Open Graves is a 2009 horror film directed by Álvaro de Armiñán and written by Bruce A. Taylor and Roderick Taylor. The film stars Eliza Dushku, Mike Vogel, Naike Rivelli and Lindsay Robba.

Plot
In the medieval era, a witch named Mamba is tortured and skinned alive in punishment for her crimes. Her skin and organs are then used to make a cursed game. A player who wins the game is granted a wish; however, a player losing the game is killed in a fashion predicted by the game.

In the present day, Jason (Mike Vogel), while shopping with his friend Tomas (Iman Nazemzadeh) and Tomas' girlfriend Lisa (Lindsay Caroline Robba), acquires the board game from a disabled shop owner called Malek (Alex O'Dogherty). The three friends travel back to Tomas' beachfront house, and at night a party occurs on the beach. Jason meets Erica (Eliza Dushku) before it begins to rain, causing most of the partygoers to leave. Erica suggests that the remaining friends—Jason, Tomas, Lisa, Elena (Naike Rivelli), Miguel (Ander Pardo), Pablo (Boris Martinez), and herself—play the game, to which they all agree.

However, Pablo is soon eliminated and takes Tomas' car to go get beer. On his travels, Pablo stops to urinate, but falls over the edge of a cliff. He survives the fall, but a group of crabs then attacks him, gouging out his eyes and killing him. Meanwhile, Miguel, Lisa, Elena, and Tomas also lose the game, before Detective Izar (Gary Piquer) arrives and informs the group of Pablo's death, cutting the game short.

The group attends Pablo's funeral, where Erica realizes that his death mirrors the game's prediction. Soon after, Tomas, Lisa, and Miguel travel to an empty wood-cutting factory belonging to Miguel's family to have a photo shoot. While Lisa is modeling, she begins to feel unwell; she stops the photo shoot and leaves with Tomas. After their departure, Miguel is left alone and becomes vulnerable to the danger of snakes. He attempts to climb a stack of logs, but a snake bites him, and he falls into a large group of snakes that kill him.

Meanwhile, Jason and Erica start a romance. While they are in Jason's car, they witness ghostly versions of Pablo and Miguel, before receiving a call from Tomas telling them of Miguel's death. Jason and Erica meet Tomas, Lisa, and Elena at Tomas' apartment, where they tell the others that they suspect that the group members are dying because of the game. Tomas, Lisa, and Elena remain skeptical, however. After Jason, Erica, and Elena have left, Lisa becomes more ill. Tomas looks after her, before the pair go to bed. The following morning, Lisa has aged into an old woman and is rushed to the hospital.

Jason, Erica, and Elena arrive at the hospital and tell Detective Izar their theory about the game. They then go in to see Lisa. Elena becomes distraught at her appearance and about her friends' deaths, and leaves despite Tomas' attempts to get her to stay. Lisa soon dies, prompting Jason, Erica, and Tomas to seek answers from Malek.

They find Malek at his home, but he is no longer disabled. He explains to them that he won the game and wishes to no longer be disabled. Meanwhile, Elena is traveling home to Milan in her car when she is involved in a car accident. Her car leaks gas, and a broken electrical wire ignites it, burning her to death. Jason, Erica, and Tomas go to Jason's house, where they find Detective Izar looking for the game. Jason and Erica escape with it, but Tomas is caught by the detective, who puts him in the trunk of his car. Later, Jason receives a call from the detective demanding the game in return for Tomas, but Tomas attempts to escape, and the detective shoots him dead.

At Tomas' beachfront house, Jason and Erica decide to play the game in the hope that they can win and wish for it to be a week in the past, so that their friends will be alive. Erica is eliminated, and realizes that her death will involve the sea. Jason wins the game, and will get his wish as long as he passes the game onto another person. Jason and Erica go to bed, but Erica discovers she must die for Jason to get his wish, so she enters the sea. Jason wakes up and rushes out to save her, but Detective Izar shows up, takes away the game and leaves with it. Erica then emerges from the sea and reveals herself to be Mamba, granting Jason his wish that they have never played the game. However, Jason and his friends now become trapped, forced to relive the week again and again.

Cast

Production
The film was shot in Spain from October to November 2006 under the working title Mamba in Getxo, Sopelana, Mundaka, Vizcaya, País Vasco and Madrid. The movie has been picked up for distribution by Voltage Pictures and was released in 2009. The official trailer and poster were released on February 26, 2008.

Soundtrack
The rock band Showpay recorded seven songs for the soundtrack, and shot a music video in which their members played "Mamba" and died. The soundtrack has been composed by Fernando Orti Salvador and recorded in Bratislava with the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Hernando.

Release
The film premiered on Syfy on 19 September 2009. Lionsgate released the DVD on 23 February 2010. The UK DVD was released on 15 February 2010 over Icon Home Entertainment.

Mamba board game

In the movie's universe, the fictional game's board and pieces were made from the skin and body of a witch named Mamba Mosamba who was executed after having been tried and convicted of witchcraft during the Spanish Inquisition under Torquemada. The game consists of a wooden case with a dragonfly motif, a board with sequential spaces laid out in a spiral, an instruction sheet, small wooden playing pieces, two dice, a set of cards, and a central tower with two snakes and a dial.

The object of the game is for a player to get their playing piece to the center space, and then place that piece in the correct snake's mouth. Spaces are either safety spots known as "Windows of Heaven" or spaces with Grim Reapers known as "Open Graves," which cause the player to draw a card. If the card is an Epitaph (a card with the words Vae Victis written below), the player who drew it is dead. If the card is not an Epitaph card, that player is safe.

Even if all but one player is dead, that player must continue playing until they reach the center. They do not need to reach the center space by exact count. Once there, they must ask the tower one question and place the playing piece in either the mouth of the black snake Spatium (Space) or of the white snake Tempus (Time). If they choose correctly, their wish comes true. If they choose incorrectly, they suffer the same fate as the witch: being skinned alive. Even if they choose correctly, the wish does not come true until all the players are dead from the effects of the Epitaph cards drawn during the game and the game is passed onto someone else.

References

External links

2009 films
2009 horror films
American supernatural horror films
English-language Spanish films
Fictional games
Films set in Spain
Films shot in Madrid
Madrid in fiction
Spanish horror films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films

Open Graves


The Indian community in Malta () is composed of around 3,200 people (estimate 2009), representing just under 0.5% of the population of Malta. The majority have been living in Malta since the Crown Colony Period.

Malta has a well-established small Sindhi trading community of about 45 families (200 people) of shop-keepers from the town of Hyderabad, Sindh (in today's Pakistan) that traces its roots to migration starting around 1887 when Malta was under British colonial rule. While both countries were under British rule, Malta served as one of the trading roots for exporting silk. Indian-made hand loom clothes were sought after by Europe for many centuries. Following the partition of India and due to immigration laws in Malta, Indian immigration to Malta stopped between 1952 and 1985.

Since the 1990s, a new wave of immigration from India brought to Malta a larger community from Kerala. There are currently about 3,000 Indians in Malta, working mainly in the health and hospitality sectors, almost half of whom stem from Kerala. Since 2017 Kerala Indians in Malta gather annually to celebrate the Onam festival.

History of the Sindhi community in Malta

The historical community of Indian Maltese derives from the bahiband jati of the tiny Hindu Sindhi community. Following the British annexation of Sindh in 1843, a group of entrepreneurs from Hyderabad, Sindh set out for business opportunities in the rest of the Empire, originally trading in handicrafts from Sindhi (and hence becoming known as Sindhi workies), establishing a trade diaspora facilitated by the new Suez canal, the telegraph and the railway lines. Since the 1860s Hyderabadi traders soon set up business in Japan, Ceylon, Gold Coast, Gibraltar and Hong Kong.

The Sindhi trade diaspora intercepted the growing tourism from Britain and Northern Europe in the Mediterranean as a profitable market for high-value Sindhi handicrafts. They later diversified into silk and curiosities, adding products from the Far East, such as Japanese ceramics and kimono, to their catalogue. They also contributed to the growth of Gozo's Maltese lace industry, exporting it as far as Java and South Africa.

In 1887 the firm Pohoomull Brothers applied to set up a shop in British-ruled Malta. By 1910, more than 10 Sindhi firms had a business in Malta, which was a node in a global trade network. This small number of Sindhis held shops in the central shopping thoroughfare of Valletta, Strada Reale (later Kingsway, today's Republic Street) to cater for a high-end tourist market (a typical shopfront sign would read "Grand Indo-Egyptian Persian Bazaar – Suppliers to the German Imperial Family"), as well as branch shops and itinerary peddlers.

"From the time a ship dropped anchor to the time it left Malta, the visitor was tempted constantly by the Sindworkis' wares" (Falzon 2001). Maltese shops were local branches of the central firm, in Hyderabad, Sindh, from where personnel was selected (usually by kinship links) and sent to Malta for few years. Sindhi workers, as young as 15, used to share firm-provided housing in Valletta or Floriana, and migrant men were not allowed to bring along their spouses or dependants. Working time was extended (up to 15 hours a day, without any weekend) and workers were treated as personal servants by shop managers. Firms expected total loyalty from their employees and socialisation was not encouraged.

A change occurred in British ruled Malta in 1930s: with the great recession, the tourist market subsided, and many enterprising Sindh shop keepers cut their investments in Malta. The shops were sold to former employees, ready to operate at smaller profits. Shops became family-owned. The partition of India did not lead to an influx of Sindhis (Malta was deemed too small to offer opportunities) and the strict immigration rules of the 1952–1985 period meant that only newly-wed men to Maltese Indian girls could move to Malta. Sindhi businesses adapted by diversification their product lines, to cater more for the domestic consumption of the Maltese, moving in the import, wholesale and retail of textiles.

After the Second World War
After the second world war, the Sindhis were ready to profit from the newly-found affluence of British ruled Maltese society, monopolising the textile trade. With the growth of female workforce in Malta since the 1970s, Sindhi traders introduce ready-made to cater for the lower-middle end of the market. Thanks to their network of trans-local trade, they soon became wholesalers of cloths and textiles for the Maltese retailers. The few firms which had remained in the trade of curiosities opened up since the 1980s to cheap electronics and adapted to the new influx of tourists in Malta in the 1970s and 1980s, moving into the souvenir market thanks to their long-held position on Valletta's thoroughfare. Further diversification and integration of Sindhi businesses within the wider Maltese economy is reported at the end of the 20th century.

