As early as the 1780s, the word kaiso was used to describe a French creole song and, in Trinidad, kaiso seems to have been perfected by the chantwells (singers, mostly female) during the first half of the 19th century. The chantwells, assisted by alternating in call-and-response style with a chorus, were a central component of the practice called Calinda (stick-fighting).

Calinda was a central component of early carnival celebrations in Trinidad, and after emancipation (1834), Afro-Creoles essentially took over the streets during carnival. Elite French Creole revellers, for their part, moved their carnival celebrations indoors and to private parties. Kaiso  used satirical and insulting lyrics, and is related to the picong tradition. Kaiso  singers, called chantwells, sang primarily in French creole.

Chantwells
The "chantwell" is another incarnation of the African "griot" tradition. On the Caribbean plantations African griots became chantwells, preserving the tribe's history and traditions orally. They would sing to contemporary and mythical heroes and to the Gods. They would also preserve the complex oral traditions of West Africa with songs of derision, praise, satire, and lament. At first the chantwells were mostly women because the males were targeted for destruction on the plantation. On Emancipation the tradition continued and the chantwells would sing call-and-response chants called lavways lionizing and cheering on champion stickfighters. This form of music gradually evolved into the modern calypso.

Calypso music was developed in Trinidad in the 17th century from the West African Kaiso and canboulay music brought by African slaves imported to that Caribbean island to work on sugar plantations. These enslaved Africans were stripped of all connections to their homeland and family and not allowed to talk to each other. They used calypso to mock the slave masters and to communicate with each other.

As calypso developed, the role of the griot (originally a similar travelling musician in West Africa) became known as a chantwell and, eventually, calypsonian. As the country became urbanized chantwells became more and more a male function but the portfolio remains the same. The chantwell is the Call, the tribe and the audience is the Response.

Rapso music in the cariso tradition
Rapso music is itself an evolution of the chantwell or griot tradition of African music in the diaspora. It is called, "the poetry of Calypso," and "the Power of the Word in the rhythm of the Word." Rapso is the poetic 'rap' form of Trinbagonian music, but has its origins in the oral elements of the performances of traditional masquerade characters in Trinidad Carnival.

Traditional masquerade characters, such as the Midnight Robber, Pierrot Grenade, and the Wild Indians, each have particular forms of poetic and musical speeches that echo ancient African masking and poetic traditions. Rapso borrowed many of the rhythmic and performance elements of these forms.

The first wave of Rapso music occurred in the late 1960s with the invention of Rapso by its pioneer Lancelot Kebu Layne. The second wave occurred in the late 1970s and mushroomed in the early '80s with the work of Brother Resistance and the Network Rhythm Band, alongside other artists such as Brother Cetewayo and Brother Book. This wave mainstreamed Rapso music in Trinidad and Tobago and World Music.

The third wave of Rapso occurred with the advent of young groups including Kindred and Homefront in the early 1990s. They were part of a musical movement entitled the 'Kiskadee Karavan' that was led by millionaire Robert Amar, who invested his money in the unleashing of the young musical genius of Trinidad and Tobago. The Karavan revolutionised Trinidad's music by taking 'traditional' forms such as the Rapso and giving it modern production and promotional methods to take the music to stadiums in the native Trinidad and Tobago. This opportunity uncovered many talents on the ground, and created a series of anthemic musical singles. The song 'This Trini Could Flow' by Kindred took Rapso into the 21st century and firmly entrenched the music as a form comparable to hip-hop and dancehall.

See also
Calypsonian

References
ProudFlesh

18th-century music genres
Trinidad and Tobago styles of music
Afro-Virgin Islander culture
Folk music genres

Cariso


4D, meaning the common 4 dimensions, is a concept in mathematics. It has been studied by mathematicians and philosophers since the 18th century.  Mathematicians who studied four-dimension space in the 19th century include Möbius, Schläfi, Bernhard Riemann, and Charles Howard Hinton.

In geometry, the fourth dimension is related to the other three dimensions  of length, width, and depth by imagining another direction through space. Just as the dimension of depth can be added to a square to create a cube, a fourth dimension can be added to a cube to create a tesseract.

By analogy, the universe of a 2D (two dimensional) being is a plane, but this plane may curved into a sphere.  This means that if a two dimensional object goes forever forward in a straight line, the object will end up in the same position it started from.  So, applying this idea to three dimensions, we can say that our universe is curved into a fourth dimension.  Thus, if a three dimensional object walks forever in a straight line, the object will end up in its starting point.

Going into theoretical physics, if we look with a large enough magnification into a point in our universe, it may be possible to see how the universe was (its size in light years) many years ago. As the observable universe now is 93 billion light years long and the Big Bang, theoretically, began approximately 14 billion years ago. Will it be possible to see how our universe was before the Big Bang (if there was a universe at all)?

4D is also an important idea in physics, developed in the 20th century. In physics, it refers to the idea of time as a fourth dimension, added to the (3D) spatial dimensions.  Albert Einstein developed the idea of spacetime by connecting space and time together. The difference is that spacetime is not a Euclidean space, but instead is called "Minkowski spacetime".

Further reading
RAq2w, Paradoxy vedomi. Praha: PedF UK 1994, str. 78n

Other websites
The Cube shown in Five Dimensions
[Public]

Geometry
Time

4D


Red is a two-handed play by American writer John Logan about artist Mark Rothko. It was first produced by the Donmar Warehouse, London, on December 8, 2009, in a production Michael Grandage. It then transferred to Broadway in March 2010 with the same two leads, Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, where it won many Tony Awards.

The play has subsequently been performed in many locations around the world, with a 2018 revival in London directed by Grandage, with and Molina reprising his original role as Rothko.

Synopsis
"There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend... One day the black will swallow the red."

Mark Rothko is in his New York studio in 1958/59, having been commissioned to paint a group of murals for the expensive and exclusive Four Seasons restaurant. He gives orders to his assistant, Ken, as Ken mixes the paints, makes the frames, and primes the canvases. Ken, however, eventually brashly questions Rothko's theories of art and his acceding to work on such a commercial project. For his part, Rothko dislikes the rise of pop art.

Ultimately, Rothko stops working on the project and decides to return the money. He explains to Ken that the Four Seasons is an inappropriate place for his murals to be seen.

Original production
The original production at the Donmar Warehouse, premiering on December 8, 2009, was directed by Michael Grandage and performed by Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his fictional assistant Ken.

The production, with its two leads, transferred to Broadway at the  John Golden Theatre for a limited engagement which began on March 11, 2010, and closed on June 27.

Reception
Reviews for the London production were mixed for the play but positive for Molina's performance. Michael Billington in The Guardian wrote: "Alfred Molina, with his large frame and beetling eyebrows, has exactly the fierce intensity of an artist whose paintings were a dynamic battle between Apollo and Dionysus".

In reviewing the Broadway production, Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press wrote: "They are the tantalizing first words of Red, John Logan's engrossing, often enthralling new play about art, an artist and the act of creation." Those first words were "What do you see?" Variety wrote that "Alfred Molina is majestic".

Awards and nominations
The Broadway production won the 2010 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Play and Molina won the Distinguished Performance Award.

It won the most awards at the 2010 Tonys, including Best Play for Logan and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for Redmayne. The production was nominated for a total of seven Tony Awards, winning six, including: Best Play, Best Featured Actor in a Play for Eddie Redmayne, Best Direction of a Play for Michael Grandage, Best Scenic Design of a Play for Christopher Oram, Best Lighting Design of a Play for Neil Austin, and Best Sound Design of a Play for Adam Cork. In addition, Alfred Molina was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Mark Rothko. All in all, it received the most wins out of any other production that season. The play also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play while Grandage and Austin were honoured with Drama Desk Awards for their work. Molina, Cork and Oram were also similarly nominated.

Other productions

The third production of Red was – at Logan's insistence – put on by the South Australian amateur theatre company Independent Theatre in 2011, at  The Space, in Adelaide's Festival Centre. David Roach (who also designed the set) played Rothko, and Paul-William Mawhinney took the role of Ken. The play received good reviews.

Red was staged in the Philippines last February to March 2013 starring Bart Guingona as Mark Rothko, and Joaquin Valdez as Ken. This was produced by The Necessary Theater. 10 Years later, they are restaging the play with Guingona reprising his role as Rothko and now taking the role of Ken is UP Diliman Alum, JC Santos.

In October 2013, the play premiered in Chile at Centro Mori Bellavista theatre under the title Rojo, starring Luis Gnecco and Martin Bacigalupo, directed by Rodrigo Sepúlveda and produced by The Cow Company.

Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, New York, mounted a production of Red in October/November 2015, starring Stephen Caffrey as Mark Rothko and John Ford-Dunker as Ken. Directed by Skip Greer, the production featured scenic design by Robert Koharchik, costume design by Ann M. Emo, lighting design by Kendall Smith and sound design by Dan Roach.

Red played in the Pit at the New National Theatre Tokyo from August to October 2015, starring Tetsushi Tanaka as Rothko and Shun Oguri as Ken, directed by Eriko Ogawa.

In October 2016 the play opened at The Junction in Dubai before transferring to the JamJar. The production starred Osman Aboubakr as Rothko and Deepak Venugopal as Ken, with direction by Alex Broun.

In July/August 2017, the play was mounted at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. Stephen Caffrey starred as Mark Rothko and Patrick Stafford as Ken, with direction by David Glenn Armstrong.

The play was revived from May to July 2018 at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End directed by Michael Grandage, with Alfred Enoch as Ken, and Alfred Molina reprising his original role as Rothko. From this production, a film was made for the PBS series Great Performances in the US and aired November 15, 2019.

