno". Additionally, music editor and composer Jeremy Zuckerman and the sound editing team were nominated a Golden Reel award for "Best Sound Editing in a Television Animation" for their work in "Avatar Aang".

References

Notes

Avatar: The Last Airbender
2008 television episodes

Sozin's Comet: The Final Battle


, officially named , is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. It is one of the most popular buildings in Kyoto, attracting many visitors annually. It is designated as a National Special Historic Site, a National Special Landscape and is one of 17 locations making up the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto which are World Heritage Sites.

Kinkaku-ji was ranked the No. 85 Most Holy Place on Earth by religious leaders, writers and scholars in the Patheos multi-faith religion project Sacred Spaces: The 100 Most Holy Places on Earth.

History

The site of Kinkaku-ji was originally a villa called Kitayama-dai (北山第), belonging to a powerful statesman, Saionji Kintsune. Kinkaku-ji's history dates to 1397, when the villa was purchased from the Saionji family by shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and transformed into the Kinkaku-ji complex. When Yoshimitsu died the building was converted into a Zen temple by his son, according to his wishes.

During the Ōnin war (1467–1477), all of the buildings in the complex aside from the pavilion were burned down.

On 2 July 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk, Hayashi Yoken, who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illnesses (persecution complex and schizophrenia) on 29 September 1955; he died of tuberculosis in March 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames (now restored). A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and another in the ballet  RAkU.

The present pavilion structure dates from 1955, when it was rebuilt. The pavilion is three stories high,  in height. The reconstruction is said to be a copy close to the original, although some doubt such an extensive gold-leaf coating was used on the original structure. In 1984, it was discovered that the gold leaf on the reconstructed building had peeled off, and from 1986 to 1987, it was replaced with 0.5 μm gold leaf, five times the thickness of the gold leaf on the reconstructed building. Although Japanese gold leaf has become thinner with the passage of time due to improved technology, the 0.5 μm gold leaf is as thick as traditional Japanese gold leaf. Additionally, the interior of the building, including the paintings and Yoshimitsu's statue, were also restored. Finally, the roof was restored in 2003. The name Kinkaku (金閣 gold pavilion) is derived from the gold leaf that the pavilion is covered in. Gold was an important addition to the pavilion because of its underlying meaning. The gold employed was intended to mitigate and purify any pollution or negative thoughts and feelings towards death. Other than the symbolic meaning behind the gold leaf, the Muromachi period heavily relied on visual excesses. With the focus on the Golden Pavilion, the way that the structure is mainly covered in that material creates an impression that stands out because of the sunlight reflecting and the effect the reflection creates on the pond.

Design details

The  is a three-story building on the grounds of the Rokuon-ji temple complex. The top two stories of the pavilion are covered with pure gold leaf. The pavilion functions as a shariden (舎利殿), housing relics of the Buddha (Buddha's Ashes). The building was an important model for Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion Temple) and Shōkoku-ji, which are also located in Kyoto. When these buildings were constructed, Ashikaga Yoshimasa employed the styles used at Kinkaku-ji and even borrowed the names of its second and third floors.

Architectural design

The pavilion successfully incorporates three distinct styles of architecture, which are shinden, samurai and zen, specifically on each floor. Each floor of the Kinkaku uses a different architectural style.

The first floor, called The Chamber of Dharma Waters (法水院, Hō-sui-in), is rendered in shinden-zukuri style, reminiscent of the residential style of the 11th century Heian imperial aristocracy. It is evocative of the Shinden palace style. It is designed as an open space with adjacent verandas and uses natural, unpainted wood and white plaster. This helps to emphasize the surrounding landscape. The walls and fenestration also affect the views from inside the pavilion. Most of the walls are made of shutters that can vary the amount of light and air into the pavilion and change the view by controlling the shutters' heights. The second floor, called The Tower of Sound Waves (潮音洞, Chō-on-dō ), is built in the style of warrior aristocrats, or buke-zukuri. On this floor, sliding wood doors and latticed windows create a feeling of impermanence. The second floor also contains a Buddha Hall and a shrine dedicated to the goddess of mercy, Kannon. The third floor is built in traditional Chinese chán (Jpn. zen) style, also known as zenshū-butsuden-zukuri. It is called the Cupola of the Ultimate (究竟頂, Kukkyō-chō). The zen typology depicts a more religious ambiance in the pavilion, as was popular during the Muromachi period.

The roof is in a thatched pyramid with shingles. The building is topped with a bronze hōō (phoenix) ornament. From the outside, viewers can see gold plating added to the upper stories of the pavilion. The gold leaf covering the upper stories hints at what is housed inside: the shrines. The outside is a reflection of the inside. The elements of nature, death, religion, are formed together to create this connection between the pavilion and outside intrusions.

Garden design
The Golden Pavilion is set in a Japanese . The location implements the idea of borrowing of scenery ("shakkei") that integrates the outside and the inside, creating an extension of the views surrounding the pavilion and connecting it with the outside world. The pavilion extends over a pond, called , that reflects the building. The pond contains 10 smaller islands.  The zen typology is seen through the rock composition; the bridges and plants are arranged in a specific way to represent famous places in Chinese and Japanese literature.  Vantage points and focal points were established because of the strategic placement of the pavilion to view the gardens surrounding the pavilion.  A small  or roofed deck is attached to the rear of the pavilion building, allowing a small boat to be moored under it. The pavilion grounds were built according to descriptions of the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amida, intending to illustrate a harmony between heaven and earth. The largest islet in the pond represents the Japanese islands. The four stones forming a straight line in the pond near the pavilion are intended to represent sailboats anchored at night, bound for the Isle of Eternal Life in Chinese mythology.

The garden complex is an excellent example of Muromachi period garden design. The Muromachi period is considered to be a classical age of Japanese garden design. The correlation between buildings and its settings were greatly emphasized during this period. It was a way to integrate the structure within the landscape in an artistic way. The garden designs were characterized by a reduction in scale, a more central purpose and a distinct setting. A minimalistic approach was brought to the garden design, by recreating larger landscapes in a smaller scale around a structure.

