Midori () is a free and open-source web browser. In 2019, the Midori project merged with the Astian Foundation, then Midori was revamped entirely, switching from WebKitGTK to using Gecko.

History
Before the merge, Midori was a different browser. It was a lightweight web browser, used the WebKitGTK rendering engine and the GTK widget toolkits. This past Midori was part of the Xfce desktop environment's Goodies component and was once developed to follow the Xfce principle of "making the most out of available resources". It was the default browser in the SliTaz Linux distribution, Trisquel Mini, Artix Linux, old versions of Raspbian, and wattOS in its "R5 release". It was the default browser in elementary OS "Freya" and "Luna", and Bodhi Linux. It featured:
 Support for integration with GTK2 and GTK3
 WebKitGTK rendering engine
 Tabs, windows and session management
 Configurable web search engine
 User scripts and user styles support
 Bookmark management
 Customizable and extensible interface
 Extension modules can be written in C and Vala
 Support for HTML5
 DuckDuckGo as a default search engine
 Internationalized domain names support
 Smart bookmarks
 Extensions
Adblock
 Form history
 Mouse gestures
 Cookie management
 RSS Feed panel
 Maemo integration for mobile devices
 Speed dial
 'Next Page' feature
 Support for Ubuntu Unity
 Private browsing
 Tab backup for the next session by default Midori was part of the standard Raspbian distribution for the Raspberry Pi ARMv6-based computer, while Dillo and NetSurf are also in the menu. Midori is being packaged with Manjaro Linux and Trisquel Mini as their default web browser as well and it even was the default web browser in elementary OS and Bodhi Linux at one time.
Midori passed standard compliance Acid3 test.
In March 2014, Midori scored 405/555 on the HTML5 test.
In July 2015, Midori 0.5 on Windows 8 scored 325/555 on the updated HTML5 test.

The former Midori was recommended by Lifehacker due to its simplicity. The major points for criticism are the absence of the process isolation, the low number of available extensions and occasional crashes.

Nick Veitch from TechRadar included Midori 0.2.2 in his 2010 list of the eight best web browsers for Linux. At that time he rated it as "5/10" and concluded, "while it does perform reasonably well all-round, there is no compelling reason to choose this browser over the default Gnome browser, Epiphany, or indeed any of the bigger boys".

Himanshu Arora of Computerworld reviewed Midori 0.5.4 in November 2013 and praised the browser's speed and uncluttered interface, while additionally underlining the private browsing which uses a separate launch icon and displays the details of this mode on the home tab.

Victor Clarke from Gigaom praised the former Midori's minimalism in 2014 and stated that it will "satisfy your humble needs without slowing down your PC", despite stressing the lack of advanced functionality.

See also

 GNOME Web – a similar web browser based on GTK and WebKitGTK
 List of web browsers for Unix and Unix-like operating systems

References

External links

 Midori website archives on Archive.org
 Midori project on GitLab

Free software programmed in C
Free software programmed in Vala
Free web browsers
POSIX web browsers

Midori (web browser)


National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller. It stars John Belushi, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Thomas Hulce, Stephen Furst, and Donald Sutherland. The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College.

Produced by Matty Simmons of National Lampoon and Ivan Reitman for Universal Pictures, it was inspired by stories written by Miller and published in National Lampoon, which were based on Ramis' experience in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, Miller's Alpha Delta Phi experiences at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and producer Reitman's at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Of the younger lead actors, only the 28-year-old Belushi was an established star, but even he had not yet appeared in a film, having gained fame as an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, which was in its third season in the autumn of 1977. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Thomas Hulce, Karen Allen, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers. Matheson, also cast as a student, was already a seasoned actor, having appeared in movies and television since the age of 13.

Filming took place at the University of Oregon from October to December 1977. Following its initial release on July 28, 1978, Animal House received generally mixed reviews from critics, but Time and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best. Filmed for only $3 million (equivalent to $ in today's money) it garnered an estimated gross of more than $141 million ($ in today's money) in the form of theatrical rentals and home video, not including merchandising, making it the highest grossing comedy film of its time.

The film, along with 1977's The Kentucky Fried Movie, also directed by Landis, was largely responsible for defining and launching the gross out film genre, which became one of Hollywood's staples. Animal House is now regarded as one of the best comedy films of all time.

In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed National Lampoon's Animal House "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was No. 1 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It was No. 36 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2008, Empire magazine selected it as No. 279 of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".

Plot
In the fall 1962, Faber College freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman sought to pledge a fraternity. Finding themselves ostracized at the prestigious Omega Theta Pi house party, the two visit the Delta Tau Chi house next door; Kent believes he cannot be rejected because his older brother Fred was a member, making him a "legacy." During the party, they meet the slovenly John Blutarsky ("Bluto"), chapter president Robert Hoover ("Hoov"), smooth-talking Eric Stratton ("Otter"), and his best friend Donald Schoenstein ("Boon"), motorcyclist Daniel Simpson Day ("D-Day"), and Boon's girlfriend Katy. Larry and Kent are accepted as Delta pledges and given the fraternity names "Pinto" and "Flounder," respectively. Meanwhile, Chip Diller is accepted into Omega house and given a paddling to show his allegiance.

Delta is on probation due to campus conduct violations and poor academic standing. Wanting to remove the fraternity from campus, Dean Vernon Wormer directs Greg Marmalard, the smug Omega president, to find a justification for him to do so. Greg also has private reasons to be resentful of his fellow students, as his puzzled girlfriend has pointed out to him that a key part of his body is not responding to her. Various incidents deepen the animosity between Delta, Omega, and Wormer, including the prank-related accidental death of a horse that belongs to Omega member and ROTC Cadet Commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer, who has been bullying Flounder, as well as Otter flirting with Marmalard's girlfriend, Mandy Pepperidge, whom Otter had previously slept with.

Bluto and D-Day steal the answer key to an upcoming psychology test from the trash, unaware that the Omegas have switched it for a fake. The Deltas all fail and their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer tells them he needs only one more incident to revoke their charter and have them permanently dismissed from campus. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party and recruit Pinto and Flounder to shoplift food for it from a supermarket. There, Pinto meets a pretty young cashier named Clorette and invites her, while Otter invites Wormer's alcoholic, lecherous wife Marion. During the party, at which Otis Day and the Knights perform, Otter has sex with Marion, while Clorette makes out with Pinto until she passes out drunk. Pinto resists the temptation to have sex with her and instead takes her home in a shopping cart. He later discovers that she is the 13-year-old daughter of Carmine DePasto, the town mayor.

Outraged by Marion's escapades and threatened with personal harm by DePasto, Wormer organizes a kangaroo court with the Omegas and revokes the Deltas' charter, confiscating the entire contents of their house. To clear their heads, Otter, Boon, Pinto, and Flounder take a road trip in Fred's car. They visit an all-girls college, where Otter poses as the fiancé of a student who has recently died to find dates for himself and the others. They stop at a roadhouse bar where the Knights are performing, unaware that the clientele is exclusively African-American. Two of the patrons intimidate the Deltas into abandoning their dates and fleeing, during which Fred's car is heavily damaged.

Boon breaks up with Katy after discovering her sexual relationship with a professor, while Marmalard and other Omegas lure Otter to a motel and assault him, acting on a fabricated claim that Otter and Mandy have been seeing each other. Due to the Deltas' dismal midterm grades, Wormer gleefully expels them from Faber and notifies their local draft boards that they have lost their student deferments and are now eligible for military service. With Otter's support, Bluto rallies the Deltas to get revenge on Wormer, the Omegas, and the entire college during the annual homecoming parade. D-Day converts Fred's damaged car into the "Deathmobile", an armored vehicle concealed inside a cake-shaped breakaway float, and the Deltas sneak into the parade, causing widespread sabotage. Their pranks culminate in the Deathmobile crashing into the reviewing stand, collapsing it.

As chaos ensues, the futures of several of the characters are revealed. Many of the Deltas become respectable professionals, with Bluto becoming a United States senator and marrying Mandy, while their adversaries have less fortunate outcomes.

Cast

Delta House
John Belushi as John "Bluto" Blutarsky
Tim Matheson as Eric "Otter" Stratton
Peter Riegert as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein
Tom Hulce as Larry "Pinto" Kroger
Stephen Furst as Kent "Flounder" Dorfman
Bruce McGill as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day
James Widdoes as Robert "Hoov" Hoover
Karen Allen as Katy
Douglas Kenney as Dwayne "Stork" Storkman
Christian Miller as Curtis Wayne "Hardbar" Fuller

Omega House
James Daughton as Greg Marmalard
Mark Metcalf as Douglas C. Neidermeyer
Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller

Pi House
Mary Louise Weller as Mandy Pepperidge
Martha Smith as Barbara Sue "Babs" Jansen

Others
John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer
Verna Bloom as Mrs. Marion Wormer
Donald Sutherland as Professor Dave Jennings
Cesare Danova as Mayor Carmine DePasto
Sarah Holcomb as Clorette DePasto
DeWayne Jessie as Otis Day

Production

Development
Animal House was the first film produced by National Lampoon, the most popular humor magazine on college campuses in the mid-1970s. The periodical specialized in satirizing politics and popular culture. Many of the magazine's writers were recent college graduates, hence its appeal to students all over the country. Doug Kenney was a Lampoon writer and the magazine's first editor-in-chief. He graduated from Harvard University in 1969 and had a college experience closer to the Omegas in the film (he had been president of the university's elite Spee Club). Kenney was responsible for the first appearances of three characters that would appear in the film, Larry Kroger, Mandy Pepperidge, and Vernon Wormer. They made their debut in 1973's National Lampoon's High School Yearbook, a satire of a Middle America 1964 high school yearbook. Kroger's and Pepperidge's characters in the yearbook were effectively the same as their characters in the movie, whereas Vernon Wormer was a P.E. and civics teacher as well as an athletic coach in the yearbook.