Works referenced in the play
The play references other works of art, including:
 The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Footnotes

References

External links

Probst, Andy. "Review Roundup: Red, with Alfred Molina, at Donmar Warehouse", theatermania.com, December 10, 2009
 Behind the Scenes: Red, by John Logan . Background material prepared for Ensemble Theatre Company by Anna Jensen.

2009 plays
American plays
Broadway plays
Plays based on actual events
Plays set in New York City
Tony Award-winning plays
Works based on art
Mark Rothko
Two-handers

Red (play)


In enzymology, a (S)-scoulerine 9-O-methyltransferase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction

S-adenosyl-L-methionine + (S)-scoulerine  S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine + (S)-tetrahydrocolumbamine

Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are S-adenosyl methionine and (S)-scoulerine, whereas its two products are S-adenosylhomocysteine and (S)-tetrahydrocolumbamine.

This enzyme belongs to the family of transferases, specifically those transferring one-carbon group methyltransferases.  The systematic name of this enzyme class is S-adenosyl-L-methionine:(S)-scoulerine 9-O-methyltransferase. This enzyme participates in alkaloid biosynthesis i.

References

EC 2.1.1
Enzymes of unknown structure

(S)-scoulerine 9-O-methyltransferase


Yunnanocephalus is a genus of ptychopariid trilobite. It lived during the late Atdabanian and Botomian stages, in what are currently Antarctica, Australia and China. It was a "moderately common" member of the Chengjiang Fauna. Yunnanocephalus is the only genus currently assigned to the Yunnanocephalidae family.

Description
Yunnanocephalus is a small (about ) trilobite with an inverted elongated egg-shaped outline. Its headshield (or cephalon) is ovate and twice as wide as long, slightly wider than and not confluent with the articulate middle part of the exoskeleton (or thorax). The raised central section (or glabella) is weakly defined, without clear furrows except for one defining the occipital ring, tapering forward, with the front straight and confluent with the eye ridges. The occipital ring is about as wide as the border and the axial rings of the thorax. The distance between the glabella and the frontal border is slightly wider that the border. The visual surface of the eye is rather small (about 20% of the length of the cephalon), with the front about halflength of the cephalon. The natural rupture line (or suture) anterior of the visual surface is parallel to the midline or converges slightly forward and from the back of the eye diverges to the middle of the widely rounded back edges of the cephalon. The thorax has 14 segments, with short triangular spines, the 3rd and 4th slightly wider than the frontal segments, and a small tailshield (or pygidium) consisting almost fully of the axis and post axial boss, with two vaguely defined axial rings.

Ontogeny
During the ontogenetic development of Y. yunnanensis between a late larval phase (meraspis degree 9, 2½mm) and the adult (or holaspis) the facial suture changes from proparian to gonatoparian. Although this development has also been observed in Duyunaspis duyunensis, it is really uncommon. Usually, proparian holaspid trilobites developed from opisthoparian meraspids due to a mechanism called heterochrony.

Distribution
 Y. longioccipitalis is known from the Lower Cambrian of Antarctica (Atdabanian, Shackleton Limestone, 81.9° S, 158.7° E).
 Y. macromelos has been found in the Lower Cambrian of Australia (Botomian, Mernmerna Formation, Angorichina station, east side of The Bunkers, 1 km S Balcoracana Creek, South-Australia, 31.2° S, 138.9° E).
 Y. yunnanensis occurs in the Lower Cambrian of China (Atdabanian, Yuanshan or Qiongzhusi Formation, Chengjiang biota, near Haikou, Anning, Jinning,  Jingmacun, Kunming, Yunnan, 24.8° N, 102.6° E; and Maotianshan Bed 4, 24.0° N, 102.0° E).

References

External links
 Order Pitychopariida at trilobite.info

Ellipsocephaloidea
Ptychopariida genera
Cambrian trilobites
Trilobites of Antarctica
Cambrian trilobites of Australia
Cambrian trilobites of Asia
Fossils of China
Fossil taxa described in 1936
Cambrian genus extinctions

Yunnanocephalus


The whaling foreman is in Faroese known as a grindaformaður. He is a central figure in the Faroese pilot whale hunt.

He has the following responsibilities in a hunt:

 He is responsible for organising the pilot whale drives
 He makes sure the word spreads when pilot whales are sighted close to land
 He makes sure that there are enough boats to drive the whales, and that there are enough people on shore to help out.

See also
 Whaling in the Faroe Islands

External links
 Whaling.fo - Website from the Faroese Government
 Information page from the High North Alliance (in favour of whaling)
 The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission
 Information page from the Campaign Whale campaign (against whaling)
 Museum of Natural History Faroe Islands Tagged pilot whales
 Torkilsheyggi Images from a pilot whale hunt in Gøtu 2006

Whaling
Economy of the Faroe Islands
Marine occupations

Whaling-foreman


"The Morals of Chess" is an essay on chess by the American intellectual Benjamin Franklin, which was first published in the Columbian Magazine in December 1786.

Franklin, who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, played chess from at least 1733. Evidence suggests that he was an above-average player, who, however, did not reach the top level. He outlined the essay around 1732, but did not publish it until 1786. After a short prologue in which Franklin details the history of chess he gets to the main part of his essay. He compares chess to life and writes that foresight, circumspection and caution can be learnt from the game. After describing the effects chess can have on one's perception of life he describes a set of moral rules that a chess player should hold, including to not cheat and not disturb the opponent. Franklin suggests that the opponent be told about mistakes he makes, for example if he would lose a piece.

The essay is one of the first texts about chess that was published in the United States; it appeared in the first chess-related book that was published in Russia in 1791. It still is widely reproduced, especially on the Internet. In 1999 Franklin was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame.

See also
 The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
 Bibliography of Benjamin Franklin

Citations

Sources

18th-century American literature
Essays about chess
Ethics essays
Etiquette
History of chess
18th century in chess
Modern philosophical literature
Sportsmanship
Works by Benjamin Franklin

The Morals of Chess


Candid photography is photography captured without creating a posed appearance. This style is also called street photography, spontaneous photography or snap shooting. Professional photographers sometimes shoot candid photos of strangers on the street or in other public places such as parks and beaches. Candid photography captures natural expressions and moments that might not be possible to reproduce in a studio or posed photo shoot. This style of photography is most often used to capture people in their natural state without them noticing the camera. The main focus is on capturing the candid expressions and moments of life. Candid photography can be used in a variety of settings such as family gatherings, special events, and everyday street scenes. It is also a popular choice for wedding photos and professional portraits. Candid photography is often seen as a more honest representation of the subject than posed photography. To capture candid photos, the photographer may need to observe the subject from a distance or use a long lens or telephoto zoom lens. This allows for capturing the subject in their natural environment without them being aware of the camera. The photographer may need to be quick and have an eye for interesting compositions and backgrounds.

Candid photography can be used to capture a wide variety of subjects and occasions. It is a popular style of photography for street photography, wedding photography, portrait photography, and event photography. It can be used to capture candid moments of life, such as people walking on the street, children playing in the park, or family gatherings. It can also be used to capture moments of joy and celebration. Candid photography is also used in journalism and documentary photography.

A candid photograph is a photograph captured without creating a posed appearance. The candid nature of a photograph is unrelated to the subject's knowledge about or consent to the fact that photographs are being taken, and are unrelated to the subject's permission for further usage and distribution. The crucial factor is the actual absence of posing. However, if the intent is that the subject is absolutely unaware of being photographed and does not even expect it, then such photography is secret photography, which is a special case of candid photography.

As an art form

The person who is generally credited with being the first available light "candid" photographer is Dr. Erich Salomon who photographed the social elite in Berlin, Germany and politicians and diplomats during the late 1920s and early 1930s with a 1 3/4 x 2 1/4 glass plate or cut, sheet, film camera called the Ermanox, fitted with an f/1.8 Ernostar lens. The Ermanox was introduced by the Ernemann-Werke (Works) of Dresden, Germany, in 1924.

It was said by the French Minister of the Colonies Aristide Briand, that "There are just three things necessary for a League of Nations conference: a few Foreign Secretaries, a table and Salomon". On seeing Salomon's photographs, so utterly different in revelation from the traditional, posed, studio portraits or the formal, flash-powder illuminated, group photographs, an English editor called them "candid photographs" an art of observation , a phrase which got stuck with the public.

The camera most suited to Salomon's approach, and which came to be dubbed as the "candid camera", was the Leica, the camera designed by Oscar Barnack and introduced by the Ernst Leitz company in 1924 and which was the forerunner of all 35 mm cameras of today.

Some professional photographers developed candid photography into an art form. Henri Cartier-Bresson might be considered the master of the art of candid photography, capturing the "decisive moment" in everyday life over a span of several decades. Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee, was one of the great photographers to document life in the streets of New York to often capture life — and death — at their rawest edges.

Almost all the successful photographers in the field of candid photography master the art of making people relax and feel at ease around the camera, they master the art of blending in at parties, of finding acceptance despite an obvious intrusive element - the camera. How subjects react to photographer's presence with the camera depends on how knowledgeable the artist is on the craft, the approach and the execution of the shot.  This is certainly true for most celebrity photographers, such as René Burri, or Raeburn Flerlage.

It could be argued that candid photography is the purest form of photojournalism. There is a fine line between photojournalism and candid photography, a line that was blurred by photographers such as Bresson and Weegee. Photojournalism often sets out to tell a story in images, whereas candid photography simply captures people living an event.

Camera equipment

Unobtrusive camera equipment, often small in size, is preferred for candid photography to avoid disturbing subjects.

Candid photography also typically requires use of available light since flash alerts subjects to the camera and may startle them, causing them to react or become self-conscious and stage their photo appearance rather than behaving naturally.  For this reason, early candid photography took place outdoors, where the sun provides ample light. Indoor candid photography required the development of more sensitive films with higher film speeds (ISO) and aggressive methods of developing films ("push processing") to increase sensitivity.  Therefore, candid photography was historically associated with the grainy, high contrast images that result from these techniques. The introduction of digital cameras has made it easier to take pictures in low light conditions without flash.  Full-frame DSLR cameras have brought high-ISO noise to historically low levels, allowing for clean, saturated images at higher ISO.