Gallery

See also

 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, a novel loosely based on the 1950 destruction of Kinkaku-ji
 Buntenkaku in Nagoya, modeled after the Golden Pavilion
 Ginkaku-ji
 Shōkoku-ji
 Chūson-ji with golden Konjiki-dō
 Golden Tea Room
 List of Special Places of Scenic Beauty, Special Historic Sites and Special Natural Monuments
 Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)

Notes

References
 Boults, Elizabeth, and Chip Sullivan. Illustrated History of Landscape Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
 Gerhart, Karen M. The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009.
 Pregil, Philip, and Nancy Volkman. Landscapes in History: Design and Planning in the Eastern and Western Tradition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 1992.
 Young, David, and Michiko Young. The Art of Japanese Architecture. North Claredon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2007.
 Young, David, Michiko Young, and Tan Hong. Introduction to Japanese Architecture. North Claredon, VT: Periplus, 2005.

Further reading

Schirokauer, Conrad; Lurie, David; Gay, Suzanne (2005). A Brief History of Japanese Civilization. Wadsworth Publishing. . OCLC 144227752.

External links

 Official site of Kinkaku-ji
 Live camera feed of Kinkaku-ji (Japanese language)
 Oriental Architecture – Kinkakuji Temple
 Omamori Charms Amulets of Kinkaku-ji Temple

14th-century Buddhist temples
Religious buildings and structures completed in 1955
20th-century Buddhist temples
Buddhist temples in Kyoto
World Heritage Sites in Japan
Myoshin-ji temples
Special Places of Scenic Beauty
Special Historic Sites
Religious buildings and structures destroyed by arson
Important Cultural Properties of Japan
Rebuilt buildings and structures in Japan
1397 establishments

Kinkaku-ji


Josiah Smith (1704 – October 1781) was a clergyman in colonial South Carolina who championed the causes of the evangelical style of the Great Awakening and later American independence.

Smith was born in Charleston, South Carolina into a prominent family. His grandfather, Thomas, was a landgrave and governor of the province of South Carolina. He spent most of his childhood in Bermuda with his father.  Josiah graduated from Harvard in 1725. He received his ordination in 1726, returned to Charleston, and was successively pastor of Presbyterian churches in Bermuda, Cainhoy, and Charleston, South Carolina.  In 1730, he became involved in a theological dispute with Rev. Hugh Fisher of Dorchester, South Carolina on the subject of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith as well as the right of the individual to private judgment.  Both Smith and Fisher published sermons concerning the dispute.  In 1740, he championed the cause of George Whitefield and invited him to preach from his pulpit after he was refused admission to the local Episcopalian church. In 1749, he had a stroke which left him unable to speak well; however, he continued to write and publish sermons.

Rev. Smith sided with the rebelling colonists in the American Revolution.  During the Siege of Charleston, he was taken as a prisoner of war.  He was later paroled, but ordered to Philadelphia where he died.

Works
 Human Impositions Proved Unscriptural Or, The Divine Right of Private Judgment (1729)
 Solomon's Caution Against the Cup (1730)
 The Divine Right of Private Judgment Vindicated (1730)
 No New Thing to Be Slandered (1730)

References

American Presbyterians
American Revolutionary War prisoners of war held by Great Britain
American sermon writers
Clergy in the American Revolution
Harvard University alumni
Writers from Charleston, South Carolina
People of South Carolina in the American Revolution
South Carolina colonial people
1704 births
Josiah

1781 deaths

Josiah Smith (clergyman)


Banovac, banski denar or banica is the name of a coin struck and used in Croatia between 1235 and 1384. The Latin name  was derived from the words ban and denarius. The word ban is a title of nobility used in Croatia, and roughly translates as "viceroy", whereas denarius is Latin for coins minted by the Roman Empire.

Banovac included the image of a marten () - due to the fact that marten pelts were highly valued goods used as a form of payment in Slavonia, the Croatian Littoral, and Dalmatia. This was one of the reasons for naming the former currency of the Republic of Croatia the kuna (used 1994-2023). The coins were first minted in Pakrac, and from 1260 in Zagreb.

The legends are:
 MONETA REGIS P SCLAVONIA (common)
 MONETA B REGIS P SCLAVONIA (moneta Belae regis pro sclavonia, scarce)
 MONETA DVCIS P SCLAVONIA (scarce)
 MONETA REGIS P VNGARIA (rare)

Initials on the Árpád Dynasty coins are:
 King Bela IV (1235–1270):
 o - o,
 lily - lily,
 bird - bird,
 h - R (Ban Henricus Nemetujvari, 1267–1270)
 King Stephen V (1270–1272)
 S - R (Stephanus Rex),
 R - S (Rex Stephanus)
 King Ladislaus IV (1272–1290)
 R - L (Rex Ladislaus),
 L - R (Ladislaus Rex),
 S - L (Ban Stephanus Babonich - Rex Ladislaus, 1280-1282?),
 R - R - L (Ban Radoszlav - Rex Ladislaus, 1286–1288)
 King Andrew III (1290–1301)
 R - A (Rex Andreas),
 A - R (Andreas Rex),
 S - A (Ban Stephanus Babonich - Rex Andreas, 1300–1301),
 R - bird (Rex Andreas - Ban Stephanus Babonich, 1300–1301),
 A - bird (Rex Andreas - Ban Stephanus Babonich, 1300–1301)

See also

 marturina
 Dinar
 Croatian kuna

External links
 http://www.hr/croatia/economy/money/history
 https://web.archive.org/web/20061022035043/http://www.hnb.hr/novcan/povijest/h-nastavak-3.htm

13th century in Croatia
Coins
Medieval currencies
14th century in Croatia

Banovac


Jorge Leonardo Fariña (born 5 October 1986) is an Argentine who was implicated in the political scandal known as "the K money trail" involving entrepreneur Lázaro Báez.

Until Fariña became the target of a probe into money laundering in 2013, he was known to the Argentine public chiefly as the husband of famous model Karina Jelinek, who separated from him after the scandal broke. Because of his high-level involvement in the money manipulations and his marriage to Jelinek, Fariña attracted a great deal of media attention and was identified as the "man most wanted by the [TV interview] programs." The controversy swirling around both his personal and professional life caused La Nación to state that he was at the center of one of the "scandals of the year."

As of mid 2014, Fariña is in prison awaiting trial.

Early life and education
Fariña grew up in a working-class neighborhood in La Plata.

He attended the  to obtain the degree of accountant, however he dropped out. In June 2013, La Nación stated that Fariña had been "a student of accounting until three years ago," but in the same publication it stated that he dropped it out.

Early in his career, he worked at Dow Agrosciences Argentina.