However, Kenney felt that fellow Lampoon writer Chris Miller was the magazine's expert on the college experience. Faced with an impending deadline, Miller submitted a chapter from his then-abandoned memoirs entitled The Night of the Seven Fires about pledging experiences from his fraternity days in Alpha Delta (associated with the national Alpha Delta Phi during Miller's undergraduate years; the fraternity subsequently disassociated itself from the national organization and is now called Alpha Delta) at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. The antics of his fellow fraternities, coupled with experiences like that of a road trip to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and its Delta Chi Fraternity, became the inspiration for the Delta Tau Chis of Animal House, and many characters in the film (and their nicknames) were based on Miller's fraternity brothers. Filmmaker Ivan Reitman had just finished producing David Cronenberg's first film, Shivers, and called the magazine's publisher Matty Simmons about making movies under the Lampoon banner. Reitman had put together The National Lampoon Show in New York City featuring several future Saturday Night Live cast members, including John Belushi. When most of the Lampoon group moved on to SNL except for Harold Ramis, Reitman approached him with an idea to make a film together using some skits from the Lampoon Show.

Screenplay
Kenney met Lampoon writer Ramis at the suggestion of Simmons. Ramis drew from his own fraternity experiences as a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis and was working on a film treatment about college called "Freshman Year", but the magazine's editors were not happy with it. The famous scene of Bruce McGill as D-Day riding a motorcycle up the stairs of the fraternity house was inspired by Belushi's antics while a student at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Kenney and Ramis started working on a new film treatment together, positing Charles Manson in a high school, calling it Laser Orgy Girls. Simmons was cool to this idea so they changed the setting to a "northeastern college ... Ivy League kind of school". Kenney was a fan of Miller's fraternity stories and suggested using them as a basis for a movie. Kenney, Miller, and Ramis began brainstorming ideas. They saw the film's 1962 setting as "the last innocent year ... of America", and the homecoming parade that ends the film as occurring on November 21, 1963, the day before President Kennedy's assassination. They agreed that Belushi should star in it and Ramis wrote the part of Bluto specifically for the comedian, having been friends with him while at Chicago's The Second City.

Ramis, Miller, and Kenney were all new to screenwriting, so their film treatment ran to 110 pages, where most treatments average 15 pages. Reitman and Simmons pitched it to every Hollywood studio. Simmons met with Ned Tanen, an executive at Universal Pictures. He was encouraged by younger executives Sean Daniel and Thom Mount who were more receptive to the Lampoon type of humor; Mount had discovered the "Seven Fires" film treatment as Tanen's assistant while investigating projects left by a fired studio executive. Tanen hated the idea. Ramis remembers, "We went further than I think Universal expected or wanted. I think they were shocked and appalled. Chris' fraternity had virtually been a vomiting cult. And we had a lot of scenes that were almost orgies of vomit ... We didn't back off anything". The writers eventually created nine drafts of the screenplay, and the studio gradually became more receptive to the project, especially Mount, who championed it. The studio green-lighted the film and set the budget at a modest $3 million. Simmons remembers, "They just figured, 'Screw it, it's a silly little movie, and we'll make a couple of bucks if we're lucky—let them do whatever they want.'

Casting
Initially, Reitman had wanted to direct but had made only one film, Cannibal Girls, for $5,000. The film's producers approached Richard Lester and Bob Rafelson before hiring John Landis, who got the director job based on his work on Kentucky Fried Movie. That film's script and continuity supervisor was the girlfriend of Sean Daniel, an assistant to Mount. Daniel saw Landis' movie and recommended him. Landis then met with Mount, Reitman, and Simmons and got the job. Landis remembered, "When I was given the script, it was the funniest thing I had ever read up to that time. But it was really offensive. There was a great deal of projectile vomiting and rape and all these things". Landis claims his big contribution to the film was that there "had to be good guys and bad guys. There can't just be bad guys, so there became a good fraternity and bad fraternity". There was also early friction between Landis and the writers because the director was a high-school dropout from Hollywood and they were all college graduates from the East Coast. Ramis recalled, "He sort of referred immediately to Animal House as 'my movie.' We'd been living with it for two years and we hated that". According to Landis, he drew inspiration from classic Hollywood comedies featuring the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers.

The initial cast was to feature Chevy Chase as Otter, Bill Murray as Boon, Brian Doyle-Murray as Hoover, Dan Aykroyd as D-Day, and John Belushi as Bluto, but only Belushi was interested. Chase turned the film down in favor of  Foul Play; Landis, who wanted to cast unknown dramatic actors such as Bacon and Allen (the first film for both) instead of famous comedians, takes credit for subtly discouraging Chase by describing the cast as an "ensemble". Landis has also stated that he was not interested in directing a "Saturday Night Live movie" and that unknowns would be the better choice. The character of D-Day was based on Aykroyd, a motorcycle aficionado. Aykroyd was offered the part, but he was already committed to Saturday Night Live; according to Landis, the show's producer Lorne Michaels threatened to fire Aykroyd from the show's cast if he took the role of D-Day, which ultimately went to Bruce McGill and provided him with his breakthrough role. In August 2018, Aykroyd explained that although Michaels permitted him to do Animal House, he ultimately chose to stay behind on Saturday Night Live so as not to leave Michaels understaffed. Belushi, who had worked on The National Lampoon Radio Hour before Saturday Night Live, was also busy with SNL, but spent Monday through Wednesday making the film and then flew back to New York to do the show on Thursday through Saturday. Ramis originally wrote the role of Boon for himself, but Landis felt that he looked too old for the part and Peter Riegert was cast instead. Landis offered Ramis a smaller part, but he declined. Landis met with Jack Webb to play Dean Wormer and Kim Novak to play his wife; at the time, Webb reportedly turned down the role because of concerns over his clean-cut Dragnet image, but later said he did not find the script funny. Ultimately, John Vernon was cast as Wormer after Landis saw him in The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Belushi initially received only $35,000 for Animal House, but was paid a bonus after the film became a hit. Landis also met with Meat Loaf in case Belushi turned down the role of Bluto. Landis worked with Belushi on his character, who "hardly had any dialogue"; they decided that Bluto was a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster. Belushi said he developed his ability to communicate without talking because his Albanian grandmother spoke little English.

Belushi was considered a supporting actor and Universal wanted another star. Landis had been a crew member on Kelly's Heroes and had become friends with actor Donald Sutherland, sometimes babysitting his son Kiefer. He had also just worked with him on Kentucky Fried Movie. Landis asked Sutherland, one of the most popular film stars of the early 1970s, to be in the movie. For two days of work, Sutherland declined the initial offer of $20,000 plus "points" (a percentage of the gross or net income). Universal then offered him his day rate of $25,000 or 2% of the film's gross. Sutherland took the guaranteed fee, assuming that the film would not be very successful; although this made him the highest-paid member of the cast (Belushi and Neidermeyer's horse, Junior, each received $40,000), the decision cost Sutherland what he estimates at around $14 million. The star's participation, however, was crucial; Landis later said "It was Donald Sutherland who essentially got the film made."

"Pinto" was screenwriter Chris Miller's nickname at his Dartmouth fraternity. DeWayne Jessie adopted the "Otis Day" name in his private life and continued touring with the band.

Locations

The filmmakers' next problem was finding a college that would let them shoot the film on their campus. Because it was set in the past, they needed a location with a classic look, so submitted the script to several colleges and universities but "nobody wanted this movie" due to the script. According to Landis, "I couldn't find 'the look'. Every place that had 'the look' said, 'no thank you.'" The University of Missouri (Columbia, Missouri) gave consent to shoot the movie at the college, but President Herbert W. Schooling withdrew permission to film there after reading the script.

The president of the University of Oregon in Eugene, William Beaty Boyd, had been a senior administrator at the University of California in Berkeley in 1966 when his campus was considered for a location of the film The Graduate. After he consulted with other senior administrative colleagues who advised him to turn it down due to the lack of artistic merit, the college campus scenes set at Berkeley were shot at USC in Los Angeles. The film went on to become a classic, and Boyd was determined not to make the same mistake twice when the producers inquired about filming in Oregon. After consulting with student government leaders and officers of the Pan Hellenic Council, the Director of University Relations advised the president that the script, although raunchy and often tasteless, was a very funny spoof of college life. Boyd even allowed the filmmakers to use his office as Dean Wormer's. Because of the film's content, however, he insisted that "Oregon" not be mentioned in the film. The filmmakers paid $20,000 to use the campus.

The actual house depicted as the Delta House was originally a residence near the campus in Eugene, the Dr. A.W. Patterson House. Around 1959, it was acquired by the Psi Deuteron chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and was their chapter house until 1967, when the chapter was closed due to low membership. The house was sold, remained vacant, and slid into disrepair, with the spacious porch removed and the lawn graveled over. At the time of the shooting, the Phi Kappa Psi and Sigma Nu fraternity houses sat next to the old Phi Sigma Kappa house, on the 700 block of East 11th Avenue. The interior of the Phi Kappa Psi house and the Sigma Nu house were used for most of the interior scenes, but the scenes in Otter and Hoover's bedrooms were filmed on a soundstage. The Patterson house remained vacant after filming ended in 1977 and was demolished in 1986, and the site () is now occupied by Bushnell University's School of Education and Counseling. A large boulder placed to the west of the parking entrance displays a bronze plaque commemorating the Delta House location. The concluding parade scene was filmed on Main Street in downtown Cottage Grove, about  south of Eugene via Interstate 5.

Principal photography
Filming began on October 24, 1977, and concluded in the middle of December 1977. and Landis brought the actors who played the Deltas up five days early to bond. Staying at the Rodeway Inn motel in adjacent Springfield, they moved an old piano from the lobby into McGill's room, which became known as "party central." James Widdoes ("Hoover") remembers, "It was like freshman orientation. There was a lot of getting to know each other and calling each other by our character names." This tactic encouraged the actors playing the Deltas to separate themselves from the actors playing the Omegas, helping generate authentic animosity between them on camera. Belushi and his wife Judy rented a house in south Eugene to keep him away from alcohol and drugs; she remained in Oregon while he commuted to New York City for Saturday Night Live.

University of Oregon students got haircuts to appear as extras. Not knowing the story, they were bemused to see a horse being led into Johnson Hall. Although the cast members were admonished against mixing with the college students, one night, some girls invited several of the cast to a fraternity party;  assuming the invitation had been made with the knowledge of the fraternity, the actors arrived and were initially greeted coldly which soon turned to open hostility. It was obvious the group was not welcome, and as they were leaving, Widdoes threw a cup of beer at a group of drunk Oregon Ducks football players and a melee "like a scene from the movie" broke out. Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, Peter Riegert, and Widdoes narrowly escaped, with McGill suffering a black eye and Widdoes getting several teeth broken or knocked out.

