The Third Fleet was a group of 11 ships that sailed to Australia in 1791. It was part of the British colonisation of Australia. The ships left Great Britain in February, March and April 1791, and sailed for the penal colony in Sydney. They carried more than 2,000 convicts aboard. The other passengers included soldiers, politicians and nobles sent to hold important positions in the colony.

18th century in Australia
Navy
1791

Third Fleet (Australia)


Ian Crawford Kelly (born 1953) is an American retired Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador (ret.) currently serving as the Ambassador in Residence at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is an American former statesman and senior foreign service officer who last served as the United States Ambassador to Georgia, from 2015 to 2018. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2010 to 2013. Prior to his ambassadorship, Kelly held a variety of high-level roles at the U.S. State Department, including serving as the department spokesman under Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Career

Before beginning his career at the State Department, Kelly taught Russian at Columbia University, where he also received his doctorate in Slavic Languages and Literatures in 1986. He also holds a B.A. from St. Olaf College and an M.A. from Northwestern University. After joining the Foreign Service, he served in a variety of positions, including the Director of the Information Center in Belgrade, Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992, and Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Leningrad and Moscow, U.S.S.R. from 1987 to 1990. In these capacities, Kelly was involved in setting up embassies across the former Soviet Republics, a task that took him to all 15 newly independent states. He has studied Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center of the State Department.

In 1994, Kelly was appointed Director of Democratic Initiatives to the Newly Independent States (NIS) at the State Department where he coordinated the activities of nearly a dozen federal agencies involved in democracy building in the former Soviet Union, and oversaw an annual budget of around $80 million. He later served as Press Attaché at the American Embassy in Ankara (1997-2000), Press Attaché at Embassy Rome (2000-2004), and Public Affairs Advisor at the U.S. Mission to NATO (2004-2007).

In August 2007, Kelly was appointed Director of the Office of Russian Affairs in Washington D.C., where he was responsible for managing the development and implementation of U.S. policy towards Russia. In May 2009, he was appointed as a senior spokesperson for the State Department in Washington.

Ambassadorships

On November 30, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Kelly to be U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the rank of Ambassador. His nomination was presented to the Senate by U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission), who praised Kelly's deep experience serving throughout the former Soviet Union, and emphasized the critical role of the OSCE in the current geopolitical climate. Kelly was confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2010, by a voice vote with bipartisan support.

Kelly's tenure as Ambassador coincided with several major geopolitical events for OSCE countries, including pro-democracy protests in Russia, a controversial constitutional amendment in Kazakhstan extending the tenure of President Nursultan Nazarbayev through 2020, and ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. In 2012–2013, Kelly was the U.S. Co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the diplomatic mechanism set up to resolve the conflict in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Kelly was replaced by Daniel Baer on September 10, 2013.

President Obama nominated Kelly to succeed Richard Norland as the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia on March 12, 2015. He was confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2015, and sworn in on September 11, 2015. He retired both as ambassador and from the foreign service in March, 2018.

Academic career
After retirement from diplomatic service, Ambassador Kelly began teaching in the Departments of International Studies and Slavic Literatures at Northwestern University in April 2018.

References

External links

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1953 births
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
Living people
Northwestern University alumni
St. Olaf College alumni
United States Department of State officials
Ambassadors of the United States to Georgia (country)
United States Department of State spokespeople
United States Foreign Service personnel

Ian C. Kelly


Giovanni Zantedeschi (3 May 1773, Molina, – 16 May 1846, Bovegno) was an Italian physician and an important Italian botanist.

He studied in Verona and later in Padua, where he graduated with honors, in medicine and surgery. He completed his training in  Verona, and practiced his profession for some time in  Tremosine (Province of Brescia) and subsequently in Bovegno, until his death in 1846.

Being passionate about botany, he published ten works on the flora of the province of Brescia.  This was a legacy of his friendship with Professor Ciro Pollini (1782–1833), a Veronese botanist and author of the authoritative work Flora Veronensis ("Flora of Verona"). He also maintained an eager scientific correspondence with the German botanist Kurt Sprengel (1766 - 1833) who named the plant Zantedeschia in tribute to him.

Four plant varieties were discovered and described by Zantedeschi for the first time.

Molina, his birthplace, has dedicated the botanical museum, Museo Botanico della Lessinia di Molina, to him. It holds over 300 species of flora from the region which include many exemplary orchids.

References

External links
Museo Botanico della Lessinia di Molina dedicated to Giovanni Zantedeschi

19th-century Italian botanists
1773 births
1846 deaths

Giovanni Zantedeschi


The Oratory of Gesù Pellegrino, also called the Oratorio dei Pretoni, is a Roman Catholic prayer hall or small church found on the corner of Via San Gallo and via degli Arazzieri in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.

History

Formerly the church of San Salvatore, it belonged to the confraternity of that name, until in 1313 the bishop Antonio d'Orso instituted a hospice for pilgrim priests. The church was later dedicated to St James, and under the sainted Archbishop Antoninus, the confraternity set up a hospice for elderly priests.

In 1585 to 1588, commissioned by Alessandro de' Medici, restructuring was directed by Giovanni Antonio Dosio. In the interior are a fresco cycle and  three altarpieces with episodes from The Life of Christ (1590) by the mannerist painter Giovanni Balducci. On the counterfacade is a recently restored organ. In the nave close to the entrance is the tomb of a famous parish priest, Arlotto Mainardi (1396–1484).

Gallery of Frescoes by Giovanni Balducci

Sources
 Churches of Florence entry

External links

 Visit the Places of Faith in Tuscany: Search: Oratory of Gesu Pellegrino

Roman Catholic churches in Florence
16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy
Renaissance architecture in Florence

Oratory of Gesù Pellegrino


Ann Weldy (born September 15, 1932), better known by her pen name Ann Bannon, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.

Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production. They are taught in women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian".

Early life
Ann Bannon was born Ann Weldy in Joliet, Illinois, in 1932. She was the only child of her mother's first marriage. Her mother married again and had a son with her second husband. Her mother married a third time and had four more sons.

Bannon grew up in nearby Hinsdale with her mother and stepfather, and had the responsibility of taking care of four siblings due to the family's financial problems. She took comfort in a vibrant imaginary life during this time and found solace in writing. Growing up, she was surrounded by music, particularly jazz, as her family hosted small recitals for friends and neighbors. One became a character in her books: a perennial bachelor named Jack who slung jokes and witticisms at the audiences.

At the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign she belonged to Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority where she befriended a beautiful older sorority sister, "the prettiest I had ever seen", quite popular with men and with women. Bannon witnessed a younger sorority sister's unabashed infatuation with the older sister. She recalls it was an awkward situation, even though the older sorority sister was "unfailingly gracious" to the younger one. In recognizing the younger woman's attractions, she began to suspect her own sexuality. She said, "I saw a lot of it happening and I didn't know what to make of it. I don't even know how to put it—I was absolutely consumed with it, it was an extraordinary thing." Another sorority sister was physically remarkable, very tall—almost , with a husky voice and boyish nickname, that Bannon imagined was a blend of Johnny Weissmuller and Ingrid Bergman. She recalled entering the communal restroom and seeing the sister, "both of us in underwear, and experienc(ing) a sort of electric shock", and trying not to stare at her. In 1954, she graduated with a degree in French and soon married an engineer thirteen years older whose job made them relocate frequently.

