KFWB (980 AM) is a commercial radio station in Los Angeles, California. It airs a classic Regional Mexican music format. KFWB is owned by Lotus Communications. The station has a colorful history, being the radio voice of Warner Bros. Studios in the early days of broadcasting, and a long-time Group W/CBS radio station from 1966 to 2016. It has kept the same call sign throughout its nearly 100-year history.

KFWB broadcasts with 5,000 watts of power from a non-directional antenna shared with KLAC on North Indiana Avenue near Lincoln Park in Eastside Los Angeles.  The studios and offices are on Barham Boulevard, near the Universal City complex.

History

The Warner Bros. years
KFWB first signed on the air March 3, 1925, initially on the frequency of 950 kHz. The station was started by Sam Warner, a co-founder of Warner Bros. The station launched the careers of such stars as Ronald Reagan, Alan Ladd and Bing Crosby during the "Golden Age of Radio." The station was the first to broadcast the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Although theorists believed the call letters stood for its original owner (examples such as "Keep Filming Warner Brothers" and "Four Warner Brothers"), the call sign was sequentially issued by the Department of Commerce, predecessor to the FCC. The station received its call sign just after KFWA in Ogden, Utah, and before KFWC in San Bernardino, both granted in February 1925. Nevertheless, Warner Bros. Cartoons regularly used KFWB as a running gag in its productions.

On February 8, 1937, KFWB opened a new facility on the south end of the Warner Bros. lot. It included six large studios, one of which was a 500-seat theater, and a "multi-manual pipe organ, built especially for broadcasting."

Bedtime for Sniffles, a 1940 Merrie Melodies cartoon produced by Warner Bros. and directed by Chuck Jones, has Sniffles the mouse trying to stay awake for Santa Claus, and a radio announcer signs off for the night identifying the station as KFWB. Another cartoon of the same year, The Timid Toreador, co-directed by Bob Clampett, shows an announcer broadcasting on this station, although the action takes place in Mexico. The 1934 Looney Tunes short Buddy's Bearcats directed by Jack King also contains an announcer broadcasting the station where KFWB was written on a wooden sign and was narrated by a parody of Joe E. Brown. The 1933 Merrie Melodies cartoon for I've Got To Sing A Torch Song released in conjunction with Gold Diggers of 1933 has KFWB written on the microphones in the scenes of the torch singers. KFWB was also written on one of the microphones at the end of 1953's Catty Cornered.

In 1932, a KFWB personality, Al Jarvis, began playing recorded music, a rarity on radio at the time, where music was usually performed live.  He called his show "The World's Largest Make Believe Ballroom."  In 1946, KFWB brought in two disc jockeys from New York City: Maurice Hart of WNEW, whose morning drive time show Start the Day Right was described as "Words and Music Straight from the Hart," and Martin Block, who shortened Jarvis's title to "The Make-Believe Ballroom." In those days, the DJs selected their own music, from either KFWB's extensive record library or new songs brought to them by "song pluggers." Old and new, vocal and instrumental, were mixed together to the disc jockey's choice.

In 1950, KFWB was sold to its longtime general manager Harry Maizlish.   It soon moved its studios off the Warner Bros. lot to join Maizlish's FM station, KFMV (now KTWV), on Hollywood Boulevard.

Playing rock & roll
In 1958, the original "Seven Swingin' Gentlemen" (a nickname for the DJ staff) turned KFWB into a rock & roll powerhouse in Los Angeles. Under new owners Crowell-Collier Broadcasting, program director Chuck Blore pioneered the Top 40 format on AM 980, calling it Channel 98 Color Radio. KFWB became one of the most listened-to stations in the Southland and a leader in the Top 40 format around the country. The air staff during the glory days included Roger Christian, Bill Ballance, B. Mitchel Reed, Bruce Hayes, Al Jarvis, Joe Yocam, Elliot Field, Ted Quillin and Gene Weed. Hourly updates were delivered by a staff of respected newscasters, including Cleve Herrmann, Charles Arlington, John Babcock, Beach Rogers, Mike Henry, Hal Goodwin, Al Wiman, Bill Angel, J. Paul Huddleston and Jackson King.

In the mid 1960s, KFWB was overtaken by rival KRLA. Then KRLA was put in second place by the launch of "Boss Radio" at KHJ, and this relegated KFWB to the position of the third-place Top 40 music station in the L.A. market.

All-news radio
In 1966, KFWB was purchased by Westinghouse Broadcasting. The previous year, Westinghouse had successfully launched an all-news radio format on WINS in New York City, after that station had been playing Top 40 music. On March 11, 1968, KFWB ended its Top 40 era, and was relaunched as an all-news radio station. The station promoted itself with the slogans "All news, all the time" and "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world", as first used by WINS, although KFWB's format used a 30-minute news cycle. The 22 minutes referenced the then-average length of a Los Angeles commute. Like WINS and co-owned KYW Philadelphia, KFWB had a running Teletype sound effect in the background during regular newscasts.

Also in Spring 1968, another Los Angeles radio station jumped into the all-news format, KNX, owned by CBS Radio. For the next 27 years, the two stations would be competitors, airing television commercials and sponsoring billboards, in an effort to be L.A.'s top radio news outlet.

In 1995, Westinghouse bought the CBS Corporation, merging the broadcast operations of the two companies, with KFWB coming under the ownership of CBS Radio.  For the first several years after their parent companies merged, KFWB and KNX continued to operate separately, as friendly rivals.

In addition to being an all-news station, KFWB also had sports play-by-play contracts. It previously aired Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games and many National Football League games from Westwood One. The NFL broadcasts stopped after the 2007 Pro Bowl, later switching to AM 790 KABC. With that, the slogan "all news, all the time" returned. However, in 2008, the NFL broadcasts returned for a brief period.

Beginning in 2008, KNX and KFWB were jointly branded as "CBSNewsRadioLA." The CBSNewsRadioLA brand was used for simulcasting special programs and for marketing to advertisers. In addition, there were no longer separate field reporters for KNX and KFWB.  CBSNewsRadioLA reporters filed stories for both stations.

Also in the 2009 season, KFWB began broadcasting some weekday baseball games of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, although the flagship station remained the Angels-owned KLAA. On August 13, 2009, CBS announced the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers had signed a multi-year broadcast rights pact, with KFWB carrying every Clippers contest.

Over time, KFWB's ratings gradually dropped. A number of factors may have been involved. KFWB is licensed to transmit with 5,000 watts, while KNX is licensed for 50,000 watts. In its final months as an all-news station, KFWB added more news about the movie and television industries, since many people in the Los Angeles market are employed in those fields.  But the ratings continued to fall. The station's last all-news broadcast concluded at 1:00am on September 8, 2009. Anchors Jan Stevens and Andi Marshall bid listeners farewell and thanked them for 41 years of support.

Moving to news/talk

On September 8, 2009, the station adopted a news-talk format, limiting the all-news blocks to AM and PM drive times. The station added nationally syndicated shows, including Dave Ramsey, Laura Ingraham, Michael Smerconish and Dr. Laura Schlessinger (who moved from longtime flagship KFI).  In 2011, Dr. Laura's show was dropped when she moved from broadcast radio to Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Dave Ramsey shifted to 11am-2pm and the station added motivational speaker Les Brown to its afternoon lineup. Brown left the station in 2012. Ramsey's show was discontinued in 2014. By the summer of 2014, KFWB's weekday line-up included: LA's Morning News with Penny Griego and Phil Hulett; Money 101 with Bob McCormick; "As We See It" with Phil Hulett and friends; LA's Afternoon News with Maggie McKay and Michael Shappee; and The Amani & Eytan Show from NBC Sports Radio.

In the early 2010s, the station was authorized by the FCC to boost its power to 50,000 watts, using a directional antenna involving multiple towers.  But the power increase was short-lived.  A few years later, new owners returned to KFWB's original 5,000-watt output, so the station could broadcast from a single non-directional antenna and take up less acreage of valuable Los Angeles real estate.

On November 2, 2011, CBS Radio placed KFWB into a trust headed by Diane Sutter, under the name "The KFWB Asset Trust." This was due to CBS Corp.'s ownership limitations after the network bought KCAL-TV in 2002.

Switch to sports

On September 22, 2014, KFWB became a CBS Sports Radio Network affiliate, cancelling all news blocks and general interest talk programs.  The station began calling itself "The Beast 980."

The Beast 980 featured a live and local morning show, The Home Team, hosted by Bill Plaschke and Jeanne Zelasko. The Beast 980's weekday lineup also featured Jim Rome and Fred Roggin. Sports updates were provided during the day mostly by Sam Farber, Amy Bender and Ted Sobel, with Hall-of-Fame USC Trojans broadcaster Pete Arbogast providing sports updates and as a fill-in host from time to time. The Beast 980 was the flagship radio station of the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers and the LA Galaxy soccer team of the MLS. The Beast 980 also carried NFL games, NCAA college football games and NCAA basketball games.

South Asian programming
On January 5, 2016, it was reported that KFWB was in the process of being sold to an operator of foreign-language radio stations. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission stated that the station would be acquired by Principle Broadcasting, a company backed by Mercury Capital Partners, for $15 million. The final price in the contract filed with the FCC was $8 million.

As a result of the sale, the station's sports format was discontinued on March 1, 2016. After one day of continuous airings of a five-minute retrospective of KFWB, the station began carrying the full service South Asian Bollywood music format which also was airing on KKDZ in Seattle and KLOK in San Jose. KFWB called itself "Desi 980". On March 16, 2016, the Los Angeles Clippers entered into a multi-year deal making KLAC the team's new flagship station, removing the games from KFWB.

Classic regional Mexican
On October 4, 2016, Lotus Communications agreed to purchase KFWB from Universal Media Access for $11.2 million. The sale was finalized on March 7, 2017. Lotus owns 34 stations in California, Nevada and Arizona, including three in Southern California: Farsi-language KIRN in Simi Valley, ESPN Deportes affiliate KWKW in Los Angeles, and its simulcast partner, KTMZ in Pomona. On October 31, 2016, KFWB switched to a regional Mexican music format as "La Mera Mera 980" (a colloquial expression in Mexican Spanish, meaning, "The Best of the Best"). In 2018, the station was named the official radio station for calling MLS's Los Angeles FC matches.