Other than Belushi's opening yell, the food fight was filmed in one shot, with the actors encouraged to fight for real. Flounder's dexterous catching of flying groceries in the supermarket was another single shot; Furst deftly caught most of the grocery items Matheson and Landis rapidly threw at him from off camera, to the director's amazement. By filming the long courtroom scene in one day, Landis won a bet with Reitman.

The film's budget was so small that during the 32 days of shooting in Eugene, mostly in November, Landis had no trailer or office and could not watch dailies for three weeks. His wife Deborah Nadoolman purchased most of the costumes at local thrift stores, and she and Judy Belushi made the party togas. Landis and Bruce McGill staged a scene for reporters visiting the set where the director pretended to be angry at the actor for being difficult on the set. Landis grabbed a breakaway pitcher and smashed it over McGill's head. He fell to the ground and pretended to be unconscious. The reporters were completely fooled, and when Landis asked McGill to get up, he refused to move.

Black extras had to be bused in from Portland for the segment at the Dexter Lake Club () due to their scarcity around Eugene. More seriously, the segment alarmed Tanen and other studio executives, who perceived it as racist and warned that "'black people in America are going to rip the seats out of theaters if you leave that scene in the movie.'" Richard Pryor's approval helped retain the segment in the film. The studio became more enthusiastic about the film when Reitman showed executives and sales managers of various regions in the country a 10-minute production reel that was put together in two days. The reaction was positive and the studio sent 20 copies out to exhibitors. The first preview screening for Animal House was held in Denver four months before it opened nationwide. The crowd loved it and the filmmakers realized they had a potential hit on their hands.

The original cut of the movie was a lengthy 175 minutes and more than an hour was dropped; the deleted scenes included:
 a John Landis cameo as a cafeteria dishwasher who tries to stop Bluto from eating all the food. Landis is dragged across a table and thrown to the floor by Bluto who then says "You don't fuck with the eagles unless you know how to fly."
 a scene where Boon and Hoover tell Pinto the tales of legendary Delta House frat brothers from years before who had names like Tarantula, Bulldozer, Giraffe, and his girlfriend, Gross Kay.
 two different deleted scenes with Otter and a couple of his girlfriends (one played by Sunny Johnson—listed in the credits as "Otter's Co-Ed" although her scene was deleted—and the other played by location scout Katherine Wilson, whose deleted scene can be seen in the theatrical trailer).
 an extended version of the scene where Bluto pours mustard on himself and starts singing "I am the Mustard Man."

Soundtrack and score

The soundtrack is a mix of rock and roll and rhythm and blues with the original score created by film composer Elmer Bernstein, who had been a Landis family friend since John Landis was a child. Bernstein was easily persuaded to score the film, but was not sure what to make of it. Similar to his preferring dramatic actors for the comedy, Landis asked Bernstein to score it as though it were serious. He adapted the "Faber College Theme" from the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms, and said that the film opened yet another door in his diverse career, to scoring comedies.

The soundtrack was released as a vinyl album in 1978, and then as a CD in 1998. In the late 2000s, the very first song on the soundtrack, the "Faber College Theme", came to prominence due to its purported resemblance to the Bosnian national anthem.

Soundtrack album listing

Additional music in the film
 "Theme from A Summer Place", composed by Max Steiner; performed by Percy Faith and his Orchestra
 "Who's Sorry Now?", written by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby; performed by Connie Francis
 "The Washington Post March", composed by John Philip Sousa
 "Tammy", by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

Reception

Critical reception
At the time of its release, Animal House received mixed reviews from critics but several immediately recognized its appeal, and it has since been recognized as one of the best films of 1978. The film holds a 91% positive rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes from 53 critics. Its consensus states "The talents of director John Landis and Saturday Night Lives irrepressible John Belushi conspired to create a rambunctious, subversive college comedy that continues to resonate." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "It's anarchic, messy, and filled with energy. It assaults us. Part of the movie's impact comes from its sheer level of manic energy. ... But the movie's better made (and better acted) than we might at first realize. It takes skill to create this sort of comic pitch, and the movie's filled with characters that are sketched a little more absorbingly than they had to be, and acted with perception". Ebert later placed the film on his 10 best list of 1978, the only National Lampoon film to have received this honor. In his review for Time, Frank Rich wrote, "At its best it perfectly expresses the fears and loathings of kids who came of age in the late '60s; at its worst Animal House revels in abject silliness. The hilarious highs easily compensate for the puerile lows". Gary Arnold wrote in his review for The Washington Post, "Belushi also controls a wicked array of conspiratorial expressions with the audience... He can seem irresistibly funny in repose or invest minor slapstick opportunities with a streak of genius". David Ansen wrote in Newsweek, "But if Animal House lacks the inspired tastelessness of the Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody, this is still low humor of a high order". Robert Martin wrote in The Globe and Mail, "It is so gross and tasteless you feel you should be disgusted but it's hard to be offended by something that is so sidesplittingly funny". Time magazine proclaimed Animal House one of the year's best.

When the film was released, Landis, Widdoes, and Allen went on a national promotional tour. Universal Pictures spent about $4.5 million ($ in today's money) promoting the film at selected college campuses and helped students organize their own toga parties. One such party at the University of Maryland attracted some 2,000 people, while students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison tried for a crowd of 10,000 people and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Thanks to the film, toga parties became one of the favorite college campus happenings during 1978 and 1979.

In 2000, the American Film Institute placed the film on its 100 Years...100 Laughs list, where it was ranked No. 36. Then in 2005, AFI ranked John "Bluto" Blutarsky's quote "Toga! Toga!" at No. 82 on its list of 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, with the quotes "Over? Did you say "over?" Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!" and "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son" being nominated. The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list. In 2001, the Library of Congress deemed the film to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it as one of 25 films preserved in the National Film Registry that year.

Box office
In its opening weekend, Animal House grossed $276,538 in twelve theaters in New York before expanding to 500 theaters. It grossed $120.1 million ($ in today's money) in the United States and Canada in its initial release and went on to achieve a lifetime gross of $141.6 million, generating theatrical rentals of $70.8 million. It was the highest grossing comedy film until the release of Ghostbusters (which was also written by Ramis and produced by Reitman) and the seventh highest-grossing film of the 1970s. Adjusted for inflation, it is the 68th highest-grossing film in North America. Internationally, it did not do as well, earning rentals of only $9 million, for a worldwide total of $80 million.

Spin-offs

The film inspired a short-lived half-hour ABC television sitcom, Delta House, in which Vernon reprised his role as the long-suffering, malevolent Dean Wormer. The series also included Furst as Flounder, McGill as D-Day, and Widdoes as Hoover. The pilot episode was written by the film's screenwriters, Kenney, Miller, and Ramis. Michelle Pfeiffer made her acting debut in the series (playing a new character, "Bombshell"), and Peter Fox was cast as Otter. Belushi's character from the film, John "Bluto" Blutarsky, is in the Army, but his brother, Blotto, played by Josh Mostel, transfers to Faber to carry on Bluto's tradition. Jim Belushi was asked to play the role of Blotto, but declined.

Animal House inspired Co-Ed Fever, another sitcom but without the involvement of the film's producers or cast. Set in a dorm of the formerly all-female Baxter College, the pilot of Co-Ed Fever was aired by CBS on February 4, 1979, but the network canceled the series before airing any more episodes. NBC also had its Animal House-inspired sitcom, Brothers and Sisters, in which three members of Crandall College's Pi Nu fraternity interact with members of the Gamma Iota sorority. Like ABC's Delta House, Brothers and Sisters lasted only three months.

The film's writers planned a film sequel set in 1967 (the so-called "Summer of Love"), in which the Deltas have a reunion for Pinto's marriage in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. The only Delta to have become a hippie is Flounder, who is now called Pisces. Later, Chris Miller and John Weidman, another Lampoon writer, created a treatment for this screenplay, but Universal rejected it because the sequel to American Graffiti, which contained some hippie-1967 sequences, had not done well. When John Belushi died, the idea was indefinitely shelved.

A second attempt at a sequel was made in 1982 with producer Matty Simmons co-authoring a script that saw some of the Deltas returning to Faber College five years after the events of the film. The project got no further than a first draft script.

Where Are They Now?
The 2003 "Double Secret Probation Edition" DVD included a short film, Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update, a mockumentary purporting that the original film had been a documentary and Landis was catching up with some of the cast (played by their original actors). It was never shown theatrically.

It shows the main Animal House characters 30 years on, following Landis to cities all over America in search of the former Deltas, Omegas, and Dean Wormer, and describes the various locales and professions the characters have settled into:

 Donald Schoenstein – Film editor and documentarian, New York City. Currently in his third marriage to Katy. He has a son named Otis.  Otis's face is badly marked up, reminding viewers of Donald's "pepperoni pizza" face alluded to in the original film.
 Babs Jansen – Tour guide, Universal Studios Hollywood. She mentions to Landis that she is organizing an upcoming Faber reunion, and seems to be successful at her job.
 Marion Wormer – Seemingly unemployed in Chicago. She tells Landis of how her husband Vernon accepted the blame for the parade debacle and was subsequently fired, leading to their divorce. She becomes progressively more tipsy throughout the interview, eventually falling off her chair.
 Kent Dorfman – Executive director, Encounter Groups of Cleveland, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. He recalls trying to diet during the 1970s with a special program requiring him to shoot up the urine of pregnant women.
 Robert Hoover – Assistant district attorney, Baltimore, Maryland. Hoover recounts how he quit being a public defender after he realized many of his clients were insane. He also boasts of how his legal advice was sought during the O. J. Simpson murder case.
 Chip Diller – Landis receives a letter from Diller, who is currently serving as a missionary in Africa. He recalls how he was prevented from going to Vietnam as his father was a prime donor to several right-wing political campaigns. When he learned of Doug Neidermeyer's fragging in Vietnam, he fell into alcoholism and despair. When he began seeing Jesus in his food, he became a born-again Christian and fell into his current profession as a minister and missionary.
 Dean Vernon Wormer – Wormer is seen at a nursing home in Florida, under the watchful eye of a male nurse. He appears to be senile, not recognizing Landis at first (calling him "Larry"), and not remembering his tenure as Dean of Faber. When Landis mentions the Deltas, Wormer erupts into a violent, profanity-laced tirade against the boys who cost him his job. He lashes out at the nurse and then physically attacks Landis, consequently knocking out the camera.
 Eric Stratton – Gynecologist, Beverly Hills, California. Otter is depicted as still being the affable, suave gentleman he was in his college days. He remarks that gynecology has been very enjoyable for him and that he has straightened up a bit since leaving Faber. An attractive patient in her underwear then tells Otter she's ready for her examination. Otter politely ends the interview and goes into the examination room.
 Daniel Simpson Day – Landis remarks in a voiceover that D-Day has been the hardest to track down for the documentary, saying that rumors have flown around, with his whereabouts ranging from a Buddhist monastery in Nepal to the Yukon Territory. Landis eventually approaches a house in Modesto, California, where a man opens the door by a crack and claims, in a Hispanic accent, "I don't know no D-Day person! I don't know him!" He slams the door in Landis' face and then bursts out of the garage in a car. He pulls out onto the street to the strains of the William Tell Overture, gives a manic laugh exactly like D-Day's, and speeds off.
 John Blutarsky – In a final voice-over (since John Belushi was already dead in real life) featuring a shot of the White House, Landis remarks that the viewers all know what happened to Bluto and Mandy Pepperidge: they became the President and First Lady of the United States. (After finishing his time in the Army, Bluto married Mandy and became a senator, eventually being elected president.)