Bannon was 22 years old when she began writing her first pulp novel. She was influenced by the only lesbian novels she had read, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall from 1928 and Vin Packer's Spring Fire from 1952, albeit in two different ways: she was unable to relate to the dismal tones in Hall's novel, but as a sorority girl was more familiar with the plot and circumstances of Spring Fire. Bannon said, "Both books completely obsessed me for the better part of two years." Although recently married and on her way to having two children, she found the books struck a chord in her life and recognized emotions in herself that compelled her to write about them. In the beginning of her marriage she was left alone quite a lot and said, "I was kind of desperate to get some of the things that had been consuming me for a long time down on paper." In 1956, after having sent her first manuscript to Marijane Meaker (Packer's real name), Meaker invited her to New York to discuss the manuscript with Meaker's editor at Gold Medal Books; Bannon said her husband "only let [her] go because [she'd] discovered that there was a women's hotel called the Barbizon."

Writing career

Background
Paperback books in the United States expanded prominently after World War II through the marketing strategies of Pocket Books, who began to distribute publications through newspapers, newsstands, grocery stores, and bus and train stations. The retail opportunities of paperback books grew about tenfold with this method. In 1950, rival company Gold Medal Books published Women's Barracks, a fictionalized account of author Tereska Torrès' experience serving in the Free French Forces. The book depicts a lesbian relationship the author witnessed, ending with one of the women committing suicide. It sold 4.5 million copies, and Gold Medal Books' editors were "thrilled". Its success earned it a mention in the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials in 1952. Gold Medal Books was a branch of Fawcett Publications that focused on paperback books which at the time were printed on very cheap paper, not designed to last for more than a year, sold for 25 cents in drug stores and other venues all over the United States and Canada. The books made for cheap, easy reading that could be discarded at the end of a trip at very little cost to the customer. Because of the low quality of production, they earned the name pulp fiction.

Gold Medal Books quickly followed Women's Barracks with Spring Fire, eager to cash in on the unprecedented sales, and it sold almost  copies in 1952. Vin Packer, whose real name is Marijane Meaker, and Gold Medal Books were overwhelmed with mail from women who identified with the lesbian characters.

One of the letters was from Bannon, asking for professional assistance in getting published. On writing to Meaker, she said, "To this day I have no idea why she responded to me out of the thousands of letters she was getting at that time. Thank God she did. I was both thrilled and terrified." Bannon visited Meaker and was introduced to Greenwich Village, which made a significant impression on Bannon: she called it "Emerald City, Wonderland, and Brigadoon combined—a place where gay people could walk the crooked streets hand in hand." Meaker set up a meeting with Gold Medal Books editor Dick Carroll, who read Bannon's initial 600-page manuscript. It was a story about the women in her sorority whom she admired, with a subplot consisting of two sorority sisters who had fallen in love with each other. Carroll told her to take it back and focus on the two characters who had an affair. Bannon claims she went back and told their story, delivered the draft to Carroll and saw it published without a single word changed. While raising two young children, Bannon lived in Philadelphia and took trips into New York City to visit Greenwich Village and stayed with friends. She said of the women she saw in Greenwich Village, "I wanted to be one of them, to speak to other women, if only in print. And so I made a beginning—and that beginning was the story that became Odd Girl Out."

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Odd Girl Out

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles are six books in all, first published between 1957 and 1962. They featured four characters who appeared in at least three of the books in a chronological saga of coming to terms with their homosexuality and navigating their ways through gay and lesbian relationships. The first in the series, Odd Girl Out, was published in 1957, and became Gold Medal Books' second best-selling title of the year. Based on Bannon's own experiences, the plot involved a lesbian relationship between two sorority sisters in a fictional sorority at a fictional midwestern university. As was custom with pulp fiction novels, neither the cover art nor the title were under the control of the author. Both were approved by the publisher in order to be as suggestive and lurid as possible. The main character is Laura Landon, who realizes that she's in love with Beth, her older, more experienced roommate, a leader in the sorority.

Lesbians depicted in literature were relatively rare in the 1950s. It was the publisher's policy in any novel involving lesbianism that the characters would never receive any satisfaction from the relationship. One or both usually ended up committing suicide, going insane, or leaving the relationship. Marijane Meaker discusses this in the 2004 foreword of Spring Fire: she was told by editor Dick Carroll that because the books were distributed by the U.S. Post Office instead of private companies delivering directly to stores, postal inspectors would send the books back to the publisher if homosexuality was depicted positively. The Postal Service relaxed their censorship after several First Amendment obscenity trials, including Roth v. United States and another regarding Allen Ginsberg's Howl in the mid-1950s, which gave Bannon a modicum of freedom in her plots. Although the ending to Odd Girl Out did not veer too far from the unsatisfactory resolution formula of Spring Fire, Women's Barracks, and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, it examined Laura's internal struggle in the realization that despite her femininity, she was deeply in love with another woman, and at the end she embraced it, which was rare in lesbian fiction.

The characters and their stories served as an extension of the fantasy life Bannon developed as a child. They became her "fantasy friends" whose loves and lives she witnessed and through which she lived her own life vicariously, helping her through a difficult marriage, and a longing for a life she did not feel she was free to live. "I realized very early that I should not marry, but I was going to make the best of a bad thing, and I was going to make it a good thing," she remembered. Having no practical experience in a lesbian relationship while writing Odd Girl Out, she set out to gain what she termed "fieldwork experience" in her trips to Greenwich Village, and was successful enough to introduce those experiences into the next book in the series before relocating once more to Southern California. But she explained her fears about staying in Greenwich Village, saying I would sit there (in a gay bar) in the evenings thinking, 'What if (a police raid) happens tonight and I get hauled off to the slam with all these other women?' I had been extremely low profile, very proper, very Victorian wife. I know that sounds crazy in the 60s, but I was raised by my mother and grandmother, who really came out of that era, and talk about a rigid role-playing crowd! I couldn't imagine living through it. I just couldn't. I thought, 'Well, that would do it. I'd have to go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.' As easy as it might be if you were a young woman in today's generation to think that was exaggerating, it wasn't. It was terrifying.

I Am a Woman

Bannon followed Odd Girl Out with I Am a Woman (In Love With a Woman — Must Society Reject Me?) in 1959. I Am a Woman (the working and common title) featured Laura after her affair with Beth, as she finds herself in New York City's Greenwich Village, and meets a wisecracking gay man named Jack, and becomes his best friend. Laura has to choose between a straight woman with a wild and curious streak, and a fascinating new character that proved to be her most popular of the series, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the description of a thoroughly butch lesbian. Beebo was smart, handsome, chivalrous, and virile. Once again based on what Bannon knew, Beebo was nearly  tall with a husky voice and a formidable physique. The personality however, Bannon says, was drawn out of her sheer need for Beebo to exist. After spending time in Greenwich Village and not finding anyone like her, Bannon instead created her. She remembered, "I put Beebo together just as I wanted her, in my heart and mind ... She was just, quite literally, the butch of my dreams." The resolution to I Am a Woman completely flouted the trends of miserable lesbian fiction endings, which made Bannon a hero to many lesbians.