Associations and cult

In 1955 the Sindhi traders in Malta gathered in the Indian Merchants' Association (Malta), as the links to Hyderabad had been severed with the Partition. The association was never particularly active, and in 1989 it was renamed the Maltese-Indian Community with following address: 1st floor, 'Sukh Sagar',  'The Maltese-Indian Community Centre', 25 Triq Bella Vista, San Gwann SGN 2690 , marking the shift towards the self-perception as a localised ethno-cultural group. The centre includes a mandir open each Sunday from 11 to 12 am.

The small community continues to maintain Indian traditions in Malta, such as privately organising celebrations of Diwali, Holi Onam and other Hindu festivals. Hinduism and other religions of Indian origin (Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism) are not officially recognized and are described as cults in Malta.

Typical surnames of the Sindhi Maltese community include Vaswani, Nandwani, Keswani, Bharwani and Balani.

Memorials
There is a memorial at Ta' Braxia Cemetery to twenty-eight Indians who fought on behalf of the British in World War I and died of wounds or illnesses in Malta. The bodies of 13 British-Indian soldiers and seven men of the Labour Corps were cremated at the Lazzaretto Cemetery on Manoel Island. Few of the Indians who died in Malta are Rifleman Dadrat Gurung, Havildar Jitbhadhur Thapa, Daffadar (Sergeant) Bal Ram, Driver Moti Lal, Driver Jai Ram and Labourer Khew Marak.

Deceased Hindus and of other eastern religions (Buddhists, Sikhs and Jain) are buried with Catholic funeral rites in Malta, instead of being cremated, with the permission of their families. This is, in part, due to cremation only having been legalized in Malta in 2019.

See also

 India–Malta relations
 Immigration to Malta
 Hinduism in Malta

References

Bibliography

Links
 Multicultural Malta, Times of Malta

Immigration to Malta
Sindhi diaspora

Indian Maltese


Claire Tyler, Baroness Tyler of Enfield,  (born 4 June 1957) is a Liberal Democrat life peer in the House of Lords.

Education and early career

After graduating with a BSc in Law and Politics from the University of Southampton, Claire Tyler joined the Greater London Council/Inner London Education Authority in 1978 and the Civil Service in 1988. She has a Diploma in Management Studies and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Career in Parliament

Claire Tyler was nominated as a Liberal Democrat Peer in November 2010 and since 1 February 2011 has sat in the House of Lords, having been created a life peer on 28 January 2011 taking the title Baroness Tyler of Enfield, of Enfield in the London Borough of Enfield. She takes an active role in issues pertaining to health and social care, mental health, social mobility, poverty and disadvantage, well-being, children and family policy, and the voluntary sector.

In the Lords, Claire Tyler is the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Mental Health. She was a member of the Lords Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness which reported in April 2019. Previously, Claire chaired the Lords Select Committee on Financial Exclusion, which reported in 2017. She has also been a member of the Lord's Select Committee on Affordable Childcare which reported in March 2015, the Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility, which reported in April 2016, and the Lords Select Committee on Public Services and Demography which produced the report "Ready for Ageing".

Claire Tyler is currently Co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility. She is also Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Parents and Families, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Carers, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Strengthening Relationships and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health.

As Co-Chair of the APPG on Social Mobility, she was lead author of the "Character and Resilience Manifesto", published in 2014 which was written in collaboration with the think tanks CentreForum and Character Counts. Claire also chaired the Parliamentary Inquiry into Parenting and Social Mobility which reported in March 2015.

Claire Tyler was also Co-chair of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Charitable Giving which reported in June 2014. In 2013, she chaired the 2013 Liberal Democrat policy working group which produced the report "A Balanced Working Life" and was a member of the Liberal Democrat Working Group on an Ageing Population which reported in 2014. Claire Tyler is also a Vice-President of Liberal International Great Britain.

Career outside of Parliament
Claire Tyler (Baroness Tyler of Enfield) is currently the President of the NCB (National Children's Bureau), a position she has held since August 2012.  She became the Vice-President of Relate in November 2012.  Claire chairs the "Make Every Adult Matter" coalition of charities helping adults with multiple needs, serves on the board of Social Work England and a member of the Advisory Council of Step Up to Serve, which co-ordinates the #iwill campaign.

Claire Tyler was the Chair of CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) between 2012 and 2018. She was Vice Chair of the Think Ahead Sub Committee overseeing a new adult mental health social work fast track programme between 2014 and 2017.

Claire Tyler chaired the Values-Based Child and Adolescent Mental Health System Commission, which reported in September 2016.

Between 2007 and 2012, Claire Tyler was the chief executive officer of Relate, the UK's leading relationship support agency between 2007 and 2012. This followed a number of senior positions within Government, the last of which was Director of the Vulnerable Children's Group at the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education). She also chaired the 'Kids in the Middle' coalition, a group of national charities and agony aunts campaigning for better services for separating parents and their children.

Before then, she had been the Director of the Government's Social Exclusion Unit and a board member of the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister from April 2002 until June 2006.  From July 2000 to April 2002 Claire was the Deputy Chief executive of the Connexions Service.

As a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 programme Any Questions?, on 8 April 2011, she revealed that after graduating from University, she was interviewed in a discreet London location, an interview that she believed was carried out by the Security Services. She was not recruited.

Honours
In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

References

External links

Living people
Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II
Tyler of Enfield
British civil servants
Alumni of the University of Southampton
1957 births
Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences

Claire Tyler, Baroness Tyler of Enfield


Idrissia is a primitive genus of the order Stomiiformes, and is an extinct relative of marine hatchetfish and viperfish.  Idrissia'''s position in the order is in doubt, however, as scientists have not studied enough fossil specimens to determine exactly which stomiiforms the genus is most closely related to.

Their fossils are found in regions in northern Africa and Eurasia that correspond to the Tethys Ocean, and range from the Cenomanian epoch of the Cretaceous to the Lower Eocene, when they disappear from the fossil record altogether.

In life, Idrissia'' species would have had a superficial resemblance to a small-eyed lanternfish or a minnow.

References

Stomiiformes
Enigmatic ray-finned fish taxa
Prehistoric ray-finned fish genera
Late Cretaceous bony fish
Cenomanian genus first appearances
Eocene genus extinctions
Eocene fish
Paleocene fish of Asia
Fossils of Turkmenistan
Paleogene fish of Europe

Idrissia


Point Mckay is a residential neighbourhood in the northwest quadrant of Calgary, Alberta. It is bounded to the north by Bowness Road and to the south by the Bow River. Edworthy Park is located across the river, and is connected by a bridge to Point Mckay.

It was part of the town of Montgomery before it was annexed to the City of Calgary in 1963. It is represented in the Calgary City Council by the Ward 7 councillor.
The Provincial electoral division is Calgary-Varsity

Demographics
In the City of Calgary's 2012 municipal census, Point Mckay had a population of  living in  dwellings, a 0% increase from its 2011 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of  in 2012.

Residents in this community had a median household income of $63,731 in 2000, and there were 9.5% low income residents living in the neighbourhood. As of 2000, 15.2% of the residents were immigrants. A proportion of 37.4% of the buildings were condominiums or apartments, and 25.8% of the housing was used for renting.

Education
The community is served by University Elementary and Queen Elizabeth High School public school.

See also
List of neighbourhoods in Calgary

References

External links
Montgomery Community Association

Neighbourhoods in Calgary

Point Mckay, Calgary


Consumer Reports (CR) is a nonprofit organization focused only on unbiased product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-focused research, public education, and consumer advocacy.

Founded in 1936 as Consumer Union, CR was created to serve as an information source that consumers could use to help assess product performance and safety. Since that time, CR has continued its testing and analysis of products and services, and advocate for the consumer in legislative and rule-making areas. Consumer Reports helped advocate for seat belt laws, the dangers of cigarettes, and recently, the growth of consumer finance protection and the growth of consumer access to better health care. The organization has also expanded its scope to a set of digital platforms.

The organization's headquarters, including its 50 testing labs, is in Yonkers, New York, while its cars are tested at a track site in East Haddam, Connecticut. CR is funded by subscriptions to its magazine and website, as well as through independent grants and donations. Marta L. Tellado is the current CEO of Consumer Reports. She joined the organization in 2014, with the goal of expanding its engagement and advocacy efforts.

Consumer Reports' website and magazine writes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory and survey research center. CR accepts no advertising, and has no shareholders as a nonprofit organization. It also publishes general and targeted product/service buying guides. Consumer Reports pays for all the products it tests through common ways citizens buy products and services. They do this through secret, anonymous shoppers.

Only paid subscribers can access its website ConsumerReports.org, in its entirety. ConsumerReports.org writes updates on product availability, and adds new products to already existing test results. In addition, the online data includes features that is not in the magazine; for example, vehicle reliability (frequency of repair) tables online show the full 10 model years reported in the Annual Questionnaires, but the magazine has only a six-year history of each model.

Consumer Reports also allows the creators of the product to improve its product before Consumer Reports publishes its final results.

References

Non-profit organizations of the United States
1936 establishments in the United States

Consumer Reports


Isnilon Totoni Hapilon (March 10, 1968 – October 16, 2017), also known by the nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Filipini, was a Filipino Islamist militant affiliated with ISIS. He was formerly leader of Abu Sayyaf Group, before its battalions pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. An April 2016 issue of ISIL's weekly newsletter Al Naba said that Hapilon had been appointed as "emir of all Islamic State forces in the Philippines".

In the early morning of October 16, 2017, he was killed by the Philippine Army in the Battle of Marawi, along with Omar Maute.

Early life
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of State Rewards for Justice Program, Isnilon Totoni Hapilon was born on March 18, 1966, in Lantawan, Basilan, Philippines. However, his school transcripts indicate his birthdate as March 10, 1968, and his birthplace as Maluso, Basilan. His listed parent/guardian is Haridja Hapilon, a housekeeper. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, he had five siblings, and his father was a village imam named Hapilon Totoni.