Career
Due to personal connections, Fariña quickly rose to a pivotal role in the orbit of President Néstor Kirchner and businessman Lazaro Báez, playing various roles in Kirchnerite business activities and financial transactions that would later become the subject of investigation and prosecution. He was part of a circle of high-earning and high-living young men surrounding Kirchner, but was reportedly the only one who was able to "maintain his expensive tastes and expenses" after Kirchner's death. The article described Fariña's connection with powerful leaders as "inexplicable" to "many of those who interacted with him." Fariña would later be described in La Nación as having been "bold and arrogant" and "unpolished" by the usual "corporate standards," and as having exuded an air of mystery.  Even as he "moved millions," he "could owe 500 to 1000 pesos to several friends."

Fariña opened a consulting firm named Andrómeda, but other businessmen suspected the legality of his operations, noting that Andrómeda did not have a landline phone or a corporate e-mail address. The only contact information available for the firm consisted of Fariña's own cell phone and his e-mail address at gmail.com.

In late 2010, Fariña approached businessmen and Kirchner intimate Carlos Molinari, head of the firm Rei Fiduciaria, with the idea of starting a luxury-car rental agency. Molinari approved of the idea and gave money to Fariña to purchase a fleet of luxury cars and rent them to millionaires. The company paid for Fariña's and Jelinek's wedding.

In February 2013 Fariña was detained at the airport in Ezeiza with $20,000 he was planning to take to Chile.

Marriage to Karina Jelinek
Fariña gained celebrity as the husband of the famous model Karina Jelinek, whom he met at a party where they were introduced by mutual friends. "We met in Punta del Este," she later recalled. "Leo won me over with his nature…. He treated me like a queen." Jelinek was "struck by the high standard of living of a man who was just over 24 years old" and who, despite his humble upbringing, already owned "several high-end cars" and "an apartment on Avenida Del Libertador" and enjoyed "trips to Miami on private jets." She said, however, that his millionaire status did not matter to her; what mattered was that he was "sweet." Three and a half months later she proposed to him at a bowling alley. Three hundred and fifty guests, including leading politicians, businessmen, models, actors, and journalists, attended their 2011 wedding at the luxurious Palermo Tattersall.

Accusations and investigations
On April 14, 2013, Periodismo para todos (Journalism for All), an investigative-journalism series on Argentinian TV hosted by Jorge Lanata, presented an episode entitled "The K money trail" that included hidden-camera footage on which Fariña described in detail the financial maneuvers whereby Lázaro Báez, a businessman close to the Kirchners, managed to transfer about 55 million euros from Argentina to Switzerland. Fariña said he had aided in this money-laundering operation, and it was established that the link between Báez and Fariña was Molinari, who was described as the "protector" of Fariña.

Fariña claimed in an April 16 interview on the Intrusos program, hosted by Jorge Rial, that he was not involved in money laundering. He called Lanata an "anti-government operator" and accused him of "haughty arrogance." Fariña said that he had met Báez's son Martin through his work as a financial advisor to Austral Construcciones SA, that he had thereafter held meetings with the elder Báez and given him advice, and that he had subsequently met Néstor Kirchner through Báez. Fariña also maintained that he had known all along that he was being recorded on the Lanata show: "Lanata wanted fiction, so I gave him fiction," he claimed. In reply to Fariña, Lanata said: "I love everything you're saying…because it enhances what we will show next Sunday."

On April 17, 2013, La Nación stated that Fariña had been the subject of an official report, issued a year and a half earlier, on a "suspicious operation." On the same date, La Nación reported that in November 2010, at a meeting with a company involved with a multibillion hydroelectric project, Fariña had been presented as a representative of the Development Bank of China, and, to the surprise of his interlocutors, had exhibited knowledge of information that was supposedly known only to the Ministry of Strategic Planning. Also on April 17, La Nación reported that on March 10, Federal Judge Adolfo Ziulu, in response to a complaint by the tax authorities, had issued a restraint on alienation of properties against Fariña in the amount of 314,686.52 pesos (US$38,000). It was additionally reported on April 17 that Fariña had again been caught on hidden camera, this time on the Rial program, during which he had been recorded while the program was on a commercial break. Fariña said during this break that he did not talk about his business activities to his wife "because it's a danger."

La Nación reported on April 19, 2013, that federal prosecutor Ramiro Gonzales had asked federal judge Sebastian Casanello to order an investigation into alleged money laundering by Fariña and Elaskar. The transactions in question, which involved sums adding up to some 20 million pesos (US$2.4 million), were not those that the two men had admitted on Lanata's show to carrying out on behalf of Báez, but other activities that had taken place in 2010 and 2011. Proselac, the Office of Economic Crime and Money Laundering, had received three reports of suspicious transactions from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), headed by José Sbattella. Much of the FIU's attention was focused on Fariña's cash purchases of "high-end cars." The report stated that on the evening of April 18, the offices of Elaskar's firm SGI had been raided, as had Fariña's offices in his home in La Plata, and that documents had been seized at both places.

It was reported on April 27, 2013, that, according to sources in the aviation sector, Fariña had flown several times, always at night, to Punta del Este, Uruguay, "in different private planes." Moreover, Fariña had used airports where the customs controls were less strict. Media reports on April 28 stated that Fariña had also traveled frequently on private planes to the United States, Mexico, Italy, Panama, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina during the previous three years, in some cases returning within hours, a pattern of activity that had raised the suspicions of investigators. According to the manifest of one flight, Fariña had been the only passenger, and the cargo had consisted of "personal effects."

On April 30, 2013, Báez filed legal actions with federal judge Sebastian Casanello against both Fariña and Elaskar for having defamed him on Lanata's program.

On May 30, 2013, it was reported that Casanello had ordered Elaskar and Fariña to testify in court about money laundering on their part, evidence of which had been collected by the FIU on the orders of prosecutor Carlos Gonella. On June 3, Fariña failed to present himself in court for a scheduled inquest, of which his lawyer Ivan Mendoza had requested a postponement. In early June, Maximiliano Acosta testified in court that he, Fariña, and Maximiliano Goff, during a January 2011 stay in Uruguay, had been offered the right to purchase a 150-hectare plot of Uruguayan beachfront property, called The Entrevero, which Acosta had ended up buying as a front man for Daniel Perez Gadin, an associate of Báez. Also involved in the transaction were Carlos Molinari and his son Matthias, who planned to build a real-estate development on the site. Although promised a sizable commission, Acosta received nothing, and later received death threats, presumably from persons close to Báez, as a result of which he moved to Uruguay. On June 5, 2013, Acosta requested judicial protection for himself and his family.