Letters began to pour in for her from all over the country. There were mostly propositions from men, but the letters from women thanked her profusely and begged her for reassurance that they would be all right. Bannon described the impact her books had from the letters she received from people who were isolated in small towns: "The most important things they learned (from the books) were that 1) they weren't unique and doomed to lifelong isolation, 2) ... they weren't 'abnormal,' and 3) there was hope for a happy life. They wrote to me in thousands, asking me to confirm these wonderful things, which I gladly did—even though I felt only marginally better informed than they were." The books were even translated into other languages, which was also quite rare for the brief lives of pulp novels. Bannon received international and domestic mail from women, saying, "This is the only book (and they would say this about all of them) that I've read where the women really love each other, where its OK for them to love each other, and they don't have to kill themselves afterwards."

Women in the Shadows

Although her husband was aware of the books she was writing, he showed no interest in the subject. He was interested enough in the money she made from them, however, but had forbidden her to use her married surname, not wishing to see it on a book cover with art of questionable taste. She took the name "Bannon" from a list of his customers and liked it because it contained her own name in it. She continued to experience difficulty in her marriage, however, and in realizing that "not all lesbians were nice people", she took these frustrations out on her characters. "I couldn't stand some of what was happening to me–but Beebo could take it. Beebo really, in a way, had my nervous breakdown for me ... I think I was overwhelmed with grief and anger that I was not able to express," she recalled later. Women in the Shadows was also published in 1959 and proved very unpopular with Bannon's readers. The book examined interracial relationships, self-loathing in matters of sexuality and race, alcoholism, jealousy, violence, and as Laura marries Jack in an atypical arrangement in the 1950s, also explored the intricate details of what it was like to pass as heterosexual in an attempt to live some semblance of what was considered a normal life at the time.

Journey to a Woman

Her fourth book in the series, Journey to a Woman, published in 1960, again shows parallels between Bannon's own life and her plots. Beth, of Laura's affair in Odd Girl Out, is living with her husband and children in Southern California. She tries to find Laura again nine years after college, and escapes a deranged woman who has a fixation on her, a reflection of a relationship Bannon had with a beautiful, but "very bewildered and unstable person." Beth writes to an author of lesbian books in New York, and goes to meet her in hope of finding Laura. They have a brief relationship, after which Beth finds Laura married to Jack and with a child, then discovers Beebo as well. A fifth book, The Marriage, also published in 1960, again addresses issues of love outside the realm of socially acceptable relationships, although it is not primarily about homosexuality. In it, Jack and Laura are friends with a young married couple who discover they are brother and sister, and must decide whether they will stay together or conform to societal standards.

Beebo Brinker

Returning to the character she fantasized about the most, the last book in the series, Beebo Brinker, published in 1962, was Bannon's prequel to Odd Girl Out. It follows Beebo around Greenwich Village ten years before she meets Laura in I Am a Woman. Beebo gets off the bus from her rural hometown into New York City to find a waiting friend in Jack, and to discover herself. She begins an affair with a famous and fading movie star, and follows her to California, only to return to be more honest about what she wants in her life.

In 1961 and 1962 Bannon also contributed several articles to ONE, Inc., the magazine of a homophile activist organization in Southern California. One of them was a chapter that had been cut from the final draft of Women in the Shadows. She was invited to speak to the Mattachine Society in the early 1960s, but her husband's stern disapproval of her activities began to take its toll. She stated later, "It began to be very painful. So every time I would start to reach out (to the lesbian/gay community), I would get struck down ... In my own life, I couldn't operationalize (my feeling that gays should end the secrecy and take more pride in themselves and their lives). I couldn't find a way."

Rediscovery
After Beebo Brinker, Bannon said the energy to write about the characters left her, but she got so good at her "obsessive fantasies" that even after the books were written she continued to live internally, and suspected it affected her subsequent relationships. "I realize now that I was in a sort of 'holding pattern,' a way of keeping my sanity intact while waiting for my children to grow up and the freedom door to open", she recalled. Returning to school, Bannon completed her master's degree at Sacramento State University and her doctorate in linguistics at Stanford University. She was an English professor at Sacramento State and later became associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences—later the College of Arts and Letters.

Bannon's books began to fade away from publishing memory after initial publication, especially after Gold Medal Books went out of business. In 1975, however, Bannon was asked to include four of her books in Arno Press's library edition of Homosexuality: Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and Literature. Then, in 1983, Barbara Grier of the lesbian publishing company Naiad Press actively tracked Bannon down and reissued the books in new covers. Grier discussed the novels, answering the question of who among lesbian paperback authors should be highlighted: "Ann Bannon. Without even a discussion ... In terms of actual influence, sales, everything, Bannon."

Bannon did not outwardly advertise the fact that the books had been released again in her department at Sacramento State. Not being tenured, she was unsure how the information would be received. However, word got out: "I was jet-propelled out of the closet. People stared at me around campus, and the PE majors all waved. My chairman told me to put the books into my promotion file, and one of my colleagues told me my file was the only one that was any fun." She often received small recognitions from students and faculty who were pleased and surprised, once getting a bouquet of flowers from a student. She said of the rediscovery, "I was so ready for something fresh and exciting in my life. It had seemed to me, up to that point, that not only had the books and the characters died, so had Ann Bannon." However, following a bitter divorce, and just as the Naiad Press editions of her books were released, Bannon endured a bout of chronic fatigue syndrome, which she connects to repressing herself for so long. "You've got to think that it's connected, somehow. At the time I denied it fiercely, but I really think I beat myself up horribly, in ways I'll never know."

In 1984, Bannon's books were featured in the documentary Before Stonewall about how gay men and lesbians lived prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots, wherein one woman remembered picking up one of Bannon's books for the first time: "I picked up this paperback and I opened it up ... and it sent a shiver of excitement in my whole body that I had never felt before." She was featured in the Canadian documentary Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives in 1992, which recounted women's personal stories of living as lesbians from the 1940s to 1960s. The books were selected for the Quality Paperback Book Club in 1995. Bannon also provided the foreword for Strange Sisters: The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949–1969 in 1999, discussing her reaction to the artwork on her own books and the other lesbian pulp fiction books she bought and read. Five of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles were reissued by Cleis Press again between 2001 and 2003—excluding The Marriage—with autobiographical forewords that described Bannon's experiences of writing the books and her reaction to their popularity, causing another wave of interest.