Hapilon started elementary school in 1978, at the age of 10, enrolling at Maluso Central Elementary School. He had a perfect attendance from the first to the fifth grade, but had 28 days of absence and six days of tardiness in his sixth grade claiming that he had to "run errands"; he finished in 1984 with an average grade of 78%. He then enrolled at Basilan National High School, but his transcript ends with his first year even though he was eligible to proceed to second year.

In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, former Lantawan mayor Tahira Ismael, Hapilon's madrasa classmate, claimed that Hapilon "performed poorly in academics".

The FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, and some newspapers including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Straits Times, and The Philippine Star, reported that Hapilon earned an engineering degree from the University of the Philippines. On May 31, 2017, the University of the Philippines issued a statement refuting the earlier reports, declaring that they have no record of an alumnus or former student named Isnilon Hapilon.

To help identify Hapilon, the US government described his personality as "likable by peers; proud and confident in his abilities" and his physique as "skinny; may have chin hair and slight mustache", being 5 ft. 5 in (1.65 m) to 5 ft. 7 in (1.70 m) tall and weighing around 120 lb (54 kg).

According to the FBI, he used a number of aliases including Abu Musab, Sol, Abu Tuan, Esnilon, and Salahuddin. The Rewards for Justice Program lists further aliases including Abubakar Hapilon, Amah Hi Omar, Abu Omar, Abubakar, and Bakkal. He spoke Tausug, Tagalog, Yakan, and Arabic, as well as English. He may have traveled to Saudi Arabia and Malaysia in the past.

Militant activity

Moro National Liberation Front
Hapilon joined the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1985 and traveled between Sulu and Basilan. While he was with the rebel group, he took up Arabic and madrasa education again and became the spokesperson of Commander Barahama Sali in 1992. A strong military offensive in 1994 and the death of Commander Sali forced them to flee to Sampinit Complex in Sumisip, where he met Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani.

Abu Sayyaf
Disaffected with the MNLF while in hiding in Sampinit, Hapilon joined the Abu Sayyaf group led by Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, who also became his religious mentor. He eventually rose through the ranks of Abu Sayyaf, becoming one of the group's leaders.

In June 2002, Hapilon and four other Abu Sayyaf leaders—Khadaffy Janjalani, Hamsiraji Marusi Sali, Aldam Tilao, and Jainal Antel Sali, Jr.—were indicted in absentia by the United States government for their role in the 2000 Dos Palmas kidnappings of seventeen Filipinos and three Americans, and the eventual beheading of one of the Americans, Guillermo Sobero. The August 2000 kidnapping of Jeffrey Schilling, and the deaths of two hostages—American missionary Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap—were also cited in the indictment.

Hapilon was the only one of the five indicted still alive by 2017. On February 24, 2006, he was added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, along with Janjalani and Jainal Sali, Jr. The Rewards For Justice Program of the US State Department offered up to US$5 million (approx. 256 million Philippine pesos at the time of his death) for information leading to his capture.

In July 2002, Philippine authorities raided Hapilon's suspected hideout in Zamboanga City with the intention of arresting him. However, he managed to escape prior to their arrival.

In May 2008, Hapilon was shot in the hand during a military operation in Jolo. His son, Tabari, also an Abu Sayyaf fighter, was fatally wounded.

Hapilon was wounded in April 2013, in a military offensive that killed eight other Islamist militants in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan. Hapilon sustained a "slight wound" on the head during the raid, but his followers managed to drag him off safely before the soldiers could seize control of their base. There were United States intelligence reports claiming he may have suffered a stroke at some point.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Philippines
On July 23, 2014, a video of Hapilon along with other masked men was uploaded to YouTube, where they swore their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL.

On April 9, 2016, Hapilon and Basilan-based commander Furuji Indama led 150 Abu Sayyaf fighters on an attack against government forces in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan. At least eighteen soldiers were killed and more than fifty other soldiers were wounded in the ten-hour shootout. Hapilon's son, Ubaida, was among the five Abu Sayyaf fighters killed in the encounter. Additional government forces were deployed to capture or kill Hapilon.

A June 21, 2016, video by ISIL entitled "The Solid Structure" recognized Hapilon as the mujahid authorized to lead the jihadists of the Islamic State in the Philippines, and designated him as the emir for Southeast Asia. The video also called on Southeast Asian Islamist militants to travel to the Philippines and engage in jihad.

As of January 2017, ISIL acknowledged him as their member. He was known to be in Butig, Lanao del Sur for rectifying the Maute group and joining Abu Sayyaf to establish Islamic State in the Philippines. He was later promoted as emir of the "Philippine Province".

In May 2017, during a joint operation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to capture Hapilon, militants of the Maute group launched an attack in Marawi. As of that time, Hapilon was in Marawi, alongside his supporters. He was believed to be injured.

In October 16, Isnilon and Omar Maute were killed in a military operation in Marawi, which rescued 17 hostages. The deaths were confirmed by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. Lorenzana announced on October 21 that the FBI confirmed that the DNA sample of a body recovered by AFP matched that of Hapilon. This was confirmed by Lamont Siller, the FBI's legal attaché at the Embassy of the United States, Manila as well as the embassy's spokeswoman Molly Koscina.

Notes

References

External links

FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists wanted poster of Hapilon at fbi.gov
PBS article about Janjalani
Asia Times: "Philippines the second front in war on terror?"

2017 deaths
People from Basilan
Filipino Islamists
Abu Sayyaf members
Moro conflict
Paramilitary Filipinos
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
Assassinated ISIL members
Leaders of Islamic terror groups
1968 births

Isnilon Hapilon


In measure theory, a branch of mathematics that studies generalized notions of volumes, an s-finite measure is a special type of measure. An s-finite measure is more general than a finite measure, but allows one to generalize certain proofs for finite measures.

The s-finite measures should not be confused with the σ-finite (sigma-finite) measures.

Definition
Let  be a measurable space and  a measure on this measurable space. The measure  is called an s-finite measure, if it can be written as a countable sum of finite measures  (),

Example
The Lebesgue measure  is an s-finite measure. For this, set

and define the measures  by

for all measurable sets . These measures are finite, since  for all measurable sets , and by construction satisfy

Therefore the Lebesgue measure is s-finite.

Properties

Relation to σ-finite measures
Every σ-finite measure is s-finite, but not every s-finite measure is also σ-finite.

To show that every σ-finite measure is s-finite, let  be σ-finite. Then there are measurable disjoint sets  with  and

Then the measures

are finite and their sum is . This approach is just like in the example above.

An example for an s-finite measure that is not σ-finite can be constructed on the set  with the σ-algebra . For all , let  be the counting measure on this measurable space and define

The measure  is by construction s-finite (since the counting measure is finite on a set with one element). But  is not σ-finite, since

So  cannot be σ-finite.

Equivalence to probability measures
For every s-finite measure , there exists an equivalent probability measure , meaning that . One possible equivalent probability measure is given by

References

Measures (measure theory)

S-finite measure


Vlada Borovko is a Russian operatic soprano. In 2016, she sang Violetta, the lead role in La Traviata, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Early life
Borovko was born in 1988, in Kazan, the birthplace of Feodor Chaliapin, and attended the Children's Art School No. 13 in Chelny, where she first studied singing in a school choir.
Borovko studied languages, specializing in English, at the Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod. After graduating, she applied to study operatic singing at the Kazan State Conservatory, under the tutelage of Galina Trofimova Lastovka, a recipient of the People's Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan and Honored Artist of Russia. After studying for five years, she entered an international competition in Budapest, winning an invitation to sing the premiere at the Bartok Opera Festival in 2014. She then entered the international competition to compete for an internship at Covent Garden, winning a two-year contract. Out of 370 competitors from 59 nations, five were awarded with contracts to become members of The Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists Programme.

Career
She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in March 2016 by stepping into the role of Violetta in La traviata at one hour's notice. She then sang the role of Clotilde in Bellini's Norma in several productions from September to October 2016, where she was recognised as "a rising soprano with a solid technique to listen out for, rounding out her character with skilled yet subtle acting ability". The Guardian described her performance in Oreste in November 2016 as "show-stopping" and said that she "brought the house down with her furious demisemiquavers".

References

External links

Living people
Russian operatic sopranos
1988 births
Musicians from Kazan
21st-century Russian women singers
Kazan Conservatory alumni

Vlada Borovko


John Gwynfryn Morgan OBE (16 February 1934 – 21 April 2010) was a British Labour Party official and EU civil servant.

Morgan was born in Cwmdare, Wales, the son of a coal miner. He attended Aberdare Boys Grammar School before going on to the University College Wales, Aberystwyth, where he studied Classics. He also played Second XI Championship cricket for Glamorgan. From 1960 to 1962, Morgan was president of the National Union of Students. He was also Secretary General of the International Student Conference, a non-communist competitor of the International Union of Students.

Morgan served as head of the Labour Party's Overseas Department from 1965 to 1969, succeeding David Ennals. He was then assistant general secretary to Harry Nicholas from 1969 to 1972. Morgan was groomed to succeed Nicholas as General Secretary of the Labour Party, but when Nicholas retired the National Executive Committee instead narrowly selected Ron Hayward. The committee was deadlocked for three consecutive ballots, with the left-leaning Hayward finally winning on the casting vote of chairman Tony Benn.

In 1973, Morgan left the British political scene to go and work for the European Commission. Until 1975, he was chief of staff to George Thomson, the European Commissioner for Regional Policy. Morgan later held various EU administrative and diplomatic positions, and helped create the European Development Fund. He was prominent in the "Yes" campaign for the 1975 EEC membership referendum, and was also on the bureau of the Socialist International. In his personal life, Morgan was a director of London Welsh RFC. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1999.

See also
 List of presidents of the National Union of Students

References

1934 births
2010 deaths
Alumni of Aberystwyth University
European civil servants
Labour Party (UK) officials
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Aberdare High School
People from Cynon Valley
Presidents of the National Union of Students (United Kingdom)
British officials of the European Union

Gwyn Morgan (civil servant)


12 Yard Productions (Investments) Limited, trading as 12 Yard, is a British television production company. It was founded in 2001 as a joint-venture between David Young and the creative team behind the worldwide hit Weakest Link and Hat Trick Productions.