See also
 Candid Camera
 Celebrity photography
 Documentary photography
 Paparazzi
 Photojournalism
 Reportage
 Secret photography
 Snapshot (photography)
 Street photography
 Upskirt photography

References

External links

 Photojournalism Ethics: Chapter 5, "The Right to Privacy"

Photography by genre
Photojournalism

Candid photography


Karena is a given name. Notable people with the given name include:

Karena Chapman, Australian chemist
Karena Evans (born 1995), Canadian music video director and actress
Karena Johnson, British theatrical director and producer
Karena Lam (born 1978), Taiwanese-Canadian, actress and singer
Karena Ng (born 1993), Hong Kong actress and model.
Karena Richardson (born 1959), British figure skater

Karena


Christ Church is a Church of England church in Wanstead, east London. It was built as a chapel of ease to St Mary the Virgin, whose parish it still shares, to meet population expansion in the Snaresbrook area caused by the railway boom.

Built at the height of the Gothic revival, its architecture is the geometric style of the late 13th century. It was designed by George Gilbert Scott, who also designed the nearby Infant Orphan Asylum, now Snaresbrook Crown Court.  The foundation stone was laid on 18 May 1860 by Joseph Wigram (Bishop of Rochester and brother of William Pitt Wigram, then rector of Wanstead) and it was consecrated on 19 July 1861 by Archibald Tait, Bishop of London. An extra bay was added to the nave's original four in 1867, along with a south aisle to match the original north aisle. Two years later a tower and spire followed, though the vestries were only added in 1889.

References

External links
 Official parish website

Church of England church buildings in the London Borough of Redbridge
Grade II* listed churches in London
Grade II* listed buildings in the London Borough of Redbridge

Christ Church, Wanstead


Alexander Goldin (born February 27, 1964) is an American chess grandmaster of Russian origin.

Goldin had success from a young age. In 1981 he won the USSR Under-18 Championship. He was a joint winner of the Soviet Championship semifinal at Sevastopol in 1986 (a qualifier for the 1987 First League Final). Other tournament successes include winning the Philadelphia's World Open in 1998 and 2001. In 2003, Goldin won the American Continental Chess Championship in Buenos Aires edging out on tiebreak score Giovanni Vescovi, after both players scored 8.5/11.

In team chess, he played board three for the US team at the 2004 Chess Olympiad in Calvià and registered a 65% score.

References

External links

1965 births
Living people
Russian chess players
Soviet chess players
American chess players
Chess grandmasters
Chess Olympiad competitors
American people of Russian descent
Place of birth missing (living people)

Alexander Goldin


West Ruislip is a station located on Ickenham Road between Ickenham and Ruislip in the London Borough of Hillingdon in Greater London formerly in Middlesex; it is served by both London Underground (LU) and National Rail trains on independent platforms. It is the western terminus of the LU Central line's West Ruislip branch, with Ruislip Gardens as the next Underground station towards central London. The Central line and Chiltern Railways platforms and ticket office hall are managed by LU. The closest station on the Metropolitan line and Piccadilly line is Ickenham which is 1.1 km from West Ruislip Station.

The station today
West Ruislip station is aligned approximately east-west with the main station buildings on the road overbridge across the lines at the western end of the station. The station has four platforms; two each for London Underground and National Rail services. The London Underground tracks are south of the National Rail ones and operate from an island platform whilst the National Rail platforms are outside of their tracks. The National Rail platforms are also served by a separate station building north of the tracks and adjacent to the car park. In a legacy of the original scheme to continue the extension to Denham, the Central line tracks continue for a short distance beyond the station before ending at buffers. The intended alignment of the unbuilt tracks can be seen from the width of the unused railway land south of the existing tracks.

The Central line's Ruislip depot is east of West Ruislip station, and has a connection via a shunting neck to the Network Rail westbound track west of the station to allow rolling stock and material deliveries. The depot also has a connection to the Uxbridge branch tracks of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly Lines which pass under the Central line east of West Ruislip; it is used only for empty stock movements and works train access. Two sidings west of the station to the north of the running lines provide layover facilities for works trains.

There are ticket barriers at the main entrance to the station; these control access to the Central line platforms from the public highway and from the pedestrian walkway linking the car park to the station. The Chiltern platforms can be reached from the car park walkway without tickets, as no ticket barriers are installed to control access

Transport in the London Borough of Hillingdon
Central line stations

West Ruislip tube station


Norbit is a 2007 American comedy film, directed by Brian Robbins, and co-written by, co-produced by, and starring Eddie Murphy. The film co-stars Thandie Newton, Terry Crews, Cuba Gooding Jr., Eddie Griffin, Katt Williams, Marlon Wayans, and Charlie Murphy. It was released by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures on February 9, 2007. Eddie Murphy portrays multiple roles including the eponymous Norbit and his abusive obese wife Rasputia; regretting ever having married her, Norbit decides he has had enough of her behavior at about the same time that his childhood sweetheart Kate returns to his life with plans for the orphanage where Norbit and Kate grew up. Norbit risks everything to be with her, but must also contend with Rasputia and her brothers, who have an agenda of their own.

The film was a box office success; it grossed $159 million worldwide against a production budget of $60 million. It was negatively received by critics, and was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards, as well as nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Plot
Childhood friends Norbit Albert Rice and Kate Thomas live at an orphanage doubling as a Chinese restaurant called The Golden Wonton owned by whaling-obsessed Mr. Hangten Wong. They also play-marry each other with Ring Pops, but are separated after Kate is adopted two weeks later.

Five years later, a tough, overweight girl named Rasputia Latimore rescues Norbit from playground bullies and eventually becomes his girlfriend, but soon grows into an arrogant and tyrannical woman. They marry each other as adults, but Rasputia begins insulting and controlling him, especially accusing him of adjusting her car seat when she is driving her car. Norbit is also belittled by Rasputia's three older brothers Big Black Jack, Blue, and Earl, working as a bookkeeper at their construction company. The Latimore brothers run a "security business", instilling fear in the entire community except Mr. Wong, who refuses to sell them his business and does not hesitate to use his harpoon and pistol to intimidate them.

After catching Rasputia cheating on him with her tap dance instructor Buster Perkin, Norbit calls her the "Queen of Whores" during their argument, which results in her chasing him through the neighborhood. Afterwards, he discards his wedding ring and vents his anger about Rasputia's infidelity at a puppet show for the orphans. He is stunned to see Kate for the first time since childhood, and his affection for her reignites as he learns she is using the money she obtained from selling her clothing business in Atlanta to buy Mr. Wong's orphanage, but is disappointed to learn she is engaged to a man named Deion Hughes.

Aided by ex-pimp friends Pope Sweet Jesus and Lord Have Mercy and the other townspeople, Norbit meets Kate without Rasputia's knowledge and along the way, Kate teaches Norbit how to ride a bike. Deion attempts to leave town, having no intention to help Kate run the orphanage, but the Latimore brothers persuade him to help them turn the orphanage into a strip club named "Nipplopolis" instead and dupe Norbit into getting Kate to sign papers to renew the restaurant's liquor license in the Latimores' name. Norbit's meeting with Kate leads to helping rehearse her wedding, where a kiss between them makes her reconsider marrying Deion. Norbit returns home to learn Rasputia witnessed their kiss and threatens violence towards Kate if he ever sees her again.

When Kate later learns about the deal from Deion, she goes to confront Norbit and sees him being imprisoned by Rasputia, who masterminded the orphanage plot, in their basement. Norbit reluctantly insults her and drives her away to protect her from Rasputia. Satisfied, Rasputia lies that Norbit tricked Kate since she came back to town. Heartbroken, Kate runs away and a guilt-ridden Norbit decides to permanently leave town but then finds a letter from the private investigator he hired, discovering Deion has accumulated a total of $300,000 in divorce settlements from his four marriages in the last six years to four different women.

The Latimores reveal their plan to Norbit, and lock him in the basement again. Norbit escapes by bike, reaching the wedding just in time to inform Kate of Deion's schemes. Though his proof of Deion's divorce settlements was destroyed after falling into a pond, Norbit reveals that he'd contacted three of Deion's ex-wives and their children while he'd been locked in the basement the night before, and Deion flees as they give chase, which results in the Latimores' plan backfiring.

The Latimores attack Norbit for sabotaging their plans, but the townspeople take up arms to protect him as his bravery has inspired them to stand up to the Latimores. Rasputia fights her way through the crowd and prepares to kill him, but Mr. Wong harpoons her in the rear, causing her to rapidly run in pain out of town. With their sister gone, the Latimore brothers finally accept defeat and are chased out of town while Norbit and Kate reconcile, buy the orphanage, and marry under the same tree where they played as children years ago, finally living happily ever after. Rasputia and the Latimores are never seen or heard from again, but several rumors say that they moved to Mexico and opened up their strip club "El Nipplopolis", where Rasputia becomes their most popular and lucrative stripper.

Cast

Production
After the success of Shrek, DreamWorks co-founder and CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg signed up Eddie Murphy to star in a live-action followup, and they were looking for the right film. Norbit seemed like a good fit, a production in line with his tradition of playing multiple characters in a comedy as Murphy had done before with Coming to America, Dr. Dolittle and The Nutty Professor. DreamWorks production president Adam Goodman brought the script to Brian Robbins and he was excited about the prospect of working with Eddie Murphy. Norbit was the first of three films where director Brian Robbins and Eddie Murphy worked together; the other two would be Meet Dave and A Thousand Words. Murphy wrote the story after going on the Internet to see videos "where really large women, African-American women, would beat up their tiny husbands", a concept which he found hilarious. Although Norbit was always intended to be a comedy, early drafts of the script were much darker. According to Thandie Newton, during filming, the stand-ins were very convincing, and she frequently filmed scenes with them instead of Murphy.