Reacting to the renewed interest in the books, Bannon wrote in the 2002 introduction to Odd Girl Out that she was shocked to find out that her characters were not only remembered but that they were archetypes among the lesbian community. The books are frequently on required reading lists for Women's and LGBT studies college courses. Bannon often admits to being surprised by this, explaining that she had no such aspirations when she was writing Odd Girl Out: "If I had known, it might well have resulted in a much more polished product, but one that would have been so cautious and self-conscious as to be entirely forgettable. It would never—my best guess—have had the vibrant life it has now."

Literary scholar Yvonne Keller named Bannon as one of a small group of writers whose work formed the subgenre of "pro-lesbian" pulp fiction; others include Sloane Britain, Paula Christian, Joan Ellis, March Hastings, Marjorie Lee, Della Martin, Rea Michaels, Claire Morgan, Vin Packer, Randy Salem, Artemis Smith, Valerie Taylor, Tereska Torres, and Shirley Verel.

Themes

Identity
Since so little information was available about lesbians and lesbianism at the time, Bannon's books, through their far-reaching distribution and popularity served to form a part of a lesbian identity not only for the heterosexual population at large, but lesbians themselves. Lesbian author and historian Joan Nestle called the books "survival literature", explaining: "In whatever towns or cities these books were read, they were spreading the information that meant a new hope for trapped and isolated women". One retrospective writer noted, "[U]ntil the late 1960s, when the sexual revolution was emerging, the pulps provided a cultural space that helped to forge a queer identity".

Scholar Andrea Loewenstein published the first in-depth review of Bannon's books in 1980, and notes that they were "exceptionally good pulp" that caused unexpected strong feelings of sadness or anger among lesbians when they were read twenty years after being published. Bannon depicts strict roles of butch and femme, and gays and lesbians as self-destructive, closeted, paranoid, and alcoholic. Loewenstein remarks that readers in 1980 had a tendency to reject that kind of reality in Bannon's stories. "Since much of our past is so bitter, [we] ... pretend away our most recent history". Loewenstein suggests the struggles Bannon's characters endured were ones that Bannon must have faced herself. When Laura declares her joy in her love for Beth in Odd Girl Out while simultaneously questioning if it is right, Loewenstein states "one hears quite clearly the voice of Ann Bannon, questioning her own right to happiness". Similarly, remarking on Bannon's treatment of Beebo in Women in the Shadows by making her violent, alcoholic and self-destructive, Loewenstein notes, "she needs to humiliate Beebo so badly that she makes her disappear". Loewenstein remarks Bannon's characters are deeply conflicted by enjoying relationships they feel are morally wrong, and they are acting out cycles of self-hatred, though what remains at the end is "surprisingly ... passionate, tender, and erotic".

Writer Diane Hamer attests that Bannon's books and characters represent a part of identity where women are unsure if they are gay or straight, man or woman, ashamed or accepting of who they are. In receiving no clear answers from Bannon herself, women were left to try to figure these questions out for themselves. Hamer writes, "What Bannon did was to provide a range of possible trajectories to lesbianism ... Bannon, by constructing fictional biographies for her lesbian characters, produced a new knowledge about how one arrives at a lesbian identity."

Bannon also addresses the issue of race in Women in the Shadows when Laura begins an affair with a woman representing herself as Eastern Indian, but who is actually a lighter skinned African American. The duality of their relationship is expressed not only in skin color but through their personalities. Laura, blond and passionate, contrasts with Tris, who is dark but emotionally detached. Race, in this instance, is a "metaphor for the opposition between inside and outside that govern Bannon's sense of what a lesbian is".

The concept of a lesbian identity is also explored throughout Journey to a Woman, as Beth leaves her husband and children to find Laura. Beth is followed by Vega, a woman scarred deeply—both emotionally and physically—with whom Beth had an affair. Vega shoots herself at the end of the story. Scholar Christopher Nealon suggests that Vega's scars and emotional pain represent the anguish of self-hatred and the self-destructive phases Bannon imposed upon her characters in Women in the Shadows. Because Laura has grown from the complete adoration of Beth in Odd Girl Out and is unable to give Beth the same devotion when Beth finds her again, Nealon writes that Bannon makes the point that it is impossible to sustain "a lesbian identity that always returns to the moment of self-discovery". Beth, instead, finds Beebo, now older and much calmer, who gives her hope and the promise of love, which Nealon equates to a final identity for Bannon's characters.

In the new forewords to the Cleis Press editions, Bannon addressed the criticisms of her characters as self-destructive in limiting roles, explaining that she simply depicted what she knew and felt at the time. Bannon has said she knows the concerns of the women who are uncomfortable with the themes of her books: "I can understand that; they weren't there. To them some of it looks negative and some of it looks depressing. Although I didn't feel that way. I always felt excited when I was writing them."

Gender
All five books of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles depict characters trying to come to terms with their ostracism from heterosexual society. Christopher Nealon adds that the characters are also trying to "understand the relationship between their bodies and their desires"; the continuing appeal of the novels, Nealon states, is due to the characters being "beautifully misembodied".

In Odd Girl Out, Laura Landon's resistance to the idea that she may be homosexual lies in her own concept of femininity rather than any repugnance for loving women. In I Am a Woman, the second book in the series, Beebo's butch appearance "seems to alternately terrify and attract Laura", leading to a very erotic physical relationship. However, when Laura lashes out at Beebo in a moment of self-pity, it is her masculinity that Laura attacks, invalidating Beebo's uniqueness and the core of her desirability violently. In the book that exhibits the most self-destruction in the series, Women in the Shadows, Laura expresses shame when accompanying Beebo outside of Greenwich Village, fearing Beebo will be arrested and jailed. Facing the end of their relationship, Beebo expresses the desire to be a man, if only to be able to marry Laura to give her a normal life.

Bannon's last book, Beebo Brinker, which takes place before the others when Beebo is eighteen years old, focuses on her realization not only that she is gay, but that she is also a masculine woman. Nealon writes that Bannon's exploration of Beebo's masculinity is not to give excuses for her desires, but "to get at the source of specialness, the sources of her claim to be treated with dignity". By connecting her characters' bodies with their desires, Bannon allows further understanding of self as normal, and that homosexuality is acceptable.

Style
Bannon's books, like most pulp fiction novels, were not reviewed by newspapers or magazines when they were originally published between 1957 and 1962. However, since their release they have been the subject of analyses that offer differing opinions of Bannon's books as a reflection of the moral standards of the decade, a subtle defiance of those morals, or a combination of both. Andrea Loewenstein notes Bannon's use of cliché, suggesting that it reflected Bannon's own belief in the culturally repressive ideas of the 1950s. Conversely, writer Jeff Weinstein remarks that Bannon's "potboilers" are an expression of freedom because they address issues mainstream fiction did not in the 1950s. Instead of cliché, Weinstein writes that her characters become more realistic as she exploits the dramatic plots, because they "are influenced by the melodramatic conventions of the culture that excludes them".