12 Yard has gone on to become one of the world's most successful entertainment format creators, producing hit formats including the BBC's long-running early evening quiz Eggheads, Saturday night BBC One lottery formats The National Lottery: In it to Win it and Who Dares Wins!, primetime feel-good format Holding out for a Hero, Take on the Twisters and Big Star's Little Star for ITV, and Coach Trip, Celebrity Coach Trip  and Christmas Coach Trip for Channel 4.

On 5 December 2007, it was confirmed that ITV plc had acquired 12 Yard for £35 million.

Programmes

Current/Upcoming

Former

References

External links

Companies based in the City of Westminster
ITV (TV network)
Mass media companies established in 2001
Television production companies of the United Kingdom

12 Yard


Noss Head is a headland on the north-west coast of Scotland that overlooks Sinclairs Bay. It lies approximately  north-east of Wick in Caithness, in the Highland council area of Scotland.

Noss Head was first mentioned in the historical record as early as the 2nd century AD by Greek geographer Ptolemaios as Verubium Promontorium.

Noss Head Lighthouse

Noss Head Lighthouse first entered service in 1849, and consists of an  cylindrical tower, which is painted white. It supports a single gallery and a lantern with a black cupola. It is notable as being the first lighthouse that was built with a diagonally paned lantern room. In 1987 the light was converted to automatic operation. The lighthouse is still owned and operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB).

Marine Protected Area
A sea area of  off Noss Head has been designated as a Marine Protected Area (MPA) since 2014. It is home to the largest bed of horse mussels known in Scottish waters, which lies at a depth of between 35 and 45 m below sea level. Living amongst the mussel beds are many other species, including soft corals, tubeworms, barnacles, sea firs, and sea mats, brittlestars, crabs, worms and molluscs.

The MPA is designated a Category IV protected area by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

References

Caithness
Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas of Scotland
Headlands of Scotland

Noss Head


The Benjamin Cushway House is a single family home located near the corner of Rust Avenue and Fordney Street in Saginaw, Michigan. Built in 1844, it is the oldest surviving residence in Saginaw County. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

History
Benjamin Cushway, then still a boy, moved to Saginaw in 1810 with his family. He worked first on a farm and later trained as a blacksmith. In 1833, Benjamin married his wife, Adelaide. In 1844, Benjamin and Adelaide Cushway constructed this house at what is now the corner of Court and Hamilton Street. The site was located within the remains of the abandoned Fort Saginaw. In 1848, the Cushways moved onto a farm, and in 1850 sold the house to Jacob Voght, a grocer and farmer. In 1869, Fort Saginaw was razed, and the Cuchway House was moved to 1404 South Fayette. After the turn of the century, the house was purchased by the Narcarto Family, who owned it at least until the 1980s. It was moved again to its current location in 2001.

Description
The Cushway House is built of hand-axed timbers. It is a Greek Revival structure with return eaves and a moderately pitched gable roof.

References

National Register of Historic Places in Saginaw County, Michigan
Greek Revival architecture in Michigan
Buildings and structures completed in 1844

Benjamin Cushway House


The Maudsley Bipolar Twin Study is an ongoing twin study of bipolar disorder running at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London since 2003.  The study is investigating possible differences between people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and people without the diagnosis.  In particular it is investigating difference in cognition and brain structure/function.

The Maudsley Study of bipolar disorder investigates different aspects of thinking, such as memory and attention, in twins with and without bipolar disorder.  The tasks participants complete involve defining words and solving different kinds of problems. With adequate numbers of twins participating in the study, the hope is to understand any differences between these two groups. The eventual aim is to increase understanding of this complex mood disorder and to enhance future therapies for it.

References

External links
 Maudsley Bipolar Twin Study

English medical research
Research projects
Genetics studies
Twin studies
2000s in science
Bipolar disorder
King's College London
2003 establishments in England

Maudsley Bipolar Twin Study


3 Idiots (stylized as 3 idiots) is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age comedy drama film written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, co-wtitten by Abhijat Joshi and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra under the banner of Vinod Chopra Films. Adapted from Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone, the film stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi in the titular roles, marking their reunion three years after Rang De Basanti (2006), while Kareena Kapoor, Omi Vaidya and Boman Irani star in pivotal roles. Narrated through two parallel dramas, one in the present and the other set ten years in the past, the story follows the friendship of three students at an Indian engineering college and is a satire about the social pressures under the Indian education system.

Production
Produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra under the banner Vinod Chopra Films, and based on Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT!, the movie joined genuine Indian developments made by Remya Jose, Mohammad Idris, Jahangir Painter and Sonam Wangchuk.  The movie released on December 25, 2009 and was a critical and commercial success. It was also the highest-grossing movie in its opening weekend in India, had the highest opening day collections for an Indian movie up until that point and also held the record for the highest net collections in the first week for a Bollywood movie. It additionally got one of only a handful few Indian movies at an opportunity to get successful in East Asian business sectors, for example, China and Japan, at last carrying its overall gross to ₹3.92 billion ($90 million) — it was the highest-grossing Indian movie ever at the time. The movie likewise socially affected perspectives to schooling in India, and also education in other Asian nations, for example, China.

Awards
The movie won six Filmfare Awards including Best Film and three National Film Awards including Best Popular Film. Overseas, it won the Grand Prize at Japan's Videoyasan Awards while it was nominated for Best Outstanding Foreign Language Film at the Japan Academy Awards and Best Foreign Film at China's Beijing International Film Festival. In 2012, a Tamil remake of the film was released and it was called Nanban and in 2017, a Mexican remake of the film was released and it was called 3 Idiotas.

Plot
The film begins with wildlife photographer Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan) boarding his flight from Delhi when he receives a phone-call from Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya), his biggest rival from college, who claims to be knowing the whereabouts of his long-lost friend and collegemate named Ranchhoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad a.k.a. Rancho (Aamir Khan). Right when his airplane takes off, Farhan fakes a heart attack to create an emergency landing of his flight and escapes from the airport in someone else's booked taxi at the arrival terminal. While on his way to the house of another friend and collegemate named Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi), who is now married and lives a reputed lifestyle, Farhan contacts him and apprises him of this development before being joined by Raju from outside the latter's house.

Subsequently, the duo rushes to the campus of their former college called the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE) and meet Chatur, who reminds them of the long-forgotten bet he had made with the group 10 years ago about who will end up more successful in the next 10 years, and boasts to them about his more successful career in the United States as the vice president of Rockledge Corporation, an American conglomerate. Frustrated, Farhan and Raju lose their temper at Chatur for his pretext to bring them to the place, but calm down when Chatur reveals that he has traced Rancho to Shimla. The three of them then begin their journey to Shimla in search of Rancho as Farhan reminisces about their college days.

Over a flashback 10 years prior, it is shown that Farhan joined the prestigious ICE since his orthodox father (Parikshit Sahni) forced him to pursue engineering despite his passion for wildlife photography. Upon arriving, he befriends his second roommate Raju, who has come from a lower middle-class family, which has pinnned very high hopes on him to bring them out of poverty. While being ragged by the hostel seniors, Farhan and Raju stumble upon their seemingly naive third roommate Rancho, who has come from a rich family but has a passion of experimenting using different theories and consequently tops the class. He gives unorthodox answers to the college professors as an advice to serve them with rather understandable, easygoing learning methods. Rancho, Raju and Farhan, now good friends, meet Dr. Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani), the director of ICE nicknamed "Virus" by the students, on the day of their introduction to the college's principles. Virus believes in a strict and competitive education system and Rancho's carefree love for knowledge always results in him being at odds with his draconian teaching philosophy, especially during their first meeting.

Soon, Joy Lobo (Ali Fazal), a student at ICE with a passion of engineering similar to that of Rancho, is denied graduation by Virus on grounds of failure to meet his project deadline, and depressingly dumps his innovative drone camera, which is immediately discovered by Rancho. After learning about Joy's predicament, the trio recreates the drone camera in order to cheer him up, but Joy unfortunately commits suicide by hanging before he can see his project coming to life. Due to this tragic incident, Rancho holds Virus' approach responsible for Joy's suicide and confronts him over the extreme pressure placed by him on the ICE students, therefore embarrassing and insulting him in front of the students. This provokes a furious Virus to send complaint letters to Farhan and Raju's parents, explaining to them that Rancho is a bad influence to their children. As a result, the trio is confronted by Farhan and Raju's respective parents at their respective houses.

Later that night, the hungry trio gatecrashes a wedding for dinner, whence they bump into a young girl named Pia (Kareena Kapoor), who is shown to be engaged to her materially obsessive boyfriend named Suhas Tandon (Sanjay Lafont). Rancho advises Pia to leave Suhas, which ends up in a comical demonstration of spilling mint chutney on his expensive leather shoes, pushing Pia into anger. However, she turns out to be the younger daughter of Virus, who confronts the trio after they are tricked by Pia, as it also turns out that the wedding is for Pia's older sister Mona (Mona Singh). The following morning, Virus summons Farhan and Raju to his office and warns them about the consequences of them being friends with Rancho by pointing out the modest financial situations of their families.

While Farhan remains loyal to Rancho, Raju is provoked to move in with Chatur, an arrogant, competitive, Anglo-Indian student, who was born in Uganda and studied in Pondicherry. He believes in rote memorization and is nicknamed "Silencer" by the students, as he consumes some memory-enhancing pills with the side-effect of farting off in a silent and yet lethal way. Determined to teach Chatur a lesson about memorization and also show Raju the reality, Rancho and Farhan distract Chatur and the ICE librarian Dubey (Akhil Mishra) and secretly make obscene modifications, like "chamatkar" (miracle) to "balatkar" (screw) and "dhan" (wealth) to "stan" (bossoms), to the script of Chatur's Teachers' Day speech. After a disastrous speech before Virus and the Minister of Education, which still fails to convince Raju, the devastated Chatur drunkenly confronts Rancho and Farhan and makes a bet with them to see who will end up more successful in the next 10 years.