Home media
Animal House was released on videodisc in 1979. It was released on VHS in 1980, 1983, 1988, and 1990. In 1992, it was released in a 2-pack VHS set that included The Blues Brothers. It was first released on DVD in February 1998 in a "bare bones" Full Screen presentation. A 20th Anniversary Widescreen Collector's Edition DVD and a coinciding THX special edition VHS and a widescreen Signature Collection Laserdisc was released later that year, with a 45-minute documentary titled "The Yearbook — An Animal House Reunion" by producer J.M. Kenny, with production notes, theatrical trailer, and new interviews with director Landis, writers Harold Ramis and Chris Miller, composer Elmer Bernstein, and stars Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, Stephen Furst, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Bruce McGill, James Widdoes, Peter Riegert, Mark Metcalf and Kevin Bacon. In 2000, the collector's edition DVD was packaged along with The Blues Brothers and 1941 in a John Belushi 3-pack box set. The "Double Secret Probation Edition" DVD released in 2003 features cast members reprising their respective roles in a "Where Are They Now?" mockumentary, which posited the original film as a documentary. One major change shown in this mockumentary from the epilogue of the original film is that Bluto went on from his career in the U.S. Senate to become the President of the United States, with a voiceover on a shot of the north portico of the White House, since by then Belushi had died. This DVD also includes "Did You Know That? Universal Animated Anecdotes", a subtitle trivia track, the making of a documentary from the Collector's Edition, MxPx "Shout" music video, a theatrical trailer, production notes, and cast and filmmakers biographies. The DVD was also available in both Widescreen and Full-Screen formats.  In August 2006, the film was released on an HD DVD/DVD combo disc, which featured the film in a 1080p high-definition format on one side, and a standard-definition format on the opposite side.  Along with the film Unleashed, Animal House was one of Universal's first two HD/DVD combo releases, but was later discontinued in 2008 after Universal decided to switch to the Blu-ray optical disc format following the conclusion of the high-definition optical disc format war.

It became available on Blu-ray optical disc on July 26, 2011.

The film was released on 4K on May 18, 2021.

Precursors and legacy
Animal House was a great box office success despite its limited production costs and started an industry trend, inspiring other comedies such as Porky's, the Police Academy films, the American Pie films, Up the Academy (made by rival humor magazine  MAD), and Old School among others. Belushi became the most successful male comedy star in the world until his 1982 death; Bacon also became a star, and he, Matheson, and Allen are among those who have had lengthy acting careers. Reitman, Landis, and Ramis became successful filmmakers; Landis' use of dramatic actors and soundtrack to make the comedy believable became the traditional approach for film comedies.

The film has caused many parents to worry about their children joining fraternities and sororities. One writer suggested, half-seriously, that the film's impact was such that future college students seeking to emulate Delta House's antics in real life led to "a drop of American college students' GPA's an average of .18 grade points, per semester".

On the left-wing and counterculture side, the film included references to topical political matters like President Harry S. Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam war, and the civil rights movement. Precursors of this counterculture subversive humor in the film were two non-"college movies", M*A*S*H, a 1970 satirical dark comedy, and The Kentucky Fried Movie, a 1977 formless comedy consisting of a series of sketches (which was also directed by Landis).

At the start of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), also directed by John Landis, a scene set in Vietnam includes a soldier saying "I told you guys, we shouldn't have shot Lieutenant Neidermeyer."

In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Animal House is first on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 36 on 100 Years... 100 Laughs, a list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2006, Miller wrote a more comprehensive memoir of his experiences in Dartmouth's AD house in a book entitled, The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie, in which Miller recounts hijinks that were considered too risqué for the movie. In 2008, Empire magazine selected Animal House as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. The film was also selected by The New York Times as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made.

In 2012, Universal Pictures Stage Productions announced it was developing a stage musical version of the movie. Barenaked Ladies were originally announced to write the score, but they were replaced by composer David Yazbek. Casey Nicholaw will direct; author Michael Mitnick is also reportedly involved.

The University of Oregon celebrates its participation in the film. It offers visitors a guide to filming locations, and the Knight Library has a collection of material on the film's production. Between the third and fourth quarter of every football game at Autzen Stadium, "Shout" from the toga party scene is played, to which the entire stadium sings along.

See also
Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

References

Bibliography
 Hoover, Eric (2008) "'Animal House' at 30: O Bluto, Where Art Thou?", Chronicle of Higher Education, v55 n2 pA1 Sep 2008
 Daniel P. Franklin (2006). Politics and film: the political culture of film in the United States, pp. 133–4
 Krista M. Tucciarone (2007). "Cinematic College: 'National Lampoon's Animal House' Teaches Theories of Student Development", in Journal of College Student Development

External links

 Animal House 1978 review by tigersweat.com

National Lampoon films
1978 films
1978 comedy films
1970s American films
American comedy films
Cottage Grove, Oregon
1970s English-language films
Films about fraternities and sororities
Films about pranks
Films about drugs
Films about alcoholism
Films about parties
Films adapted into television shows
Films directed by John Landis
Films produced by Ivan Reitman
Films scored by Elmer Bernstein
Films set in 1962
Films shot in Eugene, Oregon
Films shot in Oregon
Films with screenplays by Chris Miller (writer)
Films with screenplays by Douglas Kenney
Films with screenplays by Harold Ramis
United States National Film Registry films
Universal Pictures films

Animal House


Black Rock Gorge is a deep and narrow cleft in Old Red Sandstone conglomerate through which the Allt Graad (also known as the 'River Glass') flows in Easter Ross, Scotland. It was caused by rapids heavily burdened with sediment being carried upwards as part of the great Post-glacial rebound.

It lies a few kilometres from Evanton, at the edge of the Evanton Wood in the traditional territory of the Clan Munro. The Black Rock Gorge is approximately 1.5 km in length as shown on 1:50 000 Ordnance Survey mapping  and reaches 36 metres (120 feet) in depth. It attracts a substantial amount of tourism, and there is a camping site nearby.

The gorge is the subject of local Gaelic myth, in which a local noblewoman, the Lady of Balconie, is lured into its depths by a mysterious man, thought to be the Devil. Ever since, it is said, the cries which she utters can be heard from the top.

In April 2004, ten days of filming took place in the area for the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the gorge is the setting for one scene.
Also James Robertson's 2006 novel The Testament of Gideon Mack is inspired by Black Rock Gorge.

References

Sources
 Omand, Donald (ed.), The Ross and Cromarty Book, (Golspie, 1984)

External links
Illustration of Black Rock Gorge

Geology of Scotland
Ross and Cromarty
Canyons and gorges of Scotland
Scottish mythology
Landforms of Highland (council area)

Black Rock Gorge


Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros (1717, in Mexico City – 1793, in Mexico City) was a scientist, cartographer and publisher in New Spain Mexico during the Spanish colonial period. He was also royal land surveyor and hydraulic and mining engineer.

Together with his brother Cristóbal, he took over the Imprenta Antuerpiana (Antuerpiana Press) in 1752. They remained as sole proprietors until late 1764. By 1767 this was the largest printing establishment in the Americas. In that year Manuel Antonio Valdés y Munguía joined the business. After Zúñiga's death in 1793, Valdés took on Luis Abadiano as a partner (about 1821). At the time of Valdés's death in 1831, the firm was the oldest publisher in Mexico.

From 1762 to 1780 Zúñiga y Ontiveros published Efemérides calculadas y pronosticadas según el meridiano de México. These octavo volumes contained information on eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. In 1767 he began publishing Guía de Forasteros, a kind of almanac, which was published each year through 1792, although the name was changed to Calendario mensual (Monthly Calendar). He also published an updated version of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora's map of the valley of Mexico.

Zúñiga paid much attention to detail in the works he published, including the typefaces. He spent 50,000 pesos acquiring type from Antwerp and Madrid. He was the first to use type cast in New Spain, by the clockmaker and printer Dimas Rangel, with whom Zúñiga edited Estatutos de la Real Academia de San Carlos (Statutes of the Royal Academy of San Carlos) (1785).

He was the author of Bomba hidráulica para levantar las aguas (Hydraulic Pump to Raise Water) (1770) and a sonnet published in Fénix de los mineros ricos (1779).

Other works published by Zúniga
Neve, Felipe de, Reglamento para el Gobierno de la Peninsula de Californias (1784) — government regulations for the Californias
Palóu, Francisco, Relacion Historica de la Vida y Apos tolicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junipero Serra, y de las Misiones que fundó en la California Septentrional, y nuevos establecimientos de Monterey (1787) — the life and work of Father Junípero Serra, founder of many California missions
León y Gama, Antonio de, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con occasion del nueve empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de Mexico (1792) — a description of the Aztec calendar stone shortly after it was rediscovered

References
"Zúniga y Ontiveros, Felipe de," Enciclopedia de México, v. 14. Mexico City, 1996, .