The various prosthetic makeups, bodysuits, and wigs were created by Rick Baker and his company Cinovation. Baker praised Murphy saying "He really makes the stuff come to life, and he never complains. When we did 'The Nutty Professor' [...], he spent 80-odd days in the makeup chair. As much as I love makeup, even I would have been complaining by the end, but Eddie didn't."

Rick Baker wanted to work from a real life model and auditioned over a hundred extra large ladies, all with the necessary proportions. The model also needed to be able to dance. After several rounds of auditions, one lady was chosen as the life model for Rasputia and a foam latex suit was created based on her measurements. The surfaces was painted with silicone to make it look like skin. Silicone was also used to make matching gloves. The shape of Murphy's face was changed using foam latex and pieces of silicone, which were then painted over in various tones of red, brown and yellow to create realistic looking skin tone. A body double was used for some scenes, particularly the water park. Murphy with his face in makeup as Rasputia performed against green screen and his head was digitally composited onto the body double.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 9% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10, with the site's consensus reading, "Coming off his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls, the talented-but-inconsistent Eddie Murphy plays three roles in Norbit, a cruel, crass, stereotype-filled comedy that's more depressing than funny." Metacritic gave the movie a score of 27 out of 100, based on reviews from 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a B grade, with under eighteens (28% of those surveyed) giving it a B+ grade.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the movie a positive review, suggesting that Norbit might help Murphy's chances of winning an Oscar for his role in Dreamgirls, saying that his work playing three distinct characters in Norbit is more impressive than anything he did in Dreamgirls. Others suggested it might hurt his chances. Ultimately, Alan Arkin won the award for Best Supporting Actor.

Luke Sader of The Hollywood Reporter called it "Racially insensitive, politically incorrect and beyond crude." Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club gave the film a grade of "F" and wrote: "It probably isn't possible for a single movie to reverse all social progress made since the civil-rights era, but Norbit, the latest broadside from Eddie Murphy, does its best to turn back the clock" and "hideously offensive black stereotypes are merely the tip of the iceberg." Josh Tyler of CinemaBlend gave the movie a mostly negative review, in which he described parts of the film as "pretty despicable" and stated that "the plot relies on the idea that being fat also means you're a horrible bitch." However, he pointed out that "some of it's also kind of sweet. Eddie's really quite good as Norbit, the character is sympathetic and funny. He has a strange sort of perfect chemistry with Thandie Newton, and that's just not something I would have expected."

Liz Braun of Jam! Movies described Norbit as "mostly blubber jokes about how fat Rasputia really is" but said that "the movie is not without genuine laughs. Most of those laughs are generated by the other actors." In regard to the "terrifying" character Rasputia, she went so far as to say that the film "tends to confirm one's worst suspicions about Murphy and what appears to be his general fear and loathing of women. The Rasputia gag gets a little freaky if you think about it too much. And you wouldn't want to dwell on how much Thandie Newton looks like a slender boy in her role as Norbit's true love, either. So don't."

Black activists took issue with Eddie Murphy's portrayal of the character Rasputia, calling Norbit "just the latest [film built] around a black man dressing up as an unsophisticated, overweight black woman." Film critic MaryAnn Johanson said it was a minstrel show and called it a "hideous stew of bigoted "humor"".

The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody praised Murphy's performances saying "playing multiple roles, Murphy unleashes, with a sense of painful revelation, a tangle of rage, cringing fear, furious power, and a sense of perpetual and unresolved outsiderness." He rated it 17th of 30 top acting performances of the 21st century.

Musician Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys called Norbit his favourite movie in a 2007 interview with the Asbury Park Press.

Director's response
Director Brian Robbins praised Murphy's performance saying "Eddie Murphy plays three amazingly different characters brilliantly. How could you not praise that? No offense to Alan Arkin, but he couldn't do what Eddie did in 'Norbit.'" Robbins reacted to the negative reviews from critics, "Is the audience that stupid? Is America's taste that bad? I don't think so." He also claimed "The only films that get good reviews are the ones that nobody sees. I just don't think you can make movies for critics". Robbins defended his star-driven, high-concept movies' approach to filmmaking saying: "Don't pay attention to tracking, and don't read the reviews ... Funny trumps. Work with movie stars."

Jim Emerson of RogerEbert.com agreed that filmmakers like Robbins should ignore critics and made note of the ancient analogy about McDonald's and food critics. He suggested that Robbins films "were neither designed for, nor marketed to, people who pay all that much attention to movie critics". Emerson pointed out several of the top grossing films of 2006 that got both good reviews from critics and gained wide audiences.

Box office
Industry projections expected Norbit to earn about $20 million in its opening weekend, and Paramount was projecting earnings of $25 million. The film opened to $34.2 million in the United States, and was Eddie Murphy's 14th #1 box office opener. The film earned $95,673,607 at the North American domestic box office, and $63,639,954 in other markets, for a total of $159,313,561 worldwide. The film was released in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2007, and topped the country's box office for the next two weekends, before being overtaken by 300.

Accolades

Norbit was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture, and won three awards, all for Eddie Murphy as three different characters.
The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Norbit was released on February 6, 2007 by Lakeshore Records.

 "Standing in the Safety Zone" – The Fairfield Four (2:41)
 "It's Goin' Down" – Yung Joc (4:03)
 "You Did" – Kate Earl feat. The Designated Hitters (2:26)
 "Sexual Healing" – Marvin Gaye
 "I Only Want to Be with You" – Dusty Springfield (2:37)
 "Milkshake" – Kelis (3:04)
 "Shoppin' for Clothes" – The Coasters (2:58)
 "Walk It Out" – Unk (2:54)
 "Looking for You" – Kirk Franklin (4:06)
 "Sweet Honey" – Slightly Stoopid (3:52)
 "The Hands of Time" – Perfect Circle (6:19)
 "Young Norbit" – David Newman (3:33)
 "Queen of Whores" – David Newman (:46)
 "Kate Returns"/"Tuesday, Tuesday" – David Newman (3:24)
 "Norbit Sneaks Out" – David Newman (:33)
 "Rasputia's Fury" – David Newman (1:44)
 "Norbit and Kate" – David Newman (:55)

Several songs were used in the film which do not appear on the soundtrack album, in order of appearance:

 "You Are the Woman", performed by Firefall
 "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher", performed by Jackie Wilson
 "Dem Jeans", performed by Chingy
 "Chain Hang Low", performed by Jibbs
 "Don't Cha", performed by The Pussycat Dolls
 "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner
 "Temperature", performed by Sean Paul

The song "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" is sung at Norbit and Rasputia's wedding party, but likewise does not appear on the soundtrack album.

Home media
Norbit was released on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and HD DVD on June 5, 2007.

References

External links

2007 films
2007 comedy films
2007 romantic comedy films
2000s American films
2000s English-language films
African-American comedy films
American romantic comedy films
Cross-dressing in American films
Davis Entertainment films
DreamWorks Pictures films
Films about adultery in the United States
Films about obesity
Films about orphans
Films about striptease
Films directed by Brian Robbins
Films produced by John Davis
Films produced by Eddie Murphy
Films scored by David Newman
Films set in Tennessee
Films shot in California
Films with screenplays by Eddie Murphy
Golden Raspberry Award winning films
Paramount Pictures films

Norbit


Pat Cassidy (born August 28, 1985) is an American independent film producer and music manager based in Austin, Texas.

He began his career in the entertainment business in 2001, starting a small punk and ska record label in his hometown of Herndon, Virginia.  He produced the 2009 short horror film, Lullaby, striking a distribution deal with Fearnet.  He produced the psychological horror-thriller film, House Hunting, which premiered at the 2012 Virginia Film Festival.  He produced The Texas Chain Saw Massacre inspired script Butcher Boys for writer-producer Kim Henkel, the film premiered at the 2012 Fantasia Festival in Montreal.  In 2013 he produced the indie-thriller, Two Step, for director Alex Johnson, the film premiered at the SXSW film festival to  positive reviews from Variety and Indiewire.

Cassidy previously managed the Austin, Texas-based Indie pop band Wild Child, and currently manages Whiskey Shivers, Ben Kweller, Trinidad James, and Holiday Mountain. Cassidy is also a co-host of the daily news podcast, Hard Factor.

Cassidy's father was first cousin with David Cassidy making him his first cousin once removed. His great aunt is Shirley Jones.

References

1985 births
Living people
Film producers from New Jersey
American music managers
People from Neptune Township, New Jersey
People from Herndon, Virginia

Pat Cassidy


Blood and Soil () is a nationalist slogan expressing Nazi Germany's ideal of a racially defined national body ("Blood") united with a settlement area ("Soil"). By it, rural and farm life forms are idealized as a counterweight to urban ones. It is tied to the contemporaneous German concept of Lebensraum, the belief that the German people were to expand into Eastern Europe, conquering and displacing the native Slavic and Baltic population via Generalplan Ost.

"Blood and soil" was a key slogan of Nazi ideology. The nationalist ideology of the Artaman League and the writings of Richard Walther Darré guided agricultural policies which were later adopted by Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Baldur von Schirach.

Rise
The German expression was coined in the late 19th century, in tracts which espoused racialism/racism and romantic nationalism. It produced a regionalist literature, with some social criticism. This romantic attachment was widespread prior to the rise of the Nazis. Major figures in 19th century German agrarian romanticism included Ernst Moritz Arndt and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, who argued that the peasantry represented the foundation of the German people and conservatism.