Diane Hamer likens Bannon's work to the Mills and Boon of lesbian literature, but unlike conventional romance novels, her stories never really have neat and tidy conclusions. Hamer also takes note of Bannon's use of Freudian symbolism: in I Am a Woman, Jack frequently mentions that he is being psychoanalyzed, and his friends react with interest. Jack labels Laura "Mother" and continues to refer to this nickname instead of her real name throughout the series, as though Bannon—through Jack—is vaguely mocking Freud and the ideas that have framed the construction of sexuality in the 1950s. Scholar Michele Barale remarks that Bannon's literary devices in Beebo Brinker defy the expectations of the audience for whom the novel was specifically marketed: heterosexual males. Bannon chooses the first character, an "everyman" named—significantly—Jack Mann, with whom the male audience identifies, only to divulge that he is gay and has maternal instincts. His interest turns to Beebo, whom he finds "handsome" and lost, and he takes her home, gets her drunk, and becomes asexually intimate with her. Barale writes that Bannon manipulates male readers to become interested in the story, then turns them into voyeurs and imposes homosexual desires upon them, though eventually places them in a safe position to understand a gay story from a heterosexual point of view.

The erotic nature of the books has been noted as adding to their uniqueness. Loewenstein remarks on the intensity of Laura's passion: "The presentation of a woman as a joyfully aggressive person is, in itself, a rare achievement in 1957". A 2002 retrospective of Bannon's books claims "there were more explicit and nuanced representations of sexuality in those paperbacks than could be found almost anywhere else". Author Suzana Danuta Walters represents the eroticism in Bannon's books as a form of rebellion. In the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, Jenifer Levin writes, "Know this: Beebo lives. From the midst of a repressive era, from the pen of a very proper, scholarly, seemingly conforming wife and mother, came this astonishingly open queer figment of fictional being, like molten material from some volcano of the lesbian soul."

Bannon's books have, with the benefit of time, been described in vastly different terms, from "literary works" among pulp contemporaries, to "libidinised trash". However disparately Bannon's books are described in feminist and lesbian literary retrospectives, almost every mention concedes the significance of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. One retrospective writer called Bannon's books "titillating trash, but indispensable reading to the nation's lesbians."

Legacy
Critics have since remarked that Bannon's books are remarkable for portraying homosexual relationships relatively accurately. The continuity of characters in the series also gave her books a unique quality, especially when most lesbian characters during this time were one-dimensional stereotypes who met punishment for their desires. Bannon's characters have been called "accessibly human", and still engrossing by contemporary standards compared to being "revolutionary" when first released. LGBT historian Susan Stryker describes the relationships between Bannon's characters as mostly positive, satisfactory, and at times complex depictions of lesbian and gay relationships, which Bannon attributed to not letting go of the hope that she could "salvage (her) own life." One retrospective of lesbian pulp fiction remarked on the reasons why Bannon's books in particular were popular is because they were so different from anything else being published at the time: "Bannon was implicitly challenging the prevailing belief that homosexual life was brief, episodic, and more often than not resulted in death ... Bannon insisted on the continuity of lesbian love, while everything in her culture was speaking of its quick and ugly demise."

Bannon set her stories in and among gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s that were secret. As described in Beebo Brinker, one had to knock on the door and be recognized before being let in. In reality, women were not allowed to wear pants in some bars in New York City. Police raided bars and arrested everyone within regularly; a raid on a gay bar prompted the seminal Stonewall riots in 1969 that started the gay rights movement. Because of the atmosphere of secrecy and shame, little was recorded at the time about what it was like to be gay then, and Bannon unwittingly recorded history from her own visits to Greenwich Village. In 2007, one of the writers who adapted three of the books into a play said of Bannon's work, "I think she rises above the pulp. She wasn't trying to write trash. There wasn't any place for a woman to be writing this kind of material ... But I just think the writing's transcended its time and its era and its market."

Author Katherine V. Forrest claimed Bannon and her books "are in a class by themselves" and credits Bannon with saving her life, writing in 2005, "Overwhelming need led me to walk a gauntlet of fear up to the cash register. Fear so intense that I remember nothing more, only that I stumbled out of the store in possession of what I knew I must have, a book as necessary to me as air ... I found it when I was eighteen years old. It opened the door to my soul and told me who I was."

Adaptations
In 2007, an off-off-Broadway company named The Hourglass Group produced an adaptation of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles in a production that ran for a month. The writers, Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman, used material from I Am a Woman, Women in the Shadows and Journey to a Woman to predominantly positive reviews. It was successful enough to be moved Off Broadway for another ten-week run in 2008. The play's writers commented on the difficulty of lesbian-themed works finding financial success. They were tempted to make it more appealing by turning to camp for comedy. However, one of the writers said, "I just felt like, how can you turn these people into a joke? I mean, these people are real people! Why would I direct a play where I held the characters in some sort of contempt or felt that they were ridiculous? We are allowed to do something else besides camp." The stage adaptation of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles was produced by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, and it won the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Award for "fair, accurate, and inclusive" portrayals of gay and lesbian people in New York Theater. In 2021 the Palm Springs Desert Ensemble Theatre produced the play.

In April 2008, Bannon appeared with the Seattle Women's Chorus in a performance called "Vixen Fiction". Bannon read excerpts of her work and discussed the effects of her writing on her own life and the lives of her readers. U.S. cable network HBO has optioned Bannon's novels for potential development as a series.

Honors

In 1997, Bannon's work was included in a collection of authors who had made the deepest impact on the lives and identities of gays and lesbians, titled Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers. In 2000, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors awarded Bannon a Certificate of Honor "for breaking new ground with works like Odd Girl Out and Women in the Shadows" and for "voic (ing) lesbian experiences at a time when explicit lesbian subject matter was silenced by government and communities." In 2004, Bannon was elected into the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. She received the Sacramento State Alumni Association's Distinguished Faculty Award for 2005, and received the Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society the same year; the GCLS created the Ann Bannon GCLS Popular Choice Award. She was the recipient of the Alice B Award in 2008, that goes to authors whose careers have been distinguished by consistently well-written stories about lesbians. In May 2008, Bannon was given the Pioneer Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation.

In 2012, she was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of the LGBT History Month.

In retirement
Bannon retired from teaching and college administration at California State University, Sacramento, in 1997, but tours the country visiting paperback-collecting conventions and speaking at colleges and universities about her writings and experiences. She was a guest of National Public Radio's Peabody Award-winning talk show "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, and has also been featured in Gross's book, All I Did Was Ask, a collection of transcripts from the show. Bannon also speaks at gay-themed events around the country and is working on her memoirs.

In a 2002 editorial written by Bannon in Curve, she discussed how her books survived despite criticisms by censors, Victorian moralists, and purveyors of literary "snobbery" in writing, "To the persistent surprise of many of us, and of the critics who found us such an easy target years ago, the books by, of and for women found a life of their own. They—and we—may still not be regarded as conventionally acceptable 'nice' literature, as it were—but I have come to value that historical judgment. We wrote the stories no one else could tell. And in so doing, we captured a slice of life in a particular time and place that still resonates for members of our community."

Personal life
Bannon lives in Sacramento. She has two children with her former husband. In 2021 she told an interviewer that her elder daughter, who converted to Catholicism and became very conservative, "does not approve of any of this at all" but that her younger daughter is "open and welcoming and loving".