On June 6, Casanello froze Fariña's and Elaskar's assets and ordered them to appear in court for questioning on June 10. Both men presented themselves in court on that date and spent several hours answering the judge's questions. Fariña repeated his claim that he had known Lanata was doing a hidden-camera program and that everything he had said on the program was "fiction." Fariña admitted having bought land in Mendoza at Báez's request, but denied having transported bags of money for Báez and said that his numerous flights to Uruguay had been "sightseeing trips." Both he and Elaskar denied that Báez had run a money-laundering operation, and both accused Lanata of promulgating lies in an effort to overturn the government.

Testifying again before Casanello in June 2013, Fariña said that he was an auditor for Austral Construcciones, a firm owned by Báez, and that he worked under Molinari, who paid him a monthly salary of 70,000 pesos (US$8,460). It was reported on June 12, 2013, however, that Fariña's official earnings could not account for the amount of money he had spent in recent years on various high-ticket items, such as his apartment in Buenos Aires and a number of cars, including two Ferraris, an Audi, and a BMW. It was also reported that Fariña had told Casanello that his flights to Mexico and Uruguay had been paid for by Molinari. In addition, Fariña said that Molinari's car-leasing firm had paid him several hundred thousand pesos in commissions. He outlined various other business activities in which he had been involved with Lazaro and Martin Báez. A June 16 report indicated that details of Fariña's financial relationship to SGI had been uncovered. On June 17, a complaint was filed against him for tax evasion.

In early July 2013, a court rejected Báez's suit against Fariña for allegedly defaming him on Lanata's program. Appearing in early July on a TV interview show, Fariña repeated his claim that he had not been telling the truth on Lanata's program. He said that his standard of living had "not changed since I met Karina," that he had never committed a wrongful act, and that he was "proud" to have known and worked with Báez. He asked Lanata for the "right to reply," charging the journalist with manipulating his on-camera testimony. "I have been mistaken in many things," he said, "but I'm not a criminal." In September 2013, Casanello ordered a raid on Molinari's firm Rei Fiduciaria, in order to determine the legitimacy of Fariña's claim that his lavish lifestyle could be accounted for by his income from Rei Fudiciaria.

Separation and divorce
Fariña's marriage to Jelinek was the frequent subject of headlines in the Argentinian press in the months following Lanata's program. On April 18, 2013, La Nación reported that Jelinek's life had "become an inferno" since the program aired. "I love him, he's my husband," she told reporters, but added that she and Fariña were "now at an impasse." An April 23 article reported that Fariña and Jelinek were still living together, despite everything. It was reported on May 22, 2013, that Jelinek, in the next few hours, would be flying to Miami "to get away from journalistic harassment, rethink her relationship with Leo Fariña, and make some decisions relating to her future career." Fariña was reportedly "very angry" and felt abandoned in a moment of crisis. According to a June 18 report, Jelinek had said that she still loved Fariña but that their marriage was in a "stalemate." Asked in an early July TV interview if she knew about the investigation into the K money trail, Jelinek said that she knew "nothing about politics," but asserted that she believed in her husband and denied having separated from him. Fariña showed on camera some of his 19 tattoos, including one that read: "Only God can judge me."

On August 28, 2013, Jelinek ended the marriage, reportedly motivated less by his legal troubles than by his extramarital indiscretions during travels abroad. "Lately he changed a lot," she explained, "and I was very neglected as a woman. He didn't even want me to accompany him on his trips; there was always some excuse." In a September 2 interview, she called Fariña an "idiot" (boludo) and affirmed that they were now separated. Although she had supported him over the money-laundering charges, recent revelations about his infidelities had caused her to distrust him fully. In reaction, Fariña gave a phone interview to Jorge Rial on Intrusos in which he accused Jelinek of breaking a "pact" she had with him and trying to commit extortion against him. He made lewd remarks publicly about Jelinek, which she completely dismissed.

Jelinek filed for divorce and in September went to court to ask that his estate be preserved intact in expectation of liens that she expected to file. "I don't want to lose any more," she said. She also asked for police protection, telling prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan that she felt threatened because she claimed Fariña was prone to violence, a charge Fariña denied. The couple's first settlement hearing was held on September 24. La Nación noted that although Fariña's public identity had been that of a millionaire, he had in fact "nothing in his name." The couple could not come to any agreement at the first hearing, after which Jelinek told the press that Fariña was a "pathological liar" and "psychopath." A second divorce hearing was held on September 30. In late September came reports that Fariña was involved with Uruguayan model Mónica Farro and that model Magali Mora was expecting his child. On December 1, Fariña tweeted a picture of him and his new fiancée, Macarena Perez, writing that they were "so happy." The divorce from Jelinek was finalized in February 2014.

Vehicles
On November 27, 2013, Fariña was involved in a near-accident in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires and was taken into police custody after the police ascertained that the BMW he was driving was not the same one for which he presented ownership documents. Fariña's lawyer Rodolfo Baqué told reporters that the vehicle belonged to a friend. The friend turned out to be Juan Ignacio Suris, who in December was charged with being the head of a drug-smuggling gang and arrested in January 2014.

In January 2014, shortly after marrying Macarena Perez, Fariña was again detained by the police for driving a vehicle, this time an Audi, for which he did not have the proper papers. Shortly thereafter, authorities ascertained that Fariña had not paid taxes on the car and that his summer home in Pinamar, in another apparent tax dodge, was officially listed as vacant land. The car was seized so that authorities could auction it to cover a portion of Fariña's tax debt. In March 2014, Federico Holjevac, son of a Croatian businessman who was under investigation for fraud, claimed ownership of an impounded Ferrari that he said he had bought from Fariña and that, the FIU believed, had perhaps been transferred as part of a money-laundering operation. La Nación reported on March 10, 2014, that the FIU had submitted reports to Casanello outlining Fariña's possession of luxury items registered in other people's names in order to avoid taxes. The FIU was also looking into the question of whether business activities by Suris were connected to money laundering by Fariña.

Arrest and pre-trial detention
On March 25, by order of Judge Manuel Blanco of La Plata, Fariña was arrested for tax evasion in a hotel in the Palermo section of Buenos Aires. La Nación reported on March 30 that the Fariña scandal was "expanding and branching off." On April 9, the newspaper reported an October 22, 2013 phone call in which Fariña proposed transferring $90 million from a bank in Portugal to Central America via Liechtenstein and other countries.