Notable former staff
 Irving Aaronson and his Commanders (circa 1929), Gary Franklin, Clayton Sandell, Zoey Tur, Ted Sobel and Philip McKeon.

Studios and transmitter
The original KFWB studios and transmitter location were at the Warner Bros. Studios, which is now KTLA, at 5800 Sunset Boulevard. One of the two original towers still stands prominently out front. Due to RF interference getting into the movie studio's "talkies" sound equipment, the transmitter was moved in 1928 to the roof of the Warner Theater, now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, at 6423 Hollywood Blvd. Eventually the studios were also moved to the Warner Theater. Those two towers are still standing.

Years later, when KFWB was sold to KFWB Broadcasting Co. (Harry Maizlish), the studios moved to 6419 Hollywood Blvd. (now demolished), and the transmitter moved to a site near La Cienega and Rodeo Blvd., about three blocks south of the KECA/KABC studio/transmitter site. To make way for the construction of a FEDCO membership department store, in July 1958 the transmitter moved to its present location, diplexed with 570 KLAC in East LA. The studios moved in 1977 to 6230 Yucca St., also in Hollywood.

In June 2005, KFWB moved into new studios on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district, sharing facilities with Entercom's other L.A. stations, KNX, KTWV and KRTH. Today, the studios and offices are on Barham Boulevard, near the Universal City complex.

References

Further reading
Herb Rosenblum. We'll Have More Music, Right After The News! Bloomington, IN : AuthorHouse, 2005.

External links

FCC History Cards for KFWB

FWB
Westinghouse Broadcasting
Radio stations established in 1925
Lotus Communications stations

KFWB


Amber and Iron is a fantasy novel in the Dragonlance book series by Margaret Weis, co-creator of the world of Dragonlance, and is the second of a trilogy based around the character Mina. It is the fifteenth novel in the series.

Publication history
Amber and Iron was written by Margaret Weis and published in November 2006. Other books in the series include Amber and Ashes (Volume 1) and Amber and Blood (Volume 3).

Plot introduction
The novel begins with where Amber and Ashes leaves off. Former Majere monk Rhys Mason is trying to escape the clutches of the death knight Auseric Krell after Rhys has the kender Nightshade, in the guise of a Khas piece, recover the imprisoned soul of Ariakan for his mother, the god Zeboim.

Mina, as enigmatic as ever, escapes imprisonment to set off on a quest that will test even her considerable will. All the while, evil spreads across the land, gaining ground with each new day. With so much at stake, with the very soul of Krynn on the line, champions must be found even in the darkest places.

Plot summary
Rhys Mason, former monk of Majere, begins the novel trying to escape death knight Auseric Krell. Rhys, having retrieved the soul of the Dark Knight Ariakan imprisoned by Chemosh in a khas piece, hands the piece over to Zeboim. She sends Rhys and Nightshade back to Solace. Once there, the sheriff, Gerard, seeks others for counsel about the mounting Beloved situation. Rhys agrees with Gerard to stay in Solace and help in any way possible.

After an encounter with a Beloved, Rhys, Nightshade, and Atta (Rhys' dog) head after the creature, eventually ending up in New Port. Here, Rhys finally finds his brother Lleu, a Beloved introduced in the first Dark Disciple novel, who he has been tracking ever since. Elsewhere, Mina has been imprisoned in a new tower of magic in Istar, at the bottom of the Blood Sea. It has been newly erected by the dark god of magic, Nuitari. At a Conclave of Wizards meeting, Nuitari reveals to his cousins about his tower. The three agree to erect three Towers of High Sorcery again, one for each of them. Back in the Tower, Mina begins her task set before her by Chemosh of searching for the Solia Febalas (Hall of Sacrilege). Once she has found it, she is unable to take anything for Chemosh because she becomes so overwhelmed by the god-presence in the Hall. Finally, Nuitari returns and gives Mina over to Zeboim who had begun an assault upon the Tower.

Zeboim takes Mina first to New Port where Rhys and his brother are at to have them meet. While there, Mina has a vision of Rhys and insists he knows the truth about her. Rhys' brother also pleads with Mina to take his life as a Beloved because he wishes it no longer. Before Mina can answer, Zeboim gives her back to Chemosh, who is irate with Mina for not getting any artifacts for him. He has been growing increasingly agitated that the Beloved will only follow her command and resist any by him or Krell. Rhys again tails his brother and finally confronts him again along with New Port authority when his brother tries to kill a woman. The woman's child attacks the Beloved on behalf of his mother and the Beloved is instantly destroyed, leaving the child in a coma-like state. Krell decides it would be in Chemosh's best interest if Krell would kill Mina, who is now being imprisoned by Chemosh. As he tries to follow through with his plan, Mina does something extraordinary; she makes him a human again. Then, because she believes Chemosh would want it, she pulls the Tower of Istar from the sea bottom and places it on top on an island in the middle of the ocean. Passing out from such exertion, the novel ends with all of the major and minor gods showing up and pondering over the nature of the unconscious Mina. Majere finally reveals that Mina is in fact a god like them, one of light, who was swayed and corrupted somehow by the Dark Queen Takhisis.

Reception

See also

 List of Dragonlance novels

References

External links
 Wizards of the Coast
 Sample Chapter (zipped)

2005 American novels

American fantasy novels
Dragonlance novels
Novels by Margaret Weis

Amber and Iron


Ruth Dreifuss (born 9 January 1940) is a Swiss economist, unionist and politician who served as a member of the Federal Council (Switzerland) from 1993 to 2002. She served as Vice President of Switzerland in 1998 and as President of Switzerland in 1999 for the Social Democratic Party.

Early life and education
Ruth Dreifuss was born 9 January 1940 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, the second of two children, to Sidney Dreifuss (1899-1956), a merchant, and Jeanne "Johanna" (née Bicard; 1905-1962), a secretary. Her elder brother, Jean-Jacques Dreifuss, is a professor emeritus at the University of Geneva. Her paternal family belongs to the oldest Jewish families of Switzerland settled in Endingen. Her maternal family originally hailed from Horbourg-Wihr in Alsace, they became citizens in Boppelsen in 1886. Officially, Dreifuss is non-denominational, however she considers herself as secular Jew.

In 1945, the family relocated to Geneva, where Dreifuss attended École de Sécheron, since 1947. After secondary school (Rue Neckar) she attended a commercial school completing a general business diploma. In 1958, she started to study social studies at Ecole des Études Sociales in Geneva, concurrently she attended several courses at the University of Geneva. In 1970, aged 30, she obtained a Master of Arts in Economics from this university.

Career
After business education, Ruth worked as a secretary and social worker. Also, she was a journalist at Cooperation from 1961 to 1964. She joined the Socialist Party (SP) in 1964. Between 1972 and 1981, she was scientific expert at the Federal Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Also, Dreifuss elected Secretary of the Swiss Trade Union, where she dealt with matters related to social insurance, labor law and women's issues, until her election to the Swiss Federal Council in 1993.

Dreifuss was a social-democratic member of the City of Bern's Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 1992. She missed out the election to the National Council of Switzerland in 1991.

She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an International network of current and former female leaders whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

Election to the Federal Council

After the resignation of René Felber from the Swiss Federal Council, a member of the Social Democratic Party was supposed to be elected, according to the unofficial "magic formula" used to determine the representation of the Swiss parties at the Federal Council. While Christiane Brunner was the Social Democratic Party's official candidate for the election on 3 March 1993, the right-wing parties decided to back another member of the Social Democratic Party, Francis Matthey, a member of the national parliament and a Minister of the Canton of Neuchâtel at that time who declined election, as his party did not support it.

A new election was organized on 10 March 1993, and the Social Democratic Party presented both Ruth Dreifuss and Christiane Brunner as the two official candidates. It was the first time that two women were on the official "ticket" for election, and Ruth Dreifuss was elected on the 3rd round with 144 votes.

Political actions undertaken

Ruth Dreifuss held the Federal Department of Home Affairs until her resignation on 31 December 2002. She was the first woman ever to be elected President of the Confederation from 1 January to 31 December 1999.

She won several referendums, including a revision of the Health Insurance Bill, the 10th revision of the social security system, a drug policy based on prevention, therapy, help and rehabilitation, and a new law regarding the film industry and its development. The 4-pillar policy was also aimed at reducing the spread of the AIDS epidemic, especially with a new policy regarding the supply of clean syringes.

She worked on a Maternity Insurance law, but since the majority of the Federal Council rejected the proposal, she had to ask the people to reject her own text, as she had to respect collegiality.

She is a member and former chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and a member of International Commission Against the Death Penalty.

Bibliography

 Dreifuss ist unser Name (Dreifuss is our name), by Isabella Maria Fischli, Ed. Pendo, 2002, .
 "Ruth Dreifuss" in Women of power - half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide, by Torild Skard, Bristol: Policy Press, 2014, .

References

External links

 Ruth Dreifuss in History of Social Security in Switzerland

Legacy interview. . Personal history interview
Time to Abolish Drug-Related Death Penalty by Ruth Dreifuss. HuffPost. Published 13 October 2015. Updated 6 December 2017.

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Members of the National Council (Switzerland)
Women members of the National Council (Switzerland)
Members of the Federal Council (Switzerland)
Women members of the Federal Council (Switzerland)
1940 births
Living people
Jewish Swiss politicians
Anti–death penalty activists
Drug policy reform activists
Female interior ministers
Women presidents in Europe
People from St. Gallen (city)
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland politicians
20th-century Swiss women politicians
20th-century Swiss politicians
21st-century Swiss women politicians
21st-century Swiss politicians
20th-century women rulers
Jewish socialists
Winners of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology
20th-century Swiss Jews
21st-century Swiss Jews
First women presidents

Ruth Dreifuss


WLMI is a radio station licensed to Grand Ledge, Michigan, serving Lansing. Owned by Midwest Communications, it broadcasts a classic hits format branded as Cruisin 92.9.

History

What is now WLMI began life as WCER-FM in Charlotte, Michigan, in 1963.  The station was co-owned with WCER (1390 AM, now Christian-formatted WLCM). On July 1, 1979, WCER-FM changed its calls to WMMQ, and on September 1 of that year, WMMQ separated programming from its AM sister and aired an adult contemporary/sports format as Q92.

