The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) is a major Christian denomination in New Zealand. A part of the Reformed tradition, it is the largest Presbyterian denomination in New Zealand,  and known for its relatively progressive stance on doctrine and social issues in comparison with smaller Presbyterian churches in the country. Presbyterianism was introduced to New Zealand by early 19th century settlers, particularly from Scotland and Ireland. It was historically most prevalent in the Otago region. The PCANZ was formed in 1901 with the amalgamation of southern and northern Presbyterian churches. It claims around 29,000 members.

History

The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand formed in October 1901 with the amalgamation of churches in the Synod of Otago and Southland (which had a largely Free Church heritage) with those north of the Waitaki River.

Unlike other major Christian churches, the Presbyterians did not send missionaries to New Zealand. Presbyterians had by and large come to New Zealand as settlers from Scotland, Ireland and Australia. Dunedin (founded in 1848) and Waipu (founded in 1853) were specifically Presbyterian settlements, but significant numbers of Presbyterians settled in other parts of the country, including Christchurch, Port Nicholson (Wellington), and Auckland. Ministers came with the first European settlers to Wellington, Otago and Waipu, but generally nascent congregations called ministers from Scotland. Missions to the Māori people focused on the Tuhoe people and led to the establishment of the Māori Synod, now known as Te Aka Puaho.

In 1862 the Presbytery of Auckland had had support from the Presbyterian Church of Ireland and also applied for support from the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

In 1906, 23 percent of New Zealanders (203,600) had identified as Presbyterians.

Ethnic diversity grew after World War II with the arrival of Dutch and other European immigrants, and more recently with Pasifika and Asian migrants. In 1969 the majority of Congregational churches joined the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. The word "Aotearoa" became part of the title of the denomination in 1990, affirming the treaty partnership between the indigenous Māori and the subsequent settlers.  PCANZ has 419 congregations.

Structure and activities

The Presbyterian Church is governed by a series of courts (councils) at local, regional and national levels. The leader of the church is called a moderator, and is elected by the national court.

In 2006 the denomination claimed 29,000 members in 430 congregations, and 400 ministers. According to the 2013 census a significantly higher 8.5 percent of the New Zealand population, or 330,516 adherents, claimed some form of affiliation with the Presbyterian Church.

International connections
 Christian Conference of Asia (CCA)
 Council for World Mission (CWM)
 World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC)
 World Council of Churches (WCC)

Social involvement
The Presbyterian Social Services Association (PSSA) – subsequently known as "Support" – began operating in the early 20th century.

Issues and controversies

Abuse allegations
In October 2022, Presbyterian Support Otago's chief executive Jo O'Neill acknowledged during The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care that at least six historical cases of abuse had occurred at its Glendining Presbyterian Children's Homes in Andersons Bay in Dunedin. O'Neill also testified that records about children housed under PSO's care had been deliberately destroyed by an alleged paedophile ring between 2017 and 2018. O'Neill also apologised to abuse survivors. In response to O'Neill's testimony, the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand launched an inquiry into an alleged pedophile ring operating within Dunedin's Presbyterian community. On 5 November, the Presbyterian Church confirmed that it had appointed a King's Counsel to investigate the paedophile ring allegations.

In September 2023, the Otago Daily Times reported that the Presbyterian Church's general assembly moderator Right Rev Hamish Galloway had declined to compensate a sexual abuse survivor known as "Anna" on the grounds that the Presbyterian Support Services Association (PSSA) was a separate organisation from the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. During her childhood, Anna had been raped, drugged, and trafficked among a paedophile ring of PSSA members in Southland, Otago, and Christchurch. Anna has asserted that the two organisations were linked and criticised the Church for its perceived unwllingness to take responsibility for the wrongs committed by its support organisations. Network of Survivors in Faith-based Institutions spokeswoman Liz Tonks criticised the Presbyterian Church's abuse redress process.

Breakaway groups
Several groups have broken away from the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand because of its liberal theology.

In the late 1940s migrants from the Netherlands settling in New Zealand expected to find their spiritual homes in existing churches of Reformed persuasion, particularly the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Instead they found it "less Reformed in doctrine and practice than they had hoped." They felt that the Declaratory Act of 1901 (which said that "diversity of opinion is recognised in this Church on such points in the Confession as do not enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith therein set forth") had "opened the doors of the Presbyterian Church to various 'winds of doctrine'." As a result, the Reformed Churches of New Zealand were officially established in 1953.

One group under George Mackenzie left in the 1960s and formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of New Zealand.

The other breakaway church is Grace Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, which was formed of both a group of pre-existing independent churches, and a number of churches that left the PCANZ after the homosexual controversy of 2003. These united into a new Presbyterian denomination for New Zealand.

Same-sex marriage
In 2003, the Church decided to allow ministers in sexual relationships other than marriage. This was overturned in 2004, and in a meeting of the General Assembly of the Church on 29 September 2006, this was confirmed by 230 votes to 124 (a 65% majority). This prevents people in de facto or gay relationships from becoming ministers in the church. It does not apply to people ordained before 2004. However, some liberal clergy have opposed this policy. In particular, St Andrew's Church on the Terrace in Wellington has announced that it supports same-sex marriage. St Andrew's church has been blessing same-sex civil unions since 2005. In 2014, when same-sex marriage became legal, St Andrew's Church also began performing same-sex marriage ceremonies. Other congregations have also chosen to support same-gender marriage.

See also
 Christianity in New Zealand

References

Further reading

External links
 Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand – website
 Presbyterian Youth Ministry – website
 Reformed Churches of new Zealand

Presbyterian denominations in Oceania
Members of the World Council of Churches
Members of the World Communion of Reformed Churches
Christian organizations established in 1901
Presbyterian organizations established in the 20th century


Blue Diamond is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, debuting under the company's 1940s forerunner, Timely Comics. The character was created in 1941 by Ben Thompson, who also drew the first comic book adventures of Ka-Zar the Great and Citizen V for Timely, as well as the Masked Marvel for Centaur Publications and Dr. Frost for Prize Comics.

An unrelated supervillain called the Blue Diamond appears as an antagonist in Timely's The Human Torch #11 (Spring 1943).

Publication history
The Blue Diamond first appeared in Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), published by Marvel's 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books. During that time, he appeared only in that issue and its subsequent, final issue, #8 (January 1942).

More than thirty years later, Marvel launched The Invaders in 1975, an intentionally nostalgic comic featuring star characters from the Golden Age — Captain America, Bucky Barnes, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner — in World War II-era adventures. Writer and editor Roy Thomas wanted to expand the franchise, so he created the Liberty Legion with a group of second-string Golden Age heroes, including the Blue Diamond, along with Miss America, the Whizzer, the Patriot, the Thin Man, Red Raven and Jack Frost.

In a 2018 interview, Thomas said, "I played around a little bit with the Blue Diamond. I made him bigger and stronger. In the original comics, he's just a guy about the same size as everyone else, and I bulked him up to make him a little more unique for that series."

The Blue Diamond fought with the Legion for five stories in 1976. The team was introduced in Marvel Premiere #29 and 30 (April and May 1976), as well as an issue of The Invaders and two issues of Marvel Two-in-One. The Liberty Legion returned for another four issues of The Invaders in 1978–1979, and then the team disappeared from the canvas. Thomas said that there were plans for a Liberty Legion series, but by that point, the sales figures on the Invaders comic were dropping, and Marvel decided against launching a spin-off. He returned in 1981 for a one-on-one team-up with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #79 (Sept 1981).

In the 2000s, the Blue Diamond returned in two issues of New Invaders (2004-2005), and Citizen V and V Battalion: The Everlasting #1 (March 2002). He also appears in flashbacks as a member of the Crazy Sues in All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes (2011).

Fictional character biography
Elton T. Morrow is an archaeologist who finds a mysterious blue diamond on an expedition to Antarctica. The diamond is a piece of the Lifestone Tree, which powers the alien Chosen Eight of Fate. A German sub attacks Morrow's ship on the way home and Morrow is the only survivor. An explosion shattered the diamond during the battle, forcing innumerable tiny diamond particles into Morrow's body. After he is rescued by a British ship, he finds that the shards of the diamond gave him diamond-hard skin, giving him superhuman strength and nigh-invulnerability. Dubbing himself the Blue Diamond, he battles Nazi spies during World War II as part of the Crazy Sues.

After spending years in retirement, the Blue Diamond returns to assist the Fantastic Four's Thing against Shanga, a crystal based alien. Shanga falls in love with Blue Diamond, and turns him into a living humanoid diamond creature as her consort. Morrow returns to Earth to join the new Invaders.

Powers and abilities
The strange blue diamond particles embedded in Blue Diamond's body have made his skin as strong as a diamond, giving him superhuman strength and nigh-invulnerability. After his body was altered by Shanga, Blue Diamond gains the power of flight and the ability to survive in the vacuum of space. The alterations to his body also reversed the effects of aging.

Reception
In Golden Age Daring Mystery Masterworks Vol. 2, journalist and comics writer Will Murray describes the Blue Diamond as "an obvious attempt to imbue some of Superman's strength and invulnerability to a lawsuit-proof character".

References

External links
Blue Diamond at the Grand Comics Database
Blue Diamond at Nevins, Jess, A Guide to Golden Age Marvel Characters. WebCitation archive of latter.
Marvel Database wiki: Blue Diamond

Comics characters introduced in 1941
Fictional archaeologists
Fictional characters with slowed ageing
Fictional World War II veterans
Golden Age superheroes
Marvel Comics characters with superhuman strength
Marvel Comics male superheroes
Marvel Comics superheroes
Timely Comics characters

Blue Diamond (character)


Midlothian is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Allegany County, Maryland, United States; at one time it was called Midlothian Junction. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 320. Its ZIP code is 21543.

Midlothian is located  southwest of Frostburg and is adjacent to Exit 33 of Interstate 68. The community sits along the eastern base of Big Savage Mountain.

The village of Midlothian was the site of the Bowery iron furnaces. These were two coal-fired furnaces built in 1868 by Cumberland Coal and Iron. There was a source of carbonate iron ore on the hill to the northeast, tapped by a tram road. Limestone was available from a hill to the east. The furnaces produced pig iron, and operated  from 1874 to 1880. The pig iron was shipped by rail on the C&P via a spur line off the main. The product went to Cumberland.