References

References cited
 Bannon, Ann (2001), Beebo Brinker, Cleis Press.
 Bannon, Ann (2001), Odd Girl Out, Cleis Press.
 Bannon, Ann (2002), I Am a Woman, Cleis Press.
 Nealon, Christopher (2001). Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion Before Stonewall, Duke University Press.
 Sky, Melissa (2010). Twilight Tales: Ann Bannon's Lesbian Pulp Series The Beebo Brinker Chronicles , VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken.
 Stryker, Susan (2001). Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback, Chronicle Books.

External links
 Author's official website
 Cleis Press
 In the Life episode of April 2006 does a report on Bannon and lesbian pulp fiction
 The Hourglass Group, with links to reviews of the Off-Broadway production
 Playbill announcement for The Beebo Brinker Chronicles

 Video interview with Bannon from February 2012
 Sally Taft Duplaix Collection at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections

20th-century American novelists
California State University, Sacramento alumni
American lesbian writers
Writers from Joliet, Illinois
Stanford University alumni
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
1932 births
Living people
People with chronic fatigue syndrome
People from Hinsdale, Illinois
Linguists from the United States
Pseudonymous women writers
American LGBT scientists
American LGBT novelists
LGBT people from Illinois
Women linguists
20th-century American women writers
American women novelists
American erotica writers
Women erotica writers
Novelists from Illinois
20th-century pseudonymous writers
21st-century American LGBT people
21st-century American women writers

Ann Bannon


The Girl Without Hands () is a 2016 French animated drama film directed, written, edited, and animated by Sébastien Laudenbach in his feature debut; Laudenbach animated the entire film on his own. The film is based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the same name and stars the voices of Anaïs Demoustier and Jérémie Elkaïm. It premiered in the ACID section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and played in competition at the 2016 Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where it received the Jury Distinction award.

Plot

The Devil appears to a miller and offers to make him rich if he sells him "what is behind your mill".  The miller returns home to find liquid gold flowing through his mill, but discovers that his daughter had been behind the mill, playing in an apple tree.  After years of luxury, the Devil reappears to collect the young girl, but finds her too clean to take.  He orders the family to confine the young girl to the apple tree, guarded by dogs which then maul her mother to death when she tries to help her.  When the Devil returns, he finds that the young girl had kept her hands clean.  He angrily orders the miller to cut off her hands, and the young girl consents.  Even then, the young girl makes her arm stumps clean with just her teardrops, and the Devil still cannot collect her.  The young girl angrily chooses to leave the mill.

After wandering the forest, the young girl finds pears growing in a garden.  She tries to reach them, but is unable to cross a strong-flowing river to get to them.  The goddess of the river rescues her and takes her to the garden, telling her that a prince owns the garden.  The prince and his gardener servant welcome the young girl to their castle.  Eventually, the prince and the young girl fall in love, with the prince giving her two prosthetic hands made of gold as a wedding gift.

The prince has to leave to lead his army to war, leaving the now pregnant young girl in the gardener's care.  She gives birth to a healthy son, though she finds her golden hands useless in handling the baby.  The gardener sends the joyful news to the prince, but the Devil replaces the message with a note saying she had given birth to a monster, instead.  The prince sends a reply saying that he still stands by the young girl and their son, but the Devil changes that message, as well, to a note ordering the execution of the young girl and her son.  Appalled, the gardener lets the young girl and her son escape, instead, handing her a bag of magic seeds.  The young girl follows the river to its source, where the goddess tells her of an abandoned house where they can live.  The young girl and her son prosper in the house, living off the food grown from the seeds.  She abandons her useless golden hands in the river.

The prince finally returns after losing the war.  The gardener initially pretends to have carried out the executions, but then tells the truth when the prince tells him that he never wrote that message.  The prince then sets out on a quest to find the young girl and their son.  After many years, he finds the mill, finding that her father ultimately hanged himself, and finding the remains of the young girl's hands.  He also finds the golden hands in the river, and follows the river to the house.  Still thinking he wants to kill them, the young girl attacks the prince with an ax, only to realize that she now has new hands to hold the ax.  The prince explains that the note was fake, but just then, the Devil in a raven form attacks their son.  He then morphs into a pig form he had used all through the film. The young girl uses the ax to kill the pig, and the Devil finally gives up on trying to take her.  The prince and the young girl decide to stay neither in the house nor the castle, but for the family to find new adventure.

Voice cast
Anaïs Demoustier as the Young Girl
Jérémie Elkaïm as the Prince
Philippe Laudenbach as the Devil
Olivier Broche as the Father
Françoise Lebrun as the Mother
Sacha Bourdo as the Gardener
Elina Löwensohn as the Goddess

References

External links
Official Shellac site
Official GKIDS site

2016 films
2016 computer-animated films
2010s French animated films
2010s French-language films
Animated films based on Grimms' Fairy Tales
2016 directorial debut films

The Girl Without Hands (film)


The "Sharks" were the Royal Navy's Helicopter Display Team from 1975 to 1992.  They initially flew six red Westland Gazelle helicopters, with aircraft and pilots drawn from 705 Naval Air Squadron based at RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall. After a mid-air collision between two aircraft in June 1977, the team size was reduced to four aircraft.

History
The "Sharks" were established in 1975 and were unusual in that the team's personnel and crews were changed every year.  The pilots were all instructors from 705 NAS, which at the time was the squadron responsible for the basic training of Royal Navy helicopter pilots. Their involvement with the "Sharks" was purely voluntary, and all the activities involved with the team - the pre-season rehearsals, transits to and from display venues, and the display flying itself - were in addition to their normal weekday duties instructing student pilots on the Westland Gazelle.

The "Sharks" display routine was renowned for mixing together a range of different manoeuvres, comprising close formation, synchronised, opposition and solo flying.  The display typically lasted for 10-12 minutes, and was highlighted by the use of distinctive mix of red and green smoke.

The team operated successfully for the best part of two decades, appearing at airshows and events around the UK and near Europe.  They were regulars at the largest shows such as the International Air Tattoo, Farnborough Airshow, as well as Royal Navy-organised events and the British Grand Prix.

Disbandment
The team were disbanded in 1992 due to Royal Navy operational and budgetary commitments. Despite this, the Royal Navy Helicopter Display Team title was maintained until the end of 1996 as 705 NAS continued to provide a pair of Gazelles known simply as the "Gazelle Pair" (although in 1995 a special four-aircraft team was resurrected for a handful of events).  With the retirement of the Gazelle from Royal Navy service, the Royal Navy Helicopter Display Team was finally disbanded in 1996.

A new display team, composed of two Lynx helicopters, was formed in 2001 and has been known as the Black Cats since 2004.

References

Naval aviation units and formations of the United Kingdom
Military units and formations established in 1975
Military units and formations disestablished in 1992
Sharks

The Sharks (Royal Navy)


Pierre Sabbagh (18 July 1918 – 30 September 1994) was a major personality in French television, as a journalist, producer and director.