Although initially upset with Rancho's behaviour, Pia develops a crush on him after Rancho lies to Suhas about she having lost the expensive watch he had gifted to her, showing Pia his materialistic side. Fed up with Suhas' materialistic attitude, Pia returns him the watch and angrily calls off their engagement. The same night, Raju's paralyzed father (Mukund Bhatt) suffers from a medical emergency and is rushed to the hospital by Rancho via Pia's scooter by riding it inside the hospital premises. Raju, who is able to catch up, realises his mistake on hearing from the doctor how the timely intervention saved his father's life and reconciles with Rancho and Farhan. The trio proceed to give their final exams the next day and at the end of the year, Rancho comes first in the class, while Farhan and Raju are last and second to last, respectively. During the yearly class photograph, Rancho makes a bet with Virus that if either Farhan or Raju manages to get a job from on-campus interviews, Virus will shave off his moustache.

The story catches up to the present as Farhan, Raju and Chatur finally reach Shimla, where Chatur has located Rancho's house. However, upon arriving, they are extremely shocked to come across a completely different man (Javed Jaffrey) identifying himself as "Ranchhoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad", whose face is pasted over Rancho's face in their first year class photograph with an ICE degree to Rancho's name. When the confused Farhan and Raju question Chatur on how he got the Shimla address, he reveals that he spotted Rancho in the photograph clicked by his secretary Tracy, when she had come to Shimla to fix his appointment with an international scientist named "Phunsukh Wangdu", a sensational inventor with 400 patents to credit, whom Chatur's company is trying to sign a deal with, ahead of their Japanese rivals.

Upon learning this, Farhan and Raju revisit and confront the so-called "Ranchhoddas", who initially refuses to reveal anything and threatens them at gunpoint, but when the duo turns the tables on him and threatens to flush his late father Shyamaldas' ashes down the toilet, he admits that he is the real Ranchhoddas and that the "Rancho" who had been with them in ICE was actually his family's gardener's son nicknamed "Chhote", who was incredibly intelligent and gifted. He was taken in by the Chanchad family after being orphaned, and Ranchhoddas took advantage of Rancho's thirst for knowledge by having him appear as a proxy for his school exams and also have all his school assignments completed by him.

After a schoolteacher caught the bluff one day, Shyamaldas (Arun Bali) instructed him to continue the ruse for not wanting his son to experience the same disrespect that he himself experienced due to his illiteracy. As per a deal between Shyamaldas and Rancho, Ranchhoddas went to London for four years while Rancho assumed his identity at ICE and promised Shyamaldas to cut off all contact with everyone there after graduation, but warned Ranchhoddas afterwards that "two idiots" would come looking for him one day. Ranchhoddas requests Farhan and Raju to keep all this information a secret and gives them Rancho's real address. The group resumes their journey to Ladakh, where Rancho is apparently working as a schoolteacher, and a distressingly delighted Chatur cites his superiority of signing a deal with Phunsukh Wangdu, irritating Farhan and Raju.

As the story rewinds back to their fourth year of college, the trio is shown to be approaching graduation and Virus insults Farhan and Raju due to their consistent failures in exams, during his announcement about the upcoming on-campus job interviews before the final exams. One night, Rancho points out to Farhan and Raju why they consistently place last; Farhan's passion is wildlife photography, not engineering, and Raju lacks self-confidence in the fear about his current poverty. When Farhan and Raju make a bet with Rancho that they will confront their problems if he confesses his feelings for Pia, the trio breaks into Virus' house in a drunken state at midnight. While Rancho climbs up to Pia's room to propose to her, Farhan and Raju urinate on the letter-box of Virus, who spots Raju during the trio's escape.

The next day, Virus summons Raju to his office and gives him an ultimatum of either acting as his witness in rusticating Rancho or being rusticated himself. Neither wanting to disappoint his family yet again nor betray his close friend, a distraught Raju jumps off the window in Virus' office from the 3rd-floor to attempt suicide, and ends up in a coma due to immediate hospitalisation. However, he is successfully recovered over the next few months with support from his family and friends, while Virus also rescinds his rustication. With a newfound perspective of his life, Raju attends his on-campus interview on the day of his discharge from the hospital, and confidently succeeds in securing a job in an engineering firm. On the other hand, Farhan also ends up successful in convincing his father about his passion for wildlife photography and contentment with the job he secured with his role model, wildlife photographer Andre Istvan, in Hungary. Thus, Virus' barber Govind (Rajendra Patwardhan) shaves off his moustache as per the bet he had made with Rancho. In an attempt to protect his fragile ego, Virus drunkenly plans to sabotage Raju's chances of success by rigging his final exam question papers. However, Pia visits the trio in a drunken state and hands over the duplicate keys of Virus' office to Rancho, encouraging him to copy the question papers rigged by Virus for Raju.

As the story forwards to the journey, Farhan and Raju suddenly remember Pia on their way and learn that she is getting married that day itself in Manali, Himachal Pradesh. The duo is determined to take Pia along with them but Chatur protests against the detour as it will jeopardize his meeting with Phunsukh Wangdu. However, Farhan and Raju gag Chatur inside the car trunk and head straight to Manali, where the duo gatecrashes Pia's wedding to Suhas. Farhan sneaks in to reunite with Pia, while Raju substitutes himself as a housekeeper for Suhas with a similar comical demonstration of ironing mint chutney on his expensive wedding suit. Pia initially refuses to go with Farhan, despite hearing Suhas screaming at Raju for ruining his wedding suit, leading Farhan to realise that their plan has worked.

Furthermore, Raju escapes in the heat of the moment with the wedding suit, claiming to Suhas that he will return it in mint condition, but instead proceeds to fill in as the bridegroom. An initially worried Pia, as she finds this out, grows concerned over public reaction to the ruse, causing Raju to reveal himself and confront Pia over her love for Rancho, even as Suhas turns up in a gown. As she spots Farhan at the entrance, with the car doors opened, Pia, in front of the stunned Suhas, Virus, Mona and other wedding guests, breaks free from the bond and escapes with the duo and Chatur to go to Ladakh and reunite with Rancho, although concerned about his unknown marital status.

The story rolls again into the flashback where Rancho and Farhan break into Virus' office with the help of its duplicate keys given to them by Pia and are successful in copying the question papers for Raju. Despite Raju refusing to use the question papers, Virus discovers what happened and has the trio rusticated from ICE in the middle of the night as his initial anger soon turns into disappointment. However, Pia admits her role in the events and confronts Virus over her brother's suicidal demise, which was misinterpreted by Virus as an accident, simply because his passion for literature and desire to become a writer was overruled by Virus, who was insistent on his son becoming an engineer.

As the trio is leaving the campus in the middle of heavy rainstorms, they come across the now-pregnant Mona, who goes under labor no later after Pia walks out of the house and is unable to be driven to the hospital. Applying their knowledge of engineering, the trio brings Mona inside the table tennis room of ICE and successfully conducts her delivery by modifying a vacuum cleaner into a makeshift venthouse with the help of other students as well as Pia from the hospital through a webcam. Realising the fault in his ways and how genius Rancho is, a grateful Virus acknowledges him as an extraordinary students by gifting him a very rare Space Pen and lets the trio stay till the final exams. Rancho, along with Farhan and Raju, tops the university in the final year, but abruptly leaves the graduation ceremony without informing anyone and has never been heard of again.

Over the end of the flashback, Farhan, Raju, Pia and Chatur finally reach Ladakh where, after unbounding Chatur, Farhan, Raju and Pia are astonished to find a thriving school that is probably run by Rancho. While searching for Rancho in the school area, the group also runs into Manmohan (now Dushyant Wagh), formerly an errand boy at the ICE nicknamed "Millimetre" (then Rahul Kumar), and now Rancho's assistant, who reveals to them that Rancho has read all the books published by Farhan about his works in wildlife photography, and also shares Raju's daily blogs on the internet to the students. In addition, Rancho has also kept Pia's old scooter helmet safely as her souviner. With the help of the directions given by Millimetre, Pia, Farhan and Raju finally come face-to-face with Rancho on a sandbar, where they all initially berate him for leaving from ICE without informing them, but eventually come to terms and have a happy reunion with him. Also, Rancho admits that he is still in love with Pia and the two of them share a passionate kiss.

After catching up with the group, Chatur condescendingly insults Rancho's apparent status as a mere schoolteacher and has him sign a makeshift document of "Declaration of Defeat" before stealing the Space Pen given to him by Virus as well. As Chatur walks away in supposed victory, Pia asks Rancho his real name and he, in a twisted ending, reveals himself before Pia, Farhan and Raju to be none other than Phunsukh Wangdu, the scientist and inventor having the 400 patents to credit, whom Chatur's company is courting (based on Sonam Wangchuk). On this new development, Rancho contacts Chatur, who is a few distance away from the group, and considers calling off the deal with his company due to the fact that he stole Virus' Space Pen from him. A doubtful Chatur glances at the Declaration of Defeat document and is flabbergasted to see Rancho's signature as Phunsukh Wangdu, therefore accepting defeat before Rancho and the group. Rancho, Pia, Farhan and Raju run away laughing while a humiliated Chatur chases after them, as the film ends with Farhan quoting Rancho's words on success; "Pursue excellence, and success will follow, pants down."

Cast
 Aamir Khan as Ranchoddas "Rancho" Shamaldas Chanchad / Chhote / Phunsukh Wangdu
 R. Madhavan as Farhan Qureshi
 Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi
 Omi Vaidya as Chatur Ramalingam, a Ugandan-Indian educated in Tamil-speaking Pondicherry who has little knowledge of Hindi, and Rancho's rival whose habit of being flatulent due to the consumption of certain pills claimed to enhance his memorization earns him the nickname "Silencer"; in the present story, he is vice-president of Rockledge Corporation who discovers his success being overshadowed by Phunsukh Wangdu a.k.a. Rancho at the end of the film.
 Kareena Kapoor as Pia Sahastrabuddhe
 Boman Irani as Dr. Viru "Virus" Sahastrabuddhe
 Omi Vaidya as Chatur Ramalingam
 Rahul Kumar as Manmohan a.k.a. Millimetre
 Dushyant Wagh as adult Manmohan a.k.a. Centimetre
 Mona Singh as Mona Sahastrabuddhe
 Parikshit Sahni as Mr. Qureshi
 Farida Dadi as Mrs. Qureshi
 Amardeep Jha as Mrs. Rastogi
 Mukund Bhatt as Mr. Rastogi
 Rajendra Patwardhan as Govind
 Javed Jaffrey as the real Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad. (Cameo appearance)
 Arun Bali as Shamaldas Chanchad (Cameo appearance)
 Ali Fazal as Joy Lobo (Cameo appearance)
 Akhil Mishra as Librarian Dubey.
 Rohitash Gaud as (real) Ranchoddas's servant.
 Achyut Potdar as Machine Class Professor
 Madhav Vaze as Mr. Lobo, Joy Lobo's father.
 Olivier Sanjay Lafont as Suhas Tandon
 Jayant Kripalani
 Atul Tiwari as R.D. Tripathi
 Rajeev Ravindranathan as ragging senior student.
 Supriya Shukla as doctor with Pia.