By the mid-1980s, WMMQ was struggling in the ratings and losing to its Lansing-based A/C competitors, and the station's owners quietly prepared a format change. On April 15, 1985, WMMQ changed to a then brand-new format called Classic rock, making it one of the first FM stations in the United States with such a format. The station was consulted by Fred Jacobs, revered as the "father" of the Classic Rock format, and quickly became one of the most popular stations in mid-Michigan, and Jacobs' first Classic Rock success story.

After WMMQ moved to 94.9 FM on June 1, 1997, 92.7 became WVIC (94.9 was, for many years, WVIC-FM) and broadcast intermittently for the next several years. When it was on the air, WVIC aired fully automated classical music with no announcers and oddly placed legal station IDs, and with no commercials except for public-service announcements. Oddly, the station actually did show up in the Lansing Arbitron ratings during this time.

From 2001 to 2005, the station was WQTX, airing sports talk as "The Ticket."  Shows such as "The Sports Page" with Jack Ebling and Tom Crawford (now at crosstown WILS), "The Sports Inferno" with Mike Valenti (now at WXYT/Detroit), and "Mad Dog & Company" with David "The Mad Dog" DeMarco and longtime producer Brock Palmbos (now at crosstown WVFN) helped to push "The Ticket" ahead of crosstown rival, WVFN, in the ratings.

In October 2005, WQTX flipped to Smooth Jazz, adopting Jones Radio Networks' smooth jazz format, and changed call letters to WJZL; the Sports Talk format continued on former simulcast partner WTXQ. In April 2006, 92.1 FM abandoned the Sports Talk format for good as it flipped to Oldies, taking the WQTX calls formerly used on 92.7. WJZL eventually shifted its frequency to 92.9. Following the demise of Jones' Smooth Jazz network in September 2008, WJZL switched over to Broadcast Architecture's "Smooth Jazz Network" programming.

The station operated for many months on 92.9 at reduced power until November 16, 2007, when it was able to broadcast at 5,400 watts. Until the station went to full power, its weak signal was prone to severe fading and co-channel interference from WJZQ-FM in Cadillac, Michigan, even into Clinton County, which is located just north of Lansing. WJZL now has a much stronger signal in the immediate Lansing area and can be heard as far as Jackson in the south, Howell in the east, and Hastings in the west. The station, along with WJXQ, WVIC, and WQTX, was sold from Rubber City Radio to Midwest Communications in May 2010.

The station changed its call letters to WLMI in October 2010; after playing Christmas music for the holiday season, the station flipped to a locally-programmed classic hits format on December 27, picking up the format from WQTX's impending switch to country. On April 25, 2017, Midwest Communications announced that WLMI would switch to CHR the next day as i92.9.

On July 31, 2020, WLMI began running liners promoting that a "revolution" would begin at noon on that day. At that time, after playing "Bang!" by AJR, the station flipped to classic hits as "Cruisin' 92.9". The first song on Cruisin' was "Revolution" by The Beatles.

References

External links

LMI
Radio stations established in 1963
1963 establishments in Michigan
Midwest Communications radio stations
Classic hits radio stations in the United States

WLMI


The Municipal Buildings are based on the north side of Princes Street East in Helensburgh, Scotland. The structure, which served as the meeting place of Helensburgh Burgh Council, is a Category B listed building.

History
Following significant population growth, largely associated with the pioneering work of Henry Bell to develop local tourism and shipbuilding initiatives, the area became a police burgh in 1846. The new burgh commissioners acquired an old theatre on the corner of Princes Street East and Sinclair Street for use as a burgh office in 1850. With further growth driven by the arrival of the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway in 1858, the burgh commissioners decided to demolish the old theatre and to erect a purpose-built structure on the site.

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the former member of parliament, Alexander Smollett, on 15 August 1878. It was designed by John Honeyman in the Scottish baronial style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £4,454 and was officially opened on 13 July 1879. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto Princes Street East; the left hand bay, which was slightly projected forward and was gabled, was fenestrated with a three-light window on the ground floor, a cross-window on the first floor and a single casement window on the second floor and was flanked by bartizans. The second bay featured a doorway with a fanlight and a round headed surround decorated with a keystone bearing a bust of Henry Bell; the doorway was flanked by pilasters and brackets supporting an entablature bearing a coat of arms. The other bays were fenestrated with sash windows on the ground floor and the first floor and, at roof level, there were two dormer windows. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber.

The complex was extended to the north by twelve extra bays, to a design by Alexander Nisbet Paterson, to accommodate a fire station, a courthouse and a police station in 1906. Unusual features introduced by the architect included carvings of handcuffs above the entrance to the police station and, because he liked cats, a carving of a cat at roof level high above the entrance to the courthouse. A plaque to commemorate the life of the locally-born inventor, John Logie Baird, was unveiled on the front wall of the building by the provost, William Lever, in May 1952.

Following an extensive programme of restoration works costing £1 million, Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, re-opened the building and then met with the burgh officials in June 1965. The police service moved to a new police station on East King Street in the late-1960s and the fire service moved to a new fire station on South King Street in the mid-1970s.

The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the burgh council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged  Dumbarton District Council was formed in 1975. It was subsequently used for the delivery of local services by Dumbarton District Council, but after Argyll and Bute Council became the unitary authority for the area in 1996, the new council found structural problems in the building and it was left empty and deteriorating. The council had no further use for the building anyway after it co-located its local services at a new civic centre in Clyde Street in June 2015. In 2019, the building was sold to a developer who commenced works to convert it into a restaurant. In 2023 Peckham's opened a bar and restaurant in the building.

See also
 List of listed buildings in Helensburgh

References

Government buildings completed in 1879
Helensburgh
Helensburgh
Category B listed buildings in Argyll and Bute

Municipal Buildings, Helensburgh


The riding of waves has likely existed since humans began swimming in the ocean. In this sense, bodysurfing is the oldest type of wave-catching. Undoubtedly ancient sailors learned how to ride wave energy on many styles of early boats. Archaeological evidence even suggests that ancient cultures of Peru surfed on reed watercraft for fishing and recreation up to five thousand years ago. However, standing up on what is now called a surfboard is a relatively recent innovation developed by the Polynesians. The influences for modern surfing can be directly traced to the surfers of pre-contact Hawaii.

Peru

Archaeologists have found that the practice of riding a vessel with a wave was utilized since the pre-Inca cultures around three to five thousand years ago. The Moche culture used the caballito de totora (little horse of totora), with archaeological evidence showing its use around 200 CE.

An early description of the Inca surfing was documented by Jesuit missionary José de Acosta in his 1590 publication Historia natural y moral de las Indias, writing:

To this day Caballitos de Totora are still used by local fishermen and can also be ridden by tourists for recreational purposes.

West Africa

West Africans (e.g., Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal) and western Central Africans (e.g., Cameroon) independently developed the skill of surfing. Amid the 1640s CE, Michael Hemmersam provided an account of surfing in the Gold Coast: "the parents 'tie their children to boards and throw them into the water.'" In 1679 CE, Barbot provided an account of surfing among Elmina children in Ghana: "children at Elmina learned "to swim, on bits of boards, or small bundles of rushes, fasten'd under their stomachs, which is a good diversion to the spectators." James Alexander provided an account of surfing in Accra, Ghana in 1834 CE: "From the beach, meanwhile, might be seen boys swimming into the sea, with light boards under their stomachs. They waited for a surf; and came rolling like a cloud on top of it. But I was told that sharks occasionally dart in behind the rocks and 'yam' them." Thomas Hutchinson provided an account of surfing in southern Cameroon in 1861: "Fishermen rode small dugouts 'no more than six feet in length, fourteen to sixteen inches in width, and from four to six inches in depth.'"

Polynesia
The art of surfing, known as hee nalu (literally, wave sliding) in the Hawaiian language, was recorded in his journal by Joseph Banks aboard  during the first voyage of James Cook, during the ship's stay in Tahiti in 1769:...their cheif [sic] amusement was carried on by the stern of an old canoe, with this before them they swam out as far as the outermost breach, then one or two would get into it and opposing the blunt end to the breaking wave were hurried in with incredible swiftness. Sometimes they were carried almost ashore...
Surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture and predates European contact.  The chief (Ali'i) was traditionally the most skilled wave rider in the community with the best board made from the best wood. The ruling class had the best beaches and the best boards, and the commoners were not allowed on the same beaches, but they could gain prestige by their ability to ride the surf on their boards.

In Tahiti and Samoa, surfing was a popular pastime that was often used as part of warriors' training. Warriors often paddled to surf breaks and were recorded in print by early European historians as spending many hours bravely paddling head-on into large surf and riding waves. Canoes often accompanied surfing parties and the men would often swap between canoeing and paddling boards, and then catch fish after their recreational activities. In Hawai'i, surfing became ingrained into the very fabric of Hawaii'an religion and culture.

The sport was also recorded in print by other European residents and visitors who wrote about and photographed Samoans surfing on planks and single canoe hulls; Samoans referred to surf riding as fa'ase'e or se'egalu. Edward Treager also confirmed Samoan terminology for surfing and surfboards in Samoa. Oral tradition confirms that surfing was also practiced in Tonga, where the late king Taufa'ahau Tupou IV became an expert  surfer in his youth. Matt Warshaw, however, says the King began to surf in the 1960s on a board given him by Duke Kahanamoku.

Ancient Hawaii
Hawaiians referred to this art as hee nalu which translates into English as "wave sliding." The art began before entering the mysterious ocean as the Hawaiians prayed to the gods for protection and strength to undertake the powerful mystifying ocean. If the ocean was tamed, frustrated surfers would call upon the kahuna (priest), who would aid them in a surfing prayer asking the gods to deliver great surf. Prior to entering the ocean, the priest would also aid the surfers (mainly of the upper class) in undertaking the spiritual ceremony of constructing a surfboard.