Further reading

1717 births
1793 deaths
People from Mexico City
Mexican scientists

Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros


The Tusayan Ruins (aka Tusayan Pueblo) is an 800-year-old Pueblo Indian site located within Grand Canyon National Park, and is considered by the National Park Service (NPS) to be one of the major archeological sites in Arizona.
The site consists of a small, u-shaped pueblo featuring a living area, storage rooms, and a kiva. Tree ring studies indicate that the site was occupied for about twenty years, beginning around 1185. It is found on the Desert View Drive portion of Arizona State Route 64, 3 miles west of the Desert View Watchtower. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The site was excavated in 1930 by members of the Gila Pueblo of Globe, Arizona. Preservation work took place in 1948 and 1965. The site represents the survival of an isolated Pueblo II culture into the Pueblo III era.

The Tusayan Ruin and Museum is a NPS interpreted location, which includes a trail from the museum thru part of the ruin. Tours may be ranger lead or self-guided. The Tusayan  Museum  was built in 1928 to a design by National Park Service architect Herbert Maier and sponsored by Laura Spelman Rockefeller as a trailside museum.  It was expanded in 1934, and represents an interpretation of a Hopi structure.

See also
 Tusayan National Forest

Notes

Further reading

Ancient Puebloan archaeological sites in Arizona
Grand Canyon
Buildings and structures in Coconino County, Arizona
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona
Former populated places in Arizona
Museums in Coconino County, Arizona
Native American museums in Arizona
Buildings and structures in Grand Canyon National Park
Former populated places in Coconino County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Coconino County, Arizona
National Register of Historic Places in Grand Canyon National Park

Tusayan Ruins


Eugene Tan Kheng Boon (born 18 February 1970) is a Singaporean academic who is currently an associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University. Tan served as a Nominated Member of Parliament between 2012 and 2014.

Tan started his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) as a foreign service officer before going into academic teaching. His specialisation includes constitutional and administrative law, and policy of ethnic relations in Singapore.

Tan regularly writes for several media outlets in Singapore. He is also quoted regularly in all news sources within Singapore, and in major international press, particularly on matters related to domestic politics, constitutional law and elections.

References

1970 births
Living people
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Academic staff of Singapore Management University School of Law
National University of Singapore alumni
Raffles Institution alumni
Singaporean Nominated Members of Parliament
Singaporean people of Chinese descent
Stanford University alumni

Eugene Tan


The Dispensary is a Georgian town house which is fairly typical of many town-centre houses in Monmouth, Wales, dating from the mid 18th century, but with early 19th-century additions. It stands in  St James Square, opposite the Catalpa tree. The building was listed at Grade II on 27 June 1952.

The architectural historian John Newman calls this the "one substantial eighteenth century house" in St James Street, though it is surrounded by later attractive façades. A dispensary was established here in 1857. This became the Monmouth Hospital and Dispensary, with nine beds, in 1868, and closed in 1903. The dispensary is one of 24 buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail, marked by a ceramic blue plaque on the wall.

History
A dispensary had been set up at Little Castle House, Castle Hill, in 1810, but it moved to St James Square in 1868 where it became the town's hospital, funded by local benefactors. Sir James Paget (Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria), who inspected the premises in 1873, said it was one of "the most convenient and best ventilated and arranged Institutions he had ever seen". It mainly benefitted the poor although it was the deserving poor as those on parish-relief were given a low priority. The Dispensary served as a cottage hospital, except that cases involving childbirth, hospice cases and those with mental diseases were turned away. The annual cost of each bed in 1868 was about £40; this was raised by donations made at Monmouth's banks or directly at the Dispensary. The waiting room displayed the names of major benefactors, which included a gift of £1,000 from John E. W. Rolls (a grandfather of Charles Rolls), who was President of the Institution. Rolls covered the cost of "The Hendre Bed" in perpetuity. The number of outpatients treated in 1876–1877 was over 1600; there were 60 inpatients. The Dispensary's catchment area extended to about eight miles outside Monmouth, including part of the Forest of Dean.

The lack of an operating room and the difficult stairs at the Dispensary had convinced the authorities that a new hospital was essential and this led to the Dispensary's closure. The Hospital moved from St James Square in 1903 to the Cottage Hospital on the Hereford Road.

In 1907, the French Sisters were running a private school in the old dispensary building, offering both boarders and day pupils lessons in French, music, painting, drawing, needlework and general education. Soon afterwards, a children's home was established here, a use which continued up to the end of the twentieth century.

References

Grade II listed buildings in Monmouthshire
Buildings and structures in Monmouth, Wales

The Dispensary, Monmouth


Androna, also known as al-Andarin (), is a Byzantine site spread over a vast area at the edges of the semi-desert, about 25 kilometers beyond the more well-known Byzantine site of Qasr Ibn Wardan.

History

Androna was built as a defense line against nomadic skirmishes in the Syrian Desert. The fortified city contains many churches, palaces and baths; and was famous for its vineyards and high-quality wine in which it was mentioned by Amr ibn Kulthum in his ode.

The following is the opening verse of his ode:

References

Archaeological sites in Aleppo Governorate
Former populated places in Syria

Androna


Glande (baptized as Richard) was the leader of Sambians, one of the Prussian clans, during the Great Prussian Uprising (1260–1274) against the papal crusades undertaken by the Teutonic Knights. There is nothing known about his life or achievements, except that once the uprising started, Sambians elected him as their leader.

The Prussian duke Glande was felled by a spear and his aid Swayno fell soon after. In the confusion and hopelessness, the Samlandians retreated to their villages. Hercus Monte came to their aid, but was also heavily wounded by a spear. Samlandians were the first tribe to give up the fight and surrendered in 1265.

References

Old Prussian people
People from Prussia proper
Pagans of the Prussian Crusade
Military personnel killed in action

Glande


Pleuron (; , Plevrona or Ασφακοβούνι, Asfakovouni) was a city in ancient Aetolia, Greece. The name refers to two settlements, the older of which was at the foot of Mount Curium between the river Acheloos and the river Evenos, and was mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad. The territory of Pleuron was called Pleuronia. The ruins of this more ancient city are 1.5 kms to the southeast of the newer one. The circuit wall "consists of crudely-hewn, loosely fitted blocks" which in early publications and repeated since are rather suggestively described as Cyclopean walls.

Old Pleuron (ἡ παλαιὰ Πλευρών) was situated in the plain between the Achelous and the Evenus, west of Calydon, at the foot of Mount Curium, from which the Curetes are said to have derived their name. Pleuron and Calydon were the two chief towns of Aetolia in the heroic age, and are said by Strabo to have been the ancient ornament (πρόσχημα) of Greece. Pleuron was originally a town of the Curetes, and its inhabitants were engaged in frequent wars with the Aetolians of the neighbouring town of Calydon. The Curetes, whose attack upon Calydon is mentioned in an episode of the Iliad, appear to have been the inhabitants of Pleuron. At the time of the Trojan War, however, Pleuron was an Aetolian city, and its inhabitants sailed against Troy under the command of the Aetolian chief Thoas, the grandson of Oeneus. Ephorus related that the Curetes were expelled from Pleuronia, which was formerly called Curetis, by Aeolians; and this tradition may also be traced in the statement of Thucydides that the district, called Calydon and Pleuronia in the time of the Peloponnesian War, formerly bore the name of Aeolis.

Since Pleuron appears as an Aetolian city in the later period of the heroic age, it is represented in some traditions as such from the beginning. Hence it is said to have derived its name from Pleuron, a son of Aetolus; and at the very time that some legends represent it as the capital of the Curetes, and engaged in war with Oeneus, king of Calydon, others suppose it to have been governed by the Aetolian Thestius, the brother of Oeneus. Thestius was also represented as a descendant of Pleuron; and hence Pleuron had an heroön or a chapel at Sparta, as being the ancestor of Leda, the daughter of Thestius. But there are all kinds of variations in these traditions. Thus we find in Sophocles Oeneus, and not Thestius, represented as king of Pleuron. One of the tragedies of Phrynichus, the subject of which appears to have been the death of Meleager, the son of Oeneus, was entitled Πλευρώνιαι, or the "Pleuronian Women;" and hence it is not improbable that Phrynichus, as well as Sophocles, represented Oeneus as king of Pleuron. Pleuron is rarely mentioned in the historical period. It was the birthplace of the ancient Greek poet Alexander Aetolus. It was abandoned by its inhabitants, says Strabo in 234 BCE, in consequence of the ravages of Demetrius II Aetolicus, the Aetolian, a surname probably given to Demetrius II, king of Macedon (who reigned 239-229 BCE), to distinguish him from Demetrius Poliorcetes. The ruins of Old Pleuron are located at near modern Gyphtokastro/Petrovouni at .

After the destruction, the inhabitants founded New Pleuron (ἡ νεωτέρα Πλευρών) was situated at the foot of Mount Aracynthus. The founder of the city was most probably Pantaleon of Pleuron, strategos of the Aetolian League in 242/41, 235/34, 228/27, 222/21 and 214/13 BCE. Some time after the defeat of the Aetolian League in the Roman–Seleucid War, the citizens of Pleuron asked the Roman Senate a special permission to join the Achaean League. After the Achaean defeat and the destruction of Corinth in 146 BCE Pleuron became part of the Roman Republic. During the Imperial age the uprisings in Aetolia continued.

New Pleuron has been identified in the locality of the castle of Κυρίας Εἰρήνης. The remains are located a few kilometers north of the modern city of Missolonghi (and just west of the ancient city of Calydon, with which is it sometimes associated). The ruins of New Pleuron are located at .

The city occupies a terrace at over 200m altitude, and is linked to the sea by a defence wall that also encircles the ancient port of Elaius.

The city wall is rectangular with 7 gates and 31 towers. The masonry is well preserved almost everywhere and partly trapezoidal, partly pseudo-isodomic with squared faces and datable to . The acropolis occupies the upper part of the site, but little remains. A Byzantine chapel was built on the remains of the Temple of Athena.  The civil buildings are to the south. The theatre is in the south-west part of the city with the proscenium built against the city wall. The central part of the building housing the skena is a tower. The proscenium had six columns, and the parascenia must have been elevated above it and must have leaned against the wall. The circle of the orchestra is tangential to the skena. The cavea, well preserved at the north, had five sections and six staircases. The construction of the theatre is contemporary with the walls.