On April 11, 2014, Blanco indicted Fariña on charges of tax evasion and aggravated fraudulent fiscal insolvency. Blanco stated that the court had gathered ample evidence to support the charges. The "courtroom walls," stated La Nación in April 2014, were "closing in on Fariña." In May, Casanello indicted Fariña and Elaskar for money laundering related to Báez's operations. Fariña was accused of laundering 35 million pesos (US$4.2 million). Casanello seized Fariña's residence at Avenida del Libertador as well as several cars, property in Mendoza, and shares in three firms.

In a May 2014 police operation against a drug gang, a BMW belonging to Fariña was confiscated along with large amounts of marijuana and cocaine. Also in May, Blanco refused for the second time to release Fariña from jail; in June, the Federal Court of Appeals of La Plata, consisting of judges Carlos Nogueira, Antonio Pacilio, and Carlos Vallefín gave its approval to Fariña's continued pre-trial detention.

References

Argentine television personalities
National University of La Plata alumni
Prisoners and detainees of Argentina
Living people
1986 births
Kirchnerism

Leonardo Fariña


Anything for a Quiet Life and Other New Mystery Stories is a collection of nine short stories by the British writer Michael Gilbert published in the United Kingdom by Hodder and Stoughton in 1990 and in the United States by Carroll & Graf the same year. Gilbert, who was appointed CBE in 1980, was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers' Association. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1988 and in 1990 he was presented Bouchercon's Lifetime Achievement Award. All nine stories had previously appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.  All of them take place in a fictional English coastal town called Shackleton-on-Sea that is situated in the south of England not far from Brighton and Hove. In spite of Gilbert's usual low-key urbanity in his style, a number of them have an unexpected grimness about them. "Michael was an exceptionally fine storyteller, but he's hard to classify," said one of his British publishers after his death. "He's not a hard-boiled writer in the classic sense, but there is a hard edge to him, a feeling within his work that not all of society is rational, that virtue is not always rewarded.".

Reception
Upon publication, Kirkus Reviews found it to be:A charming collection of nine stories.... None of these stories is particularly noteworthy for the mystery it presents, but, taken together, they offer a wry commentary on English-village attitudes toward gypsies, Londoners, foreigners, holidayers, tradesmen, country gentry, business partnerships, farmers, small-town nabobs, and the relative discomfort that exists between the police and members of the legal profession.... A companionable way to while away the time... and a clear pleasure for partisans of the cozy.

Sybil Steinberg in Publishers Weekly said, "Though the characters may be two-dimensional and the stories of uneven quality, this collection, overall, delights by virtue of Gilbert's fanciful plotting."

Main characters and stories
The stories feature the activities of a small law firm called Jonas Pickett, Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths, recently started by Pickett, a man "on the wrong side of sixty". He was not, as he was fond of explaining to his friends, a retired solicitor.  He was a retreating solicitor.  Having made as much money as a bachelor of modest habits was likely to use in the rest of his lifetime, but not wishing to rust in idleness, he had abandoned a successful practice in north London and set up a modest office in Shackleton-on-Sea.

There are three other main characters, his partner, Sabrina Mountjoy; their secretary, Claire Easterbrook; and a general handyman, Sam Conybeare, "a mountain of a man who had once performed remarkable feats of strength and daring in a circus."  Pickett himself had played a role in an earlier Gilbert novel, The Long Journey Home. Confronted by arcane legal matters, Pickett consults Mountjoy: "She's a much better lawyer than I am."

The stories are all told from the third person omniscient narrator perspective, sometimes with the members of Pickett's law firm playing fairly minor roles.  They are written with Gilbert's usual straightforward, urbane, and somewhat detached tone but, as is usual in Gilbert's work, there is often a deceptively hard edge or even grimness to some of the stories.  In Holy Writ, for instance, a deranged but nevertheless sympathetically portrayed parson is only narrowly prevented by Pickett and Sam Conybeare from killing his trusting young son in emulation of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.  In the final story, The Freedom Folk, an encampment of squatters refuses to heed a warning from Pickett and is carried away to the sea by a flash flood; the fairgrounds strongman, Conybeare, heroically manages to save six of them from the waters, but the other 70 are drowned. By the end of the last story, four years have passed since Pickett first opened his office, he has been elected to the local governing council, and he has retired from practice.

In the first story Mr. Calder, one of the two protagonists of Gilbert's Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens and Game without Rules, makes a brief appearance. In the same story, Pickett also meets a police superintendent named Queen, as well as a headmaster named Major Appleby. Inspector Queen was a character in many of the Ellery Queen mystery novels by Ellery Queen, and Inspector Appleby was the lead character in many novels by Michael Innes.

In the second story, there is a small role for Chief Superintendent Morrisey, head of the London District Regional Crime Squad, a character in a number of works by Gilbert.

Stories in order
Anything for a Quiet Life, page 7 — Mr. Calder makes a brief appearance
Black Bob, page 28
Vivat Regina, page 50
The Reign of Terror, page 73
The Admiral, page 99
We've Come to Report a Murder, Sir, page 122
Holy Writ, page 147
The Bird of Dawning, page 171
The Freedom Folk, page 197

Notes

External links

1990 short story collections
British short story collections
Mystery short story collections
Short story collections by Michael Gilbert
Hodder & Stoughton books

Anything for a Quiet Life (short story collection)


Urs Schreiber (born 1974) is a mathematician specializing in the connection between mathematics and theoretical physics (especially string theory) and currently working as a researcher at New York University Abu Dhabi. He was previously a researcher at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Mathematics, Department for Algebra, Geometry and Mathematical Physics.

Education
Schreiber obtained his doctorate from the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2005 with a thesis supervised by Robert Graham and titled From Loop Space Mechanics to Nonabelian Strings.

Work
Schreiber's research fields include the mathematical foundation of quantum field theory.

Schreiber is a co-creator of the nLab, a wiki for research mathematicians and physicists working in higher category theory.

Selected writings
With Hisham Sati, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field and Perturbative String Theory, Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics, volume 83 AMS (2011)

Notes

References
Interview of John Baez and Urs Schreiber

External links
Home page in nLab

Category theorists
21st-century German mathematicians
Living people
1974 births
Science bloggers

Urs Schreiber


Paus & Paus AS was a former industrial company in Norway, active in the pulp and paper industry, chemical industry and pharmaceutical industry. It existed from 1906 to 2001 when it was acquired by Pemco. A number of former subsidiary companies still exist. For many years, it was one of the larger pulp and paper companies in eastern Norway.