From Midlothian Junction, the C&P made a connection with a logging railroad. The Juniata Lumber Company established a circular sawmill in Midlothian, at the end of a 3-foot gauge line that extended 12 miles into Garrett County along Big Savage Mountain. A Class-B Climax geared engine was used to haul the logs. From the sawmill, the lumber was shipped in boxcars over the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad. Twenty-five thousand board feet per day of railroad ties and dimensioned wood were produced at peak production. The sawmill facility was closed by 1913.

Midlothian is located south of Frostburg, and to the west of Route 936. Also known as Midlothian Junction, it has a population of 320 in 2010. It was primarily settled by Scotch immigrants, and named after a region near Edinburgh.

Demographics

References

Census-designated places in Allegany County, Maryland
Census-designated places in Maryland
Georges Creek Valley
Populated places in the Cumberland, MD-WV MSA
Cumberland, MD-WV MSA

Midlothian, Maryland


Site 109/95 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a missile silo built for use by the R-36 missile, which has been converted into a launch site for the Dnepr carrier rocket.

Nineteen R-36 ICBMs were launched on test flights from Site 109 between its activation in 1974, and deactivation in 1983. It was subsequently reactivated for the Dnepr programme, which uses a modified R-36 missile to place satellites into orbit. The Dnepr made its maiden flight from Site 109 on 21 April 1999. The most recent launch from Site 109 was a Dnepr, with the German TanDEM-X satellite, which was launched on 21 June 2010.

References

Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 109


Peter Richard Michael Williams (born June 1974) is a British businessman, the co-founder, former co-owner and ex-CEO of the clothing brand Jack Wills.

Early life
Peter Williams was born in June 1974. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he was school captain, followed by a bachelor's degree in economics from University College London.

Career
Peter Williams and Robert Shaw founded Jack Wills in 1999. Williams was 23 when the first store opened at 22 Fore Street, Salcombe and it was created with £40,000 – the founders slept above the shop. The brand was named after his grandfather, Jack Williams.

In 2012, Williams debuted on the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated worth of £200 million ($326 million).

In October 2016, Williams and private equity firm BlueGem became the joint owners, after long-standing investor Inflexion sold out after nine years. Williams owned 52% of the company, but ceased to have any role in the business following its collapse in 2019, which led to a buyout of the brand by Sport Direct (now Frasers Group).

Personal life
Williams has known his wife, Laura Jane Williams, since he was 12 years old.

References

1974 births
Alumni of University College London
Living people
People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham

Peter Williams (businessman)


Ralph Follett Wigram  ( ; 23 October 1890 – 31 December 1936) was a British government official in the Foreign Office. He helped raise the alarm about German rearmament under Hitler during the period prior to World War II.

In part, he did this by providing intelligence information about German rearmament to Winston Churchill, at a time when Churchill did not hold a position in the government of Stanley Baldwin. Churchill used the information to publicly attack the policies of Baldwin. Churchill's magisterial six-volume history of World War II, The Second World War, described Wigram as a "great unsung hero". The autobiography of Valentine Lawford, who worked under Wigram in the Central Department, describes him variously as "the authentic local deity" and "the departmental volcano."

Wigram's role was brought to public attention by the Southern Television drama serial Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (in which he was portrayed by Paul Freeman), and later by the biographical movie about Churchill, The Gathering Storm (in which he was portrayed by Linus Roache).

Winston Churchill wrote:

Early life and education
Wigram was the son of Eustace Rochester Wigram and Mary Grace Bradford-Atkinson, and had a younger sister, Isabel. He was the grandson of the Right Reverend Joseph Cotton Wigram, Bishop of Rochester, younger son of Sir Robert Wigram, 1st Baronet. He was a second cousin of Lord Wigram. He was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford.

Career
Wigram joined the Foreign Office after graduation. He served as temporary secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, from 1916 to 1919, as third secretary at the Foreign Office from 1919 to 1920, as second secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 to 1921, as first secretary at the British Embassy in Paris from 1924 to 1933, and as counsellor at the Foreign Office and head of the Central Department from 1934 to 1936. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1933.

German rearmament and Churchill
Wigram's superior in the Foreign Office, Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Robert Vansittart had been quite alarmed about the German situation for several years, and when Wigram came on board, they soon came to share deep concern about the situation. Churchill's biographer William Manchester described one of Wigram's memoranda from this period as having "a sagacity and vision seldom matched in Britain's archives". In the beginning, they tried to raise the alarm with their political masters in the government, to no avail; in desperation, they then turned to other means.

Wigram did make at least one attempt at direct publicity – at the time of the occupation of the Rhineland in early 1936, he arranged a press conference for French Minister of Foreign Affairs Flandin, but it had little effect.

His efforts in another direction were far more successful. Wigram had begun passing information to Churchill in late 1934, apparently with the knowledge and support of Vansittart. The original path was via Major Desmond Morton, but from early 1935, Wigram began to interact directly with Churchill. From then on, Wigram and Churchill were in close contact. Starting on 7 April 1935, the Wigrams often spent weekends with Churchill at Chartwell, his country house, and Churchill also visited Wigram's London home. The information seems to have been primarily about the German air force, although more general material about German rearmament, and Hitler's character and likely aims, was included, as well.

Wigram was one of many people passing information to Churchill; Churchill's biographer, Martin Gilbert, estimated that more than 20 (although he credited Wigram as one of the three main players) were involved. The film Gathering Storm, however, focuses on Wigram; the film's director, Richard Loncraine, said, "in reality there were four 'Wigrams' – two Army officers and two civil servants. It would be cinematographically inept to have four people doing the same thing. What we did was leave out the other three characters."

Members of Parliament enjoy parliamentary privilege, including the right to say what they will and discuss what they will during proceedings in Parliament. Well aware of this, Churchill was able to criticise the UK government in the House of Commons without fear of comeback. The position of those who supplied him with data on Britain's defences, or the lack of them, can be explained by the fact that, as a privy councillor and former chancellor of the exchequer, Churchill had the highest level of security clearance and could, therefore, be assumed not to misuse the information passed to him.  Baldwin's government certainly did not like the passing of information to Churchill; Walter Runciman, the president of the Board of Trade, was sent to see Wigram's wife Ava when Wigram was not at home to try to convince her to stop her husband from passing information to Churchill.

Wigram and Churchill did disagree over the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. Wigram supported it as a means to escape the strictures of disarmament, whereas Churchill felt it condoned German treaty-breaking. Nevertheless, Wigram remained a firm opponent of the policy of appeasement.

Personal life
Wigram married Ava Bodley, daughter of the historian J. E. C. Bodley, on 28 February 1925; they had one child, Charles Edward Thomas Bodley Wigram (1929–1951) (who apparently suffered from some sort of birth defect, but sources disagree whether it was Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, or autism). Ava's letters to Churchill indicate that she supported Wigram's attempts to warn Churchill.

According to Churchill,  the British government's failure in March 1936 to pledge any support to France in countering Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland dealt a mortal blow to Wigram. He went home and told his wife: "War is now inevitable, and it will be the most terrible war there has ever been. I don't think I shall see it, but you will. Wait now for bombs on this little house.....All my work these many years has been no use. I am a failure. I have failed to make the people here realise what is at stake."

Wigram's sudden death at the age of 46 is somewhat mysterious. Again, sources disagree on several points. For one, some say he was found dead at home, but a letter from Churchill says he died in Ava's arms. His death certificate recorded the cause of death as pulmonary haemorrhage, but a letter from Henry Pelling indicates he committed suicide while deeply depressed. The fact that his own parents did not attend his funeral in Sussex is cited as support for this theory, although Churchill and his family did attend, along with Robert Vansittart and Brendan Bracken, and his parents were attending a memorial service for him that morning in Devon, where Wigram was brought up and which was closer to many of his family's friends. Churchill's letters indicate (but only indirectly) that depression and suicide were the cause. Polio has also been put forward as a cause by some sources. He was buried in the churchyard at Cuckfield, Sussex. After Wigram's death, Ava stayed in close contact with Churchill, writing to him about her travels to Germany before the outbreak of war. She later married Sir John Anderson in 1941.

References

Further reading
 Mary Soames, Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills Mariner Books, 2001.
 Martin Gilbert, Churchill: Prophet of Truth (William Heinemann; London; 1976)
 William Manchester, The Last Lion (Little, Brown; Boston; 1988)
 Valentine Lawford, Bound for Diplomacy (Atlantic, Little, Brown; Boston; 1963)
 Churchill Central
 The Churchill Papers at Churchill College, University of Cambridge
 The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College

External links
 The man who told Churchill to take on Hitler from The Guardian
 Review of The Gathering Storm at The Churchill Centre

1890 births
1936 deaths
20th-century British diplomats
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
Members of HM Diplomatic Service
People educated at Eton College

Ralph Wigram


A cloak is a type of loose garment worn over clothing, mostly but not always as outerwear for outdoor wear, serving the same purpose as an overcoat, protecting the wearer from the weather. It may form part of a  uniform. People in many different societies may wear cloaks. Over time cloak designs have changed to match fashion and available textiles.

Cloaks generally fasten at the neck or over the shoulder, and vary in length from the hip all the way down to the ankle - mid-calf being the normal length. They may have an attached hood and may cover and fasten down the front, in which case they have holes or slits for the hands to pass through. However, cloaks are almost always sleeveless.

Christian clerics may wear a cappa or a cope - forms of cloak - as liturgical vestments or as part of a religious habit.

Etymology
The word cloak comes from Old North French cloque (Old French cloche, cloke) meaning "travelling cloak", from Medieval Latin clocca "travelers' cape," literally "a bell," so called from the garment's bell-like shape. Thus the word is related to the word clock.

History
Ancient Greeks and Romans were known to wear cloaks. Greek men and women wore the himation, from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods ( 750-30 BC). Romans would later wear the Greek-styled cloak, the  pallium. The pallium was quadrangular, shaped like a square, and sat on the shoulders, not unlike the himation.

Romans of the Republic would wear the toga as a formal display of their citizenship. It was denied to foreigners and was worn by magistrates on all occasions as a badge of office. The toga allegedly originated with Numa Pompilius ( BC), the second semi-legendary king of Rome.

Eminent personages in Kievan Rus' adopted the Byzantine chlamys in the form of a fur-lined
().

Powerful noblemen and elite warriors of the Aztec Empire would wear a tilmàtli; a Mesoamerican cloak/cape used as a symbol of their upper status. Cloth and clothing was of utmost importance for the Aztecs. The more elaborate and colorful tilmàtlis were strictly reserved for élite high priests, emperors; and the Eagle warriors as well as the Jaguar knights.