Ultranationalists who predated the Nazis frequently supported country living by claiming that it was healthier than city living, with the Artaman League sending urban children to the countryside to work in the hope that they would be transformed into Wehrbauern (lit. "soldier peasants").

Richard Walther Darré popularized the phrase at the time of the rise of Nazi Germany in his 1930 book  (A New Nobility Based On Blood And Soil), in which he proposed the implementation of a systematic eugenics program, arguing that selective breeding would be a cure-all for the problems which were plaguing the state. In 1928, he had also written the book, Peasantry as the Life Source of the Nordic Race, in which he presented his theory that the alleged difference between Nordic people and Southeastern Europeans was based in the Nordic people's connection to superior land. Darré was an influential member of the Nazi Party and a noted race theorist who assisted the party greatly in gaining support among common Germans outside the cities. Prior to their ascension to power, Nazis called for a return from the cities to the countryside. This agrarian sentiment allowed opposition to both the middle class and the aristocracy, and presented the farmer as a superior figure beside the moral swamp of the city.

Nazi ideology

The doctrine not only called for a "back to the land" approach and re-adoption of "rural values"; it held that German land was bound, perhaps mystically, to German blood. Peasants were the Nazi cultural heroes, who held charge of German racial stock and German history—as when a memorial of a medieval peasant uprising was the occasion for a speech by Darré praising them as a force and purifier of German history. Agrarianism was asserted as the only way to truly understand the "natural order." Urban culture was decried as a weakness, labelled "asphalt culture" and partially coded as resulting from Jewish influence, and was depicted as a weakness that only the Führer's will could eliminate.

The doctrine also contributed to the Nazi ideal of a woman: a sturdy peasant, who worked the land and bore strong children, contributing to praise for athletic women tanned by outdoor work. That country women gave birth to more children than city ones was also a factor in the support.

Carl Schmitt argued that a people would develop laws appropriate to its "blood and soil" because authenticity required loyalty to the  over abstract universals.

 displayed anti-Semitic demographic charts to deplore the alleged destruction of Aryan families' farmland and claim that the Jews were eradicating traditional German peasantry. Posters for schools depicted the flight of people from the countryside to the city. The German National Catechism, German propaganda widely used in schools, also spun tales of how farmers supposedly lost ancestral lands and had to move to the city, with all its demoralizing effects.

Nazi implementation
The program received far more ideological and propaganda support than concrete changes. When Gottfried Feder tried to settle workers in villages about decentralized factories, generals and Junkers successfully opposed him. Generals objected because it interfered with rearmament, and Junkers because it would prevent their exploiting their estates for the international market. It would also require the breakup of Junker estates for independent farmers, which was not implemented.

The , the State Hereditary Farm Law of 1933, implemented this ideology, stating that its aim was to: "preserve the farming community as the blood-source of the German people" (). Selected lands were declared hereditary and could not be mortgaged or alienated, and only these farmers were entitled to call themselves  or "farmer peasant", a term the Nazis attempted to refurbish from a neutral or even pejorative to a positive term. Regional custom was only allowed to decide whether the eldest or the youngest son was to be the heir. In areas where no particular custom prevailed, the youngest son was to be the heir. During the Nazi era, the eldest son inherited the farm in most cases. Priority was given to the patriline, so that, if there were no sons, the brothers and brothers' sons of the deceased peasant had precedence over the peasant's own daughters. The countryside was also regarded as the best place to raise infantry, and as having an organic harmony between landowner and peasant, unlike the "race chaos" of the industrial cities. It also prevented Jewish people from farming: "Only those of German blood may be farmers."

The concept was a factor in the requirement of a year of land service for members of Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. This period of compulsory service was required after completion of a student's basic education, before they could engage in advanced studies or become employed. Although working on a farm was not the only approved form of service, it was a common one; the aim was to bring young people back from the cities, in the hope that they would then stay "on the land". In 1942, 600,000 boys and 1.4 million girls were sent to help bring in the harvest.

Lebensraum

Blood and soil was one of the foundations of the concept of Lebensraum, "living space". By expanding eastward and transforming those lands into breadbaskets, another blockade, such as that of World War I, would not cause massive food shortages, as that one had, a factor that aided the resonance of "Blood and soil" for the German population. Even Alfred Rosenberg, not hostile to the Slavs as such, regarded their removal from this land, where Germans had once lived, as necessary because of the unity of blood and soil.  prescribed as the unvarying aim of foreign policy the necessity of obtaining land and soil for the German people (again, "German people" defined by the Nazi Party as racially pure).

While discussing the question of Lebensraum to the east, Hitler envisioned a Ukrainian "breadbasket" and expressed particular hostility to its "Russian" cities as hotbeds of Russianness and Communism, forbidding Germans to live in them and declaring that they should be destroyed in the war. Even during the war itself, Hitler gave orders that Leningrad was to be razed with no consideration given for the survival and feeding of its population. This also called for industry to die off in these regions. The Wehrbauer, or soldier-peasants, who were to settle there were not to marry townswomen, but only peasant women who had not lived in towns. This would also encourage large families.

Furthermore, this land, held by "tough peasant races", would serve as a bulwark against attack from Asia.

Influence on art

Fiction
Prior to the Nazi take-over, two popular genres were the , or regional novel, and , or novel of the soil, which was also known as . This literature was vastly increased, the term being contracted into "Blu-Bo", and developed a mysticism of unity. It also combined war literature with the figure of the soldier-peasant, uncontaminated by the city. These books were generally set in the nominal past, but their invocation of the passing of the seasons often gave them an air of timelessness. "Blood and soil" novels and theater celebrated the farmer's life and their fertility, often mystically linking them.

One of the anti-Semitic fabrications in the children's book  was the claim that the Talmud described farming as the most lowly of occupations. It also included an account of a Jewish financier forcing a German to sell his farm as seen by a neighbor boy; deeply distressed, the boy resolved never to let a Jew into his house, for which his father praised him, on the grounds that peasants must remember that Jews will always take their land.

Fine art
During the Nazi period in Germany, one of the charges put forward against certain works of art was that "Art must not be isolated from blood and soil." Failure to meet this standard resulted in the attachment of the label "degenerate art" to offending pieces. In art of Nazi Germany, both landscape paintings and figures reflected blood-and-soil ideology. Indeed, some Nazi art exhibits were explicitly titled "Blood and Soil". Artists frequently gave otherwise apolitical paintings such titles as "German Land" or "German Oak". Rural themes were heavily favored in painting. Landscape paintings were featured most heavily in the Greater German Art Exhibitions. While drawing on German Romantic traditions, painted landscapes were expected to be firmly based on real landscapes, the German people's , without religious overtones. Peasants were also popular images, promoting a simple life in harmony with nature. This art showed no sign of the mechanization of farm work. The farmer labored by hand, with effort and struggle.

The acceptance of this art by the peasant family was also regarded as an important element.

Film
Under Richard Walther Darré, The Staff Office of Agriculture produced the short propaganda film , which was displayed at Nazi party meetings as well as in public cinemas throughout Germany. Other  films likewise stressed the commonality of Germanness and the countryside.  has the heroine running away to the city, resulting in her pregnancy and abandonment; she drowns herself, and her last words beg her father to forgive her for not loving the countryside as he did. The film  (The Eternal Forest) depicted the forest as being beyond the vicissitudes of history, and the German people the same because they were rooted in the story; it depicted the forest sheltering ancient Aryan Germans, Arminius, and the Teutonic Knights, facing the peasants wars, being chopped up by war and industry, and being humiliated by occupation with black soldiers, but culminated in a neo-pagan May Day celebration. In The Journey to Tilsit, the Polish seductress is portrayed as an obvious product of debased "asphalt culture" (urbanity) but the virtuous German wife is a country-dweller in traditional costume. Many other commercial films of the Nazi era featured gratuitous, lingering shots of the German landscape and idealized 'Aryan' couples.

Japanese usage
An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus made extensive use of the term, usually in quotation marks, and showing an extensive debt to the Nazi usage.

Modern usage
North American white supremacists, white nationalists, Neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right have adopted the slogan. It gained widespread public prominence as a result of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when participants carrying torches marched on the University of Virginia campus on the night of 11 August 2017 and were recorded chanting the slogan, among others. The rally was organized to protest the town's planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. The rally remained in national news through December 2018 thanks to the trial of James Alex Fields, a white supremacist who purposefully ran his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing 32-year old paralegal Heather Heyer. The chant was also heard in October 2017 at the "White Lives Matter" rally in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

In his 2018 farewell letter, US Senator John McCain stated that America is "a nation of ideals, not blood and soil", specifically rejecting such notions.

See also
 Bumiputera (Malaysia)
 Ethnic nationalism
 Flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
 Han chauvinism
 Jewish homeland
 Korean ethnic nationalism
 Irredentism
 Jus soli
 Jus sanguinis
 Nativism (politics)
 Nihonjinron
 Race (human categorization)
 Reichsnährstand
 Völkisch movement
 Volkstaat

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

 The Doctrine of Blut und Boden
 Fascist Ecology: The "Green Wing" of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents
 Blood and Soil (Harpers) (subscription required)

Nazi terminology
Agrarian politics
Society of Nazi Germany
Political catchphrases

Blood and soil


The Freecycle Network (TFN) is a global network of people who share and regive items. They organise their network through the Internet. Freecycle is a place for people to meet. There are just two things people can do there.

The first thing is this:  A person can ask the other people for an item.  If someone has it, they can tell the person who wants it.

The second thing is this: A person can give away an item.  Sometimes many people want the item, and the donator has to choose just one person.

Other websites
Official website
Freecycle Group Finder

Internet
Recycling

The Freecycle Network


Centennial Park is a large urban park located approximately two miles (three km) west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States, across West End Avenue (U.S. Highway 70S) from the campus of Vanderbilt University. The 21st-century headquarters campus of the Hospital Corporation of America was developed adjacent to the park.