Pierre Alain Sabbagh was born in Lannion (Côtes-d'Armor) and died in Paris.  He was the younger son of the artist Georges Hanna Sabbagh and the art historian and resistance heroine Agnès Humbert. His brother was naval officer Jean Sabbagh.

Television

Pierre Sabbagh became a war correspondent in the hope of finding his mother Agnès in World War II.  He had visited her in Fresnes Prison and the Prison de la Santé in 1942, a few days before she was deported by the Nazis, sentenced to slave labour in Germany.  In 1944, he travelled into Germany behind the advancing American army, but did not find her until he returned to Paris in 1945.

Pierre Sabbagh presented and directed the first television news in the world on 29 June 1949.

His greatest success was the creation, in 1966, of the programme "Au théâtre ce soir" ("The Theatre Tonight") following a strike on French television and the success of a Belgian television comedy called "La Bonne planque", which provoked the appetite of the public for this kind of programme: over 300 plays were produced in the series.  To his credit also is the first audiovisual game which reunited France of the 1960s in front of the black-and-white screen:  "L'Homme du XXe siècle" ("20th Century Man"), a game of general cultural questions which went on for many years and which finished with the final "Super homme du XXe siècle" ("20th Century Superman") which brought together all the previous winners of whom the comedian, Robert Manuel, beat a professor of complementary medicine, Georges Rivault.

He was Director-General of the television network Antenne 2 between September 1971 and July 1972.

His wife was the French television presenter and actress Catherine Langeais.

Publications

Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani, Fanina, paperback, Pan Macmillan, 1965
Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani (tr. Ellen Hart and Cornelia Brookfield), Fanina, 1966
Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani (tr. Marguerite Barnett), Fanina, Child of Rome, hardback, London, Pan Macmillan 1969,  (also New York, Bantam, 1968)
Pierre Sabbagh, Le guide de la Pipe et du Tabac, Paris, Stock, 1973
Pierre Sabbagh, Le guide Marabout de la pipe et du tabac, Paris, Editions Marabout, 1973
Jean Sabbagh and Pierre Sabbagh, Georges Sabbagh, Paris, J. Sabbagh, 1981
Pierre Sabbagh, Encore vous, Sabbagh!, Paris, Stock, 1984

Filmography

Le second souffle, 1959, film, actor (directed by Yannick Bellon)
Monsieur Vernet, 1988, television film, director
La pomme, 1991, television film, director
Le Noir te va bien, 1991, television film, director
L'amour fou, 1991, television film, director

References

Humbert, Agnès (tr. Barbara Mellor), Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France, London, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2008  (American title: Resistance: A Frenchwoman's Journal of the War, Bloomsbury, USA, 2008)
Sabbagh, Pierre, Encore vous, Sabbagh!, Paris, Stock, 1984

External links
 Site de l'INA

1918 births
1994 deaths
People from Lannion
French male journalists
French television journalists
French television producers
French television directors

Pierre Sabbagh


Art films are a type of movie that is very different from the popular Hollywood blockbuster movies. Art films have many other names. Some people call them art movies, independent films, indie films, arthouse films, auteur films ("auteur" is a French word which means "author") or experimental films.

Art films are usually made by smaller movie companies. These companies do not have much money compared to the Major movie studios large movie studios, for example, Paramount or Disney. Art films usually have different plots (stories) than blockbuster movies. They usually tell more creative or unusual stories than blockbuster movies.

Art films often show controversial or sad stories. These types of movies may have sad endings. They are sometimes hard to understand, because the movie may be about people's feelings, thoughts, or dreams.

For these reasons, art films are not shown in many cinemas or theaters.  They do not have large audiences and do not make much money.  They are generally promoted by word of mouth.  People see the movie and then tell their friends to go see it.

A comparison of an art movie and a blockbuster movie
The opposite of an art film is a popular blockbuster movie.  Blockbuster movies have famous actors and large budgets.  Some have expensive special effects.  They are made so that millions of people will pay money to see the movie.

Blockbuster movies are part of the reason why people make art films.  Movie directors making art films try to make them very different from blockbuster movies.  The movie is a more personal statement by the director.  Blockbusters are made for commercial reasons and art films are made for personal reasons.

The large budgets of blockbuster movies are not only to make the movie.  The money also pays for advertisements. Art movies have small budgets. They usually have unknown or little-known actors. Some even use amateur actors. Some art films will even use regular people with no experience as actors to work as the actors. It is not uncommon for Art film directors to use friends and family members as actors.

Blockbusters often use simple stories and characters that have been used before in other movies. Art movies usually use strange or unusual stories and characters that the audience may not have seen before.

In blockbuster movies, there is usually a happy ending. All of the problems in the story are figured out or fixed by the end of the movie. In art movies, there is often a sad ending. They can also have endings which are either hard to understand or could mean many different things. These endings are used so that the audience will have to think about what might have happened in the story.

Blockbuster movies have a large amount of television advertising, billboards and internet sites. Art films often have little or no advertising.

Blockbuster movies are very popular. This causes more movies to be made using the same story and characters. For example, the James Bond movies all tell stories about the British spy named James Bond. The Star Wars science fiction movies all tell stories about spaceships and outer space wars. Art films are very rarely made into franchises with sequels. This is because directors of art films are often trying to create a new movie with new ideas for each movie they make. Some art films do have sequels. This will most often happen when the movie was very well liked and the director wanted to tell more stories using some of the same characters.

Art film becomes Hollywood franchise
Rarely, an art film can be so well liked that a franchise is created because of it. The View Askew universe is an example of this. Kevin Smith wrote and directed the movie Clerks. He produced the movie himself with a friend, Scott Mosier. They named their production company, View Askew Productions.  This movie was an art film. It had a small budget, dealt with personal issues and its actors were mainly Smith's friends and family. Smith even played one of the characters himself. The movie was very popular and sold well when it was released on DVD. Universal Pictures, a large Hollywood studio, asked him to make a movie for them. He used two of his characters from Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob, as part of the new movie. He later used Jay (played by Jason Mewes and Silent Bob (played by Smith) is three other movies he wrote: Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks 2, a sequel to Clerks.

Why are art movies different from regular movies?
David Bordwell is a professor from the United States. He studies movies at a university. He thought of a way of explaining what an "art film" is in 1979. He wrote that art films are different from regular Hollywood movies. Regular Hollywood movies have a clear story and plot. Art film often have much stranger stories. In an art film, the stories may be hard to understand. As well, in an art film, the audience may have a hard time understanding what is going on. Art movies are often about people's feelings and thoughts. Art movies are often about big questions that a person has to answer about who they are or what they should do in a situation.

References

Movies

Art film


is a Japanese seinen manga series written by Kazuhiro Okamoto and serialized in Comic Flapper. It was licensed by Dark Horse Comics for English language release in the North America in July 2007.