The company was founded by Alf Paus (1869–1945) and Georg F. Helmer and initially named Helmer & Paus in 1906. Three years later, Helmer left the company, and Alf Paus' brother, Nicolay (Nissen) Paus, became the new partner, leading to the renaming of the company as Paus & Paus. In 1914, its headquarters relocated to Christiania, and it became a limited company in 1918. In 1920, Alf and Nicolay Paus acquired nearly all the shares of the factory Den Norske Papirfiltfabrik in Drammen, which subsequently became a subsidiary of Paus & Paus.

References

Defunct companies of Norway
Paus family
Manufacturing companies established in 1906
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2001
Norwegian companies established in 1906
2001 disestablishments in Norway

Paus & Paus


Euphorbia psammogeton, commonly known as sand spurge, is a flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae. The specific epithet derives from the Greek psammos ("sand") and geiton ("neighbour"), alluding to the typical habitat.

Description
E. psammogeton is a smooth, mat-forming, perennial herb, often with a woody rootstock. It has articulated, prostrate stems, growing to 35 cm or more. Its oblong to broadly elliptic leaves are 1–3 cm long and 0.5–1.5 cm wide, and asymmetric at the base. The tiny flower-heads are surrounded by white leaf-like bracts. Each flower-head consists of a female flower surrounded by up to five sets of tiny male flowers. The fruiting capsule is smooth and about 2 mm long.  It flowers in spring/summer and fruits in autumn/winter.

Distribution and habitat
The plant is endemic to Australia; it is found along the coast of New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland, as well as on subtropical Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea. It occurs in sandy coastal habitats, such as coastal dunes, and on beaches above high tide level. It is listed as endangered in New South Wales.

Taxonomy
Euphorbia psammogeton was first described by Green (1993) as Euphorbia psammogeton. This was amended to Chamaesyce psammogeton by Forster and Henderson in 1995 and was returned to the genus Euphorbia by Halford in 2012, giving it the currently accepted name of Euphorbia psammogeton.

Conservation status
It is listed as endangered under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.

Notes

References

psammogeton
Flora of Lord Howe Island
Flora of New South Wales
Flora of Queensland
Plants described in 1993
Malpighiales of Australia

Euphorbia psammogeton


David Aubert (before 1413 – working 1449-79) was a French calligrapher who transcribed and adapted courtly romances and chronicles  for the court of the Duke of Burgundy. In addition to finely presented works, illuminated at Bruges and other centres, for the Dukes Philip the Good and Charles the Bold and the Duchess Margaret of York, he completed manuscripts for Antoine de Bourgogne and Philippe de Croy.

He was the son of the ducal accountant and calligrapher Jean Aubert, and his elder brother worked as an administrator, members of a family with a tradition of public service in the Burgundian court, though his first mention as a scribe in the ducal service dates to 1463, after which he was salaried as a ducal secretary until Philip's death, and seems to have followed, at least some of the time, the very mobile court around the Duchy. In 1469, following the death of Philip the Good, he was an inventory-taker of the late Duke's library. He then produced at least eight manuscripts for Margaret of York, though Antoine de Bourgogne became his main client.

Like his contemporaries Jean Miélot and Colard Mansion, he seems to have run an atelier or workshop coordinating the various functions of producing deluxe manuscripts for the bibliophiles of the court circle. Despite being "one of the most studied Flemish scribes of (the period)", his personal role in producing many of the manuscripts signed by him remains uncertain; for example it is unclear whether, like Miélot and Mansion, he did the translations himself.

Aubert was responsible for an Histoire de Charles Martel that is now in the Bibliothèque royale, Brussels, and a Perceforest and a Renaud de Montauban (both in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris). He made two compilations, a Chronique et conquestes de Charlemaine (which includes a version of the tale of Fierabras) begun for Jean de Créquy but completed for Philip the Good, and a Chronique des empereurs. His manuscript of The Visions of Tondal is in the Getty Museum, heavily illustrated for Margaret of York by Simon Marmion. Forty-three extant manuscripts are signed by Aubert, who was unusual in very often signing his work, and another twenty-seven are attributed to him.

Notes

Further reading
 Les Manuscrits de David Aubert, edited by Danielle Quéruel. Cultures et civilisations médiévales 18, Paris, 1999.
 Richard E. F. Straub, David Aubert, Escripvain et Clerc, Amsterdam, 1995   surveys his career.

External links
Arlima List of works, in French, with short biography, partial details of surviving manuscripts and a bibliography.
 Turn the pages online of a  Getty Museum manuscript by Aubert

Arts in the court of Philip the Good
Medieval European scribes
15th-century French writers
French male writers

David Aubert


Euphorbia eleanoriae is a rare species of flowering plant in the euphorb family known by the common name Nā Pali sandmat. It is endemic to Kauai, Hawaii. Like other native Hawaiian euphorbs it is called akoko locally. This plant was only discovered in 1992 and described to science in 1996 as Chamaesyce eleanoriae. At that time there were fewer than 500 plants known, all occurring in small populations scattered across the sheer cliffs along the Nā Pali Coast of Kauai. By 2001 the total population had already dropped; only three populations were found, for a total of fewer than 50 plants. The plant was federally listed as an endangered species of the United States in 2010.

This is a shrub growing up to about 40 centimeters in maximum height. It is intricately branched into brittle red or green twigs. The leaves have oval blades up to 2 centimeters long by 1.4 wide, and pale green in color with reddish edges. The inflorescence is a small cyathium about 3 millimeters long with white appendages each less than 3 millimeters wide.

This rare plant grows on basalt cliffs and other windy coastal rocky slopes at elevations between 270 and 1036 meters. It inhabits mesic forests dominated by ōhia lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) and lama (Diospyros sandwicensis), M. polymorpha-dominated cliff-side and mesic shrublands, and dry cliffs dominated by kāwelu (Eragrostis variabilis). Threats to its existence include feral goats and invasive plant species such as Santa Barbara daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus), airplant (Kalanchoe pinnata), and lantana (Lantana camara). Many plants were destroyed by Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

References

External links
USDA Plants Profile

eleanoriae
Endemic flora of Hawaii
Biota of Kauai
Plants described in 2000

Euphorbia eleanoriae


Topo Gigio () was the lead character of a children's puppet show on Italian television in the early 1960s. The character, created in 1958 by artist Maria Perego, her husband Federico Caldura, and fellow artist Guido Stagnaro, debuted on Italian television in 1959 and has been customarily voiced by actor Giuseppe "Peppino" Mazzullo and later Davide Garbolino. The Italian nickname "Gigi" is a derivative of Luigi ("Louis"), so Topo Gigio could be translated as Louie Mouse.