Cultivated as farmland by some of the earliest families in Nashville, the territory became controlled by the state and used as a park after the American Civil War. In the last decade, it was used as a racetrack. It was redeveloped as the site of the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in 1897. Afterward most of the temporary exhibit structures were removed, but the replica of the Parthenon remained. Centennial Park was opened in 1903. Due to the popularity of the Parthenon, it was rebuilt in the 1920s in steel and concrete.

History
The  park was originally farmland that had belonged to John Cockrill and his wife, Anne Robertson Johnson Cockrill (1757–1821), the sister of General James Robertson. She and her family came from Wake County, North Carolina to Fort Nashborough (now Nashville) in the Donelson Flotilla, led by John Donelson. (His daughter Rachel married Andrew Jackson.) Anne Cockrill was the first woman to be given a land grant in Tennessee. Their son Mark R. Cockrill became  known as the "Wool King of the World", as he had a large sheep herd in Nashville. He owned up to 300 slaves prior to the Civil War, with most of them assigned to his Mississippi cotton plantation. Cockrill loaned gold and wool to the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. After the Union Army occupied Tennessee, he was arrested and jailed for his Confederate support.

Some of the land was part of the Burlington plantation established by Joseph T. Elliston, who served as the fourth mayor of Nashville from 1814 to 1817. It was later owned by his son, William R. Elliston, a Whig politician. The Ellistons were slaveholders, and their plantation extended into what are now part of the campus of Vanderbilt University and West End Park. Their mansion, on modern-day Elliston Place, was torn down in the 1930s.

After the Civil War, this land was adapted for the state fairgrounds.  From 1884 to 1895, more of the site was devoted to a racetrack and was known as West Side Park. In 1897, it was developed as the site of the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition and was renamed as Centennial Park. In preparation for the exposition, the area was landscaped and new, temporary buildings were constructed for exhibit space. An artificial lake, Lake Watauga, was developed in the park, as were sunken gardens and a bandshell for music performances. The lake was named for an area in western North Carolina that was the origin of a number of early settlers of Nashville.

A replica of the Parthenon was also built, to honor Nashville's status as "The Athens of the South", and was intended to be longterm. It was designed by William Crawford Smith.

As was common with such expositions, afterward most of the temporary buildings and exhibits were dismantled. Lake Watauga, the gardens, bandshell and the Parthenon were the most prominent features when the park was officially dedicated in May 1903. Consistent with Jim Crow laws, African Americans were prohibited from using Centennial Park, as they had been excluded from its previous manifestations as parks.

In 1909, the Confederate Private Monument, designed by George Julian Zolnay, was dedicated. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) had helped raise money to commission the monument.

Centennial Park became an important recreation site for whites of Nashville. As African-American activism increased for renewed civil rights, the park became a site of conflicts. On July 18, 1961, six African Americans were turned away when they tried to use the public swimming pool in the park, which, was, of course, supported by their tax dollars. The next day, all Nashville public pools were closed under the pretext of "financial reasons". It was not until after passage in 1964 of a national civil rights law ending discrimination that African Americans were allowed to use the park. In 1972, the pool was redeveloped as an arts center.

The Parthenon replica had been built as a temporary building to house the Nashville pavilion. As it deteriorated, it was proposed for demolition but residents favored keeping it. Finally, in the 1920s the city and park officials agreed to replace the temporary plaster building with a permanent, concrete and steel structure. It is still standing and has been renovated as needed.

From 1954 to 1967, the Parthenon was the backdrop for an enormous nativity scene sponsored by Harveys department store. (This has since gone out of business.) The scene was approximately  long,  deep and was flooded with colorful lights. However, by 1968, it was sold to a Cincinnati shopping center. According to the Nashville Banner, the nativity scene was shown only two Christmas seasons in Cincinnati before it collapsed and was discarded.

In the 1960s, the park was the site of Sunday afternoon concerts; Pat Boone was among the early performers in this series. In 1975, Robert Altman shot the climactic scene of his film  Nashville in the park.

In 1990, a statue of Pallas Athena, designed by Nashville sculptor Alan LeQuire, was added to the art gallery inside the Parthenon. It is dedicated to the women's suffrage movement.

By the late 20th century, the park had many mature shade trees. The 1998 Nashville tornado outbreak damaged or destroyed most of them, a loss that would take generations to replace. A Vanderbilt ROTC cadet died in the park during the storm; he was the only fatality.

On November 11, 2005, Centennial Park became Nashville's first wireless internet park by offering free Wi-Fi internet access to park patrons. The park's bandshell was the site of the annual "Shakespeare in the Park" presented by the Nashville Shakespeare Festival for thirty years until its move to Nashville's oneC1TY in 2019.

In 2012, workers found the source of the spring that was a major feature during Anne Robertson Johnson Cockrill's ownership of the land. For 100 years, it had been capped and piped to the sewer, with a flow of more than 100 gallons of water per minute. What is now called Cockrill Springs is a new natural feature of the park.

On August 26, 2016, as part of Women's Equality Day, a monument by Alan LeQuire was unveiled in the park. It features depictions of Carrie Chapman Catt, Anne Dallas Dudley, Abby Crawford Milton, Juno Frankie Pierce, and Sue Shelton White, local activists for women suffrage.

The park also contains a recreation center. It is also the site of the administrative offices of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation, but these area being relocated to the East Bank of the Cumberland River and the offices of the former Nashville Bridge Company.

Popular culture
American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift mentioned Centennial Park twice in her song "Invisible String" from her eighth studio album Folklore. Swift lived in Nashville during the beginning of her music career. When she returned in 2023 for The Eras Tour, a bench was put in the park to honor her time in the city.

David Allen Coe also mentions Centennial Park in his song "Whips and Things."

References

Further reading

External links

 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, Tennessee Virtual Archive, Tennessee State Library and Archives.
 Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition (1879) Collection, 1895-1900, Tennessee State Library and Archives.

1903 establishments in Tennessee
Buildings and structures completed in 1903
Culture of Nashville, Tennessee
Parks in Nashville, Tennessee
Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition
World's fair sites in Tennessee

Centennial Park (Nashville)


Tau Ceti (τ Cet, τ Ceti) is a star in the constellation Cetus. It can be seen with the unaided eye as a third-magnitude star.

It has a spectrum similar to the Sun, but is only 78% of the Sun's mass. It is just under 12 light-years from the Solar System, a relatively nearby star. It is the closest solitary G-class star. The star appears stable, and is "metal-deficient" because (like the Sun) it is mostly made of hydrogen and helium.

There is more than ten times as much dust surrounding Tau Ceti as in the Solar System. There are probably five planets orbiting Tau Ceti,  two in the habitable zone. Because of its debris disk, any planet orbiting Tau Ceti would get far more impact events than Earth. Despite this, its Sun-like characteristics have led to widespread interest in the star. Tau Ceti is consistently listed as a target for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and it appears in some science fiction literature.

Searching
Project Ozma searched for intelligent life (SETI) by examining selected stars for artificial radio signals. It was run by the astronomer Frank Drake, who selected Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani as the first targets. Both are near the Solar System and are similar to the Sun. No artificial signals were found after 200 hours of observations. Subsequent radio searches of this star system have also turned up negative.

Planets?
On December 19, 2012, evidence was presented for a system of five planets orbiting Tau Ceti. The planets' estimated minimum masses are between two and six times the Earth's mass. Their orbital periods range from 14 to 640 days. One of them, Tau Ceti e, appears to orbit about half as far from Tau Ceti as Earth does from the Sun. With Tau Ceti's luminosity of 52% that of the Sun and a distance from the star of 0.552 AU, the planet would receive 1.71 times as much stellar radiation as Earth does. This is slightly less than Venus, which gets 1.91 times Earth's. Some research places it within the star's habitable zone.

The habitable zone for a star is where liquid water could be present on an Earth-like planet. For Tau Ceti, this is at a radius of 0.55–1.16 AU, where 1 AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun.

References in Science Fiction
The Expanse (TV): Destination of the Nauvoo, on a 100 year voyage. The ship is 500m cylinder, 2000m long. It would require a continuous acceleration of 0.05 m/s for 50 years, and an equal deceleration at the halfway point.

The Foundation book series by Isaac Asimov: The home star of the planet Aurora, first planet to be colonized by humans.

References

Stars

Tau Ceti


Clifford Smith Jr (born March 2, 1971) is an American rapper, better known under his stage name Method Man. He is a member of hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. He released his first debut album, 'Tical' in 1994. He won a Grammy award for the song 'I'll Be There For You/You're All I Need' featuring R&B singer Mary J Blige. Method Man acted in movies and shows such as How High, Belly, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He was born in Long Island, New York. His parents live in separate homes.

1971 births
Living people
Rappers from New York (state)

Method Man


Teresa Heinz (born Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira; October 5, 1938), also known as Teresa Heinz Kerry, is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. Heinz is the widow of former U.S. Senator John Heinz and the current wife of United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, longtime U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Heinz is Chair of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies.

Early life
Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira was born in the city of Lourenço Marques (later renamed Maputo) in the east African colony of Portuguese Mozambique, which later became the nation of Mozambique. Her parents were José Simões-Ferreira, Jr., a Portuguese-born oncologist and tropical disease specialist, and Irene Thierstein, a Portuguese and British national. Irene Thierstein's father was the scion of a Swiss-German family living in Malta, and her mother was the half-French, half-Italian daughter of an Alexandrian shipowner who traded with Russia during the Crimean War; both emigrated to Portuguese East Africa.

In 1960, Simões-Ferreira earned a Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages and Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1963, she graduated from the School of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Geneva and moved to the United States to be an interpreter at the United Nations.