Opera cloak

In full evening dress in the Western countries, ladies and gentlemen frequently use the cloak as a fashion statement, or to protect the fine fabrics of evening wear from the elements, especially where a coat would crush or hide the garment. Opera cloaks are made of quality materials such as wool or cashmere, velvet and satin.

Ladies may wear a long (over the shoulders or to ankles) cloak usually called a cape, or a full-length cloak. Gentlemen wear an ankle-length or full-length cloak.  Formal cloaks often have expensive, colored linings and trimmings such as silk, satin, velvet and fur.

The term was the title of a 1942 operatic comedy.

In literature and the arts

According to the King James Version of the Bible, Matthew recorded Jesus of Galilee saying in Matthew 5:40: "And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also."  The King James Version of the Bible has the words recorded a little differently in Luke 6:29: "...and him that taketh away thy cloke, forbid not to take thy coat also."

Cloaks are a staple garment in the fantasy genre due to the popularity of medieval settings, although fantasy cloak designs normally have more resemblance to 18th or 19th-century cloaks rather than medieval ones. They are also usually associated with witches, wizards, and vampires; the best-known stage version of Dracula, which first made actor Bela Lugosi prominent, featured him wearing it so that his exit through a trap door concealed on the stage could seem sudden. When Lugosi reprised his role as Dracula for the 1931 Universal Studios motion picture version of the play, he retained the cloak as part of his outfit, which made such a strong impression that cloaks came to be equated with Count Dracula in nearly all non-historical media depictions of him.

Fantasy cloaks are often magical. For example, they may grant the person wearing it invisibility as in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. A similar sort of garment is worn by the members of the Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, although instead of granting complete invisibility, the Elf-made cloaks simply appear to shift between any natural color (e.g. green, gray, brown) to help the wearer to blend in with his or her surroundings. In the Marvel comic book stories and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sorcerer Doctor Strange is associated with a magical Cloak of Levitation, which not only enables its wearer to levitate, but has other mystical abilities as well. Doctor Strange also uses it as a weapon. Alternatively, cloaks in fantasy may nullify magical projectiles, as the "cloak of magic resistance" in NetHack.

Metaphor
Figuratively, a cloak may be anything that disguises or conceals something. In many science fiction franchises, such as Star Trek, there are cloaking devices, which provide a way to avoid detection by making objects appear invisible. A real device, albeit of limited capability, was demonstrated in 2006.

Because they keep a person hidden and conceal a weapon, the phrase cloak and dagger has come to refer to espionage and secretive crimes: it suggests murder from hidden sources. "Cloak and dagger" stories are thus mystery, detective, and crime stories of this. The vigilante duo of Marvel comics Cloak and Dagger is a reference to this.

See also

Cape
Chlamys, the ancient and Byzantine Greek cloak
Cloaking device
Mantle (clothing)
Witzchoura
Tilmàtli
Poncho
Robe
Serape
Shawl
Shroud
Stole
Veil
Kinsale cloak
Fibula (brooch), a brooch or pin for fastening garments, such as cloaks, typically at the right shoulder
Wrap (clothing)
Spanish cloak

References

Sources
 Oxford English Dictionary
 Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500-1914, Abrams, 1996.
 Baumgarten, Linda: What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, Yale University Press, 2016.
 Payne, Blanche: History of Costume from the Stone Age to the Twentysecond Century, Harper & Row, 2965. No ISBN for this edition; ASIN B0006BMNFS
 Picken, Mary Brooks: The Fashion Dictionary, Funk and Bagnalls, 1957.  (1973 edition )

Medieval European costume
18th-century fashion
19th-century fashion
20th-century fashion
Formal wear
History of clothing
Costume design

Cloak


The Festival della Canzone Napoletana ("Festival of Neapolitan Song"), commonly known as the Festival di Napoli, is a Neapolitan song contest. The first edition was held in 1952 and the last in 2004. From 1952 to 1970 the show was broadcast on RAI and from 1998 to 2004, in a differently spirited version, by Rete 4.

History
A symbol of Neapolitan song of the second half of the twentieth century, the Festival della Canzone Napoletana was born in Naples in 1952, the year following the birth of the Sanremo Music Festival.

Among the protagonists of the Festival from 1952 to 1970 would be such Neapolitan singers as Sergio Bruni, Aurelio Fierro, Nunzio Gallo, Maria Paris, Giacomo Rondinella, Mario Abbate, Gloria Christian, Mario Trevi, Fausto Cigliano, Franco Ricci, Mirna Doris, Tony Astarita, Mario Merola, Enzo Del Forno, Peppino di Capri, Gianni Nazzaro, Nino Fiore, Gegè Di Giacomo, Tullio Pane, Peppino Gagliardi, Giulietta Sacco. They would be joined by such singers from the Sanremo Festival, as Carla Boni, Wilma De Angelis, Domenico Modugno, Ornella Vanoni, Claudio Villa, Don Backy, Giorgio Gaber, , Fred Bongusto, Nilla Pizzi, Oscar Carboni, Betty Curtis, Giorgio Consolini, Tony Dallara, Jula De Palma, Johnny Dorelli, Equipe 84, Louiselle, Los Marcellos Ferial, Marino Marini, Miranda Martino, Milva, Gino Latilla, Anna Identici, Wilma Goich, I Giganti, Luciano Tajoli, Teo Teocoli, Achille Togliani, Iva Zanicchi, Carmen Villani, Luciano Virgili, Narciso Parigi, Katyna Ranieri, Flo Sandon's, Lara Saint Paul, Memo Remigi, Dean Reed, Anna German, Mei Lang Chang, Nini Rosso, Robertino, Teddy Reno and authors as Franco Franchi, Oreste Lionello, Nino Taranto, Renato Rascel, Ombretta Colli, Lando Fiorini, Beniamino Maggio, and Angela Luce.

As presenters the festival would see, over the years, such people as Nunzio Filogamo, Enzo Tortora, Pippo Baudo, Mike Bongiorno, Corrado, Daniele Piombi.

Interrupted in 1971, after many organizational efforts it returned to the city in 1981, taking the name "Festival di Napoli '81". The show, divided into three nights and organized by DAN with the help from RAI and the patronage of the Campania Region, was presented by Franco Sulfites, assisted by Maria Laura Soldano, and broadcast in full color from the Metropolitan Theatre of Naples on the television channel Rai Tre from 22.30 until the end. It was also broadcast on the radio on Rai's second station from 22.45.

After that edition, the Festival, once again, was interrupted for a long period of time. In 1998 it returned, though with a different spirit and different results, on Rete 4 and was held regularly until 2004, when it ceased again.

Winners

Notes
Note 1: In 1953, the Festival was not held because it was initially designed to be biennial (every other year), but the Organization later reconsidered.
Note 2: In 1971, the Festival was not held because it was suspended by RAI.

See also
Canzone Napoletana
List of historic rock and pop festivals
List of music festivals in Italy

References

External links

Traditional music
Music in Naples
Music festivals in Italy
Music festivals established in 1952
Pop music festivals

Festival di Napoli


Johann Jahn (18 June 1750 in Tasswitz, Moravia – 16 August 1816 in Vienna) was a German orientalist.

Biography
He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of University of Olomouc, and in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time held a cure at Misslitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics.

On the suppression of the convent by Joseph II in 1784, Jahn took up similar work in Olomouc, and in 1789 he was transferred to Vienna as professor of Oriental languages, biblical archaeology and dogmatics. In 1792 he published his Einleitung ins Alte Testament (2 vols.), which soon brought him into trouble; the cardinal-archbishop of Vienna laid a complaint against him for having departed from the traditional teaching of the Church, e.g. by asserting Job, Jonah, Tobit and Judith to be didactic poems, and the cases of demoniacal possession in the New Testament to be cases of dangerous disease. An ecclesiastical commission reported that the views themselves were not necessarily heretical, but that Jahn had erred in showing too little consideration for the views of German Catholic theologians in coming into conflict with his bishop, and in raising difficult problems by which the unlearned might be led astray. He was accordingly advised to modify his expressions in future.

Although he appears honestly to have accepted this judgment, the hostility of his opponents did not cease until at last (1806) he was compelled to accept a canonry at St Stephens, Vienna, which involved the resignation of his chair. This step had been preceded by the condemnation of his Introductio in libros sacros veteris foederis in compendium redacta, published in 1804, and also of his Archaeologia biblica in compendium redacta (1805). The only work of importance, outside the region of mere philology, afterwards published by him, was the Enchiridion Hermeneuticae (1812).

Works
 Einleitung ins Alte Testament (2 vols., 1792)
 Hebräische Sprachlehre fur Anfänger (1792)
 Aramäische od. Chaldäische u. Syrische Sprachlehre für Anfänger (1793)
 Arabische Sprachlehre (1796)
 Elementarbuch der hebr. Sprache (1799)
 Chaldäische Chrestomathie (1800)
 Arabische Chrestomathie (1802)
 Lexicon arabico-latinum chrestomathiae arabicae accommodatum (Vindobonae, Wappler et Beck, 1802)
 Introductio in libros sacros veteris foederis in compendium redacta (1804; 3rd ed., 1825; translated into English by Turner and Whittingham, New York, 1827)
 Archaeologia biblica in compendium redacta (1805) The English translation by T. C. Upham (1840) has passed through several editions.
 an edition of the Hebrew Bible (1806)
 Grammatica linguae hebraicae (1809)
 Enchiridion Hermeneuticae (1812)
 Vaticinia prophetarum de Jesu Messia, a critical commentary on the Messianic passages of the Old Testament (1815)
 Nachträge, six dissertations on Biblical subjects (1821)

References

Attribution

External links

1750 births
1816 deaths
People from Znojmo District
People from the Margraviate of Moravia
Moravian-German people
German orientalists
German male non-fiction writers
Palacký University Olomouc alumni

Johann Jahn


The Gibbs Brothers Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for "outstanding contributions in the field of naval architecture and marine engineering".  It was established by a gift from William Francis Gibbs and Frederic Herbert Gibbs.

Recipients
 Jerome H. Milgram (2017)
 For wide-ranging original contributions to naval architecture in theoretical hydromechanics, education, yacht design, environmental protection, and the practical arts of ocean systems.

 Robert G. Keane, Jr. (2012)
 For continued excellence as a naval architect over many years, exemplified by the outstanding naval warships that he had a major part in designing, helping to make the U.S. Navy the most powerful in the world.