Hawaiians would carefully select one of three types of trees. The trees included the koa (Acacia koa), ulu (Artocarpus altilis), and wiliwili (Erythrina sandwicensis) trees. Once selected, the surfer would dig the tree out and place fish in the hole as an offering to the gods. Selected craftsmen of the community were then hired to shape, stain, and prepare the board for the surfer. There were three primary shapes: the olo, kikoo, and the alaia. The olo is thick in the middle and gradually gets thinner towards the edges. The kikoo ranges in length from  and requires great skill to maneuver. The alaia board is around  long and requires great skill to ride and master. Aside from the preparatory stages prior to entering the water, the most skilled surfers were often of the upper class including chiefs and warriors that surfed amongst the best waves on the island. These upper-class Hawaiians gained respect through their enduring ability to master the waves and this art the Hawaiians referred to as surfing.
Some ancient sites still popular today include Kahaluu Bay and Holualoa Bay.

Post-contact Hawaii
After contact with the Western World Hawaiian culture was forced to change. While Europeans were preoccupied with exploring and later colonizing the Pacific, they defined the islands as specks of land in a faraway sea. Western diseases spread and colonization began, plantations were built, and immigration started. Local Hawaiians, mixed with imported workers from Asia, were put to work on sugar plantations and Protestant missionaries attempted to turn the population from their traditional beliefs into Christians. Along with the suppression of traditional culture was the suppression of surfing, often viewed as frivolous.

It was not until Waikiki became a tourist destination that surfing began a resurgence in popularity. Particularly wealthy Americans came to the beach and saw the locals occasionally surfing what had long been an established surf break, Waikiki, and wanted to try it. Mark Twain attempted it but failed in 1866. Jack London tried it while visiting, then chronicled it enthusiastically in an essay entitled "A Royal Sport" published in October 1907. In 1908 Alexander Hume Ford founded the Outrigger Canoe and Surfing Club the first modern organization developed to promote surfing broadly, although it was de facto whites-only and women weren't admitted until 1926. Local Hawaiians started their own club in 1911 called Hui Nalu, meaning "Club of the Waves". But the first surf icons who gained widespread recognition, George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku, became famous for practicing their traditional sport and helped spread it from Waikiki to around the world.

As the news of this new sport began to spread, locals in Waikiki began giving lessons and demonstrations for tourists. This was the basis of the Waikiki Beach Boys, a loose group of mostly native Hawaiians who hung out at the beach, surfed daily, and taught wealthy haole tourists how to ride waves. This was also known as the Hawaiian boarder-land, where white hegemony was uncertain and Natives inverted dominant social categories. A borderland is a place where differences converge and social norms are often fluid. Because state-sanctioned authority is often absent from the borderlands, unique social and cultural identities are formed there. This was the foundation of a continual element of surf culture, repeated around the globe innumerable times and continuing to this day: people who, for at least a time, dedicate most of their daily lives to living on or around the beach and surfing as much as they can. These groups in Hawaii, and following in Australia, California, laid the foundation for modern surf culture around the world.

North America

In July 1885, four teenage Hawaiian princes took a break from their boarding school, St. Mathew's Hall in San Mateo, and came to cool off in Santa Cruz, California. There, David Kawananakoa, Edward Keliiahonui, Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole, and Elle Mancini surfed the mouth of the San Lorenzo River on custom-shaped redwood boards, according to surf historians Kim Stoner and Geoff Dunn.
In 1907 George Freeth was brought to California from Hawaii, to demonstrate surfboard riding as a publicity stunt to promote the opening of the Los Angeles-Redondo-Huntington railroad owned by Henry Huntington, who gave his name to Huntington Beach. Freeth surfed at the Huntington Beach pier and travelled up and down the coast demonstrating surfing and lifeguard skills.

Surfing on the East Coast of the United States began in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina in 1909 when Burke Haywood Bridgers and a colony of surfers introduced surfing to the East Coast. The State of North Carolina honored Burke Haywood Bridgers and the colony of surfers by placing a North Carolina Highway Marker for PIONEER EAST COAST SURFING on Wrightsville Beach and designated Wrightsville Beach as the birthplace of surfing in North Carolina in 2015. North Carolina has the greater weight of published verifiable accurate evidence and impacts a broader geographical area when compared to other east coast states. Burke Haywood Bridgers and the colony of surfers activities are among the earliest appearances of surfboards in the Atlantic Ocean. The early twentieth-century surfers proved that surfing migrated from Hawaii to California and North Carolina about the same time, then Florida.
The Wrightsville Beach Museum Waterman Hall of Fame honors, recognizes, and inducts community members for their contributions to the island's watersport culture.

Surf Culture Epicenters

For over a century now intrepid North American surfers have explored and ridden innumerable rugged and unnamed waves all over the vast North American coastline, yet distinct surf cultures tend to form around special small areas of particularly consistent good surf. The most archetypal and original of these is Malibu (both before and after Gidget). Not only is Malibu a rare world-class wave, but being adjacent to Hollywood it became the stereotype of Southern Californian surfing culture for the rest of the United States and the world. As Waikiki represented Hawaii, so Malibu represented California in the popular mindset. Both wave's quality remains intact to this day, but their local culture has gone through many shifts. Great surf epicenters often find their original surf culture quickly overrun by outside popularity, sometimes repeatedly.

Generally there are nine broadly defined continental regions, based on similar conditions: Alaskan, Cascadian, Northern California, Southern California, the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, East Coast of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, the North East, and Puerto Rico. Usually Hawaii is considered a separate entity from North America, subdivided by island and region. In professional surfing US mainlanders often use the American flag whereas Hawaiians (of any race) use the Hawaiian state flag.

Australian surfing

In 1910, Tommy Walker returned to Manly Beach, Sydney, with a  surfboard "bought at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, for two dollars." Walker became an expert rider and in 1912 gave several exhibitions in Sydney.

Surfboard riding received national exposure with the exhibitions by Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku in the summer of 1914-1915 at several Sydney beaches. As a current Olympic sprint champion, Kahanamoku was invited to tour the Eastern states for an extensive series of swimming carnivals and at his first appearance in the Domain Pool, Sydney, smashed his previous world record for 100 yards by a full second.
Following the first exhibition at Freshwater on 24 December 1914, in the New Year Kahanamoku demonstrated his skill at Freshwater and Manly, followed by appearances at Dee Why and Cronulla.

Duke Kahanamoku's board is now on display in the Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club, Sydney, Australia.

Great Britain

In 1890, the pioneer in agricultural education John Wrightson reputedly became the first British surfer at Bridlington in Yorkshire when instructed by two Hawaiian students, Princes David Kahalepouli Kawanaankoa Piikoi and Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Pikkoi, studying at his college.<ref>Malcolm Gault-Williams, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r84MBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA255 Legendary Surfers: The 1930s],  Volume 3, Lulu (2012) - Google Books pg. 255</ref>

Modern surfing
Around the start of the 20th century, Hawaiians living close to Waikiki began to revive surfing, and soon re-established surfing as a sport. The revival is linked to real estate development and efforts to boost tourism. The beach was historically a place where haole and Hawaiian worlds collided and violence was sometimes a substitute for mutual understanding. Duke Kahanamoku, "Ambassador of Aloha," Olympic medalist, and avid waterman, helped expose surfing to the world. Kahanamoku's role was later memorialized by a 2002 first class letter rate postage stamp of the United States Postal Service. Author Jack London wrote about the sport after having attempted surfing on his visit to the islands. Surfing progressed tremendously in the 20th century, through innovations in board design and ever-increasing public exposure.

Surfing's development and culture was centered primarily in three locations: Hawaii, Australia, and California, although the first footage of surfing in the UK was in 1929 by Louis Rosenberg and a number of friends after being fascinated by watching some Australian surfers. In 1959 the release of the film Gidget, based on the life of surfer Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman, boosted the sport's popularity immensely, moving surfing from an underground culture into a national fad and packing many surf breaks with sudden and previously unheard of crowds. B-movies and surf music such as the Beach Boys and Surfaris based on surfing and Southern California beach culture (Beach Party films) as it exploded, formed most of the world's first ideas of surfing and surfers.  This conception was revised again in the 1980s, with newer mainstream portrayals of surfers represented by characters like Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

The anonymous sleeve notes on the 1962 album Surfin' Safari, the first album to be released on the Capitol label by The Beach Boys, include a rather tongue-in-cheek description of the sport of surfing thus:"For those not familiar with the latest craze to invade the sun-drenched Pacific coast of Southern California, here is a definition of "surfing" - a water sport in which the participant stands on a floating slab of wood, resembling an ironing board in both size and shape, and attempts to remain perpendicular while being hurtled toward the shore at a rather frightening rate of speed on the crest of a huge wave (especially recommended for teen-agers and all others without the slightest regard for either life or limb)."

Regardless of its usually erroneous portrayal in the media, true surfing culture continued to evolve quietly by itself, changing decade by decade. From the 1960s fad years to the creation and evolution of the short board in the late 60s and early 70s to the performance hotdogging of the neon-drenched 1980s and the epic professional surfing of the 1990s (typified by Kelly Slater, the "Michael Jordan of Surfing"). In 1975, professional contests started. That year Margo Oberg became the first female professional surfer.

Surfing documentaries have been one of the main ways in which surfing culture grows and replenishes itself, not just as a sport but as an art form, the style and quality of surf films have often tracked well the evolution of the sport.

Professional surfing

Defining the scope of professional surfing is difficult, because like in many extreme sports, there is more than one model for what constitutes a professional. There are three main contemporary modes of making money purely as an active surfer: sponsorship, surf contests, and social media influence. Most often all three go together, but sometimes well-known professionals excel in only one.

If a professional surfer is someone who makes money from surfing (not including teaching), then the history of professional surfing dates to perhaps 1959 when the first West Coast Surfing Championships was held in Huntington Beach, California. Previously there had been innumerable amateur competitions, from the ancient Hawaiians themselves who were known to wager on the outcomes, to multiple iterations of surf competition as some form of race (commonly starting from shore, paddling to a buoy, then catching a wave back to shore).

In 1961 the United States Surfing Association (USSA) was founded, arguably the first proto-professional surfing contest organization. This was also about the time when surfing switched from core action: simply riding a quality wave, to a more style-oriented endeavor where turns, tricks, style, and artistry began to be important. Dynamic moves, such as nose-riding, top turns, and cut-backs were becoming even more important than catching the best wave and riding it for the longest possible time, which had previously been the primary goal, and seemed self-evident to earlier surfers.