Sequel
When asked about plans of a 3 Idiots sequel in an interview with Hindustan Times, screenwriter Abhijat Joshi replied, saying, "Honestly, I don't know. We have an idea for the 3 Idiots sequel, a Munna Bhai part three, and also for a PK sequel; but the PK and Munna Bhai sequels interest me the most. So, I think the 3 Idiots sequel may happen in the future, but these two I really want to work on." In January 2016, director Rajkumar Hirani and actor Aamir Khan confirmed that they were considering a 3 Idiots sequel. Khan told reporters, ""Raju Hirani has given me a hint about 3 Idiots sequel and I am giving you all a hint. The film will happen if and whenever he will write the script." Hirani agreed, saying "this is one film that I really want to do."

In June 2018, Hirani was asked a question while promoting his upcoming film Sanju and he was quoted as saying, "I definitely want to make a sequel to 3 Idiots, but it's still in the initial stage and we will take a fair amount of time to develop the script". The report also said that Hirani will begin shooting for the Munna Bhai sequel with Sanjay Dutt. Work on 3 Idiots will begin only after Hirani is done with Munna Bhai 3.

References

2000s buddy movies
2009 comedy-drama movies
Education in India
2000s English-language movies
2000s Hindi-language movies
2000s Indian movies
Movies about death
Movies based on books
Movies set in universities and colleges
Nonlinear narrative movies
2000s satirical movies
Urdu-language movies

3 Idiots


Charles Kidd (born 1964) is an American graphic designer known for book covers.

Early childhood
Born in Shillington in Berks County, Pennsylvania, Kidd grew up being fascinated and heavily inspired by American popular culture. Comic books were his gateway into graphic design, with Batman and Superman populating some of his earliest childhood memories. Kidd attended Pennsylvania State University, where he graduated in 1986 with a degree in graphic design.

Career
Throughout his career, Kidd has been a graphic designer, book designer, editor, author, lecturer and musician. According to Graphic Design: American Two, he has been credited with "helping to spawn a revolution in the art of America book packaging in the last ten years."
 One of the most consistent characteristics of Kidd's style is the fact that his book covers don't carry one signature look, as he states: "A signature look is crippling… [because] the simplest and most effective solutions aren't dictated by style."

Cover design

Kidd is currently the associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random House. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 covers a year, Kidd has freelanced for Amazon, Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press, HarperCollins, Penguin/Putnam, Scribner and Columbia University Press, in addition to his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervised graphic novels at Pantheon, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole, Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer, Bret Easton Ellis, Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Frank Miller, Michael Ondaatje, Alex Ross, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka, Gengoroh Tagame, David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, John Updike and many others. His most notable book cover design was for Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park novel, which was so successful that it carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd design their book covers. Kidd's influence on the book-jacket has been amply noted—Time Out New York has said that "the history of book design can be split into two eras: before graphic designer Chip Kidd and after."

Kidd has also worked with writer Lisa Birnbach on True Prep, a follow-up to her 1980 book The Official Preppy Handbook.

Publishers Weekly described his book jackets as "creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature." USA Today also called him "the closest thing to a rock star" in graphic design today, while author James Ellroy has called him "the world's greatest book-jacket designer."

Kidd is often asked about his  creative process. On the source of his inspiration, Kidd told Matt Pashkow in Inspirability that "for the most part I'm inspired by whatever the book is, or by the  manuscript itself." For the USA Today, he outlined his process for  creating a cover. After closely reading the work he contacts the author, who  "has final say, so it's a logical starting point." "Along the way, I may or may  not involve photographers or illustrators or any amount of ephemeral detritus  that washes up on my shores in the pursuit of solving the problem. And that is  what it always amounts to: visually solving a problem." He says that this  solution can take up to six months to find.

Kidd has often downplayed the importance of cover designs, stating, "I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that." He is also known to be humorously self-deprecating about his work with statements such as "I piggy-backed my career on the backs of authors, not the other way around. The latest example of that is The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I'm lucky to be attached to that. Cormac McCarthy is not lucky to have me doing his cover."

Kidd is a huge fan of comic book media, particularly Batman, and has written and designed book covers for several DC Comics publications, including The Complete History of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days, and the aforementioned Jack Cole and Plastic Man. He also designed Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross and wrote an exclusive Batman/Superman story illustrated by Ross for the book. Kidd once stated that the first cover he ever noticed was "no doubt for some sort of Batman comic I saw when I was about 3, enough said. Or maybe not enough said: the colors, the forms, the design. Batman himself is such a brilliant design solution." Veronique Vienne, who wrote an eponymous book about Kidd in 2006, described Kidd's Batman fandom as a "childhood obsession and lasting adult passion".

Kidd provided the cover design for Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001, 2002).

Novels
His first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, (Simon & Schuster, 2001) is an academic satire and coming-of-age tale about state college art students who struggle to meet the demands of a sadistic graphic design instructor. The book draws on Kidd's real-life experiences during his art studies with Lanny Sommese at Penn State.

Kidd's second novel, The Learners, finds the protagonist of The Cheese Monkeys drawn into the infamous Milgram experiment, thanks to an incidental newspaper ad assignment. The novel uses the experiment as an extended metaphor for advertising, wherein the "content" is masked and fed—sometimes unwillingly—to its consumers.

It was announced at New York Comic Con 2011 that Kidd would be writing Batman: Death by Design, an original graphic novel, which was then published in 2012.

Other books
In 1996, Kidd designed and wrote Batman: Collected. Kidd also worked with fellow Batman collector Saul Ferris on another book of a more particular subject, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, which was released for sale in October 2008.

Music
In early 2008, Kidd started a new wave/alternative rock band, writing and recording music under the name Artbreak. He takes the role of song writing, vocals, and percussion, and while the group began as hobby, Kidd has expressed interest in making a serious project out of it. , the group performs across the United States and has a tour schedule on their MySpace. They plan to record their original songs for an album entitled Wonderground.

Animation
In 2010, Kidd collaborated with the writing staff of the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold on the episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" The episode contained a segment that was heavily inspired by the Batman cartoon from the 1960s.

Advocacy

In 2013, Kidd was announced as a member of the newly formed advisory board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization founded in 1986 chartered to protect the First Amendment rights of the comics community.

Talks
Kidd has presented lectures at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, RISD, and numerous other institutions, including the 2012 Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference, resulting in a TED Talk web video: "Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is," that has over 2,000,000 hits and counting. He also returned to Penn State recently, where he presented his lecture, "Fail Better."

Honors
 AIGA medal (2014)
 National Design Award for Communication (2007)
 International Center of Photography's Infinity Award for Design (1997)

Personal life
Kidd lives on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He was married to the late poet and Yale Review editor J. D. McClatchy; the couple married in November 2013.

He continues to edit comics at Pantheon and frequently writes about graphic design and pop culture for publications including McSweeney's, The New York Times, Vogue, and Entertainment Weekly.

Published works

Fiction
 The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters (2001)
 The Learners: The Book After "The Cheese Monkeys" (2008)

Graphic novels
 Batman: Death by Design (2012) – art by Dave Taylor

Comics (short)
 "The Bat-Man," in Bizarro Comics (2001) – art by Tony Millionaire
 "The Trust," in Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross (2003) – art by Alex Ross
 "Batman with Robinson the Boy Wonder," in Bizarro World (2005) – art by Tony Millionaire

Nonfiction
 Chip Kidd: Book Two: Work: 2007-2017 (2018).
 Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts (2015)

 Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It (2014)
  Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design (2013)
 The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame: Master of Gay Erotic Manga (2013)
 Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal (2010)
 Rough Justice: The DC Comics Sketches of Alex Ross (2010)
 True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World (2010) – co-authored with Lisa Birnbach
 Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan (2008)
 Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006 (2005)
 Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross (2005)
 Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits (2001) – co-authored with Art Spiegelman
 Peanuts: the Art of Charles M. Schulz (2001)
 Batman Animated (1998) – co-authored with Paul Dini
 Batman Collected (1996)

References

Further reading
 Foreword by Chip Kidd to Just My Type by Simon Garfield, Profile Books, 2010,

External links

 Chip Kidd interviewed on Conversations from Penn State
 Inventory of the Kidd archives available at Guide to the Chip Kidd Papers, RBM 9528; Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University.

1964 births
American graphic designers
AIGA medalists
American gay writers
Living people
LGBT people from Pennsylvania
Penn State College of Arts and Architecture alumni
People from Shillington, Pennsylvania
People from Reading, Pennsylvania
21st-century American LGBT people

Chip Kidd


"The Junk Mail" is the 161st episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. It was the fifth episode of the ninth and final season. The episode aired on October 30, 1997. In this episode, Jerry is gifted a van by a childhood friend and cannot turn it down for fear of hurting his feelings, Elaine mistakenly thinks she has fallen in love when the sight of a man triggers memories of an old commercial he appeared in, and Kramer, tired of getting swamped with junk mail, tries to stop all delivery of his mail, only to uncover a conspiracy by the United States Postal Service to keep the public from realizing that mail is pointless. Produced when e-mail was becoming a mainstream form of communication, the episode reflected the popular prediction of the time that postal service would soon become obsolete.

Plot
Kramer gets an overabundance of Pottery Barn catalogs, which he saves up and angrily dumps at their local store. Increasingly frustrated at his volume of junk mail, Kramer bricks up his mailbox, but the postman just stuffs his mail into Jerry's mailbox. Kramer goes to the post office to stop his mail. Newman refuses and warns him that there is a conspiracy at work.