 Keith W. Tantlinger (2009)
 For his visionary and innovative design of the cellular container ship and supporting systems that transformed the world's shipping fleet and facilitated the rapid expansion of global trade.

 Donald Liu (2006)
 For first introducing finite element techniques into ship design and being the driving force behind the revolution in basing classification society rules on scientific principles.

 Alfred C. Malchiodi (2003)
 For leading innovations in developing the naval architecture of submarines for the efficient utilization of advanced technology.

 Edward E. Horton (2001)
 For visionary and innovative concept development and design of off-shore platforms, mooring systems, and related technology that have significantly influenced development of deep-water operations.

 Justin E. Kerwin (1999)
 For his outstanding contributions in the field of naval architecture, including the development of computational methods used worldwide in propeller design.

 William B. Morgan (1997)
 For his technical leadership in improving performance, quieting, and design of advanced marine propulsion systems, and development of large modern propulsion research and testing facilities.

 Owen H. Oakley (1995)
 For his significant contributions to the field of naval architecture, especially in the design of naval ships, submarines, and advanced ship types and submersibles.

 Olin J. Stephens II (1993)
 For his design of outstanding sailing vessels, including six defenders of the America's Cup and thousands of ocean-racing yachts, and for promoting the use of scientific knowledge and research in the field of naval architecture.

 Bruce G. Collipp (1991)
 For his invention of the semisubmersible, offshore, floating drilling platform, and for his sustained pioneering leadership in devising innovative ocean-engineering technologies.

 Leslie A. Harlander (1988)
 For his pioneering effort in the design of specialized vessels and cargo-handling equipment associated with * intermodal shipping by container systems.

 Matthew Galbraith Forrest (1979)

 John Charles Niedermair (1976)
 For his outstanding contributions to the field of naval architecture and marine engineering.

 Phillip Eisenberg (1974)
 For his work that is the basis of much of what is known about hydrofoils and how ships move smoothly.

 Henry A. Schade (1970)
 For his outstanding contributions in the design, construction, and performance of ships.

 Alfred Adolf Heinrich Kiel (1967)
 For his outstanding contributions in the field of naval architecture and marine engineering.

 Frederick Henry Todd (1965)
 For his contributions to the theory of ship design through model experiments, and for his leadership in hydrodynamic research.

See also

 List of engineering awards
 List of awards named after people

References

Marine engineering
Awards established in 1965
Awards of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Gibbs Brothers Medal


Bing is a cultivar (farmed type) of the wild or sweet cherry (Prunus avium) that started in the Pacific Northwest, in Milwaukie, Oregon, United States. The Bing remains a major cultivar in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. It is the most produced variety of sweet cherry in the United States.

History
The cultivar was created as a crossbred graft from the Republican cherry in 1875 by Oregon horticulturist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian Chinese foreman Ah Bing, for whom the cultivar is named.

Ah Bing
Ah Bing was reportedly born in China and immigrated to the U.S. in about 1855. He worked as a foreman in the Lewelling family fruit orchards in Milwaukie for about 35 years, supervising other workers and caring for trees. He went back to China in 1889 for a visit. Due to the restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 he never returned to the United States. Some say Ah Bing developed the cultivar, others that it was developed by Lewelling and named in Bing's honour due to his long service as orchard foreman.

Horticultural production

Bing cherries are used almost exclusively for fresh market. Bings are large, dark and firm cherries that ship well, but will crack open if exposed to rain near harvest.  A wet climate is required for the harvest of the bing cherry.

Health
Bing cherries are high in anti-oxidants. A study by the United States Department of Agriculture has shown that fresh Bing cherries may help sufferers of arthritis and gout. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that these are yet unproven claims.

References

Other websites
All about cherries

Prunus
Dishes named after people

Bing cherry


Selleslagh Racing Team (SRT) is a Belgian racing team, currently competing in the GT4 European Series.

In the 2010 season the team competed under the Mad-Croc Racing banner, the result of a collaboration between SRT and DKR Engineering of Luxembourg. For 2011 the two teams split to form two separate entries into the championship.

In 2011 the team concluded the season with a win in the last race. After this they started working in the background.

In 2014 the team is back. They acquired a Corvette C6 GTE and entered the car in the 2014 International GT Open season and elsewhere also.

In 2018 the team enters 3 cars in the GT4 European series and the Belcar endurance. The 3 cars are Mercedes AMG GT4, numbers during the races are 30, 31 and 32.

References

External links

Auto racing teams in Belgium
FIA GT1 World Championship teams
FIA GT Championship teams
International GT Open teams

Selleslagh Racing Team


Lynn Fontanne (; 6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fontanne was born in what is now the London suburb of Woodford, and received her first training as an actress from Ellen Terry. After building up an acting career in Britain she worked extensively in the US, first appearing in New York in 1910. Although she appeared in classics including The Taming of the Shrew and The Seagull, experimental drama by Eugene O'Neill, and dark comedy by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fontanne and her husband were best known for their stylish performances in light comedies by Noël Coward, S. N. Behrman, Terence Rattigan and others, and romantic plays by writers such as Robert E. Sherwood.

The Lunts retired from the stage in 1960, and lived at their home in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, where, after outliving her husband by six years, Fontanne died at the age of 95.

Life and career

Early years
Fontanne was born Lillie Louise Fontanne in  Woodford, Essex (now London), on 6 December 1887. She was the youngest of the three daughters of Jules Pierre Antoine Fontanne (1855–1942) and his wife Frances Ellen, née Thornley (1858–1921). She was educated in London, after which a family friend introduced her to the leading actress Ellen Terry, who sometimes gave lessons to promising young players. Partly as a result of Terry's training and influence, Fontanne was given roles in plays in London and on tour throughout England from 1905 to 1916. She made her first appearance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, at Christmas 1905, in the chorus of the pantomime, Cinderella, and subsequently "walked on" (i.e. was a non-speaking extra) in productions in London starring Lewis Waller, Sir Herbert Tree, Lena Ashwell and others.

During 1909, she toured as Rose in Lady Frederick with Mabel Love. At the Garrick Theatre, London, in December 1909 she appeared in Where Children Rule, and in Billy's Bargain at the same theatre in June 1910 she played Lady Mulberry. She then made her first visit to America, making her début in New York at Nazimova's 39th Street Theatre in November 1910 as Harriet Budgeon in Mr Preedy and the Countess with Weedon Grossmith.

After returning to London in 1911 she played at the Criterion Theatre in The Young Lady of Seventeen and at the Vaudeville in A Storm in a Tea Shop. She then toured in the provinces in 1912–13 as Gertrude Rhead in Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblock's Milestones, before playing the part in London. In that role she had to play the same character in youth, middle age and old age. The American star Laurette Taylor saw her in the role and was impressed. At the Royalty Theatre in April 1914 Fontanne scored a success as Liza and Mrs Collison in Knoblock's My Lady's Dress. She played in four other London productions in 1914–15, including the premiere of The Starlight Express. She became engaged to marry a young lawyer, Teddy Byrne, but he was killed in action in 1916 during the First World War.

Broadway

Shortly before Byrne's death, Fontanne accepted an offer to join Laurette Taylor's company in New York. Taylor and her husband, Hartley Manners, fostered the young Fontanne's career. Taylor later said, "While acting with her I forgot we were actresses". After five plays with them, Fontanne graduated to leading roles for other managements. Between 1918 and 1920, she succeeded Laura Hope Crews as Mrs Rockingham in "A Pair of Petticoats" in New York, and was the female lead in new plays on Broadway and in Chicago and Philadelphia. During this time, playing in summer stock in Washington DC, she met the actor Alfred Lunt. They fell in love, although at first Lunt's wooing was more hesitant than Fontanne would have wished.

In mid-1920 Fontanne appeared once again in the West End, appearing with Taylor in a play by Manners, One Night in Rome. She had little chance to shine in what The Stage called "a one-part play" written as a vehicle for Taylor. Wanting to be reunited with Lunt, Fontanne quickly returned to the US, where in 1921 she had her first big success, in the lead role of George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly's comedy Dulcy. She did not return to the West End for nine years.

In May 1922 Fontanne married Lunt, and in 1923 they made their first appearance together in a Broadway production, a revival of Paul Kester's 1900 costume drama Sweet Nell of Old Drury. Although Taylor was the female lead, it was Fontanne who impressed the critics. In The New York Herald, Alexander Woolcott dismissed the play as "gaudy rubbish", but added:

Theatre Guild

In 1924, the Lunts joined the company of the Theatre Guild, which, in the words of Fontanne's biographer Jared Brown, "staged plays on Broadway but defied Broadway conventions by offering serious and innovative plays that were regularly rejected by commercial managements". The first play in which the couple appeared for the Guild was Ferenc Molnár's The Guardsman, in which they established a reputation for playing light comedy. They acted together in three plays by Bernard Shaw: Arms and the Man (as Raina and Bluntschli, 1925), Pygmalion (as Eliza and Higgins, 1926) and The Doctor's Dilemma (as the Dubedats, 1927). Fontanne had the chance to demonstrate her versatility by switching from comedy to demanding experimental drama in Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (1928), described by Woolcott as "the Abie's Irish Rose of the pseudo-intelligentsia".

Fontanne and Lunt introduced a naturalistic new way of delivering dialogue, building on a technique Fontanne had begun to explore in her performances with Laurette Taylor. It was unheard of for an actor to speak while another was still speaking, but, in Brown's words:

As a consequence, according to Brown, the Lunts' scenes together could be "more vivid, more real than those of other actors".

In 1928, Fontanne and Lunt co-starred in what for the Guild was an untypically frothy comedy, Caprice. The biographer Margot Peters calls the production a milestone in their careers for two reasons: it was the first production in which they, rather than the play, were the main draw, and it marked the start of their inseparable theatrical partnership: from then on they always appeared together. They took Caprice to London in 1930 – Lunt's first appearance there – and won the admiration of audiences, critics, and writers including Shaw and J. B. Priestley. For the Guild in New York, Fontanne and Lunt starred in Robert Sherwood's romantic comedy Reunion in Vienna which opened in November 1931 and ran throughout the season, before a nationwide tour. The two were strong believers in touring, taking many of their Broadway hits to remote locations as well as the larger American cities. They felt a double responsibility to do so: to ensure that playwrights had their works presented to as many people as possible, and to allow people outside New York to see Broadway productions.