Through numerous iterations of the surf contest and small sponsorships, very few people ever made a living from surfing alone (by not teaching or producing signature model boards or clothing) until the 1970s. As described in the documentary Bustin' Down the Door much of the prestige and money to be made from contest surfing resided in Hawaii, specifically, the increasingly important epicenter of worldwide performance-surfing: the North Shore of Oahu. But when Australians and South Africans showed up to join the Californians who had been migrating there in waves for nearly 20 years, multiple tensions arose between not only the Americans vs international surfers, but even more powerfully between the local Hawaiians and the haoles generally.

Into the 1980s surfing saw its second boost of wider popular recognition (the first being from Gidget) with new neon colors, increasing shortboard performance, more professional surfers, and a number of surf brands becoming trendy beyond surfing, such as Town & Country Surf Designs and Body Glove. The pro surfers of the 1980s were able to make more money, get more exposure, and generally survive longer with no job other than contest surfing and sponsorship.

In the last few decades there are generally less than 60 men and 30 women who qualify for the highest level of the surf league each year in its modern form, the WSL. There are thousands more surfers competing in various smaller surf contests held continually around the world, the majority of them being for groms (young participants). In the last half century of competitive surfing, nearly all professionals have learned to surf as children and were essentially prodigies, as in most modern professional sports.

In 1920, Duke Kahanamoku, the "Father of Modern Surfing", proposed that the sport be included in the Olympics. Surfing was to be a part of the Olympics for the first time ever in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, allowing athletes from around the world to show their skills in the sport. Before surfing could make its Olympic debut, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to be cancelled and then rescheduled for the year 2021. Surfing is set to appear in the 2021 Olympics with several members of the WSL as well as other amateur surfers for the first time ever at Tsurigasaki Beach in Chiba Japan.

Technological innovations in surfing

Surfing has been an internationally co-developed sport since its early spread beyond Hawaii, and has been highly influenced by (and generally welcoming of) new technology. There are no standards or committees to rule surfboard design or progression. Change has been rampant. Surfers generally pick styles and materials based on performance, feeling, and price. Surfboard shapers can be global name-brand professionals, local artisans, or even backyard amateurs. Unlike many other sports, the high variability and subtle performance differences in the main apparatus, the surfboard, is fundamental to both the experience and history. While many other sports standardize their equipment, in surfing, diversity in craft-design played a huge part in its history and still ongoing culture.

Much of the last century of surf history has been defined by new eras of technology which often fundamentally changed the experience. Surfers themselves have often developed, altered, or anticipated new technology to grant increased access to previously unsurfed waves and places. And unlike many other sports, the secondary equipment became almost as important as the core surfboard, a prime example being the wetsuit. The worldwide history of surfing could easily be divided between pre-wetsuit and post-wetsuit, because it expanded the potential to surf places previously far too cold, which comprised a vast amount of un-surfed worldwide coastline. On a similar basis, surfing history could justifiably be divided between pre-polystyrene and post-polystyrene surfboards, or pre-fin and post-fin as the original Hawaiian boards did not have fins until Tom Blake added one in 1935. Technology has changed surfing repeatedly and dramatically throughout its modern development, generally making the sport more accessible, cheaper, easier, and raising the level of performance.

Much of this change has also come from the fact that surfing was originally, and for many decades into the modern era, primarily a tropical or summertime only warm water sport, and a developed-world sport, making its early range quite limited. But after the arrival of mass-produced fiberglass boards, quality wetsuits, offroad vehicles, and inexpensive international travel, surfing became accessible along many parts of the world's coasts which were previously unthinkable or unknown as surf spots. Travelers thereby introduced the sport and equipment to the local coastal peoples of even very remote places. By the 21st century, much of the worldwide coastline has been explored and local peoples surf in nearly every country with access to waves. Yet unlike many other aspects of human expansion, there remain surf breaks as yet never ridden by humans, often in remote or treacherous corners of the globe, politically unstable areas, or around uninhabited islands, many which might yet reveal great surf spots in the future.

The Short Board Revolution

The ancient Hawaiians had mainly three types of board: Olo, Alaia, and Paipo. The Olo was 4.5 to 6.096 meters (15 to 20 ft) long and solid wood. They were very difficult to make and reserved for the upper classes. The Alai was only 1.82 or 2.13 meters (6 or 7 ft) long and usually much thinner. The Paipo was even smaller and similar to a modern bodyboard. None of these had a fin.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century nearly all modern surfboards were longboards, generally 2.74 meters (9 ft) or longer, although after the 1930s they began to shift away from being solid dense wood and towards lighter materials like balsa wood, and eventually various forms of polystyrene, which still dominate to this day.

Throughout the decades, shapers had occasionally made smaller boards, often as novelties, experiments, or specifically designed for small-statured people, but the popularity of those designs was slow to rise. During the surfboard production boom of the 1960s, the predominantly male shapers would sometimes construct specifically smaller boards for girls (who are often lighter and shorter, affecting weight/length requirements for paddling). Yet often they ended up surfing those small boards themselves because the style of surfing was different and mid-wave turns were growing in popularity, more easily done on shorter boards.

A fundamental reason for longer, thicker, more buoyant surfboards generally is they paddle faster, and paddle-speed is crucial to wave catching. But in the 1960s faster waves were becoming more popular, waves with narrower take off zones, requiring more skill to drop in. If the surfer could catch a fast wave, then a shorter board was inherently more maneuverable (and by extension more fun).

By the early 1970s, shorter boards began to rise dramatically in popularity, not just as novelties but as fulltime craft, so design innovation was not far behind. The number of fins and their location was experimented with. Various nose and tail shapes were tried. Then, by the 1980s, the styles were refined and coalescing into the modern shortboard just as the second large burst of broader surf-culture popularity within the mainstream was occurring. The 3-fin, 1.82 meters (6-ft-tall)"thruster" shortboard began to take over as the most popular design. A generally narrow board with rather small variance in design was being mass-produced. It nearly always has three fins, a pointed nose, a squash tail, and was approximately the height of the rider.

This basic style of board, with many small modifications, has been the dominant craft since the 1980s and is still the approximation of the modern professional surfboard. In 21st century professional surfing the common boards have slowly become shorter and wider, with a more rounded nose and sometimes 4-fins (very rarely 2-fins and never 1-fin), although non-professionals still regularly mix and match all those options based on personal taste.

Big wave surfing

Although the original Hawaiian surfers would ride large unbreaking ocean swells on their Olo boards, surfing a breaking wave larger than 4.5 to 6.1 meters (15–20 ft) was extremely challenging with pre-modern equipment, if it was attempted at all. But once board design began advancing rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s these larger and faster waves became more accessible. The first truly renowned big wave spot was Oahu's Waimea Bay. As the North Shore of Oahu was being explored for all its various breaks, Waimea was seen as too fast, brutal, and difficult. As detailed in the movie Riding Giants the first documented successful attempt was in October 1957. Once Waimea was finally surfed, it spawned the search for other giant waves around the world, and a devotional subset of surfers who specifically desired to surf very large waves. By the 1990s there were numerous giant waves being surfed all over the world, some regularly reaching the  12.2, 15.2, even 18.3 meters (40-, 50-, 60-ft) range. Big wave surfing bifurcated into two main branches: paddle-in and tow-in. Some waves are so big and quick it is nearly impossible to paddle fast enough to catch them, so surfers started towing behind boats and PWCs in order to catch the wave.

Style versus performance

"What is the purpose of surfing?" has long been philosophically debated in and out of surf culture. Often the entire endeavor has been viewed in the popular media as a waste of time, or the occupation of slackers. For the most part, surfing is agreed to be purely recreational, as it did not develop from, or turn into, a useful mode of daily transportation (as opposed to skiing or skateboarding, which can be both). Therefore in judging and appreciating surfing there has always been varying opinions about what is necessary, stylish, extravagant, and/or functional.

The variety and size of waves varies tremendously, as does surf craft, and to some degree even the medium. Harnessing the momentum of a wave for travel is the loosest definition of surfing, so in popular culture, the term is often applied to many forms of expanded "surfing". Particularly "surfing the web" and "couch surfing" common examples. But also characters like The Silver Surfer have taken the notion of surfing into science fiction.

There are also those who view surfing in a religious context. Certainly for the ancient Hawaiians, this component was important because the ocean was viewed as a deity. Yet also in modern surfing it is common for surfing to refer to it as some form of church or mass.

Surfing's impact on popular culture

Comparatively small and localized surfing cultures have repeatedly generated surprisingly large influence upon popular culture, particularly in the United States of America and Australia, as well as upon the global consciousness of surfing as a form of recreation. Since the expansion of surfing in the mid-20th century, there have been numerous coastal towns that were situated near good surf breaks, whose citizens did not yet know about modern surfing, and so did not even realize it was a rare commodity.

In America and Australia, the culture of surfing has influenced popular culture in periodic fads, starting with novels, movies, and the early-1960s TV show, Gidget. Gidget is often given credit for popularizing surfing as a "slightly strange and hedonistic lifestyle". In film specifically, the surfing image has been so popular that it  inspired an entire "beach party/surf film genre". The attention that surfing has received in  popular culture has waxed and waned, much like other niche sports.

Another area of popular culture where surfing has had significant influence is popular music. As many scholars recognize, a large part of surfing's popularity is from the positively connoted image of "beach parties, rich tans, loose clothing, and surf-ready cars"; in other words, there is "more to surfing than the sea". This image is very well suited to be represented in popular music, which is why so many popular teen anthems are based on the surfing craze. The Beach Boys, a group whose songs frequently involved "an endless summer filled with surfing, cruising, and beachcombing," is only one such example. In the first half of the 1960s especially, popular music was dominated by exuberant music featuring the surf craze. Another example is Katy Perry's Billboard #1 hit song "California Gurls," featuring Snoop Dogg released in 2010, which highlights the same beachside lifestyle first popularized in the 1960s.