Jerry's childhood friend Frankie Merman gets Jerry a new van as a thank you for a show he did for Frankie's car dealership. Jerry does not want the van, but is afraid to refuse it, since Frankie is very emotionally fragile. Jerry takes out a classified ad to sell the van. Kramer offers Anthony Quinn's old T-shirt as a trade for the van. Jerry refuses, but Kramer nonetheless tells Frankie that Jerry sold him the van, uses it to launch an anti-postal campaign, and loans it to George's parents.

Kramer ignores Newman's warnings, and is abducted. Postmaster General Henry Atkins intimidates Kramer into receiving his mail again; as he leaves, Newman is led in with a bucket over his head and his hands zip tied together. He says to Kramer, "Tell the world my story."

George's parents make up excuses to cut him short on his weekly phone call and leave the house when he visits. When George confronts them about this, they tell him they are cutting him loose. George sexually propositions his cousin Rhisa to force his parents to get involved in his life. However, Rhisa agrees to the relationship and insists on keeping it secret. When he hears that his parents are borrowing the van, George schemes to make out with Rhisa in it so his parents will catch them when they pick it up. Jerry searches Central Park for Frankie, who has gone to dig a hole and sit in it. George parks the van in front of Frankie's hole. Frankie yells "Is this Seinfeld's van?! Seinfeld's van!", which George mistakes as "Son of Sam", running away in fear. The Costanza parents find the van. Jerry reconciles with Frankie and helps him out of the hole. They and George and Rhisa see the van rocking; despite Jerry cautioning them against opening it, they do so and see the Costanzas having sex. Upon seeing this, Frankie and Jerry agree to sell the van, while George is traumatized. His parents give him a "the birds and the bees" talk, only traumatizing him further.

Elaine has a "love at first sight" encounter with fact-checker Jack, and breaks up with David Puddy so she can date him. While going through an old VHS tape, Jerry discovers a commercial that features Jack as "The Wiz", a mascot for the electronics store of the same name. He realizes that Elaine's "love at first sight" experience is actually her remembering this commercial. Once confronted with this, Elaine wants Puddy back, but he rejects her. She tries to settle for Jack, but to her dismay, he quits his fact-checking job so that he can appear in The Wiz commercials again.

Production
Spike Feresten wrote "The Junk Mail" largely as an expression of his frustration at getting Pottery Barn catalogs in his mailbox on a near daily basis.

The Postmaster General in the episode, Henry Atkins, is a fictional character; the real Postmaster General at the time the episode was produced was Marvin T. Runyon.

The character David Puddy jokingly suggests that Elaine might fall in love with the Maytag Repairman; both of the actors who had played the Maytag Repairman up to this time, Jesse White and Gordon Jump, had appeared in earlier episodes of Seinfeld.

Newman's warning to Kramer on how the U.S. Postal Service will retaliate for Kramer's refusal to receive his mail is a parody of a scene from the film Three Days of the Condor, when Joubert muses on how Turner might be killed by the CIA.

Among the scenes which were filmed for the episode but cut before broadcast are an opening scene in which Elaine tries to refill her coffee at Monk's herself, and the ending scene, in which it is revealed that Jerry's van was purchased by Jack, who refurbishes it as a Nobody Beats the Wiz van and takes Elaine on a date in it, loudly introducing her to prospective customers as "Lady Wiz".

Analysis
The episode contains various allusions to William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Like Hamlet, it revolves around madness and troubled parent-child relations (with George's suspicions against his parents echoing Hamlet's distrust of Gertrude and Claudius), the scene in the park is reminiscent of the graveyard scene in Hamlet, and Newman's line, "Tell the world my story", echoes Hamlet's dying words to his friend, Horatio.

Writer Spike Feresten has not publicly commented on the scene where Henry Atkins intimidates Kramer, which has been subject to conflicting interpretations. Some have interpreted it as a parody of a scene in Absence of Malice which also featured actor Wilford Brimley (Atkins in "The Junk Mail"), while others argue that it is more closely derived from a scene in Network.

References

External links

Seinfeld (season 9) episodes
1997 American television episodes

The Junk Mail


Tōshūsai Sharaku (; active 1794–1795) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer, known for his portraits of kabuki actors.  Neither his true name nor the dates of his birth or death are known.  His active career as a woodblock artist spanned ten months; his prolific work met disapproval and his output came to an end as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun.  His work has come to be considered some of the greatest in the ukiyo-e genre.

Sharaku made mostly yakusha-e portraits of kabuki actors.  His compositions emphasize poses of dynamism and energy, and display a realism unusual for prints of the time—contemporaries such as Utamaro represented their subjects with an idealized beauty, while Sharaku did not shy from showing unflattering details.  This was not to the tastes of the public, and the enigmatic artist's production ceased in the first month of 1795.  His mastery of the medium with no apparent apprenticeship has drawn much speculation, and researchers have long tried to discover his true identity—amongst the dozens of proposals, some suggest he was an obscure poet, others a Noh actor, or even the ukiyo-e master Hokusai.

Background

Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries.  The artform took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the ukiyo "floating world" lifestyle of the pleasure districts.  Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre.  Ukiyo-e art was aimed at the merchants at the bottom of the social scale, especially of the administrative capital of Edo (modern Tokyo).  Its audience, themes, aesthetics, and mass-produced nature kept it from consideration as serious art.

After the mid-18th century, full-colour  prints became common, printed with a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour.  Critics have come to see the late 18th century as a peak period in the general quality of the work. Shunshō of the Katsukawa school introduced the ōkubi-e "large-headed picture" in the 1760s.  He and other members of the Katsukawa school popularized ōkubi yakusha-e actor prints and the dusting of mica in the backgrounds to produce a luxurious glittering effect.  In contrast to earlier actor prints, which used stereotyped features and poses of anonymous actors, these ōkubi yakusha-e aimed for recognizable likenesses.

Tōshūsai Sharaku's works appeared in the middle of the Kansei era (1789–1801), when the nation faced hard economic times that the military government responded to with reactionary policies such as the Kansei Reforms intended to strengthen the feudalistic shogunal system.  Some of the policies restricted extravagant fashions, and Kabuki theatres faced strict control over their perceived excesses and limits on actors' incomes.  Late Edo-period art nevertheless flourished, and new works and popular actors continued to rapidly appear in kabuki theatre, where realistic performances came in vogue.  Yakusha-e came to favour a greater emphasis on the individuality of the actors, and buyers came to expect pictures with the actors' likenesses, rather than the stereotyped images of the past, such as those by the once-dominant Torii school.

Works

Over 140 prints have been established as the work of Sharaku; the majority are portraits of actors or scenes from kabuki theatre, and most of the rest are of sumo wrestlers or warriors.  The prints appeared in the common print sizes aiban, hosoban, and ōban. They are divided into four periods.  The prints of the first two periods are signed "Tōshūsai Sharaku", the latter two only "Sharaku".  The print sizes became progressively smaller and the focus shifts from busts to full-length portraits.  The depictions become less expressive and more conventional.  Two picture calendars dating to as early as 1789 and three decorated fans as late as 1803 have been attributed to Sharaku, but have yet to be accepted as authentic works of his.  Sharaku's reputation rests largely on the earlier prints; those from the eleventh month of 1794 and after are considered artistically inferior.

First period

28 ōban prints make up the first period from the fifth month of Kansei 6 (in 1794).  They depict actors from kabuki plays performed at three theatres: Hana-ayame Bunroku Soga at the Miyako-za; Katakiuchi Noriyaibanashi and the jōruri Hana-shōbu Omoi no Kanzashi at the Kiri-za; and the kiri-kyōgen Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura at the Kawarazaki-za.  These prints are ōkubi yakusha-e against black mica backgrounds, made with a precise, fine line and simple colour scheme.  There are printing variants of these early prints, suggesting they went through multiple printings and thus sold relatively well.

Second period

8 ōban and 30 hosoban prints make up the second period from the seventh and eighth months of Kansei 6 (1794).  16 prints are from the jidai-kyōgen Keisei Sanbon Karasaka at Miyako-za in the seventh month; 10 from Nihon Matsu Michinoku Sodachi and the jōruri Katsuragawa Tsuki no Omoide at the Kawarazaki-za in the seventh month; 11 from the jidai-kyōgen Shinrei Yaguchi no Watashi, Yomo no Nishiki Kokyō no Tabiji, and the jōruri Tsuki no Mayu Koi no Monaka at the Kiri-za in the eighth month; and one portrait of Shinozuka Uraeimon as the announcer at Miyako-za.

Of the 8 ōban prints, 7 are full-length portraits of pairs of actors; the other is of the announcer at Miyako-za—the only full-body yakusha-e of a single subject in Sharaku's œuvre.  The only one of these ōban prints to employ black mica is that of Ichikawa Komazō III as Kameya Chūbei and Nakayama Tomisaburō as Umegawa from Tsuki no Mayu Koi no Monaka.  The hosoban prints are all full-body portraits of a single actor against a yellowish background, with the exception of the portraits of Ōtani Oniji II as Kawashima Jibugorō and Ichikawa Omezō I as Tomita Hyōtarō, which are on grey backgrounds.

Third period

47 hosoban, 13 aiban, and 4 ōban prints make up the third period (1794–1795).  From the eleventh month of Kansei 6, 18 of the prints come from Oshukubai Koi no Hatsune at the Miyako-za; 21 from Otokoyama Oedo no Ishizue and the jōruri Shinobu Koi Suzume no Irodoki at the Kiri-za; 15 from Matsuhamisa Onna Kusunoki and the jōruri Kagurazuki Iwai no Iroginu at the Kawarazaki-za; 4 are of sumo wrestlers, one of which is a triptych; and two are a memorial to .  From the intercalary 11th month, 3 prints are from Hana no Miyako Kuruwa no Nawabari at the Miyako-za.  By this period the artistry in Sharaku's work has noticeably deteriorated and displays less of Sharaku's individual touch.