Design for Living

Fontanne and Lunt had been close friends of the English actor and playwright Noël Coward since they met in New York in 1921, before any of them had achieved success in the theatre. They had resolved then that when they were famous, Coward would write a play for all three of them to star in. The Lunts' marriage was the subject of much conjecture in theatrical circles: although they were clearly devoted to each other, there were unsubstantiated but persistent rumours that Lunt was bisexual and had gay liaisons; there was also speculation that Fontanne had extramarital interests. Against this background, Coward wrote a comedy for the three of them, Design for Living (1932), in which Fontanne's character switches back and forth between the two men, who then pair up when she deserts them both, before all three end up together. The combination of the risqué subject and the popularity of the three stars caused box-office records to be broken, and reportedly earned Fontanne and her co-stars the highest salaries paid on Broadway to that time.

The immense success of Design for Living led Coward to write another play for his friends, but his Point Valaine, in which Fontanne and Lunt starred in 1934, was a failure. Coward set out to write an uncharacteristically serious drama, but the grim plot and unsympathetic characters did not appeal to audiences used to seeing the Lunts in glamorous and romantic roles; Fontanne's prediction that the play would only run for a matter of weeks proved correct. It was the only outright failure of the Lunts' joint career.

1934 to 1945
Between the two Coward plays in New York, Fontanne and Lunt played in London, in Reunion in Vienna, repeating their American success with the piece. The Times commented:
For the rest of the 1930s Fontanne and her husband appeared in Guild productions. In 1935 they played Katherina and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew; in 1936 they starred in a new Sherwood play, Idiot's Delight; in 1937 they took the leading roles in S. N. Behrman's adaptation of Jean Giradoux's comedy Amphitryon 38; and in 1938 they played Arkadina and Trigorin in The Seagull on Broadway and took the production of Amphitryon 38 to London, before touring it extensively in the US in repertory with Idiot's Delight and The Seagull.

The Lunts had a country estate in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, close to where Lunt had grown up. It was their summer home, where they entertained a great many theatrical friends and colleagues over the decades. Carol Channing later said "Genesee Depot is to performers what the Vatican is to Catholics". They gave up their usual summer break there during the latter part of the Second World War, because at Fontanne's behest the couple moved to England. She felt she should share the hardships of her family and friends there, and from 1943 to 1945 the Lunts appeared in the West End, and in performances for the troops, including a tour of army camps in France and Germany in 1945.

Later years and death

After the war Fontanne and Lunt returned to the US and resumed their association with the Theatre Guild. They appeared in 1946–47 in Terence Rattigan's comedy Love In Idleness (given on Broadway under the title O Mistress Mine), and in 1949–50 in I Know My Love, Berhman's adaptation of Auprès de ma blonde by Marcel Achard; these productions ran for 482 and 247 performances respectively. The Lunts toured the latter throughout the US. They returned to England in 1952 for their third and final Coward premiere, Quadrille, a romantic comedy set in the 1870s. After a West End run of 329 performances they took the play to Broadway in 1954, where it ran for 159 performances; it could have profitably run for longer, but the Lunts chose to close in March 1955.

Fontanne and Lunt's last Broadway premiere was in Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse's "melodramatic comedy" The Great Sebastians in 1956. After a six-month run in New York they toured the piece throughout the US. Their final production was in 1957: The Visit, Maurice Valency's adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame, in which a rich old woman exacts a terrible revenge on the man who betrayed her fifty years earlier. They toured the play in Britain in 1957–58, initially under the title Time and Again, in a production directed by Peter Brook. In May 1958 they opened the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York with the same play (by then renamed The Visit) and toured it in the US. In June 1960, in Brook's production, they opened the new Royalty Theatre, London in June 1960, running until 19 October. After a final week playing the piece at the Golders Green Hippodrome in November they retired from the stage.

Lunt died on 3 August 1977. Fontanne died at Genesee Depot on 30 July 1983, aged 95, from pneumonia, and was interred next to her husband at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Cinema and broadcasting
Fontanne, like her husband, disliked acting for the camera and she made only four films. She  appeared in the silent films Second Youth (1924) and The Man Who Found Himself (1925). For The Guardsman (1931) she and Lunt were both nominated for Academy Awards. She and Lunt were in Stage Door Canteen (1943) in which they had cameos as themselves. The two starred in four television productions in the 1950s and 1960s with both Lunt and Fontanne winning Emmy Awards in 1965 for The Magnificent Yankee. She narrated a 1960 television production of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin and received a second Emmy nomination for playing Grand Duchess Marie in the Hallmark Hall of Fame telecast of Anastasia in 1967, two of the few productions in which she appeared without her husband. The Lunts also starred in several radio dramas in the 1940s, notably on the Theatre Guild programme. Many of these broadcasts still survive.

Honours
In September 1964 Lunt and Fontanne were presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson at a White House ceremony. Like Lunt, Fontanne was a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. She received a Kennedy Center Honor for the Performing Arts in 1980. She received no official British honour, which was a matter of mild regret as she would have liked to be Dame Lynn Fontanne: "They thought I was American. But I was always British. I would have cherished the award". When she was 90 she received a standing ovation when she attended a performance of Hello, Dolly! at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne Papers  at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

Ten Chimneys

1887 births
1983 deaths
Actresses from London
Deaths from pneumonia in Wisconsin
English silent film actresses
English film actresses
English stage actresses
English television actresses
English radio actresses
British emigrants to the United States
British expatriate actresses in the United States
Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners
Kennedy Center honorees
People from Woodford, London
20th-century English actresses
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Special Tony Award recipients

Lynn Fontanne


Antropophagus (also known as Anthropophagus: The Beast, The Savage Island, and The Grim Reaper) is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Joe D'Amato and co-written by D'Amato and George Eastman, who stars as a cannibal. The film also features Tisa Farrow, Zora Kerova, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, Margaret Mazzantini and Mark Bodin.

Antropophagus has been described as having "a noted place in the annals of the escalation of gore". The film has gained cult status - if only "amongst fringe horror video audiences". It has been argued that the reason for its cult status lies in its theme of cannibalism, hence "consumption of humans", which lends itself to cult reception. The scene in which the titular man eater strangles a pregnant woman, tears out the fetus from her womb and bites into it, made it become one of the infamous "video nasties" that were prosecuted in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s, and the "controversy greatly aided its cult reputation" as well.

Plot
A pair of Germans visiting a remote Greek island go to the beach and are slaughtered by someone who emerges from the ocean. Five travelers are preparing to tour the islands and are joined by Julie, who asks for a ride to an island some of her friends live on. The only one who objects to this detour to the island (which Julie explains has only a few permanent residents and only sees tourists a few months out of the year) is Carol, whose tarot cards, the Tarocco Piemontese, convince her something bad will happen if they go. The group sails to the island anyway. While disembarking, the pregnant Maggie hurts her ankle, so she stays behind on the boat with its owner. A man attacks the ship, ripping the sailor's head off and abducting Maggie.

The others explore the island's town, discovering it in disarray, and abandoned except for an elusive woman in black, who writes "Go Away" on a dusty window. A rotting corpse that appears to have been cannibalized is uncovered in a house, prompting everyone to rush back to the boat, which is adrift. With no other options, the group goes to the house owned by Julie's friends, where they find the family's blind daughter, Henriette. After wounding Daniel in a panic, Henriette is calmed down and rants about there being a madman who smells of blood prowling the island.

To stop Daniel's wound from becoming infected, Andy and Arnold go into the town to search for antibiotics. Carol walks in on Daniel flirting with Julie and goes into hysterics, running off into the night. Julie goes after Carol but loses her and meets up with Andy and Arnold. The disfigured killer breaks into the house and rips Daniel's throat out but leaves Henriette alone and flees as the others return. Everyone treks through the island in the morning and finds a mansion belonging to Klaus Wortman. Julie mentions that she read that Klaus, his wife, and their child are assumed dead, having been shipwrecked, a tragedy which caused Klaus' sister Ruth to become unhinged. Ruth (the woman in black from earlier) watches the group enter the building, comforts the sleeping Carol, and hangs herself.

After waking Carol, Andy and Arnold look out a window and see that the boat has drifted close to shore. The two men go to secure the vessel, and Julie finds a partially destroyed journal among the objects in the mansion, and it reveals that the killer is Klaus and that the bodies of all of Klaus' victims are in a hidden room. Andy and Arnold split up, and the latter reaches an abandoned church, where he finds Maggie and is confronted by Klaus. Klaus has a flashback that reveals he and his family were stranded in a raft after being shipwrecked and that Klaus accidentally stabbed his wife while trying to convince her that they should eat the body of their dead son to survive. Klaus then ate his wife and son's corpses, driving him insane. Klaus regains his composure, stabs Arnold, then strangles Maggie to death. As Arnold slowly dies, he watches in horror as Klaus rips out and eats Maggie's unborn child.

Julie uncovers the room where Klaus' victims are at the mansion and skims another diary she finds in it. Carol stumbles into the chamber and drops dead from a slit throat. Klaus then attacks Julie, who locks herself and Henriette in the attic after a short chase. Klaus breaks through the ceiling and kills Henriette, and is then knocked off the roof by Julie and falls into a well. When Julie peers down the well, Klaus attacks her, but she is saved when Andy appears and stabs Klaus in the stomach with a pickaxe, causing the cannibal's intestines to spill out. As a last dying act, Klaus gnaws on his own innards, staring at Andy, while Julie looks at Klaus in horror; Klaus then falls over and dies. The film ends with Andy and Julie standing over Klaus' body, staring at each other in shock.

Cast

 Tisa Farrow as Julie
 Saverio Vallone as Andy
 Serena Grandi as Maggie
 Margaret Mazzantini as Henriette
 Mark Bodin as Daniel
 Bob Larson as Arnold
 Rubina Rey as Ruth Wortman
 Simone Baker as First Victim
 Mark Logan as Second Victim
 George Eastman as Klaus Wortmann
 Zora Kerova as Carol

Production

Pre-production
Antropophagus was produced in collaboration between Produzioni Cinematografiche Massaccesi International (PCM International), which had recently been founded by Joe D'Amato to distribute his film Sesso nero, and Filmirage, founded by both Donatella Donati and D'Amato. Additional funding was supplied by Eureka International, a company founded by Edward Sarlui which specialized in licensing films abroad.

In an interview, D'Amato stated that it was the first film his company Filmirage had produced.

Filming
Shooting for Antropophagus lasted from 31 March 1980 to May 1980. D'Amato said it was filmed in Italian, unlike its sequel Rosso Sangue, which was filmed in English.