Fashions developed within surf culture have had a large worldwide impact numerous times from the 1960s to the present. A number of large clothing brands began as surfing brands, including but not limited to: OP, Stussy, Billabong, Quicksilver, Roxy, Hurley, O'Neill, Ripcurl, RVCA, Vans, Volcom, Reef, and Da Kine. One of the largest influences is probably the worldwide adoption of boardshorts as swim gear for men.

Alternatives to wind-generated waves

Since their invention, surfers have sometimes used wave pools to attempt surfing, but generally, the waves were too small and not well-formed enough for an enjoyable experience. The 1987 movie North Shore started the protagonist in an Arizona wave pool, then going on to Hawaii to try his luck. Both in and out of the movie this was considered basically a joke. But more recently, multiple attempts have been made to construct wave pools specifically designed for surfing.  there are only a few around the world open to the public, but there are numerous in development. 2018 was the first year a professional surfing contest was held at a wave pool, specifically: Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch.

Wakeboarding is a popular type of surfing done behind a boat's wake. There are also sometimes standing waves in rivers at high flow which can be surfable. At certain times of year on large rivers, tidal bores are surfable. People have also surfed alongside large cargo ships as their wakes roll into shallower water, and a few people have even surfed the waves caused by calving glaciers.
The Wave Bristol opened in The UK as an inland artificial surf site.

 References
 Citations

 Sources
 General

 Quinn, Richard. "Region's First Surfboard Evokes a Wave of Nostalgia" The Virginian Pilot. August 21, 2008.
 Interland, Peter. "Virginia Beach: Thoroughly Civil Surf" LongBoard Magazine. May/June 1998. Vol. 6, Number 2
 Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing''. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2010. .

External links

Surfing museums
 International Surfing Museum — in Huntington Beach, California .
 Santa Cruz Surfing Museum — in Santa Cruz, California .
 Santa Barbara Surfing Museum — in Santa Barbara, California .
 The British Museum of Surfing — in Braunton, North Devon, England.
 Surfworld — in Torquay, Victoria, Australia.
 Oceanside Surf Museum — in Oceanside, California.
  Surf Craft − part of the AMERICAN ICONS Exhibition Series — at Mingei International Museum (2014-2015) in San Diego, California.
 The Surfing Heritage Foundation.org: online resource — based in San Clemente, California
 East Coast Surfing History.com: online resource

Surfing
Surfing in Hawaii

History of surfing


Alexej von Jawlensky (13 March, 1864 – 15 March 1941) was a Russian painter. He first studied art in Russia but he spent most of his career in Germany. He painted in the Expressionist style and was particularly known for his portraits. He also painted landscapes and still lifes.

Life and career
Jawlensky was born in Torzhok, a town in the western part of Russia. His father, Georgi von Jawlensky, was a colonel in the Imperial Russian Army. Like his four brothers, Jawlenskywas became an officer in the army. He studied at the military academy in Moscow, but was very interested in art. He studied art privately while he was serving as a soldier. In 1890 he was accepted at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. He received permission from the army to study art there while still serving as a soldier. He became friends with artists who worked in the studio of Ilya Repin.

In 1896, Jawlensky resigned from the army. He went to Munich in Germany to study art and begin his career as a painter. In Munich he lived with Marianne von Werefkin. She was a painter who studied with Repin. He studied with Anton Ažbe in Munich. He also became friends with Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky became an important influence on  Jawlensky's art. In 1902 Jawlensky's son Andreas was born. His mother was Hélène Nesnakomoff (1881-1965). She was Marianne von Werefkin's maid in Russia and then lived with her and Jawlensky in Munich. In 1905–1906 Jawlensky travelled to Paris for an exhibition of his paintings. In Paris he met Henri Matisse. Matisse became another important influence on Jawlensky's painting style. World War I began in 1914. Jawlensky was expelled from Germany because Russia was one of the countries fighting against Germany. He went to live in Switzerland.

In 1922 Jawlensky married Hélène Nesnakomoff. They returned to Germany and settled in Wiesbaden. For the next 11 years, he concentrated on abstract paintings of heads. He also organized the artistic group Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four). The other three members of the group were Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, and Paul Klee. The four artists lectured and exhibited together in Germany and the USA. From 1929 Jawlensky suffered very badly from arthritis. He had to give up painting in 1937 because he could no longer hold his brushes. He died in Weisbaden in 1941 at the age of 77.

Jawlensky's son  Andreas (1902-1984) also became a painter. As a teenager he exhibited with his father. By the end of the 1920s, he became known in his own right. Andreas served in the German army during World War II. He was captured by the Russians and spent 10 years in prisoner of war camp in Siberia. His later paintings, done in Germany and Switzerland, were mostly landscapes. In 1987 there was an exhibition of both Alezej and Andreas's paintings in New York City.

Gallery
The first picture is a portrait of Jawlensky's future wife, Hélène Nesnakomoff from 1900. It was painted in the more realistic style taught in the art schools of Russia. The later paintings show the influence of expressionism and fauvism on Jawlensky's work after he moved to Germany.

References

Other websites

Video lecture on Jawlensky's Young Girl with a Flowered Hat

1864 births
1941 deaths
Russian painters

Alexej von Jawlensky


The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a proposed space probe to detect and accurately measure gravitational waves—tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime—from astronomical sources. LISA would be the first dedicated space-based gravitational-wave observatory. It aims to measure gravitational waves directly by using laser interferometry. The LISA concept has a constellation of three spacecraft arranged in an equilateral triangle with sides 2.5 million kilometres long, flying along an Earth-like heliocentric orbit. The distance between the satellites is precisely monitored to detect a passing gravitational wave.

The LISA project started out as a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). However, in 2011, NASA announced that it would be unable to continue its LISA partnership with the European Space Agency due to funding limitations. The project is a recognized CERN experiment (RE8). A scaled-down design initially known as the New Gravitational-wave Observatory (NGO) was proposed as one of three large projects in ESA's long term plans. In 2013, ESA selected 'The Gravitational Universe' as the theme for one of its three large projects in the 2030s whereby it committed to launch a space-based gravitational-wave observatory.

In January 2017, LISA was proposed as the candidate mission. On June 20, 2017 the suggested mission received its clearance goal for the 2030s, and was approved as one of the main research missions of ESA.

The LISA mission is designed for direct observation of gravitational waves, which are distortions of spacetime travelling at the speed of light. Passing gravitational waves alternately squeeze and stretch space itself by a tiny amount. Gravitational waves are caused by energetic events in the universe and, unlike any other radiation, can pass unhindered by intervening mass. Launching LISA will add a new sense to scientists' perception of the universe and enable them to study phenomena that are invisible in normal light.

Potential sources for signals are merging massive black holes at the centre of galaxies, massive black holes orbited by small compact objects, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals, binaries of compact stars in our Galaxy, and possibly other sources of cosmological origin, such as a cosmological phase transition shortly after the Big Bang, and speculative astrophysical objects like cosmic strings and domain boundaries.

Mission description

The LISA mission's primary objective is to detect and measure gravitational waves produced by compact binary systems and mergers of supermassive black holes. LISA will observe gravitational waves by measuring differential changes in the length of its arms, as sensed by laser interferometry. Each of the three LISA spacecraft contains two telescopes, two lasers and two test masses (each a 46 mm, roughly 2 kg, gold-coated cube of gold/platinum), arranged in two optical assemblies pointed at the other two spacecraft. These form Michelson-like interferometers, each centred on one of the spacecraft, with the test masses defining the ends of the arms. The entire arrangement, which is ten times larger than the orbit of the Moon, will be placed in solar orbit at the same distance from the Sun as the Earth, but trailing the Earth by 20 degrees, and with the orbital planes of the three spacecraft inclined relative to the ecliptic by about 0.33 degree, which results in the plane of the triangular spacecraft formation being tilted 60 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. The mean linear distance between the formation and the Earth will be 50 million kilometres.

To eliminate non-gravitational forces such as light pressure and solar wind on the test masses, each spacecraft is constructed as a zero-drag satellite. The test mass floats free inside, effectively in free-fall, while the spacecraft around it absorbs all these local non-gravitational forces. Then, using capacitive sensing to determine the spacecraft's position relative to the mass, very precise thrusters adjust the spacecraft so that it follows, keeping itself centered around the mass.

Arm length
The longer the arms, the more sensitive the detector is to long-period gravitational waves, but its sensitivity to wavelengths shorter than the arms (2,500,000 km corresponds to  seconds or  Hz) is reduced. As the satellites are free-flying, the spacing is easily adjusted before launch, with upper bounds being imposed by the sizes of the telescopes required at each end of the interferometer (which are constrained by the size of the launch vehicle's payload fairing) and the stability of the constellation orbit (larger constellations are more sensitive to the gravitational effects of other planets, limiting the mission lifetime). Another length-dependent factor which must be compensated for is the "point-ahead angle" between the incoming and outgoing laser beams; the telescope must receive its incoming beam from where its partner was a few seconds ago, but send its outgoing beam to where its partner will be a few seconds from now.

The original 2008 LISA proposal had arms 5 million kilometres (5 Gm) long. When downscoped to eLISA in 2013, arms of 1 million kilometres were proposed. The approved 2017 LISA proposal has arms 2.5 million kilometres (2.5 Gm) long.

Detection principle

Like most modern gravitational wave-observatories, LISA is based on laser interferometry. Its three satellites form a giant Michelson interferometer in which two "transponder" satellites play the role of reflectors and one "master" satellite the roles of source and observer. When a gravitational wave passes the interferometer, the lengths of the two LISA arms vary due to spacetime distortions caused by the wave. Practically, LISA measures a relative phase shift between one local laser and one distant laser by light interference. Comparison between the observed laser beam frequency (in return beam) and the local laser beam frequency (sent beam) encodes the wave parameters. The principle of laser-interferometric inter-satellite ranging measurements was successfully implemented in the Laser Ranging Interferometer onboard GRACE Follow-On.

Unlike terrestrial gravitational-wave observatories, LISA cannot keep its arms "locked" in position at a fixed length. Instead, the distances between satellites vary significantly over each year's orbit, and the detector must keep track of the constantly changing distance, counting the millions of wavelengths by which the distance changes each second. Then, the signals are separated in the frequency domain: changes with periods of less than a day are signals of interest, while changes with periods of a month or more are irrelevant.