Marriages, children, and personal life
On February 5, 1966, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's gothic Heinz Chapel on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, Simões-Ferreira married future U.S. Senator John Heinz, an heir to the H. J. Heinz Company. In 1971, Teresa Heinz became a naturalized United States citizen. The couple had three sons:
Henry John Heinz IV (born November 4, 1966)
André Thierstein Heinz (born December 9, 1969)
Christopher Drake Heinz (born March 20, 1973)

In 1990, Teresa Heinz met Senator Kerry at an Earth Day rally. This was the only reported time the two met before Senator Heinz died in a plane crash on April 4, 1991. In 1992, Teresa Heinz met Kerry again, this time at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Heinz was a member of a State Department delegation appointed by then-President George H. W. Bush. The two began courting in 1993 and were married May 26, 1995, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Choosing to remain registered as a Republican until John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004, Heinz retained the name Teresa Heinz. In May 2004, she said: My legal name is still Teresa Heinz. Teresa Heinz Kerry is my name... for politics. Just so people don't ask me questions about so and so is so and so's wife or this and that. Teresa Heinz is what I've been all my growing-up life, adult life, more than any other name. And it's the name of my boys, you know ?... So, that's my legal name and that's my office name, my Pittsburgh name.
In addition to Portuguese (her native language), Heinz speaks English, Spanish, French, and Italian. She is Roman Catholic.

Health
In December 2009, Heinz revealed that she was being treated for breast cancer. Heinz indicated that she had undergone several lumpectomies and would be following up with a targeted type of radiation therapy treatment called accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI).

On July 7, 2013, Heinz was taken by ambulance to Nantucket Cottage Hospital after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure. She was described as being in "critical but stable" condition. Heinz was then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital for further medical treatment and tests. Her condition was upgraded to fair the next day, and doctors were able to rule out a heart attack, brain tumor, stroke, and other triggers. On July 11, she was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to continue her recovery. Heinz was released on July 17, 2013, from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. She recovered at home after some limited out-patient treatment.

Philanthropy
Teresa Heinz is the chair of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, disbursing money to various social and environmental causes. She assists the City of Pittsburgh, where the Heinz family has many financial and family connections. In recognition of her philanthropy and activism, Heinz has received honorary doctoral degrees from the following institutions:
 Bank Street College of Education
 Beloit College
 Carlow University
 Carnegie Mellon University
 Clark University
 Drexel University
 Kenyon College
 Medical College of Pennsylvania
 Pine Manor College
 University of Massachusetts Boston
 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
 Washington & Jefferson College
 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

In 2003, Heinz was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism. She has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been a Trustee of the St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), which Kerry attended.

Heinz is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

Environmental programs and advocacy
Heinz has contributed to the environmental movement through many programs and outreach efforts. In 1990, she co-founded the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning (later known as the Alliance for Healthy Homes, it has since merged with the National Center for Healthy Housing), through the first environmental grant of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment. In 1992, she was a Delegate to the Earth Summit, representing Non-Governmental Organizations.

In 1993, with Kerry and environmentalist academic Dr. Anthony Cortese, she co-founded Second Nature, which brings "Education for Sustainability" to college campuses. In 1993, she founded the Heinz Awards, including a category for Outstanding Contributions to the Environment. In 1995, with a $20 million grant, the Heinz Endowments provided initial funding for The Heinz Center, "a nonprofit institution dedicated to improving the scientific and economic foundation for environmental policy through multisectoral collaboration among industry, government, academia, and environmental organizations."

Since 1996, Heinz has hosted an annual "Women's Health and the Environment" conference series. She founded Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research, which annually awards eight $10,000 awards for doctoral dissertation support and eight $5,000 awards for Masters' thesis support for research having "public policy relevance that increases society's understanding of environmental concerns and proposed solutions." Heinz is a board member of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Women's economic security programs and advocacy
In 1995, the book Pensions in Crisis: Why the system is failing America and how you can protect your future (later republished as The Pension Book) was published, with support from the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation, and a foreword by Heinz.

Spurred by the issues uncovered by Pensions in Crisis, Heinz and her foundation created the Women's Retirement Initiative to "extend that investigation and examine how the dynamics of our pension and retirement system contribute to the disproportionate rate of poverty among older women."

In 1996, the Heinz Foundations created WISER, the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement.

Wealth
Heinz is estimated to be worth between $750 million and $1.2 billion. In 2017 Heinz and Kerry listed an ocean-front home on Nantucket for sale at $25 million.

Politics
Like her first husband, Heinz was a registered Republican for most of her voting life, and she remained a registered Republican despite being married to Kerry. In January 2003, she changed her registration to the Democratic Party.

In 2003, Heinz was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Pennsylvania's Most Politically Powerful Women".

Heinz is said to have been encouraged to run for her first husband's vacant Senate seat after his death. Heinz declined and refused to endorse Republican Congressman Rick Santorum's 1994 bid for the seat. She publicly denounced him as the "antithesis" of her late husband, and later called him "Forrest Gump with attitude." It was rumored she would challenge Santorum in 2006 (as a Democrat), but she did not enter the race, and the Democratic nomination went to State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., who went on to defeat Santorum.

In a 2004 interview, Heinz criticized George W. Bush's Iraq War policy, stating, "Our first priority was terrorism. We have now made enemies of people who were our friends, and even our allies distrust us. And that's a terrible thing."

Heinz has a reputation in the media as a very direct personality. In an interview published in USA Today in July 2004, Heinz was asked about the differences between then-First Lady Laura Bush and herself:
"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job—I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger–because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about."
Heinz retracted the statement later, saying she was "sincerely sorry" for the remark. "I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a schoolteacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children", Heinz said. "As someone who has been both a full time mom and full time in the workforce, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as first lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

Bush brushed it off, saying, "It didn't matter to me. It didn't hurt my feelings. It was perfectly all right that she apologized. She didn't have to apologize. I know how tough it is. And actually I know those trick questions."

References

External links

 The Heinz Awards
 JohnKerry.com – About Teresa
 Polite society anticipates Teresa's pizazz – from the Washington Times
 The Heinz Endowments (the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment)
 Visitsunvalley.com – This Moment On Earth

1938 births
Living people
American philanthropists
People from Portuguese Mozambique
Forbes family
Heinz family
John Kerry
Kerry family
People from Maputo
Businesspeople from Pittsburgh
Portuguese businesspeople
Portuguese expatriates in Mozambique
Portuguese emigrants to the United States
Portuguese philanthropists
Spouses of Massachusetts politicians
Spouses of Pennsylvania politicians
United Nations interpreters
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
University of Geneva alumni
Carnegie Mellon University trustees
Pennsylvania Republicans
Pennsylvania Democrats
Portuguese women in business
People from Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania
Naturalized citizens of the United States
American officials of the United Nations
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Beacon Hill, Boston
Portuguese people of British descent
Mozambican people of Portuguese descent
Mozambican people of German descent

Teresa Heinz


The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also called by the hashtag #NoDAPL, were grassroots movements that began in early 2016 in reaction to the approved construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States.

The pipeline was projected to run from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Many in the Standing Rock tribe and surrounding communities considered the pipeline and its intended crossing beneath the Missouri River would cause harm to the region's drinking water, as well as to the water supply used to irrigate surrounding farmlands. The construction was also seen as a direct threat to ancient burial grounds and cultural sites of historic importance.

Almost 500 people were arrested during the protests.

References

2016 in the United States

Dakota Access Pipeline protests


The end of the Eocene was the beginning of the Oligocene (33.9 million years ago). It is marked by a large-scale floral and faunal turnover.

Most of the affected organisms were marine or aquatic in nature. They included the last of the ancient cetaceans, the Archaeoceti.

This was a time of major climatic change, especially cooling. At first, it was not  linked with any single major impact or any catastrophic volcanic event.

But volcanic activity may have caused the extinction event. Several large meteorite impacts occurred about this time. One such event caused the Chesapeake Bay impact crater , and another at the Popigai crater  in central Siberia, scattering debris perhaps as far as Europe. New dating of the Popigai meteor suggests it may be a cause of the mass extinction.

A leading scientific theory on climate cooling at this time predicts a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which slowly declined in the mid to late Eocene and possibly reached some threshold about 34 million years ago. This boundary is closely linked with the Oligocene Oi-1 event, an oxygen isotope change which marks the beginning of ice sheet coverage on Antarctica.

References

Extinction events
Eocene

Eocene–Oligocene extinction event


"Winter Dreams (Brandon's Song)" is a song by American recording artist Kelly Clarkson, from her sixth studio album, Wrapped in Red (2013). Produced by Greg Kurstin, Clarkson co-wrote the song with Ashley Arrison and Aben Eubanks for her then-fiancé, Brandon Blackstock, stepson of American recording artist Reba McEntire. A slow-tempo Christmas neo-jazz pop song, "Winter Dreams" features a 50-piece chamber orchestra conducted and arranged by film composer Joseph Trapanese. Its lyrical theme mainly depicts love and escapism during the holidays, in which Clarkson sings about spending her first holiday with Blackstock, to whom the song is also dedicated. Unlike the deep lyrical themes of "Every Christmas", in which she refers to her life before meeting Blackstock, Clarkson had described "Winter Dreams" with a lighter fare, referring to it as her holiday life after meeting him.

Upon the release of Wrapped in Red, "Winter Dreams" has received a fairly positive response from music critics, who described it as a sweet but not too saccharine Christmas song. Along with other tracks from the album, it entered the Billboard Holiday Digital Songs chart as an album cut at number 12 on the week ending November 16, 2013.