Although the film is set on a Greek island, only part of the production crew went to Greece to film around the Acropolis of Athens. The rest of the film was shot in Italy. Sperlonga was used for the scenes in the white village, the catacombs were those of Santa Savinilla close to the lake of Nepi, and the man-eater's villa was the "Conservatorio di Santa Eufemia" in Rome. Many interior shots were made in the small villa in Sacrofano owned by Donatella Donati's father, Ermanno Donati; it had already been used as set for some Black Emanuelle films. The Greek island that the barque approaches in the film is in reality Italian Ponza.

Ursula-Helen Kassaveti observed in the film an "irrational transformation and geographical restructuring of Athens. The experienced editor Ornella Micheli links places of the city which in no other case could be tied together".

Like in Sesso nero, the credit for cinematography went to Enrico Biribicchi, whereas D'Amato only took credit as cameraman. Both D'Amato and Biribicchi later claimed to have done the cinematography. Biribicchi stated that he had started together with D'Amato at the age of 28 and therefore had been very proud when D'Amato asked him to act as cinematographer, not only as cameraman. Biribicchi also said that he was very satisfied with his own work on the film, in particular the scenes in the catacombs and the ones on the barque they had rented for the occasion. He further stated that after Antropophagus, D'Amato asked him to act as cinematographer on some red light films as well, for which he had to use a pseudonym for reasons of censorship. D'Amato, on the other hand, claimed that he had done the cinematography himself and that Biribicchi's name was only put in the credits because the union had placed a limit on the number of jobs a single person was allowed to do for a film.

In an interview, D'Amato stated that Antropophagus had been "perhaps the lowest costing movie of my film career (made on 16 mm film and then blown up to 35 mm)."
He said "I had to shorten the scene where Montefiori devours Serena Grandi's fetus, which, in actual fact, was a skinned rabbit covered in blood.".

Score
The electronic music for the film was performed by Marcello Giombini on two ARP 2600 synthesizers. The original recordings of this music are considered to be lost. The version of the film titled The Grim Reaper which was released in the United States uses music from Kingdom of the Spiders instead of Giombini's score.

Some of Giombini's music was newly performed and recorded by Deak Fearance and Roger Conrad and released by the Austrian label Cineploit.

Release
Antropophagus was released in Italy on 9 August 1980. It was released in the United States on 9 October 1981, under the title "The Savage Island".

On home video, an English language cut of the film intended for UK audiences, titled The Grim Reaper, was distributed on VHS and DVD by Film Ventures International (FVI). It is heavily edited and discards most of the gore scenes and presents a shorter and different film, one that is 87 minutes long instead of 92. This release also did not include special features.

In 2005, Shriek Show released a two-disc special edition DVD of the film, released as Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper. Despite retaining the "Grim Reaper" title on the case, this is the original Italian uncut version of the film (albeit without the Italian language opening and closing credits), featuring an English and Italian audio tracks, subtitles, photo gallery, trailers, a feature length Joe D'Amato documentary called "Totally Uncut Two", the film's alternate U.S. theatrical opening and a Q&A with actors Zora Kerova and George Eastman.

In 2018, along with its "spiritual sequel", Absurd, Severin released a Blu-ray of Antropophagus that was an improvement on prior releases. It features a 1080p presentation of the film sourced from a 2K scan of the original 16mm camera negative, color correction, uncompressed English and Italian audio tracks and newly translated English subtitles. For special features, the release contained a never-before-seen deleted scene, "The Eastman Chronicles": a 2017 interview with George Eastman, "Cannibal Frenzy": an interview with special effects artist Pietro Tenoglio, interviews with actors Zora Kerova, Saverio Vallone and editor Bruno Micheli, a featurette with film historian Alessio di Rocco, Italian opening and closing credits and theatrical trailers.

Critical reception

According to D'Amato, Antropophagus "had a tremendous, though totally unexpected, success both with the critics and the public" abroad.

From retrospective reviews, the book Spaghetti Nightmares called the film "professionally and cleverly made" and stated that it "immediately became the symbol for Italian gore". AllMovie gave the film two out of five stars, describing it as a "Z-grade Italian 'gorror' movie", but also as a "yummy bit of fun". DVD Verdict wrote that "Anthropophagus may be the most notable horror effort mounted by Euro-skin and sin maestro Joe D'Amato, but that doesn't mean that it's particularly a good film."

See also

Horror (genre)
Cannibalism
Cult status

References

External links

1980 films
1980 horror films
1980 independent films
1980s exploitation films
1980s Italian films
1980s Italian-language films
1980s serial killer films
Cannibal-boom films
Films about cannibalism
Films directed by Joe D'Amato
Films scored by Marcello Giombini
Films set in abandoned houses
Films set in Athens
Films set in Greece
Films set in the Mediterranean Sea
Films set on islands
Films shot in Athens
Films shot in Greece
Films shot in Italy
Films shot in Lazio
Films shot in Rome
Italian horror films
Italian independent films
Italian sequel films
Italian serial killer films
Italian splatter films
Tarot in fiction
Video nasties

Antropophagus


Anthony Olufunsho Williams (9 May 1948 – 27 July 2006) was an influential Nigerian politician from Lagos State and former Commissioner under Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola's Military Administration in Lagos.

Early life
Funsho Williams attended the St. Paul's Catholic school at Ebute Metta and later St Gregory's College, Lagos. In 1968, he studied at the University of Lagos, attaining a degree in civil engineering. He then went on to attend the New Jersey Institute of Technology for his Master's degree.

Civil service career

In 1974, Williams returned to Nigeria and joined the Lagos State civil service. He spent the next 17 years working on construction projects in Lagos State. Approximately 70% of the roads and bridges were built under his stewardship. Williams was a Permanent Secretary by the time he left the civil service in 1991.

He went into business, but he shortly returned to public service, as a Lagos state Commissioner under Colonel Olagunsoye Oyinlola's  Military Administratorship.

Political career

In the mid-1990s, Williams decided to enter into politics in order that he could formulate policy, rather than just carry it out. He first joined the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), but after the suspicious death of its leader, General Sani Abacha he moved to the Alliance for Democracy (AD).

After a short time, Williams again switched parties, this time to the People's Democratic Party (PDP).They had won the 2003 elections under the leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Williams had stood twice before in the Lagos State Governorship (Gubernatorial) election. At the time of his death he was hoping to be nominated as the PDP Gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State. He had vowed to wrest control of the wealthy state from the Alliance for Democracy Party.

Positions

Williams held directorships in several companies:
Julius Berger Nigeria Plc
Cappa and D'Alberto Plc
Ajaokuta Steel Company
Chairman of the board of directors of the National Maritime Authority

Murder

On July 27, 2006, Funsho Williams was found bound, strangled, and stabbed at his home in Dolphin Estate, Ikoyi, an exclusive and wealthy neighborhood in Lagos.

On July 28, 2006, two people were arrested in connection with his death. One was his campaign manager, and the other was a senator and former Works Minister Kingsley Adeseye Ogunlewe. Ogunlewe was also hoping to be the PDP Gubernatorial candidate..

Williams was laid to rest at the Victoria Court Cemetery, Lagos. He was survived by his wife, Hilda, and four children.

Memorial
On February 26, 2007, approximately seven months after the murder incident, the then Lagos State governor, Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu in honor of the late iconic character, renamed the longest and the popular Western Avenue highway in Lagos to Funsho William Avenue. Yet, it is still known to most Lagosians as Western Avenue highway.

References

External links
Official website of the Lagos State Government.

1948 births
Yoruba politicians
Politicians from Lagos
University of Lagos alumni
Nigerian civil engineers
Lagos State civil servants
New Jersey Institute of Technology alumni
United Nigeria Congress Party politicians
Alliance for Democracy (Nigeria) politicians
Peoples Democratic Party (Nigeria) politicians
People murdered in Lagos
Assassinated Nigerian politicians
2006 deaths
St Gregory's College, Lagos alumni
Burials at Victoria Court Cemetery
Yoruba engineers
Commissioners of ministries of Lagos State
2006 murders in Nigeria
Nigerian corporate directors
Yoruba businesspeople
Assassinated businesspeople
Businesspeople from Lagos
2000s assassinated politicians in Africa

Funsho Williams


Pupil are a Filipino rock band consisting of singer and rhythm guitarist Ely Buendia, lead guitarist Jerome Velasco, bassist Dok Sergio and drummer Wendell Garcia.

History

Early years and formation (2004–2005)
Pupil was formed when former Teeth bassist Dok Sergio joined The Mongols' line-up in late 2004. The Mongols' bassist Yan "Yanni" Yuzon moved to third guitar duties while Sergio handled bass. The transitional five-man line-up was witnessed in The Mongols' last single and music video entitled "Heroine". In May 2005, guitarist Jerome Velasco, a.k.a. J. Astro, left to pursue a career in producing, recording and studio engineering. The group's last gig under the name "The Mongols" was on July 7, 2005.

Velasco's departure shook things up for the group as they were trapped into the decision of whether to stay as a band or not. As they decided to continue and as they progressed, the band noticed that they were producing a different sound without Velasco on the lead guitar and decided to form a "new" band. "We got a better bass player and dumber guitarist," jokes guitarist Yan Yuzon, who left bass playing duties to Dok Sergio to take Velasco's place. Upon the determination of forming a "new" band, the group's first move was to change their name.

Frontman Ely Buendia chanced upon the name "Pupil" while browsing a medical book. The band wanted a classic name for a rock band. Before using Pupil, they tried several other names, such as Villain, Lords of Nasdaq, The Gets, Trochlean, Traitors, and Tyrel Corp. They chose the name Pupil because Buendia liked the fact that it is the part of the eye where light enters. Guitarist Yan Yuzon likes its double meaning, as well as the "eternal learning" connotations of the name. Pupil's launch gig was on July 13, 2005, at the UP Bahay ng Alumni. Pupil also joined Livestock Productions. It was an event group with members such as Sponge Cola, Kiko Machine, Menaya, Tawo, Sleepyheads, and Elytistas.

Resurgence
Pupil had a hard time searching for a record label. They submitted their demo to several labels, but no one was more enthusiastic about the new material than the newly merged Sony BMG. Incidentally, Ely left BMG Pilipinas in 2002 in the wake of his falling out with the Eraserheads. However, BMG accepted Buendia again like a "prodigal son" as he himself describes it in their debut album's insert.