Other areas recognisable in the city include the site of the agora, with a  long stoa, and the gymnasium. To the south east was a large communal cistern () with five rectangular basins. There are also remains of unidentifiable public buildings and extensive remnants of houses and cisterns. The necropolis extends to the south of the city.

References

Populated places in ancient Aetolia
Cities in ancient Greece
Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Greece
Former populated places in Greece
Locations in the Iliad

Pleuron (Aetolia)


Wood briquettes are a fuel source made out of dried, compacted wood. They are made from wood waste or byproducts and machine-compressed into a log or block shape, generally without added ingredients, though they can have added materials like peat, bracken, or coffee. Briquettes in general can be made out of any biomass material.

Fuel density and ash, sulfur, and moisture content
Wood briquettes' ash and sulfur content varies. Some pure wood briquettes with the bark removed can have as low as an 0.3% ash content, while briquettes with added materials can have up to a 7% ash content. Briquettes have a substantially higher energy content than logs per cubic foot due to their density, which means they take up less storage space and release more heat per lb. than logs. The low moisture content of about 10% leads to an energy content of around 5.0 kWh per kg depending on the type of wood and the compression.

See also
 Wood fuel
 Wood pellet

Sources
 Elcombe Firewood. "Using Briquettes in your stove." Elcombe firewood, elcombefirewood.co.uk/tip/using-briquettes-stove/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2021.
 "What are briquettes?" Wood Fuel Direct, www.woodfuel-direct.co.uk/what-are-briquettes. Accessed 7 May 2021.
 "Our Indispensable Guide to Briquettes." Wood Fuel Cooperative, 4 June 2020, www.woodfuel.coop/wood-fuel-guides/guide-to-briquettes/.

References

Wood fuel

Wood briquette


Adolphus Anthony Cheatham, better known as Doc Cheatham (June 13, 1905 – June 2, 1997), was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader.  He is also the grandfather of musician Theo Croker.

Early life
Doc Cheatham was born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, of African, Cherokee and Choctaw heritage. He noted there was no jazz music there in his youth; like many in the United States he was introduced to the style by early recordings and touring groups at the end of the 1910s. Cheatham started playing music when he was 15, first on the cornet and soon after the trumpet, taking trumpet lessons from Fisk University professor N. C. Davis. He also played saxophone and drums. abandoned his family's plans for him to be a pharmacist (although retaining the medically inspired nickname "Doc") to play music, performing in Nashville's African American Vaudeville theater. Cheatham later toured in band accompanying blues singers on the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit. His early jazz influences included Henry Busse and Johnny Dunn, but when he moved to Chicago in 1924, he heard King Oliver. Oliver's playing was a revelation to Cheatham. Cheatham followed him around. Oliver gave young Cheatham a mute, which Cheatham treasured and performed with for the rest of his career. A further revelation came the following year when Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago. Armstrong would be a lifelong influence on Cheatham, describing him as "an ordinary-extraordinary man."

Working with the name bands
Cheatham played in Albert Wynn's band (and occasionally substituted for Armstrong at the Vendome Theater), and recorded on sax with Ma Rainey before moving to Philadelphia in 1927, where he worked with the bands of Bobby Lee and Wilbur de Paris, before moving to New York City the following year. After a short stint with Chick Webb, he left to tour Europe with Sam Wooding's band.

Cheatham returned to the United States in 1930, and played with Marion Handy and McKinney's Cotton Pickers, before landing a job with Cab Calloway. Cheatham was Calloway's lead trumpeter from 1932 through 1939. According to a personal discussion with Doc Cheatham, he studied with Max Schlossberg for six months in 1931. "I approached the topic, at Sweet Basil's, because his tone was like Schlossberg's; I had heard Schlossberg, my grand uncle, play once, at home, in 1936." [Norman M. Canter, M.D.]

He performed with Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Fletcher Henderson, and Claude Hopkins in the 1940s; after World War II he started working regularly with Latin bands in New York City, including the bands of Perez Prado, Marcelino Guerra, Ricardo Ray (on whose catchy, hook-laden album Jala, Jala Boogaloo, Volume II, he played exquisitely (but uncredited), particularly on the track "Mr. Trumpet Man"), Machito, and others. The first time Cheatham joined Machito's band, he was fired because he could not cope with clave rhythm. Cheatham eventually got the hang of it though. In addition to continuing Latin gigs, he played again with Wilbur de Paris and Sammy Price. He led his own band on Broadway for five years starting in 1960, after which he toured with Benny Goodman.

In 1959, the U.S. State Department funded a trip for bandleader Herbie Mann to visit Africa, after they heard his version of "African Suite". The grueling 14-week tour took place between December 31, 1959, to April 5, 1960. Band personnel included Herbie Mann, bandleader, flute and sax; Johnny Rae, vibist and arranger; Don Payne; bass Doc Cheatham; trumpet Jimmy Knepper; trombone Patato Valdez;  and conguero Jose Mangual, bongos. Destinations listed on the official itinerary included Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia.

Later work
In the 1970s,  Cheatham made a vigorous self-assessment to improve his playing, including taping himself and critically listening to the recordings, then endeavoring to eliminate all clichés from his playing. The discipline paid off, and he received ever-improving critical attention.

His singing career began almost by accident in a Paris recording studio on May 2, 1977. As a level and microphone check at the start of a recording session with Sammy Price's band, Cheatham sang and scatted his way through a couple of choruses of "What Can I Say Dear After I Say I'm Sorry". The miking happened to be good from the start and the tape machine was already rolling, and the track was issued on the LP Doc Cheatham: Good for What Ails You. His singing was well received and Cheatham continued to sing in addition to play music for the rest of his career.

Cheatham toured widely in addition to his regular Sunday gig leading the band at Sweet Basil in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in his final decade. During one of his frequent trips to New Orleans, Louisiana, he met and befriended young trumpet virtuoso Nicholas Payton. In 1996, the two trumpeters and pianist Butch Thompson recorded a CD for Verve Records, Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton. The Recording Academy nominated Cheatham for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo and Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group.

In 1998, he posthumously won a Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for "Stardust" on his CD, Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton. His wife Amanda and daughter Alicia accepted the Grammy on his behalf.

Death
Doc Cheatham continued playing until two days before his death from a stroke, eleven days shy of his 92nd birthday.

Discography
 1961 Shorty & Doc with Shorty Baker (Swingville)
 1973 Adolphus Doc Cheatham (Jezebel)
 1975 Hey Doc! (Black & Blue)
 1976 Doc and Sammy (Sackville)
 1977 Good for What Ails Ya (Classic Jazz)
 1979 Black Beauty (Sackville)
 1979 John, Doc and Herb (Metronome)
 1982 I've Got a Crush on You (New York Jazz)
 1982 It's a Good Life (Parkwood)
 1982 Too Marvelous for Words (New York Jazz)
 1983 The Fabulous Doc Cheatham (Parkwood)
 1985 At the Bern Jazz Festival (Sackville)
 1985 Highlights in Jazz (Stash)
 1987 Tribute to Billie Holiday (Kenneth)
 1988 Dear Doc (Orange Blue)
 1988 Tribute to Louis Armstrong (Kenneth)
 1988 Doc Cheatham and Sammy Price in New Orleans with Lars Edegran's Jazz Band (GHB)
 1992 Eartha Kitt/Doc Cheatham/Bill Coleman with George Duvivier & Co. (DRG)
 1992 Echoes of New Orleans (Big Easy)
 1992 You're a Sweetheart (Sackville)
 1993 Live (Natasha Imports)
 1993 The Eighty-Seven Years of Doc Cheatham (Columbia)
 1995 Duets and Solos
 1995 Swinging Down in New Orleans (Jazzology)
 1996 Live at Sweet Basil (Jazzology)
 1997 Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton with Nicholas Payton (Verve)
 1997 Mood Indigo: A Memorial (Viper's Nest)
 1999 At the Vineyard on a Cold Sunday in January
 2000 Live at the Windsor Jazz Series 1981 (Jazzology)
 2003 Meets the Swiss Dixie Stompers Plus Two (Jazzology)
 2011 From Dixie to Swing (Traditions Alive, 2011)
 2013 Live in New York 1985 with George Kelly (City Hall/Squatty Roo, 1985, 2013)

With Benny Carter
Legends (MusicMasters, 1993)
With Dizzy Gillespie
 To Diz with Love (Telarc, 1992)
With Herbie Mann
 Flute, Brass, Vibes and Percussion (Verve, 1959)
 The Common Ground (Atlantic, 1960)
 Our Mann Flute (Atlantic, 1966)
With Jay McShann
 The Big Apple Bash (Atlantic, 1979)
With Sammy Price
Fire (Black & Blue, 1975)

References

External links

 Doc Cheatham on PBS.org/jazz
 Doc Cheatham on jazzhouse.org
 Doc Cheatham Interview NAMM Oral History Library (1995)

1905 births
1997 deaths
20th-century African-American male singers
American jazz bandleaders
American jazz singers
American male trumpeters
Big band bandleaders
Dixieland trumpeters
Dixieland singers
Grammy Award winners
Singers from Nashville, Tennessee
Swing singers
Swing trumpeters
Vaudeville performers
20th-century trumpeters
Jazz musicians from Tennessee
American male jazz musicians
Harlem Blues and Jazz Band members
McKinney's Cotton Pickers members
The Cab Calloway Orchestra members
Sackville Records artists
21st-century African-American male singers

Doc Cheatham


The Mount Evans Crest House is a building, now in ruins, located at the summit of Mount Blue Sky in Colorado.  It is notable for both its significant architectural design and its unusual location. Built at the terminus of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, it was the highest business structure in the United States. Constructed between 1940 and 1941, it served as a restaurant, gift shop and tourist attraction until it was partially destroyed by a fire in 1979.

History
Inspired by his first visit to Mount Blue Sky in the 1920s, carpenter and German immigrant Justus "Gus" Roehling dreamed of constructing a "Castle in the Sky" for his then girlfriend (and future wife) Edith.

Financial backing was provided by Thayer Tutt (owner of similar attractions atop Pikes Peak and the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs), and Quigg Newton, future mayor of Denver.  With a design by notable Colorado architect Edwin A. Francis, ground was broken in the spring of 1940.