Topo Gigio was very popular in Italy for many years—not only on TV, but also in children's magazines, such as the classical Corriere dei Piccoli, animated cartoons, merchandising and movies. In 1963, the character's popularity spread to the world after being featured on The Ed Sullivan Show in the U.S.

Today, Topo Gigio still has fans and has become an icon of Italian pop culture. He performs regularly at Zecchino d'Oro festival and other programs created by Antoniano and RAI. The character also spawned two feature-length motion pictures, The Magic World of Topo Gigio (1965) and Topo Gigio and the Missile War (1967), an anime series, and a 2020 animated series of the same name.

The puppet has made appearances and has a fan base in many other countries—including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela and the former Yugoslavia.

Dedicated media

Television
Topo Gigio was created in 1958 by the artist "Madame" Maria Perego and Guido Stagnaro, and starred in a children's television show in Italy in the early 1960s. He remains a fixture of Italian pop culture and still performs regularly at festivals in Italy.
 He was immensely popular in his home country and became a worldwide sensation after his recurring appearances, beginning in 1963, on The Ed Sullivan Show, in the United States. Created by a troupe of Italian puppeteers, it took four people to bring the 10-inch-tall () character to life: three to manipulate him, and one to create his voice. The puppet stood in a special "limbo" black art stage with black velvet curtains, designed to absorb as much ambient light as possible, which helped hide the puppeteers, who were also dressed in black from head to toe. Each puppeteer operated a different part of Gigio's foam rubber body by using several wooden dowel rods (also painted black). The illusion was quite remarkable, since unlike traditional hand puppets, Topo Gigio could actually appear to walk on his feet, sing, make subtle hand gestures, and even walk up Ed Sullivan's arm and perch on his shoulder. Careful lighting and TV camera adjustment made the "black art" illusion perfect for the television audience, though on at least one appearance, Ed asked the puppeteers to come out and take a bow, revealing their black-clad appearance (though deftly hiding Gigio's mechanisms to conceal the secret). In more than fifty appearances on the show, the mouse would appear on stage and greet Sullivan with, "Hello, Eddie!". Gigio would occasionally talk about his girlfriend, Rosie. Gigio ended his weekly visits by crooning to the host, "Eddie, kiss me goodnight!" (pronounced as "Keesa me goo'night!"). Topo Gigio closed Sullivan's final show in 1971.
 During the first half of the 1960s (especially in 1964), Topo Gigio also appeared in a TV music show presented by the British singer Chris Howland, both in Austria and Germany.
 In 1965, Topo Gigio appeared on the first of many occasions in ITV's Sunday Night at the London Palladium with Jimmy Tarbuck (Compere), Nina & Frederik and Lonnie Donegan.
In Hispanic America, Topo Gigio became a smash hit in 1968, featuring Braulio Castillo, Raúl Astor (Raúl Ignacio Spangenberg), and later, Julio Alemán.  The show was produced in Peru and then in Mexico. The character still appears in Italian and Spanish speaking territories.
A 1969 color television show especially for children in Austria and Switzerland was called Cappuccetto and Her Adventures with her friends Lupo Lupone, Professor Lhotko, a fox, some other animals of the forest, her grandmother, and a music band with five little mushrooms playing on guitars and singing.
The character was also introduced in Portugal, Japan, South America, and Spain. Topo Gigio, a Japanese animated television series produced by Nippon Animation, aired in Japan for two seasons, in 1988.
 In Portugal, Topo Gigio is loved by everyone. In 1979, Topo Gigio got his own tv Show in Portuguese television, with the voice of António Semedo, and presented by the Pianist, F.C. Porto aficionado,  and former Race Driver Rui Guedes. After that Topo Gigio had a nightly song for children to go to bed, he performed regularly on the show "Sequim d 'Ouro" in the 90's, and in 2000 Topo Gigio became part of the team of the most popular ever Tv Show in Portugal, the forever famous, unforgettable, and acclaimed "Big Show Sic", created and led by the also acclaimed Producer Ediberto Lima. Topo Gigio has engraved his beloved image, name, teachings, and character, in all, children and adults alike, hearts in Portugal.
An Italian animated series started being released on RaiPlay on April 8, 2020.

Films
The character has starred in several feature films, including:
 The feature film The Magic World of Topo Gigio (1961) is considered lost media.
 Topo Gigio and the Missile War (1967), a Japanese-Italian international co-production film directed by Kon Ichikawa
 Topo Gigio no castelo do Conde Drácula (1989, Pedro Siaretta)

Music
 Topo Gigio had several LPs with songs sung by Gabriel Garzón.

Spokesperson and mascot
 Topo Gigio has been the official mascot of the Uruguayan club Huracán Buceo since 1968.

Appearances and references in popular culture

Schools
 In Fortaleza (Brazil), there is a school named after the character.

Sports
 Argentine footballer Carlos Tevez claimed that his goal celebrations were to honour Topo Gigio after Manchester City's 2–1 win over his former club and fierce rivals Manchester United in the League Cup semi-final first leg 2009/10 season. Tevez claimed that his Argentine team mate Juan Román Riquelme also honours Topo Gigio with his goal celebrations.

References

External links
 Official website

 Entry at 45cat.com

Male characters in television
Anthropomorphic mice and rats
Puppets
Italian television shows featuring puppetry
Italian children's television series

ar:مغامرات سوسان

Topo Gigio


Ramponio Verna was a comune in the Province of Como in the Lombardy region in Italy. It has two districts Ramponio and Verna. On 1 January 2017, the former municipalities of Lanzo d'Intelvi, Pellio Intelvi and Ramponio Verna merged to form the new municipality of Alta Valle Intelvi.