The band admits that there is a distinct challenge for them, coming out of their past bands (Eraserheads and The Teeth). The challenge is particularly pronounced on frontman, Ely Buendia, since older fans tend to compare him and his new band with the huge popularity of The Eraserheads before. In an interview by Y. Losorata he says, "I just want my fans and hopefully, my fans to be, to appreciate my music. I'm lucky to still have my career in music as a job and as part of Pupil wala akong (I don't have) delusions to become as big as my previous band was." In fact, the band itself describes their music as actually "one foot in the past, one foot in the present and both eyes dead set at the future." According to Buendia, it's not being there but getting there that's exciting for him, no matter how many times he tries to get there. He later added in a different interview, "Let's just say that the Eraserheads is about escaping reality and Pupil is about accepting reality."

Reception and success
Local radio stations' initial reception of Pupil's music, though, was relatively limited (with the exception of NU 107) due to the band's genre and musical style. While the band's carrier single, "Nasaan Ka?" was played often and achieved quite a popularity among listeners, other singles released from their album encountered more hurdles. The song "Nasaan Ka?" was used as main theme and "story" (based on lyrics) for the first episode of the second season of Your Song. Frontman Ely Buendia says, "Some pop radio stations are still making up their minds on 'Dianetic' which I personally don't understand since it's really just one of those straightforward love songs medyo on the noisy side nga lang (just a little bit on the noisy side)." "Then again, minsan talaga hindi mo maintindihan ang ibang radio stations (sometimes you cannot understand some radio stations). It's not as if they don't play songs by foreign artists like Nirvana with music heavier on distorted electric guitar than ours. Pero okay lang (But that's okay), that's the reality of things." He speculates that xenocentrism has something to do about the double standard these radio stations go by. Consequently, they were forced to release an acoustic version of their second single, "Dianetic". The acoustic version of "Nasaan Ka?" was then used as a Bonus Track for Sony BMG's CD Sampler 2006 Volume 3.

However, the band had relatively early success as evidenced by advertising projects that they were involved with and local awards that they have won. They were featured as the Rising Star for the month of May 2006 in MTV Philippines. In the 19th Awit Awards held in Casino Filipino, they won the Award for Best Performance By A New Group Recording Artist/s category. They received another award for their first single, "Nasaan Ka?" at the MTV Pilipinas VMA 2006, winning the Best Rock Video Award. Then, Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chose them as their promotional models for their product along with Barbie Almalbis, another local artist. They also received endorsement deals from Levi's, Puma, Ray-Ban and Pony footwear.

On November 26, 2006, Pupil won the SOP Music Awards 2006 Breakthrough Recording Artist of The Year Award. "We don't think Pupil should've qualified as 'breakthrough artist' because this actually is our second album after we changed our name from The Mongols", says Ely.

The band also participated in the 2006 MTV Staying Alive Music Summit for HIV/AIDS. Pupil's fourth single, "Gamu-Gamo", quickly climbed NU 107's Stairway to Seven's number one spot within the first week of 2007. The band also performed a special 8-minute medley (which included a cover of the Eraserheads hit, "Pare Ko") at the 2nd MYX Music Awards which was held on March 15, 2007, at the AFP Theater, Camp Aguinaldo.

The arrival and departure of Wendell Garcia and new albums (2007–present)
On July 25, 2007, Yan Yuzon announced in Pupil's mailing list that Bogs Jugo, the band's drummer, left the band to pursue other things for his career. Wendell Garcia, formerly of Barbie's Cradle, replaced Jugo. Garcia played his first gig as the new drummer on July 26, 2007, at the Hard Rock Cafe, Makati. The gig also featured new songs from Pupil's second album. The Mongols' Jerome Velasco played synths with the band. He is also the band's producer for their second album.

Since the release of the band's second album (Wild Life), the band has enjoyed greater mainstream success and better album sales. The band has also toured and performed in other countries such as Singapore, Qatar, Dubai, Canada and United States. Their live performance of "Disconnection Notice" for MTV Philippines was featured in Best of MTV Live 2008. The same year, the band won 7 different awards which include a Promax/BDA and NU107 Artist of The Year.

Pupil was personally chosen by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor as front act in the Manila part of the "Nine Inch Nails: Wave Goodbye" tour, which was held at the Araneta Coliseum on August 5, 2009. The band Nine Inch Nails toured the globe for one last time before going on hiatus indefinitely, as 2009 marked the 20th anniversary of their first release.

This was followed by a film soundtrack, when the band composed and recorded "Ang Panday" for Ang Panday (2009 film). The band released their first book, entitled "Against The Light: A Pupil Tour Diary", it details their recent Summer Tour in the Philippines. It was launched on November 4, 2009, at the Bonifacio High Street. Aside from the guest band Turbo Goth, Lally Buendia (Ely's sister) also guested and performed three songs from her band, Domino. Dok Sergio played bass, Lally on vocals, Ely played keyboard/synths and Paolo Manuel on drums. They joined The Earth Day Concert at the SM Mall of Asia on April 16, 2010, and afterwards, opened for Tears for Fears with Sandwich on May 2, 2010, at the Araneta Coliseum. The band also performed with Amanda Ling as guest artist (formerly of Electrico) on keyboards during the Nine Inch Nails and Tears for Fears events. During the Tears for Fears event, Buendia fronted for Sandwich, with Raimund Marasigan on drums, and performed the classic Eraserheads song "Alapaap".

In 2009, the band announced they will release a compilation of various remixes of the song "Disconnection Notice". It is headed by prominent Filipino DJs, Jerome Velasco, Pat Tirano and Wendell Garcia. The band also contributed to Francis Magalona's posthumous album, In Love and War. After the release of "Limiters of the Infinity Pool" in 2011, it was followed by a United States tour, which included performances in Wilshire Ebell Theater, Ebell of Los Angeles and Slim's, San Francisco.

After Sony Music Philippines' sudden disbandment last March 2012, Pupil transferred to MCA Philippines.

Members

Dok Sergio
Born on February 27, 1976, Bassist Andrew Ryan Steve Ricafranca Sergio is the brother of Rivermaya's former bassist Japs Sergio. Dok and Japs are also members of Daydream Cycle, doing bass and rhythm respectively.

Dok Sergio wrote the lyrics of "Dulo ng Dila" on the spot during recording. It is also the band's first song to hit no. 1 in NU 107's Stairway to Seven chart. In addition, Dok wrote the lyrics of "Shooting Star" by The Teeth, which won the "Song of the Year" award at the NU 107 Rock Awards 2000.

He also runs a silkscreen printing business whose clients include some of the most prominent bands in the local Filipino rock scene today. Aside from The Teeth, one of Dok Sergio's former bands was Warehouse Club where he played guitars and lead vocals, his bandmates were from the members of the band The Youth (Robert Javier and Joseph Carrasgo) and Jun Dela Rosa. During his early days as a musician, he played for bands such as Purple Playground, God's Era and Prominence of Cathedrals.

Dok played bass for Imago and now for indie-band Prank Sinatra. He sometimes jams with Sandwich and played bass for them during the Myx Mo 2008. He uses a Squier Jazz Bass and Fender Japan Jazz Bass Guitar, and recently, a 6-string Fender Bass. Today, aside from having reunited with The Teeth, he also sometimes plays bass for Imago, where he also used to play bass with before.

Ely Buendia

Born on November 2, 1970, Eleandre Basiño Buendía is the band's frontman and guitarist.

Jerome Velasco
Velasco was a pioneer member of The Teeth, The Mongols and Daydream Cycle. He was known as "J. Astro the boy who fell on earth" while he was the lead guitarist of The Mongols. His other bands were Aspirin and Candyaudioline, and he plays ambient guitars and keyboards for The Slave Drum.

In the 2004 NU Rock Awards, Velasco won Guitarist of the Year award, for the Mongols' Buddha's Pest. Although he left The Mongols in 2005, he later returned as a collaborator, composer, producer and guest artist (during live performances) for the band. His latest works with Pupil include Beautiful Machines and Wild Life. Velasco later rejoined the band as guitarist.

Wendell Garcia
Born on May 27, 1976, Wendell Ray C. Garcia, formerly of Barbie's Cradle and Triaxis, is Pupil's drummer, who replaced Bogs Jugo in 2007. He was first featured in Pupil's second album. Garcia also played drums for Sponge Cola as sessionist and as drummer for 6cyclemind's Panorama album, he also co-produced the album with Buddy Zabala, Ebe Dancel, and Francis Magalona.

Garcia also composed the song "012" with Barbie Almalbis and Kakoi Legaspi for "Parade" album. He also plays drums for the Jazz group named "Balooze". When Francis M and Ely Buendia recorded the song "Superproxy 2k6" for Ultraelectromagneticjam Eraserheads tribute, Wendell was responsible for the drum parts and played drums during the recording phase for Francis M's band, Hardware Syndrome. Garcia was the drummer for Juan Dela Cruz Band during their reunion concert.

Wendell also sings while playing drums, his recent performance was a cover of Lauren Wood's "Fallen" from Pretty Woman OST. He also shared his drumming skills for Rico Blanco's Your Universe album and he also plays for Archipelago and sessioned for Nikki Gil during her Myx Live performance. Garcia started playing drums at the age of nine and has won multiple awards ever since.

Wendell Garcia is also a product of Malate Catholic School where singer Kuh Ledesma also attended and graduated.

Garcia left the band in 2016 and migrated to United States but later returned to the Philippines and re-joined the band in 2018.

Former members

Yan Yuzon

Born on March 7, 1978, lead guitarist Yan "Yanni" Yrastorza Yuzon is the older brother of Sponge Cola guitarist and frontman, Yael Yuzon. The Yuzons are of Filipino and Basque descent. He also taught theater direction at the Ateneo de Manila University. His famous works include a pop-culture adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's "Three Penny Opera", "Linya", "Santuario" and a few more.  Yan is also a band member of Archipelago which he's also a lead singer of his band.

Being a very busy man, Yan is also a writer for ABS-CBN's TV show "Goin' Bulilit". He also played the short role of Liam in ABS-CBN's "Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay". His acting performances also include the role of Romeo in the Metropolitan Theater Guild's production of Romeo and Juliet (which was used in Sponge Cola's "Gemini" music video), alongside Ina Feleo, daughter of Filipino actor, Johnny Delgado, with the role of Juliet. Yan has previously appeared in local renditions of other Shakespearean plays like "Merchant of Venice" and "Macbeth". He also starred in an indie film titled "Three Boys" for Cinemanila. The film is about a band which is composed of Marc Abaya (vocals and guitars), Ping Medina (bass) and Yan Yuzon (drums). It was directed by Ming Kai Leung and produced by Marie Jamora.