This difference means that LISA cannot use high-finesse Fabry–Pérot resonant arm cavities and signal recycling systems like terrestrial detectors, limiting its length-measurement accuracy. But with arms almost a million times longer, the motions to be detected are correspondingly larger.

LISA Pathfinder

An ESA test mission called LISA Pathfinder (LPF) was launched in 2015 to test the technology necessary to put a test mass in (almost) perfect free fall conditions. LPF consists of a single spacecraft with one of the LISA interferometer arms shortened to about , so that it fits inside a single spacecraft. The spacecraft reached its operational location in heliocentric orbit at the Lagrange point L1 on 22 January 2016, where it underwent payload commissioning. Scientific research started on March 8, 2016. The goal of LPF was to demonstrate a noise level 10 times worse than needed for LISA. However, LPF exceeded this goal by a large margin, approaching the LISA requirement noise levels.

Science goals

Gravitational-wave astronomy seeks to use direct measurements of gravitational waves to study astrophysical systems and to test Einstein's theory of gravity. Indirect evidence of gravitational waves was derived from observations of the decreasing orbital periods of several binary pulsars, such as the Hulse–Taylor pulsar. In February 2016, the Advanced LIGO project announced that it had directly detected gravitational waves from a black hole merger.

Observing gravitational waves requires two things: a strong source of gravitational waves—such as the merger of two black holes—and extremely high detection sensitivity. A LISA-like instrument should be able to measure relative displacements with a resolution of 20 picometres—less than the diameter of a helium atom—over a distance of a million kilometres, yielding a strain sensitivity of better than 1 part in 1020 in the low-frequency band about a millihertz.

A LISA-like detector is sensitive to the low-frequency band of the gravitational-wave spectrum, which contains many astrophysically interesting sources. Such a detector would observe signals from binary stars within our galaxy (the Milky Way); signals from binary supermassive black holes in other galaxies; and extreme-mass-ratio inspirals and bursts produced by a stellar-mass compact object orbiting a supermassive black hole. There are also more speculative signals such as signals from cosmological phase transitions, cosmic strings and primordial gravitational waves generated during cosmological inflation.

Galactic compact binaries
LISA will be able to detect the nearly monochromatic gravitational waves emanating of close binaries consisting of two compact stellar objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes) in the Milky Way. At low frequencies these are actually expected to be so numerous that they form a source of (foreground) noise for LISA data analysis. At higher frequencies LISA is expected to detect and resolve around 25,000 galactic compact binaries. Studying the distribution of the masses, periods, and locations of this population, will teach us about the formation and evolution of binary systems in the galaxy. Furthermore, LISA will be able to resolve 10 binaries currently known from electromagnetic observations (and find ≈500 more with electromagnetic counterparts within one square degree). Joint study of these systems will allow inference on other dissipation mechanisms in these systems, e.g. through tidal interactions. One of the currently known binaries that LISA will be able to resolve is the white dwarf binary ZTF J1539+5027 with a period of 6.91 minutes, the second shortest period binary white dwarf pair discovered to date.

Supermassive black hole mergers
LISA will be able to detect the gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of (super)massive black holes with a chirp mass between 103 and 107 solar masses all the way back to their earliest formation at redshift around z ≈ 15. The most conservative population models expect at least a few such events to happen each year. For mergers closer by (z < 3), it will be able to determine the spins of the components, which carry information about the past evolution of the components (e.g. whether they have grown primarily through accretion or mergers). For mergers around the peak of star formation (z ≈ 2) LISA will be able to locate mergers within 100 square degrees on the night sky at least 24 hours before the actual merger, allowing electromagnetic telescopes to search for counterparts, with the potential of witnessing the formation of a quasar after a merger.

Extreme mass ratio inspirals

Extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) consist of a stellar compact object (<60 solar masses) on a slowly decaying orbit around a massive black hole of around 105 solar masses. For the ideal case of a prograde orbit around a (nearly) maximally spinning black hole, LISA will be able to detect these events up to z=4. EMRIs are interesting because they are slowly evolving, spending around 105 orbits and between a few months and a few years in the LISA sensitivity band before merging. This allows very accurate (up to an error of 1 in 104) measurements of the properties of the system, including the mass and spin of the central object and the mass and orbital elements (eccentricity and inclination) of the smaller object. EMRIs are expected to occur regularly in the centers of most galaxies and in dense star clusters. Conservative population estimates predict at least one detectable event per year for LISA.

Intermediate mass black hole binaries
LISA will also be able to detect the gravitational waves emanating from black hole binary mergers where the lighter black hole is in the intermediate black hole range (between 102 and 104 solar masses). In the case of both components being intermediate black holes between 600 and 104 solar masses, LISA will be able to detect events up to redshifts around 1. In the case of an intermediate mass black hole spiralling into a massive black hole (between 104 and 106 solar masses) events will be detectable up to at least z=3. Since little is known about the population of intermediate mass black holes, there is no good estimate of the event rates for these events.

Multi-band gravitational wave astronomy
Following the announcement of the first gravitational wave detection, GW150914, it was realized that a similar event would be detectable by LISA well before the merger. Based on the LIGO estimated event rates, it is expected that LISA will detect and resolve about 100 binaries that would merge a few weeks to months later in the LIGO detection band. LISA will be able to accurately predict the time of merger ahead of time and locate the event with 1 square degree on the sky. This will greatly aid the possibilities for searches for electromagnetic counterpart events.

Fundamental black hole physics
Gravitational wave signals from black holes could provide hints at a more fundamental theory of gravity. LISA will be able to test possible modifications of Einstein's general theory of relativity, motivated by dark energy or dark matter. These could manifest, for example, through modifications of the propagation of gravitational waves, or through the possibility of hairy black holes.

Probe expansion of the universe
LISA will be able to independently measure the redshift and distance of events occurring relatively close by (z < 0.1) through the detection of massive black hole mergers and EMRIs. Consequently, it can make an independent measurement of the Hubble parameter H0 that does not depend on the use of the cosmic distance ladder. The accuracy of such a determination is limited by the sample size and therefore the mission duration. With a mission lifetime of 4 years one expects to be able to determine H0 with an absolute error of 0.01 (km/s)/Mpc. At larger ranges LISA events can (stochastically) be linked to electromagnetic counterparts, to further constrain the expansion curve of the universe.

Gravitational wave background
LISA will be sensitive to the stochastic gravitational wave background generated in the early universe through various channels, including inflation, first-order cosmological phase transitions related to spontaneous symmetry breaking, and cosmic strings.

Exotic sources
LISA will also search for currently unknown (and unmodelled) sources of gravitational waves. The history of astrophysics has shown that whenever a new frequency range/medium of detection is available new unexpected sources show up. This could for example include kinks and cusps in cosmic strings.

Memory effects
LISA will be sensitive to the permanent displacement induced on probe masses by gravitational waves, known as gravitational memory effect.

Other gravitational-wave experiments

Previous searches for gravitational waves in space were conducted for short periods by planetary missions that had other primary science objectives (such as Cassini–Huygens), using microwave Doppler tracking to monitor fluctuations in the Earth–spacecraft distance. By contrast, LISA is a dedicated mission that will use laser interferometry to achieve a much higher sensitivity.
Other gravitational wave antennas, such as LIGO, Virgo, and GEO600, are already in operation on Earth, but their sensitivity at low frequencies is limited by the largest practical arm lengths, by seismic noise, and by interference from nearby moving masses. Thus, LISA and ground-based detectors are complementary rather than competitive, much like astronomical observatories in different electromagnetic bands (e.g., ultraviolet and infrared).

History
The first design studies for a gravitational-wave detector to be flown in space were performed in the 1980s under the name LAGOS (Laser Antena for Gravitational radiation Observation in Space). LISA was first proposed as a mission to ESA in the early 1990s. First as a candidate for the M3-cycle, and later as 'cornerstone mission' for the 'Horizon 2000 plus' program. As the decade progressed, the design was refined to a triangular configuration of three spacecraft with three 5-million-kilometre arms. This mission was pitched as a joint mission between ESA and NASA in 1997.

In the 2000s the joint ESA/NASA LISA mission was identified as a candidate for the 'L1' slot in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 programme. However, due to budget cuts, NASA announced in early 2011 that it would not be contributing to any of ESA's L-class missions. ESA nonetheless decided to push the program forward, and instructed the L1 candidate missions to present reduced cost versions that could be flown within ESA's budget. A reduced version of LISA was designed with only two 1-million-kilometre arms under the name NGO (New/Next Gravitational wave Observatory). Despite NGO being ranked highest in terms of scientific potential, ESA decided to fly Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) as its L1 mission. One of the main concerns was that the LISA Pathfinder mission had been experiencing technical delays, making it uncertain if the technology would be ready for the projected L1 launch date.

Soon afterwards, ESA announced it would be selecting themes for its Large class L2 and L3 mission slots. A theme called "the Gravitational Universe" was formulated with the reduced NGO rechristened eLISA as a straw-man mission. In November 2013, ESA announced that it selected "the Gravitational Universe" for its L3 mission slot (expected launch in 2034). Following the successful detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO, ground-based detectors in September 2015, NASA expressed interest in rejoining the mission as a junior partner. In response to an ESA call for mission proposals for the `Gravitational Universe' themed L3 mission, a mission proposal for a detector with three 2.5-million-kilometre arms again called LISA was submitted in January 2017.

As of November 2021, LISA is expected to launch in 2037.