Former municipalities of Como

Ramponio Verna


Boris II of Bulgaria was an emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria. He was emperor from 969 to 971. His father was Peter I of Bulgaria. When Peter died in 969, his son Boris was being held in Constantinople by the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II. The Byzantines apparently allowed Boris to return to Bulgaria. When he arrived he was immediately proclaimed Tzar Boris II. Sviatoslav I of Kiev, who had earlier subdued parts of Bulgaria, returned in August 969 and subdued the remaining parts of Bulgaria. He allied himself to Boris II in order to get his Bulgarian soldiers to fight against the Byzantines. The new Byzantine Emperor, John I Tzimisces invaded Bulgaria. By the end of 971 all of Bulgaria was in Byzantine hands. By that time Boris II had abdicated.

References

Emperors and empresses
Bulgarian royalty
10th-century births
977 deaths
Year of birth unknown

Boris II of Bulgaria


Elkhonon Goldberg (born 1946) is a neuropsychologist and cognitive neuroscientist known for his work in hemispheric specialization and the "novelty-routinization" theory.

Biography

Goldberg studied at Moscow State University with the great neuropsychologist Alexander Luria and moved to the United States in 1974. He is currently a Clinical Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine, Diplomate of The American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Neuropsychology, and Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of SharpBrains, an online brain fitness center. He offers post-doctoral training in Neuropsychology at Fielding Graduate University. Elkhonon Goldberg is the Founding Director of Luria Neuroscience Institute (LNI), an organization founded with the purpose of advancing research and disseminating knowledge about the brain and the mind. He describes himself as an atheist "with agnostic tendencies".

Scientific work

At Moscow State University, Goldberg studied psychology and mathematics and was among the early proponents of the discipline known today as computational neuroscience. In the United States Goldberg's work has been more clinical in nature. His research has focused on the function of the frontal lobes, hemispheric specialization, memory, cognitive aging, and general theory of functional cortical organization.

Among the early critics of the fashionable notion of neocortical modularity, he introduced the notion of "cognitive gradient" to capture the distributed and emergent properties of functional cortical organization.

Goldberg's work on frontal lobe functions includes the discovery of the "reticulo-frontal disconnection" syndrome, functional lateralization and gender differences in the prefrontal cortex. His work on memory includes the description of relatively pure retrograde amnesia without anterograde amnesia, which in turn has led to the elucidation of the role of brain stem arousal mechanisms in memory.

In clinical practice, Goldberg was among the early proponents of "cognitive fitness," purporting to harness the effects of lifelong neuroplasticity to delay and even reverse the effects of cognitive aging. First introduced by Michael Merzenich, the concept has gained the support of a number of leading neuroscientists. Nonetheless, it remains controversial and further research is required to validate it.

Goldberg is an author of a number of scientific journal articles and book chapters, as well as three books: Contemporary Neuropsychology and the Legacy of Luria; The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind; and The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older.

Novelty-routinization theory

His work on hemispheric specialization culminated in the "novelty-routinization" theory positing that (for the predominantly right-handed population) the two cerebral hemispheres are differentially involved in processing novel, unknown information (the right hemisphere) and processing in terms of stable pattern-recognition devices for known situations of mental routine (the left hemisphere). As for left-handers and ambidextrals, Goldberg indicates that the two hemispheres are less differentiated in function and structure. For these individuals there may be instances in which the left hemisphere takes the role of novelty processing and the right the routine processing.

Specifically, the right hemisphere favors the "heteromodal association cortex" while the left favors the "modality-specific association cortex", and both are engaged in complex information processing. The latter deals solely with processing information arriving from individual sensory systems, such as visual, auditory, and sensory ones. This kind of cortex, favoring more local connections between adjacent cortical regions, "dismantles the world around us to separate representations. ... think of an object in a three-dimensional space projected onto the x, y, z coordinates...". On the other hand, the heteromodal association cortex, favoring distant inter-cortical connections, integrates information arriving from sensory channels, or puts "the synthetic picture of the multimedia world around us back together." Goldberg likens these differences in connectivity thus: the left hemisphere is like a fleet of taxicabs that traverses short town-like distances while the right is like a fleet of airplanes that traverses large continental distances.

The novelty-routinization theory incorporates the more traditional distinction between verbal and nonverbal functions as a special case, but is more dynamic in nature, allows for evolutionary continuities, and provides a neurodevelopmental framework.

Books
 Elkhonon Goldberg. Contemporary Neuropsychology and the Legacy of Luria, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990.
 Elkhonon Goldberg. The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001; paperback 2002.
 Elkhonon Goldberg. The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older, NY: Penguin, 2005; paperback 2006. UK edition: Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2005.
 Elkhonon Goldberg. The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
 Elkhonon Goldberg. ''Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation', NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.

See also
 Brain fitness
 Alexander Luria

References

External links

1946 births
American atheists
Scientists from Riga
Living people
American cognitive neuroscientists
Neuropsychologists
Moscow State University alumni
New York University faculty
Jewish physicians
American consciousness researchers and theorists

Elkhonon Goldberg


Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov (;  – 24 May 1945) was a Russian post-impressionist painter.

Biography
Gorbatov was born in Stavropol in the Samara province. He lived in Riga from 1896 to 1903, and studied civil engineering before painting. Gorbatov moved to St. Petersburg in 1904 and studied at the Baron Stieglitz Central School for Technical Draftsmanship. He initially entered the architecture department of the Imperial Academy of Arts before switching to painting that he studied under Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy. Gorbatov received a scholarship and studied art in Rome and Capri. He returned to St. Petersburg and participated in the Peredvizhniki exhibitions.

Gorbatov left Russia permanently in 1922 following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and settled on the Italian island of Capri. He moved to Berlin in 1926, where he remained until his death. Gorbatov became a member of a Russian emgiree artistic circle that included Leonid Pasternak, Vadim Falileyev, Ivan Myasoyedov. He became a well-known established artist. Gorbatov traveled throughout Europe during the late 1930s, visited Palestine and Syria in 1934 and 1935, and often came by Italy. Gorbatov's art became unneeded in Nazi Germany and the family soon became impoverished. As a Russian émigré, he was forbidden to leave Germany during World War II. Gorbatov died shortly after the allied victory over Germany on 12 May 1945. His wife committed suicide on 17 June 1945.

Gorbatov bequeathed to the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. The works were delivered to the Moscow Regional Museum of history and Arts near the New Jerusalem Monastery, where they have since been exhibited.

Selected works

References

External links

19th-century painters from the Russian Empire
Russian male painters
20th-century Russian painters
Post-impressionist painters
1876 births
1945 deaths
Soviet emigrants to Germany
19th-century male artists from the Russian Empire
20th-century Russian male artists

Konstantin Gorbatov