Roehling, his wife and his crew lived in tents at the Mt. Blue Sky Summit while construction was taking place. The extreme environment provided many challenges. No company would insure the building against loss or provide performance bonds during construction. Cold, damp conditions provided difficulties getting concrete to cure. All the materials had to be hauled to the summit or fabricated on site, and the high elevation afforded a building season limited only to summer months.

With winter fast approaching, Roehling and his team were forced to abandon the uncompleted structure in fall of 1940. Upon returning in spring of 1941, Roehling found that much of the glass and woodwork had been destroyed during the hard alpine winter. Undeterred, Roehling and his team repaired the damage and completed construction by the fall of 1941.

Crest House opened to much fanfare in fall of 1941. Amenities provided to travelers by Crest House included a restaurant, gift shop, rest rooms, emergency oxygen, and an observation deck.  It was particularly well known for its fried doughnuts, coffee, and hot chocolate. Early employees were Denver area college students on their summer break, who resided in bunks located in the rear of the building.

Thayer's Broadmoor Hotel Company operated the Crest House until 1956, when it was sold to the Stewart Corporation, which also operated the Pikes Peak Summit House. Under the terms of the original lease agreement, ownership reverted to the U.S. Forest Service in 1969.

Destruction
On 1 September 1979, an employee of a propane company failed to secure a safety valve while filling a propane tank on site, and fire broke out. All the occupants were evacuated safely, and although the volunteer fire department from Idaho Springs responded quickly, high winds and a lack of water hampered their efforts to contain the fire.

Most of the steel, glass, and wood timbers, paneling, and flooring were destroyed in the fire, leaving only the cast concrete walls and outer stonework. The U.S. Forest service received a $450,000 settlement from the propane company for the loss—insufficient to cover the estimated $2 million in restoration costs, so the funds were used to rehabilitate the ruins into an observation platform.

Design

Crest House represents a mixture of several different architectural styles, including Organic, Futuristic, Art Moderne.

The overall design is intended to evoke a shooting star, with moon-shaped light fixtures inside completing the motif.

The highlight of the design was the two-story star-shaped glass and steel platform.  The upper floor housed an observation platform, while the lower floor housed the coffee shop.  The star-shaped foundation is still evident on the observation platform today.

The other main design feature are the four stone arches that flowed from the star platform that housed the main entrance to the building.  These arches, like the rest of the concrete portions of the building, were faced with native stone, in order to better blend in with the environment.  In fact, it blends in so well that the building can be difficult to see from a distance. These arches are still standing today.

The interior was purportedly of an old-world style that Gus Roehling was fond of.  This included details such as knotty paneling, sturdy timbers, hardwood floors, and heavy doors.

References

Buildings and structures in Clear Creek County, Colorado
Ruins in the United States

Crest House


Fermat (named after Pierre de Fermat) is a program developed by Prof. Robert H. Lewis of Fordham University. It is a computer algebra system, in which items being computed can be integers (of arbitrary size), rational numbers, real numbers, complex numbers, modular numbers, finite field elements, multivariable polynomials, rational functions, or polynomials modulo other polynomials. The main areas of application are multivariate rational function arithmetic and matrix algebra over rings of multivariate polynomials or rational functions. Fermat does not do simplification of transcendental functions or symbolic integration.

A session with Fermat usually starts by choosing rational or modular "mode" to establish the ground field (or ground ring)  as  or . On top of this may be attached any number of symbolic variables  thereby creating the polynomial ring  and its quotient field. Further, some polynomials  involving some of the  can be chosen to mod out with, creating the quotient ring  Finally, it is possible to allow Laurent polynomials, those with negative as well as positive exponents. Once the computational ring is established in this way, all computations are of elements of this ring. The computational ring can be changed later in the session.

The polynomial gcd procedures, which call each other in a highly recursive manner, are about 7000 lines of code.

Fermat has extensive built-in primitives for array and matrix manipulations, such as submatrix, sparse matrix, determinant, normalize, column reduce, row echelon, Smith normal form, and matrix inverse. It is consistently faster than some well known computer algebra systems, especially in multivariate polynomial gcd. It is also space efficient.

The basic data item in Fermat is a multivariate rational function or quolynomial. The numerator and denominator are polynomials with no common factor. Polynomials are implemented recursively as general linked lists, unlike some systems that implement polynomials as lists of monomials. To implement (most) finite fields, the user finds an irreducible monic polynomial in a symbolic variable, say  and commands Fermat to mod out by it. This may be continued recursively,  etc. Low level data structures are set up to facilitate arithmetic and gcd over this newly created ground field. Two special fields,  and  are more efficiently implemented at the bit level.

History

With Windows 10, and thanks to Bogdan Radu, it is now possible (May 2021) to run Fermat Linux natively on Windows.  See the main web page http://home.bway.net/lewis

Fermat was last updated on 20 May 2020 (Mac and Linux; latest Windows version: 1 November 2011).

In an earlier version, called FFermat (Float Fermat), the basic number type is floating point numbers of 18 digits. That version allows for numerical computing techniques, has extensive graphics capabilities, no sophisticated polynomial gcd algorithms, and is available only for Mac OS 9.

Fermat was originally written in Pascal for a DEC VAX, then for the classic Mac OS during 1985–1996. It was ported to Microsoft Windows in 1998. In 2003 it was translated into C and ported to Linux (Intel machines) and Unix (Sparc/Sun). It is about 98,000 lines of C code.

The FFermat and (old) Windows Fermat Pascal source code have been made available to the public under a restrictive license.

The manual was extensively revised and updated on 25 July 2011 (latest small revision in June 2016, apparently another revision on 25 March 2020).

See also
Comparison of computer algebra systems

External links

Windows Fermat Pascal source code
Float Fermat Pascal source code
Robert H. Lewis at academia.edu

C (programming language) software
Computer algebra system software for Linux
Computer algebra systems
Proprietary freeware for Linux

Fermat (computer algebra system)


Harold Edward Davis (February 8, 1933 – November 18, 1998) was an American songwriter and record producer. Davis was a producer and writer for Motown Records for nearly thirty years, and was a key figure in the latter part of the Motown career of The Jackson 5.

Career
Davis began his music career in his teens as a singer, managed by Henry Stone.  He released a string of singles under his own name, mainly for small labels, and moved to Los Angeles in 1960 where he continued to record but increasingly worked as a songwriter and record producer.  He discovered young singer Brenda Holloway, and recorded duets with her on small local labels in the early 1960s.  He also wrote and recorded with singer Jennell Hawkins.

In about 1962, he introduced himself to Berry Gordy, who installed Davis as head of Motown's first Los Angeles operation, later opening the MoWest label.  Working with Marc Gordon, Davis was able to reproduce the elements of the Motown sound with Los Angeles musicians, and found success with records by both Brenda and her sister Patrice Holloway.   In the mid-1960s, Stevie Wonder made a series of recordings including the album Stevie at the Beach and single "Hey Harmonica Man", co-produced by Davis.  Most notably, Davis was the co-writer and producer of Jackson 5 hits such as "I'll Be There" and "Dancing Machine," and Eddie Kendricks' "Can I".

Davis also produced for Bette Midler (her Motown record of 1975, produced by Davis, was never released), Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, The Supremes, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Thelma Houston, Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Four Tops, Junior Walker, and The Miracles.  During the disco era, he produced hit songs for Diana Ross ("Love Hangover"), Thelma Houston ("Don't Leave Me This Way") and Syreeta ("Can't Shake Your Love").

Davis remained with Motown until the 1990s. He died in 1998, aged 65.

References

1933 births
1998 deaths
African-American songwriters
Songwriters from Ohio
Record producers from Ohio
Motown artists
Vee-Jay Records artists
20th-century American musicians
20th-century American businesspeople
Musicians from Cincinnati
20th-century African-American musicians

Hal Davis


Aang is a fictional character and the main hero in Nickelodeon's television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character was made by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen. He has a part in all the episodes of Avatar, except "Zuko Alone" (7th episode of Book 2). Aang is also in the first episode, "The Boy In The Iceberg". Aang appears in other media, like trading cards (a card that is collected), video games, T-shirts, and web comics.

Aang is the last Airbender. They were the only race of people who could control the air. He is  112 years old. He has not become older because he had been frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, and is still like a 12 year old, because he used Avatar State to protect himself and his bison. In the second show, it is discovered that Aang is the living form of the Avatar. This is the spirit of the planet in human form. As the Avatar, Aang controls the elements and must keep the Four Nations at peace. The show follows Aang's journeys to do this.

Most of Aang's habits, such as vegetarianism, are based on Buddhist and Taoist tradition. Aang is the series' unwilling hero. He shows hesitation when joining his friends to save the world from the Fire Nation. His "lighthearted" personality has been praised by critics. The creators wanted Aang to "win enemies with his wits" and be a "trickster hero".

Creation

Aang's character was created by Bryan Konietzko. The sketch showed a middle-aged man with an arrow on his head. Konietzko changed the character into a picture of a child with a flying bison. At the same time, Michael Dante DiMartino was interested in a documentary about explorers trapped in the South Pole. The idea caused the pair to think:

The plot they described relates with the first and second episodes of the series, where the "water people" (Katara and Sokka) find the "air guy" (Aang) while "trapped in a snowy wasteland" (the Southern Water Tribe) with "some fire people [that] are pressing down on them" (Fire Navy and Zuko). The creators of the show made Aang to be frozen in an iceberg for 1000 years. He was to wake inside a futuristic world, where he would have a robot named Momo and a flying bison named Appa. The creators lost interest in the theme, and changed it to 100 years of suspended animation. The robotic Momo was changed to a flying lemur, and the herd of bison was reduced to one.

Aang's character has a well grown cultural belief. According to the show's creators, "Avatar based on the belief of Buddhism and Taoism." A important part of the character is his vegetarian diet, regular with Buddhism or Taoism. In the Brahmajala Sutra, a Buddhist code of ethics, vegetarianism is encouraged. In "The King of Omashu" (the 5th episode of first season), Aang shows his vegetarian beliefs by refusing to eat meat. Aang shows a reluctance to fight and an dislike of killing. In "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)", Aang gets into a fight with an angry spirit who is destroying a village because the people burned his home (one forest). Instead of fighting the spirit, Aang talks with it.