See also

 Beyond Einstein program – NASA
 Big Bang Observer – proposed LISA successor
 Cosmic Vision program – ESA
 Deci-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (DECIGO) – proposed Japanese space based gravitational-wave observatory

References

External links

CERN experiments
Cosmic Vision
European Space Agency space probes
Future spaceflights
Interferometric gravitational-wave instruments
Proposed space probes
Space telescopes
Space-based laser
2037 in science

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna


The 2014 Pacific typhoon season began on January 10, 2014 and ended on January 1, 2015. It was based on typhoons coming to the coasts of countries around the Pacific Ocean. The storms that have formed during the period are listed below:

Tropical Storm Lingling (Agaton)
Tropical Storm Kajiki (Basyang)
Typhoon Faxai
Tropical Depression 04W (Caloy)
Tropical Storm Peipah (Domeng)
Severe Tropical Storm Tapah
Tropical Storm Mitag (Ester)
Tropical Storm Hagibis
Typhoon Neoguri (Florita)
Typhoon Rammasun (Glenda)
Typhoon Matmo (Henry)
Severe Tropical Storm Nakri (Inday)
Typhoon Halong (Jose)
Typhoon Genevieve
Severe Tropical Storm Fengshen
Tropical Depression 14W (Karding)
Typhoon Kalmaegi (Luis)
Tropical Storm Fung-wong (Mario)
Severe Tropical Storm Kammuri
Typhoon Phanfone (Neneng)
Typhoon Vongfong (Ompong)
Typhoon Nuri (Paeng)
Severe Tropical Storm Sinlaku (Queenie)
Typhoon Hagupit (Ruby)
Tropical Storm Jangmi (Seniang)

2014 in weather
Pacific typhoon seasons

2014 Pacific typhoon season


Peter Clemenza is a fictional character who first appeared in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather. He is played by Academy Award-nominee Richard Castellano in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film adaptation of the novel, and by Bruno Kirby (as a young man) in The Godfather Part II (1974).

The Godfather
Born near Trapani, Sicily, Peter Clemenza is one of Don Vito Corleone's caporegimes and oldest friends, as well as the godfather of his eldest son, Sonny. He has a reputation as a superb judge of talent; his regime produced five future capos—Sonny, Frank Pentangeli, Rocco Lampone, Al Neri, and Joey Zasa. The novel also establishes that when Sonny asks his father to join the "family business", Vito entrusts Clemenza, already a seasoned criminal, with the responsibility of mentoring Sonny.

Clemenza is a supporting character in the main story, but several of his actions are key to the plot. For example, he is ordered by Don Corleone, via consigliere Tom Hagen, to oversee the punishment of two teenage boys who received suspended sentences for beating and sexually assaulting the daughter of undertaker Amerigo Bonasera. Vito's wife, Carmela, is the girl's godmother and Vito extracts a favor from Bonasera in return for dealing with the boys. Clemenza assigns the job to his best soldier, Paulie Gatto; Gatto enlists two former boxers who work as enforcers for the family to help him give the boys a severe beating.

When Gatto is implicated in drug kingpin Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo's assassination attempt on Don Corleone, Sonny - now Vito's heir apparent - orders Clemenza to execute him. Clemenza considers Gatto's actions a personal insult, as Gatto had been his protégé. Clemenza recruits Rocco Lampone, a Corleone associate, to kill Gatto so Lampone can "make his bones". Clemenza has Gatto drive him and Lampone around for several hours on the pretext of locating housing ("mattresses") for Corleone soldiers in the event war breaks out with the other Mafia families. After Lampone shoots Gatto in the back of the head, Clemenza— upon returning to the car after relieving himself— utters (to Lampone) his most famous line in the film: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

When it is decided that Vito's youngest son, Michael, will murder Sollozzo and Captain Mark McCluskey, a corrupt NYPD captain on Sollozzo's payroll, Clemenza is assigned to prepare a gun for Michael to use, instruct him how and when to use it, and what to do after the shooting. Michael retrieves the gun, which Clemenza had planted in the bathroom of a restaurant, and kills Sollozzo and McCluskey. While Michael hides in Sicily, Clemenza and the other capos prepare for an all-out war against the other four families. The war ultimately claims Sonny's life. Upon returning to New York, Vito dies a natural death, and Michael succeeds his father as Don.

Clemenza, on Michael's orders, later takes part in the infamous "baptism killings" by assassinating Don Victor Stracci with a shotgun while the Don and his bodyguards were coming down on an elevator. He also garrotes Carlo Rizzi, Michael's brother-in-law, who conspired with Don Emilio Barzini to murder Sonny. Clemenza is last seen greeting Michael as "Don Corleone" and kissing Michael's hand as a sign of respect.

The Godfather Part II
Clemenza does not appear in the present timeline of the film due to a disagreement between Castellano and Paramount Pictures over the character's dialogue and the amount of weight Castellano was expected to gain for the part. After Castellano bowed out of the film, Clemenza was written out of the script and replaced by Frank Pentangeli.  It is explained that, by the time of the film, Clemenza has died under suspicious circumstances; when Fredo mentions that Clemenza died of a heart attack, Corleone hitman Willi Cicci scoffs, "That was no heart attack," implying that Clemenza may have been murdered.

Clemenza, however, appears in several flashbacks to Vito Corleone's early days, played by Bruno Kirby. He first meets Vito when asking his neighbor to hide some guns so the police won't find them. Vito does so, and Clemenza repays the favor by stealing an expensive carpet (assisted by a surprised Vito) and giving it to the Corleones for their apartment. Around the same time, Vito and Clemenza befriend a young Salvatore Tessio, who joins their gang. One of their lines of business is selling stolen dresses door-to-door; a deleted scene depicts Clemenza charming his way into the apartment of a young housewife and emerging a little later, having presumably had sex with her.

Later on, the trio's partnership is discovered by the local , Don Fanucci, who attempts to extort them. Clemenza initially suggests that they pay Fanucci to avoid any problems with him, but Vito talks him and Tessio into letting him "persuade" Fanucci to accept less money. Shortly thereafter, Vito kills Fanucci and takes over the neighborhood, marking the beginning of the Corleone crime family. Clemenza is last seen at Vito's side as they open Genco Pura Olive Oil, the front for their criminal empire.

The Sicilian
Clemenza appears briefly in Puzo's second Godfather installment, The Sicilian. He meets with Michael during his exile in Sicily at his brother Domenico's home in Trapani. They discuss what the fate of Turi Giuliano is to be, following the orders of a recovering Vito Corleone. Clemenza tells Michael that he should report to him after a week, with or without Giuliano, and that Michael might soon be able to return to America afterward. Clemenza then leaves on a boat to Tunis, telling Michael that he would be back the following day with new orders from the Don.

The Godfather Returns
Clemenza's gradual takeover of the Corleone empire (with Vito and the other capos dead, he assumes a more prominent leadership role) in New York is briefly covered in The Godfather Returns, Mark Winegardner's sequel to Puzo's original novel. It also tells of Clemenza's involvement during Michael's return from exile and official initiation into the Corleone crime family. Most noteworthy, the novel depicts Clemenza's fatal heart attack (mentioned in The Godfather Part II), and the many conspiracy theories that he had actually been murdered by the Rosato Brothers, former Corleone soldiers who had formed their own gang after a dispute over the future of the family.

Video game version
The Godfather: The Game depicts Clemenza in a similar manner to his movie counterpart; Castellano's estate gave permission for his likeness to be used in the game. However, due to Castellano's death in 1988, all of Clemenza's dialogue had to be recorded by actor Jason Schombing.
In the game, Clemenza, as a senior Corleone capo, becomes partners and good friends with the protagonist, Aldo Trapani. He gives him several missions, most of which are focused on weakening the power of other Mafia families, particularly the Cuneo family.

References

External links

The Godfather characters
Characters in American novels of the 20th century
Characters in American novels of the 21st century
Fictional assassins
Fictional capos
Literary characters introduced in 1969
Fictional immigrants to the United States
Fictional Italian American people
Fictional Sicilian people
Cultural depictions of the Mafia
Film characters introduced in 1972

Peter Clemenza


Creature of the Night is a young adult novel by Kate Thompson. It was first published by Bodley Head on 5 June 2008. It was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize.

Plot summary
Bobby, the fourteen-year-old narrator, is a thief and a hooligan. When his mother moves him and his young brother to a cottage near Ennis in County Clare his only thought is how to get back to a life of crime in Dublin. Eventually he steals a Skoda car and goes back, only to find things have changed and he has no place there. He reluctantly returns to the cottage and is given work by a local farmer.

The cottage they are living in is on a path between two fairy forts. The family is warned by the farmer's mother to put out a bowl of milk every night, but they consider this a mere superstition. Being deprived of the milk, a little old fairy woman comes through the dog flap into the kitchen. Dennis, Bobby's brother, sees and accepts her, but for Bobby it is a baffling and rather frightening mystery.

Reception
The Irish Times comments that Kate Thompson "conveys extraordinarily well not only Dublin's mean streets but country rhythms, and how city trends are infecting every town in Ireland". The Guardian comments that in the novel, "all events are true to the characters involved and help to reveal something about them". Bookheads describe Thompson's storytelling as "poetically insightful".

References

External links
Book at author's page

2008 British novels
Young adult fantasy novels
Irish young adult novels
Novels set in County Clare
The Bodley Head books
2008 children's books
Children's books set in Ireland

Creature of the Night (novel)


was a town located in Mima District, Tokushima, Japan.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 5,372 and a density of 104.27 persons per km2. The total area was 51.52 km2.

On March 1, 2005, Handa, along with the town of Sadamitsu, and the village of Ichiu (all from Mima District), was merged to create the town of Tsurugi.

Geography
Handa was situated in the valley created by the Handa River. Most of the population was concentrated near the mouth of the valley, near the Yoshino River. Yachiyo, the southern part of Handa, was mountainous and contains a number of peaks over 1000 meters.

Education
Handa was served by Handa Junior High School, and Handa and Yachiyo elementary schools.

Transportation
National Route 192 runs along Handa's northern edge.
Awa-Handa Station is on the JR Shikoku Tokushima Line.

Sightseeing
Handa is famous for its sōmen noodles.  "Handa Sōmen" has been a special product of the area for over 250 years, and several sōmen makers still operate today.
Dodoro falls is a 30m waterfall in Yachiyo.
Oyasu Park is a popular spot for viewing cherry blossoms, and provides good views of the main part of town.
Ishido-yama (1636m) and Yahazu-yama (1848m), although located in Ichiu, are easily accessed via a trailhead at Oso Ishido Jinja, in Handa.  Yahazu-yama provides panoramic views of the Iya Valley and prominent mountains such as Mount Tsurugi, Jirogyu, and Miune.

External links
 Tsurugi official website (in Japanese)

Dissolved municipalities of Tokushima Prefecture
Tsurugi, Tokushima

Handa, Tokushima