Yan also used to front for the indie neo-glam band called Cat Siamese. Yan uses a Gibson Robot Guitar, Carvin classic white guitar, Fender Stratocaster and Epiphone Les Paul. Yan Yuzon also launched his new band called Archipelago. Its members are Wendell Garcia on drums, Chad Rialp (of Sound and Liquid Jane) on bass, Pat Tirano (of Toi and Monkeyspank, co-produced Beautiful Machines and also co-produced Sponge Cola's Transit and self-titled third album with Yan Yuzon) on lead guitars and Yan Yuzon himself on frontman duties.

He was also featured in an instrumental compilation called "Mga Gitarista" (The Guitarists), wherein it features various instrumental songs from Filipino guitarists from different OPM bands such as Barbie Almalbis, Francis Reyes, Mong Alcaraz and Mike Elgar. His song "Mount Ordeals" was inspired by Final Fantasy Series.

Bogs Jugo

Born on February 17, 1979, Drummer Ricardo Nicholas Bañaga Jugo is also the synth and beat programmer for the dream pop/electronica group Daydream Cycle, where he also recorded, produced and mastered the band's first album. Bogs is into video games, he once worked as an online customer assistance representative for an international videogame console company.

Playing "Hypersober" live was a different set-up for the band. Yan played the drums. Dok gets to play the guitars. Ely did the bass, and of course, Bogs on vocals. Bogs also used "d lite" and "Boga Man" as a nickname during the early days of The Mongols. He was also a member of the band Water No-nos, with Japs Sergio, and has played with other bands as guitarist and drummer.

On July 25, 2007, Yan Yuzon announced in Pupil's mailing list that Bogs Jugo left the band to pursue other things for his career. However, Yuzon said that Jugo had already expressed his desire to quit his duties for both of his bands, Pupil and Daydream Cycle, as early as the summer of 2007. Bogs, a pioneer member of the group since The Mongols, ensured smooth transition for Pupil into its current new lineup. He was replaced by Wendell Garcia, formerly of Barbie's Cradle.

Contrary to speculations, he did not leave the music industry at all. Jugo is still a musician, but more within the indie and underground scene; perhaps to give way to his other activities and new career. After he left Pupil and DDC, he also sessioned with Nina's live band as drummer and also for Tawo band. Currently he is the drummer for Us-2 Evil-0, and he also played guitars for She Hates Ballet. Jugo recently joined Hit Productions as an Audio Engineer, a company that's also co-headed by Mike Villegas, formerly of Rizal Underground.

Other personnel

Patrick Tirano

Patrick Tirano worked with the band as co-producer of Beautiful Machines and he also mastered Wild Life album. Tirano is in charge of helping the band create unique sounds. According to pupil.ph, "aside from being the band's main sound forger, he also takes time and documents Pupil's life on video." He's also a member of Archipelago, TOI, Monkeyspank and Rugis.

Dr. Day Cabuhat
Dr. Day Cabuhat once managed The Eraserheads and now co-manages Pupil with Diane Ventura. She first wrote "Sumasabay" as a literary piece which was later translated by Dok Sergio into a song.

Diane Ventura

Aside from being a manager, she has co-written a number of the band's songs and has shared her singing voice as both lead and backing vocals.

Discography

Beautiful Machines

Beautiful Machines, Pupil's debut album, was released on November 10, 2005, under Sony BMG, the same music company that publishes The Eraserheads' music. The band itself describes their music as "dark, loud, and romantic." Yan Yuzon describes their genre as "everyrock" meaning an amorphous mass of rock and roll, classic and stadium rock, punk, new wave, glam rock, goth rock, heavy metal, grunge, and everything in between. It is very guitar-driven, stripped down, and the album has a very distinct sound, considering that it is the band's debut album. The album was recorded digitally at Wombworks in Marikina, the studio founded by Louie Talan of Razorback. "We didn't use amps at all," Buendia says. The album was mastered at Tweak Merville by Zach Lucero, drummer of the band, Imago.

Hoodwinked Soundtrack
One of the band's songs entitled "Blow Your House Down" was featured in a Hollywood CGI animated film Hoodwinked, from The Weinstein Company. An instrumental version of the song was played in the background of the Granny Xtreme skiing scene. The film's soundtrack was released under Rykodisc. Most animations and visuals of Hoodwinked were created and processed at Digital Eye Candy, Makati. One of the head animators behind the Hoodwinked team, Gorio Vicuna, is the one who designed and directed the album cover and sleeve layout of "Beautiful Machines" album. A line in the lyrics of the song says "no one told you I was abroad", which in turn, the song was actually used in an international movie.

Rockoustic Mania

Pupil and Barbie Almalbis were chosen by Juicy Fruit as their advertising models to reach out to the younger generation in their Rockoustic Mania advertising events. The promotion included Juicy Fruit's Tugtog Mo! band competition, and Style mo! competition by Human and Pony footwear. The collaboration between the two artists offers a fusion of Rock and Acoustic. The AVCD features two songs, the music videos and some behind the scenes look at the artists' works. It was released on August 24, 2006, under Sony BMG and Warner Music.

The Juicy Fruit Rockoustic Mania Final Fusion event was held on November 17, at the Tanghalang Francisco Balagtas (Folk Arts Theater), Cultural Center of the Philippines. The show featured performances from Barbie Almalbis and Pupil, guest bands Sugarfree and Up Dharma Down, and of course, from the three finalists, WTC 11, Medea, and 7th Skool. The band 7th Skool won the Tugtog Mo! Band Competition.

Audio:
1. Nakakabaliw (E. Buendia, D. Ventura)
2. Must Have (E. Buendia, B. Almalbis, D. Sergio)

Video:
1. Nakakabaliw (Directed by RA Rivera)
2. Must Have (Directed by Pancho Esguerra)
3. MYX News Nakakabaliw by Barbie and Pupil (Behind the scenes)

During the Rockoustic Mania Press Launch at Phi Bar Metrowalk held on June 14, 2006, Barbie Almalbis and Pupil played their songs separately as they showed the crowd their own music styles and genre. They also jammed together and as a bonus, Barbie sang the Eraserheads classic "Overdrive" and on the other hand, "Alapaap" was performed by Pupil.

Animax
Pupil also made a new theme song for Animax Asia, entitled "Set Me Apart". The song had its exclusive Philippine-radio launch by NU107. The song also gained no. 1 spot in NU 107's Stairway to Seven chart within just two weeks after the radio launch and the band was a prominent guest in Mad Mad Fun.

Pupil had been part of Animax Fashion-Ability event, where they made special appearance at the event, played their music, and talked about their fashion style. The band's first onstage public appearance after Ely's recovery was also with Animax. It was on Saturday, February 10, 2007, when the band performed at The Music Hall in SM Mall of Asia, in an Animax speed-dating and welcome celebration for Valentine's Day event called "Love Is In The Air". The band was also featured (along with Sponge Cola and Urbandub) in a show called MUSIC STATION, which also airs on Animax.

The song had its official local launch Tuesday, May 22, 2007, in an exclusive Animax Party at the Hard Rock Cafe Makati, wherein 50 pairs of tickets were given away in a contest. The band had their first overseas gig on May 27 at the Bar None bar in Marriott Hotel, Orchard Road, Singapore. The Singaporean-act The Great Spy Experiment opened for that night's "Bar None Rock Affair" gig. An interview with the band was aired on Friday, June 1, 2007, and Pupil was interviewed on Animax's "Music Talk" by Francis "Brew" Reyes of The Dawn. The Asia-wide launching of the music video of "Set Me Apart" was aired on June 8, 2007, at exactly 7pm on Animax. The music video features the band as "live" anime-styled characters, like cosplayers.

The production of the music video is a first of its kind for a Filipino band, most scenes and characters were done using traditional hand-drawn 2D animation subsequently softly blended with 3D and CGI. One of the famous anime films that used this technique is Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, which is also a personal favourite of Ely (as evident with The Mongols' "Case Logic" lyrics and interviews). It was filmed in the Philippines, processed in Malaysia by Hue Visualab, and launched in Animax's ASEAN headquarters in Singapore.

The song won a Promax/BDA award in 2008, making Pupil the first Filipino band to win such award.

Wild Life

Wild Life, their second album under Sony BMG, features 12 tracks. It featured photography work by Francis Magalona. All 11 new tracks features Wendell Garcia as the band's new drummer, while the 12th track, "Set Me Apart", featured Bogs Jugo as the drummer, as his last song with Pupil. The album was recorded in Soundsrite studio in Kalayaan Ave., Makati City. Where its owned and operated by Boyet Aquino, the original drummer of Francis Magalona's band called Hardware Syndrome where Wendell Garcia used to play drums with. The special edition was released on July 10, 2009.

Limiters of the Infinity Pool

In an interview with the Philippine Star Buendia also stated "This time, we were given credit and now we can probably concentrate on making music that matters to us. We just wanna make, if possible, a better album, better than the two — yun yung target ko (that's my target)." The band's third album contains 12 tracks and had the working title "No. 3" as revealed by Buendia.

Amanda Ling and Francis "Brew" Reyes are also part of the album. It is co-produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Pat Tirano at Wombworks, the band describes their new album "The sound is bigger, more experimental than the first two albums. There's a live string section", with influences from Wall of Sound, Michael Jackson and many others. The third album is officially called "Limiters of the Infinity Pool", released on January 11, 2011, at Robot Bar, Makati. The album features the songs "Let Her Rip", "Distortion", "TNT", "20-20", "Pikit Bukas", "Pusakal", "Pampalakas", "One Two", "Obese", "Deft Mechanic", "Morning Gift" and "The Low End". According to Buendia, aside from being downloadable on iTunes and Amazon.com, the band will also be releasing a Vinyl version of the album.

Zilch

The band confirmed to a group of journalists that their next studio album is set for a January 2015 release. The album's first single, Out of Control, is released on early August 2014.

Studio albums
Beautiful Machines – 2005
Wildlife – 2007
Limiters Of The Infinity Pool – 2011
Zilch – 2015

Awards and nominations

References

External links
Pupil Yahoo! Groups
Pupil PinoyBanda Profile
LivELY: Coming Together for Ely Buendia

Filipino rock music groups
MCA Music Inc. (Philippines) artists
Musical groups from Manila
Musical groups established in 2005

Pupil (band)