Airbending, the element that Aang mainly uses in the show, is based on Baguazhang, an "internal" Chinese martial art. This fighting style focuses on circular movements, and does not have many finishing moves. These characteristics were meant to show the unpredictability of air and the peaceful nature of Airbenders in the show.

In the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se" (the 15th episode of second season), Aang's name was written as  (ān áng) in Chinese.

In the series

The creators of the show call each season a "book" and each episode a "chapter"; each of these books was take the name of element that Aang must control, except the air. Flashbacks also reveal events that happened before the show opened. In a flashback during "The Storm", Aang remembered the day when elder monks told him that he was the Avatar. Monk Gyatso, Aang's teacher and father-figure, said that Aang must be raised as a normal child. Nearing the end, the monks began to believe that Gyatso interfered too much, so they decide to send Aang to the Eastern Air Temple. Aang refuses to be torn away from his mentor; he writes a note for Gyatso before flying away on his bison, Appa. It is revealed in the first episodes of the show that a violent storm catches Aang and sends him into the ocean during his escape. Aang then enters the Avatar State, unknowingly, for the first time to encase himself and Appa in a frozen air bubble. An image of this air bubble, resembling an iceberg, ends the flashback.

After the 100 years he was in the iceberg with his bison, the story starts when Katara and her brother Sokka free Aang and Appa in the first episode. In the next episode, they all started the trip to the Northern Water Tribe, with hope to find a waterbending master to teach Aang and Katara how to control the water. During their journey they are chased by Zuko, the banished prince of the Fire Nation, who must capture the Avatar to return his honor. In one episode, Aang meets his previous incarnation, Avatar Roku (born on Fire Nation), who said him that he must learn all four bending arts and win Fire Lord Ozai before the end of summer. When the team, named team "Avatar", arrived in the Northern Water Tribe, a Waterbender named Master Pakku teaches Aang (and later Katara) waterbending. Later, in the second season, Aang meets Toph Bei Fong, a blind earthbending, who becomes his earthbending teacher. Later, Aang and his friends learn about the solar eclipse, which will occur before the end of the summer, and will block the Firebenders powerless. During the season finale, a guru tried to teach Aang how to open up his seven chakras in order to control the Avatar State. When Aang has a vision of Katara being in danger, he leaves the Air Temple where he is being taught before the seventh chakra is opened, locking it. He then battles in the underground caverns of Ba Sing Se. He is killed when Azula strikes him with lightning, but is brought back to life thanks to Katara's special water that has healing abilities, and also her healing abilities.

In the third season, Aang and his friends had to win a new enemy - an killer hired by Zuko who shoots with his third eye. Aang and his friends from Earth Kingdom attack the Fire Nation capital during the solar eclipse, but the invasion failed because Azula knew about it. In the next episode, Zuko offers to teach Aang firebending. Aang accepts, despite the group's strong opposition. In "The Firebending Masters" (the 13th episode of third season) Aang learns firebending with the help of the last two dragons.

Before the final battle with Ozai, he is trapped with his friends because he does not find correct he kills Ozai. After he sleepwalks into a forest, he speaks with four previous Avatars (Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, Yangchen), and asking for advice. Each gives him a reason to kill the Fire Lord Ozai, discouraging him. After discovering that the forest is atop a swimming lion-turtle, and receiving advice from said lion-turtle, he prepares to confront the Fire Lord. Once Ozai arrives, Aang engages him in battle. After sparing Ozai when redirecting his lightning and then being backed into a corner, Aang enters the Avatar State. The Avatar State tips the battle in Aang's favor, and makes swift work of Ozai. Using a technique taught to him by the lion-turtle, which called Energybending, Aang removes Ozai's ability to firebend, effectively eliminating the threat. Later, in the Fire Nation capital, Aang is seen in monk robes, standing beside Zuko while he become Fire Lord. He is later seen relaxing with his friends in Ba Sing Se. The series ends with Aang and Katara kissing.

Characteristics

Michael Dante DiMartino, one of the show's creators, said:

Aang is a vegetarian, as shown in "The King of Omashu" (the 5th episode of first season) and "The Headband" (the 2nd episode of  third season) when he refuses to eat meat since the Air Nomads taught him that life is holy. Aang states a reluctance to fight in "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)"; Aang hopelessly negotiates with a spirit who is destroying a village instead of fighting. Due to his non-violent nature, he also shows ethical reluctance refusing to killing Firelord Ozai, and eventually strips Ozai of his bending instead of killing him. In the show, Aang has a complex network of friends extending over all four nations.

Aang, in "The Storm" (the 12th episode of first season), said that he wishes he had been there to help Air Nomads a century ago, but would rather live a child's carefree life. Many times in the show, Aang shows how much he cares for those are close to him. He also showed that he can act immaturely, and once tried to deceive others in order to keep the group together. In "Bato of the Water Tribe" (the 15th episode of first season), Aang thinks Katara and Sokka might leave to visit their father. Aang hides the map showing their father's whereabouts and lies about having it in the first place.

In some episodes, he shows flight abilities with airbending. One technique for this is to make a sphere of air and ride on it, which Aang calls the Air Scooter. Other methods of flying include his glider, and Appa. In the Avatar State, Aang can also fly inside a ball of air.

Reception

In the show's intended demographics, Aang has been received very well. Kendall Lyons said that, "Aang seems to be the happy kid that you can easily familiarize yourself with", and that he "seems to bring comfort in the most dangerous or trouble situations." There are many similar descriptions about Aang as a childlike character who is "reckless and excitable". Reviews point out that "as the Avatar, Aang seems unstoppable, but as Aang, he is just another like an airbender". The review says later that the show continues to focus on a more realistic character instead of a perfect one by showing many weaknesses in his character.

Other media

Aang's character showed in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Trading Card Game. He is 1 of the 4 characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender video game, a video game based on the first season of the show. Two sequels were made: Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth, a video game based on the second season of the show, and Avatar: The Last Airbender - Into the Inferno, a video game based on the third season. Avatar T-shirts, some with Aang's face on them, are being sold on the Nickelodeon Shop website. Tokyopop has published a films comic (sometimes referred to as cine-manga), in which Aang is the main character, like in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Aang is in Escape from the Spirit World, an online video game that is on Nickelodeon's real website. The game has some plot changes that are not in the show. The show's directors, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, say the events are canon. In Nicktoons MLB, he is a playable character.

In 2008, M. Night Shyamalan, a film director, cast 12-year-old Tae Kwon Do practitioner Noah Ringer as Aang in the film adaptation of the series, The Last Airbender.  The casting of a white actor in the role of Aang (as well as a primarily Caucasian cast) in the Asian-influenced Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and a protest outside of a Philadelphia casting call for movie extras.  The casting decisions were also negatively received by several critics who stated that the original casting call expressed a preference for Caucasian actors over others.

Gordon Cormier will play the character in the Netflix live-action remake of the series.

References

Other websites
 Official TV Show Website  at Nick.com
 Aang at Nick.com
 Aang  at Avatarspirit.net

Animated characters
Characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender
Fictional characters introduced in 2005

Aang


Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz is an interactive fiction video game published by Infocom in 1981. It was written by Marc Blank, Dave Lebling, Bruce Daniels and Tim Anderson. It was the second game in the popular Zork trilogy. It begins where Zork I left off and leads into Zork III. It is Infocom's second game.

Plot
The player starts in the Barrow from Zork I armed only with the brass lantern and the elvish sword.  The purpose of the game is not initially clear.

The Wizard of Frobozz is soon introduced.  The wizard was once a good sorcerer, but when his powers began to go away he was exiled by Lord Dimwit Flathead. Now bordering on insanity, the wizard is a force to be reckoned with. Your goal, as you venture into the wizard's area, is to avoid his tricks and learn to control his magic.

Like its predecessor, Zork II is essentially a treasure hunt.  Unlike the previous game, the ten treasures are tied together by a crude plot.  Finding the treasures does not end the game, and finding all the treasures is not needed to finish the game. Instead, the adventurer must figure out a way to use the treasures in order to reach the game's finale.

Other websites
 View Zork II packaging  and Play Zork II  online at the Gallery of Zork.

Zork II information and overview
Scans of the Zork II package, documentation and feelies
Infocom-if.org's entry for Zork II
The Infocom Bugs List entry for Zork II
The Dot Eaters page  featuring a history of the Zork games and Infocom
 Play Zork II online at iFiction.org

Infocom
1981 video games
Amiga games
Amstrad CPC games
Apple II games
Atari video games
Commodore 64 games
DOS games
MSX games
Zork

Zork II


In organic chemistry, torquoselectivity describes electrocyclic reactions that produce one isomer more than the other. An official definition is "the preference for inward or outward rotation of substituents in conrotatory
or disrotatory electrocyclic reactions." In other words, a chemical reaction is torquoselective if the groups of atoms that hang from a ring of atoms are more likely to have rotated in a particular direction during the reaction (instead of being equally likely to rotate in both possible directions.) Torquoselectivity is different from the normal diastereoselectivity of pericyclic reactions. Instead it is more selectivity beyond the Woodward–Hoffmann rules. The name comes from the idea that the substituents in an electrocyclization appear to rotate during the reaction. The reaction produces a single product because only one direction of rotation was allowed (that is, the direction of rotation on the substituents was favored). The concept was originally developed by Kendall N. Houk.

When a chemical reaction closes a ring, its torquoselectivity is the same as enantioselectivity. A single enantiomer of a cyclization product is formed from the selective ring closure of the starting material. In a typical electrocyclic ring closing, selection for either conrotatory or disrotatory reactions modes still produces two enantiomers. Torquoselectivity is a discrimination between these possible enantiomers that requires asymmetric induction.

Torquoselectivity also happens in selective electrocyclic reactions that break open rings. The different directions of rotation produce distinct structural isomers. In these cases, steric strain is often the driving force for the selectivity. Studies have shown that the selectivity can also be changed by the presence of electron donating and electron withdrawing groups.

Torquoselectivity can also apply to other mechanisms, including chiral Lewis acid catalysts, induction by neighboring stereocenters (in which case the torquoselectivity is a case of diastereoselectivity), and axial-to-tetrahedral chirality transfer. An example of axial-to-tetrahedral chirality transfer is shown below for the torquoselective Nazarov cyclization reaction of a chiral allenyl vinyl ketone.

References

Stereochemistry

Torquoselectivity