Production and composition

Discussions for Clarkson's sixth studio album being a Christmas release began in December 2012, during which she also began to write holiday-themed material. Clarkson, weary of being expected to release only pop and country songs, approached Greg Kurstin to produce the whole album, and together they began recording in May 2013. Kursin, who had a jazz musical background, experimented on various jazz styles and sounds which Clarkson welcomed. During the song's recording production, he brought in Joseph Trapanese to arrange and conduct a 50-piece chamber orchestra at the EastWest Studios in Los Angeles.

A slowtempo Christmas neo-jazz pop song, "Winter Dreams" was written by Clarkson with Ashley Arrison and Aben Eubanks, her longtime friends. Eubanks, her guitarist, also wrote the songs "Wrapped in Red" and "Every Christmas" on the album. Clarkson wrote the song for then-fiancé (now ex-husband) Brandon Blackstock, whom she married on October 20, 2013, just days before the Wrapped in Reds release. Blackstock, a talent manager, is a stepson of recording artist Reba McEntire, Clarkson's longtime collaborator and friend. She described "Winter Dreams" as an antithesis of "Every Christmas", with the former about after finding love during the holidays and the latter about before it. Matt Casarino PopMatters found the music as reminiscent as Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" (2009), but blossoms into a heartfelt, joyful ode to holiday love.

Critical response
Cassarino, describing it as charming, remarked that listeners can easily picture the snowflakes on Clarkson's eyelashes as she sings it. In his review, Brandon Baker of Philadelphia described it as a "total cheesefest", but also noted it as an excellent representation marital bliss. Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani described "Winter Dreams" as a sweet (but not too saccharine) tribute to her new husband, but borders on a commercial jingle. Melinda Newman of HitFix described the track as "perky and sweet" and fits in well with the lighthearted tone of the other originals, even if it suffers in comparison. In his review for Breathecast.com, Timothy Yap wrote that "Winter Dreams" is an indulgent love song that as its title suggests—is dreamy, cozy and so romantic.

Chart performance
On the week ending November 16, 2013, "Winter Dreams" charted on the Billboard Holiday Digital Songs chart as an album cut at number 12. It also charted on the Gaon Singles Chart in South Korea at number 94 on the week ending November 23, 2013.

Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the Wrapped in Red liner notes.

Recording
 Produced at Echo Recording Studio, Los Angeles, California
 Orchestra recorded at EastWest Studios, Los Angeles, California
Personnel

 Vocals – Kelly Clarkson
 Arrangement – Joe Trapanese
 Engineering – Jesse Shatkin, Alex Pasco
 Bass, engineering, guitar, keyboards, production, and programming – Greg Kurstin
 Drums – Aaron Redfield

 Mixing – Serban Ghenea
 Engineered for mixing – John Hanes
 Orchestra contractor – Sandy DeCrescent, Gina Zimmitti
 Recording – Satoshi Noguchi
 Songwriting – Kelly Clarkson, Ashley Arrison, Aben Eubanks

Charts

References

Songs about dreams
2013 songs
American jazz songs
American Christmas songs
Kelly Clarkson songs
Songs written by Kelly Clarkson
Song recordings produced by Greg Kurstin
Songs written by Ashley Arrison

Winter Dreams (Brandon's Song)


The Ficus sansibarica, known as knobbly fig, is an African species of cauliflorous fig. It is named after Zanzibar, where Franz Stuhlmann discovered it in 1889. They often begin life as epiphytes, which assume a strangling habit as they develop.  They regularly reach 10 m, but may grow up to 40 m tall as forest stranglers.

Range and habitat
It occurs in the African tropics and subtropics from coastal elevations to 900 m above sea level. The nominate subspecies has an easterly distribution, but extends westwards up the Zambezi Valley.

They are found in coastal, riverine and evergreen forests or woodland, and in miombo woodlands. They are locally cultivated in parks, villages or bush camps. They prefer deep sandy soil and often start life as a strangler. The pollinating wasp is Courtella armata.

Description
The light grey bark is fairly smooth, though lumpy and folded. The smooth leaves are up to 13 cm long and oblong-obovate. They have parallel sides and are carried on slender petioles.

The large (up to 5 cm), bitter-tasting figs appear in groups of 2 or 3 during the summer months. They are cauliflorous, growing on the characteristic wart-like, leafless branchlets on the trunk and main branches (i.e. old wood).

F. chirindensis of the forests of southeastern Zimbabwe and adjacent Mozambique is similar, but has the leaves more oval, often has buttress roots, and bears the small (1.5 cm) figs in stalked pairs on second year branches.

Uses
The raw figs are used for food, and are locally believed to promote fertility. Stems are torn apart to obtain fibers for basket weaving. Locally it is also deemed sacred.

Subspecies and status
 F. s. subsp. sansibarica  – East Africa: southern Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, northern Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, northeastern South Africa and Eswatini
 F. s. subsp. macrosperma (Warb. ex Mildbr. & Burret) C.C.Berg – West and Central Africa: Senegal to DRC, Uganda and Angola

The species is deemed critically endangered in Eswatini, where most are located in proposed sugar cane expansion areas near Sihoye.  On Inhaca Island however, it is held sacred by most communities, and is scrupulously protected.

Gallery

References

External links
 Natureswow blogspot.com: Knobby Fig (Ficus sansibarica)

sansibarica
Trees of Africa
Afrotropical realm flora
Flora of Kenya
Flora of Malawi
Flora of Mozambique
Flora of the Northern Provinces
Flora of Tanzania
Flora of Zimbabwe
Plants described in 1894

Ficus sansibarica


Horst Joachim Arthur Caspar (20 January 1913 – 27 December 1952) was a German actor, prominent in German theatre and film in the 1930s and 1940s. His postwar career was cut short by his sudden death at 39.

Caspar was born in Radegast, the son of Max Caspar, an army officer. He had one Jewish grandparent. His mother Emmy died when he was 18 months old, and he was raised by his aunt in Berlin. He attended the Treitschke-Reform-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. In 1932 he took his abitur (school leaving exam), but did not go to university, since he had already decided to be an actor. He took acting lessons at the school of Ilka Grüning and Lucie Höflich, along with future stars of German cinema such as Lilli Palmer, Inge Meysel and Brigitte Horney. In the late 1930s Caspar, a handsome young man, appeared regularly in German films and on the stage. He was taken up by the director Saladin Schmitt and became a leading man at his theatre in Bochum, where he performed in plays by Shakespeare and Friedrich Schiller. When he gave his final performance in Richard II in 1939, he received 108 curtain calls.

Under the Nazi regime's anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, Caspar was classed as a Mischling (mixed race) of the second degree. Despite his part-Jewish ancestry, he continued to work as an actor. This was partly because he enjoyed the protection of Schmitt, who as a homosexual was no friend of the Nazi regime. But he also enjoyed the patronage of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels personally vetted cases of part-Jewish performers and allowed a number of popular part-Jewish actors to continue working.

Caspar's first leading film role was as the young Schiller in Friedrich Schiller – The Triumph of a Genius. In 1940 Caspar joined one of the most important German theatres of the time, the Schiller Theatre in Berlin. In 1942 he performed at the prestigious Burgtheater in Vienna. This was regarded as a "rare and special privilege" for a part-Jewish actor in a city where all Jews had been purged from cultural life.

In 1943 Caspar was engaged by the director Veit Harlan to play the young August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, who in 1807 defended the Prussian fortress town of Kolberg against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, in Kolberg, an epic film produced on the orders of Goebbels. This was only Caspar's second leading film role, but it is the one for which he is now best remembered, despite the fact that film was finished only shortly before the end of World War II and was seen by few people at the time.

On 20 January 1944 Caspar married a 22-year-old actress Antje Weisgerber (1922–2004). She gave birth to a son and a daughter. After the end of the war Caspar moved to Düsseldorf where he again worked in the theatre and in films. His last role was as a reporter named Peter Zabel in crime film called The Orplid Mystery, produced in 1950. In 1952 he recorded an LP of poetry readings, including works by Schiller and Goethe. Caspar died suddenly in Berlin in December 1952 of a stroke at the age of 39. His son Frank died on the day of his father's funeral, aged eight. His widow had a successful film career extending into the 1970s. All three are buried at St Anne's churchyard in Berlin-Dahlem.

Filmography

References

External links
 Horst Caspar: the unknown star

 German propaganda films (A photo of Horst Caspar as Schiller can be seen here)

1913 births
1952 deaths
People from Südliches Anhalt
German people of Jewish descent
German male stage actors
German male film actors
20th-century German male actors

Horst Caspar


Frederic Lord (15 November 1886 – 15 August 1945) was an English choral conductor, organist, composer, and music educator.

Lord was born in Bingley.  He studied piano with Ladislas Gorski in Montreux, Switzerland and the organ with Arthur Eaglefield Hull in England. A child prodigy, he started giving organ recitals at the age of 10 and began working as a church organist at the age of 11. He was organist at Barnoldswick, Lancashire, and at Settle, Yorkshire before moving to Brantford, Ontario in Canada in 1923. From 1923 until his death in 1945 he served as the organist and choirmaster at the First Baptist Church in Brantford and as the music director of the Ontario School for the Blind. In 1928 he founded the Canadian Choir of Brantford which he conducted until his death. The choir drew praise from critics both at home and abroad, making several tours to the United States and Europe. The choir notably gave performances at Albert Hall in London and at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The choir included in its repertoire several works written by Lord. In addition to his choral compositions, Lord also wrote several works for the organ and the piano, one symphony, the cantata The Battle of Morgarten, and a setting of Psalm 90 for baritone solo, choir, and orchestra.

Lord was also a voice teacher. His most notable pupil was baritone George Lambert. He died at the age of 58 in Brantford. The National Library of Canada holds several of his papers.

He died in Brantford, aged 58.

References

1886 births
1945 deaths
English conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
English composers
20th-century British conductors (music)
20th-century British male musicians

Frederic Lord