Most of the hosoban prints distinguish themselves in Sharaku's œuvre by having backgrounds of trees or other stage scenery, though a few have empty yellowish ones.  Sharaku focuses on transitional poses as before, but the busier designs weaken the effect by drawing attention away from the actors' expressions to other elements of the composition.  Most of the aiban prints are more typically Sharaku in that they focus on the upper body and facial expressions against an empty background, this time yellowish.

Fourth period

10 hosoban and 5 aiban prints make up the fourth period from the first month of Kansei 7 (1795).  3 prints come from Nido no Kake Katsuiro Soga at the Kiri-za; 7 from Edo Sunago Kichirei Soga and Godairiki Koi no Fūjime at the Miyako-za; 1 is a sumo print; 2 are musha-e warrior prints; and 1 is of the god of luck Ebisu.

Style and analysis

Energy and dynamism are the primary features of Sharaku's portraits, rather than the idealized beauty typical of ukiyo-e—Sharaku highlights unflattering features such as large noses or the wrinkles of aging actors.

In his actor prints Sharaku usually depicts a single figure with a focus on facial expression.  To  Sharaku was able "to depict, within a single print, two or three levels of character revealed in the single moment of action forming the climax to a scene or performance".  In contrast to the static actor prints of a contemporary artist such as Katsukawa Shun'ei, who emphasized the narrative moment of his subjects in the plays depicted, Sharaku focused on the actor's and character's psychology, delivering an "almost caricature-like exaggeration, a heightened sense of theatrical gesture", according to art historian David Bell.  Occasionally two figures appear, revealing a contrast of types, as of different facial shapes, or a beautiful face contrasted with one more plain.

Most ukiyo-e artists gained apprenticeship experience and connections by working for an artistic school, such as the Torii or Utagawa school.  Sharaku did not, which likely contributed to his failure to find a sufficient audience to succeed.  Sharaku shows the skill of a master, despite scant evidence that he had prior experience designing prints.  Nonetheless, from the first Sharaku's prints appeared amongst the technical vanguard, with unusually realistic portrayals of their subjects and using extravagant techniques such as the dusting of mica in the backgrounds.  From such beginnings, though, the quality of his work quickly fades.

To Jack Ronald Hillier, there are occasional signs of Sharaku struggling with his medium.  Hillier compares Sharaku to French painter Paul Cézanne, who he believes "has to struggle to express himself, hampered and angered by the limitations of his draughtsmanship".

Identity

Ukiyo-e artists had low social status, and what personal details remain in the record tend to be sparse; Sharaku nevertheless presents an exceptional case in the utter absence of these details.  Biographers have long searched, but have had no luck in shining light on the identity of Sharaku.  The popularity the prints have attained feeds interest in the mystery, which in turns contributes further to interest the prints.  Of the more than fifty theories proposed, few have been taken seriously, and none has found wide acceptance.

A book on haiku theory and aesthetics from 1776 includes two poems attributed to a Sharaku, and references to a Nara poet by the same name appear in a 1776 manuscript and a 1794 poetry collection.  No evidence aside from proximity in time has established a connection with the artist Sharaku.  A Shinto document of 1790 records the name Katayama Sharaku as husband of a disciple of the sect in Osaka.  No further information is known of either the disciple or her husband.  A resemblance of Sharaku's kinetic kabuki portraits to those of Osaka-based contemporaries Ryūkōsai and Nichōsai has further fueled the idea of an Osaka-area origin.

Rare calendar prints from 1789 and 1790 that bear the pseudonym "Sharakusai" have surfaced; that they may have been by Sharaku has not been dismissed, but they bear little obvious stylistic resemblance to Sharaku's identified work.

Though disputed, Sharaku's prints have been said to resemble the masks of Noh theatre; connections have been deduced from numerous documents that suggest to some researchers that Sharaku was a Noh actor serving under the lord of Awa Province, in modern Tokushima Prefecture.  Amongst these documents are those that suggest Sharaku died between 1804 and 1807, including a Meiji-era manuscript that specifies the seventeenth day of the fifth month of 1806, and that his grave was marked in Kaizenji Temple in Asakusa in Edo.  Other similar theories, some discredited, include those that Sharaku was Noh actor Saitō Jūrōbei, Harutō Jizaemon, or Harutō Matazaemon.

In 1968 Tetsuji Yura proposed that Sharaku was Hokusai.  The claim is also found in the Ukiyo-e Ruikō ("Various Thoughts on Ukiyo-e"), and Sharaku's prints came during an alleged period of reduced productivity for Hokusai.  Though known primarily for his landscapes of the 19th century before Sharaku's arrival Hokusai produced over a hundred actor portraits—an output that ceased in 1794.  Hokusai changed his art name dozens of times throughout his long career—government censorship under the Kansei Reforms may have motivated him to choose a name to distance his actor portraits from his other work.  As ukiyo-e artists normally do not carve their own woodblocks, a change in carver could explain differences in line quality.

Others proposed identities include Sharaku's publisher Tsutaya or Tsutaya's father-in-law; the artists Utamaro, , Utagawa Toyokuni, or Maruyama Ōkyo; the painter-poet Tani Bunchō; the writer ; an unnamed Dutch artist; or actually three people. Yet another proposed identity is the author Santō Kyōden; Tani Minezō points out that Sharaku's brief career is concurrent with Kyōden's temporary break from writing gesaku due to grief over the sudden death of his wife Kikuzono around 1793.

Reception and legacy

The Edo public reacted poorly to Sharaku's portraits.  More copies of the larger, first-period works remain, suggesting they enjoyed greater popularity than the later works; most for which only a single copy remains come from the later periods.

Contemporaries such as Utamaro who also worked in a relatively realistic style presented their subjects in a positive, beautifying way.  Sharaku did not avoid depicting less flattering aspects of his subjects—he was the "arch-purveyor of vulgarities" to 19th-century art historian Ernest Fenollosa.  An inscription on Utamaro's portrait of 1803 appears to target criticism at Sharaku's approach; appearing eight years after Sharaku's supposed disappearance suggests that Sharaku's presence was still somehow felt, despite his lack of acceptance.

The subject of an Eishōsai Chōki portrait of Takashimaya O-Hisa holds a hand fan decorated with Sharaku's Kōshirō Matsumoto IV as Sakanaya Gorobee.  On a decorated kite illustrated in Jippensha Ikku's book Shotōzan Tenarai Hōjō (1796) appears Sharaku's depiction of kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizō IV; the accompanying text is filled with puns, jargon, and double entendres that have invited interpretation as commentary on the decline of Sharaku's later works and events surrounding his departure from the ukiyo-e world, including speculation that he had been arrested and imprisoned.  Ikku published under Sharaku's publisher Tsutaya from late 1794, and the book is the earliest to mention Sharaku.  The Ukiyo-e Ruikō, the oldest surviving work on ukiyo-e, contains the oldest direct comment on Sharaku's work:

The Ukiyo-e Ruikō was not a published book, but a manuscript that was hand-copied over generations, with great variations in content, some of which has fueled speculation as to Sharaku's identity. including a version that calls Sharaku "Hokusai II". Shikitei Sanba wrote in 1802 of ukiyo-e artists, and included an illustration of active and inactive artists and their schools as a map; Sharaku appears as an inactive artist depicted as a solitary island with no followers.  Essayist  wrote in the early 19th century that Sharaku "should be praised for his elegance and strength of line".

Sharaku's work was popular among European collectors, but rarely received mention in print until German collector Julius Kurth's book Sharaku appeared in 1910.  Kurth ranked Sharaku's portraits with those of Rembrandt and Velázquez, and asserted Sharaku was Noh actor Saitō Jūrōbei.  The book ignited international interest in the artist, resulting in a reevaluation that has placed Sharaku amongst the greatest ukiyo-e masters.  In his Chats on Japanese Prints of 1915 Arthur Davison Ficke declared, "Sharaku stands on the highest level of genius, in a greatness unique, sublime, and appalling."  The first in-depth work on Sharaku was Harold Gould Henderson and Louis Vernon Ledoux's The Surviving Works of Sharaku in 1939.  Certain portraits such as Ōtani Oniji  III are particularly well known.

Just over 600 copies of Sharaku's prints are known; only about 100 remain in Japan.  As they are in collections scattered throughout the world general research on Sharaku's works has followed different threads in Japan and the West has proved time-consuming.  Japanese researchers have better knowledge of and access to documents and literature related to Sharaku's time and conditions.  On the other hand, Sharaku's works tend to be in Western collections, including prints for which only one copy is known—of which there are about three dozen.  Sharaku's ōban prints with mica backgrounds most likely cost more than the average, though prices can be only speculated due to a lack of records.  Values of the prints today vary depending on size, condition, and subjective quality.  Prices for them at auction have risen steadily from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: for a print with a mica background sold in Japan prices jumped from a typical 15 yen (roughly a third of a banker's initial monthly salary) in 1895 to 300 yen in 1915.  Sharaku's Arashi Ryūzō I as Ishibe Kinkichi sold at Sotheby's for US$ in 1975, at Christie's for GBP£ in 1989, and €389,000 at  in Paris in 2009, setting a record auction price for a Sharaku print.

Identifying the period into which Sharaku's work falls posed difficulties that have since become clear.  The prints bear no dates.  Kurth first proposed that they spanned the nine years of 1787 to 1795.  Further research led Kazuo Inoue (ja) to reduce the date span to 17 months from 1794 to 1795, which Henderson and Ledoux further narrowed to 10 months in those years.  Such dates have been determined based on comparative research into theatre programmes and chronologies.

Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein believed that objective realism was not the only valid means of expression.  He found Sharaku "repudiated normalcy" and departed from strict realism and anatomical proportions to achieve expressive, emotional effects.

1983 saw the appearance of the novels Phantom Sharaku by Akiko Sugimoto—a novel whose protagonist is Tsutaya—and The Case of the Sharaku Murders by Katsuhiko Takahashi.  In 1995 Masahiro Shinoda directed a fictionalized film of Sharaku's career, Sharaku.

Notes

References

Works cited

  (pages unnumbered)

Further reading

External links

 Toshusai Sharaku Online
 Metropolitan Museum of Art
 "Sharaku" JPN-MIYABI
 Image scans at Ukiyo-e.org

18th-century births
18th-century Japanese artists
Japanese portrait artists
Ukiyo-e artists
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
Unidentified people

Sharaku