Synopsis
The protagonist of the series is a shy young girl named Shizuka and her outgoing male friend Mamoru.  The series revolves around Shizuka's high school life after she contracts "Translucent Syndrome", a mysterious condition which has only one symptom:  The victim's body randomly turns translucent (and later completely invisible), but is otherwise left perfectly normal and healthy.  Unfortunately for Shizuka, there is no known cure or treatment for Translucent Syndrome, other than it is tied to the emotional state of the person affected; positive emotions like happiness and love cause it to retract, negative emotions like stress and sadness cause it to accelerate.

Initially Shizuka's condition only affects her arms and legs, and only partially, at seemingly randomly times and durations.  However, as it worsens it begins to affect her entire body, leaving her increasingly more translucent and for increasingly longer random periods of time.  Shizuka is also in danger of gaining "Fully Transparent Syndrome", or otherwise having her translucency become permanent, which will occur if she spends too long a stretch in her translucent stage.  Fully Transparent Syndrome is marked by complete and permanent invisibility, rather than the temporary partial invisibility of the normal syndrome.

The fictional condition is used in the series as a metaphor for the common childhood anxiety of feeling lonely and disconnected from other people, as well as—through the threat of the condition worsening—a fear of growing up.

Characters

The shy 14-year-old main character of the manga.  Shizuka contracted the strange "Translucent Syndrome" 3 years before the manga started, which cuts her off from both normal social interaction with her peers, and from her dreams of becoming a stage actress.  Shizuka is very talented for a young actress, but this is offset by her very timid and insecure nature.  She has decided that she wishes to be a "cherry tree actress" -- one that is mostly ignored unless she is on stage, where she will blossom like a cherry tree.

Mamoru is an outgoing, childish extrovert, who encourages Shizuka to come out of her shell, despite (or because of) her condition.  He is a painter, and assists Shizuka in creating better skin tone greasepaint tones to hide her condition when it is minor.  He is obsessed with monsters as well as Gundam models.  He also likes to create silly games, like walking in lockstep with Shizuka spontaneously, seeing "old men" in housing architecture, or monsters in cloud formations.  Seems to have feelings for Shizuka, but is too immature to articulate them.

An adult friend of Shizuka, whom Shizuka meets during a checkup for her Translucent Syndrome.  Keiko's Translucent Syndrome has progressed to the permanent "Fully Transparent Syndrome" stage, and as such she is completely invisible.  She is not drawn at all in most of the manga, instead her trademark glasses, cigarette, and bandanna float in midair.  In a small bit of irony, Keiko is a professional glass artist, and comments on Glass's translucency when she is introduced. She also has a boyfriend named Koichi.

Koichi (No last name given)
Keiko's on-again/off-again boyfriend.  He is an architect, and is fascinated by old buildings.  He is also an old fan of Gundam models.  He is very similar in personality to Mamoru, only older.

 (No first name given)
The student body president of Shizuka and Mamoru's school, and a friend of Shizuka's.  Ms. Okouchi dislikes the constant attention her family and peers give her, and is jealous of Shizuka's condition.  She attempts to get Translucent Syndrome from Shizuka, but cannot due to Translucent Syndrome being non-contagious.  Later, she attempts to further Mamoru and Shizuka's relationship, growing increasingly frustrated (up to and including drop kicking, which she starts to do as a running gag) with Mamoru's obliviousness.  She also seems to have a slight crush on Mamoru herself.

Dr. Momoko Takazawa
The world's foremost expert in Translucent Syndrome, and Shizuka's doctor.  Dr. Takazawa is a young woman who takes an interest in furthering Shizuka and Mamoru's relationship.  She enjoys teasing Shizuka with more than slight sexual innuendo, for example asking her if Shizuka and Mamoru have had sex, and insinuating that Shizuka is perfectly healthy, except for her breast size.  However, her intentions appear to be noble, as she recognizes that Mamoru is having a healthy effect on Shizuka's Translucent Syndrome, primarily her emotional state.

US Localization Delay
In a post on the Dark Horse Forums, Philip Simon, the editor behind the US translation of Translucent announced an ETA of Translucent, Books 4 and 5—Vol. 4 on sale July 2009, and Vol. 5 (the final volume) on sale November 2009.  Anticipating a reaction due to the extreme delay (Volume 4 will be translated 11 months after said forum post, and just over 18 months after Volume 3's release), he said ""Why the wait with some of these?" you may ask. Well, I had to find new translators after three great teammates had to bow out of their projects. Tried out several possibilities, found two amazing new translators, and now we're on our way to finishing these series off!"

A later reply notified readers that the translation is on hiatus, with Mr. Simon expressing a desire to get the series back into production at some later date.

Notes

Further reading

External links
 Translucent volumes 1, 2, and 3 at Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics titles
Media Factory manga
School life in anime and manga
Seinen manga

Translucent (manga)


અદ્વૈત વેદાંત (સંસ્કૃત अद्वैत वेदान्त)ને હિંદુ દર્શનશાસ્ત્રની વેદાંત (શાબ્દિક અર્થ, અંત અથવા વેદનો મુખ્ય ઉદ્દેશ, સંસ્કૃત) શાખાની સૌથી વધારે પ્રભાવશાળી ઉપશાખા માનવામાં આવે છે. વેદાંતની અન્ય શાખા દ્વૈત અને વિશિષ્ટાદ્વૈત છે. અદ્વૈત (શાબ્દિકનો અર્થ અનન્યતા)એ એકેશ્વરવાદ વિચારધારાની પરંપરા છે. "અદ્વૈત" એટલે સ્વ (આત્મા) અને સર્વ (બ્રહ્મ)ની ઓળખ. અદ્વૈત વેદાંતના આચાર્યોની યાદી નીચે મુજબ છે.

Sages and saints
 મરીચિ
 અંગિરસ
 અત્રિ
 યાજ્ઞવલ્કય
 પુલસ્ત્ય
 વસિષ્ઠ
 કશ્યપ
 વિશ્વામિત્ર
 જમદગ્નિ
 ભારદ્વાજ
 ભૃગુ
 અગસ્ત્ય
 દત્તાત્રેય
 અષ્ટાવક્ર
 વેદવ્યાસ

Recent Jagadgurus of Peethams

Sringeri Sharada Peetham
Sri Sacchidananda Shivabhinava Narasimha Bharathi Mahaswamiji, Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham    (1865–1912); a realised Yogi; initiated many into Adi Shankaracharya's philosophy including Sacchidanandendra Saraswati- founder of Adhyatma Prakashana Karyalaya ;known as "Abhinava Shankara" because of his many tours around Bharatvarsha spreading the Advaita Vedanta philosophy and Hindu Dharma
Sri Chandrashekhara Bharathi Mahaswamiji, Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham (1912–1954); A well known Jivanmukta; said to be one of the greatest saints ever to take birth in India
Sri Abhinavavidya Tirtha Mahaswamiji, Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham (1954–1989); A great Yogi and master of scriptures; blessed with realisation early in life; In His many tours of Bharatvarsha and also Nepal He established many maths, shrines and temples.
Sri Bharathi Tirtha Mahaswamiji, Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham (1989- );A distuinguished sage and present Jagadguru of Shringeri Peetha, Sringeri, Karnataka.

Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham
Sri Chandrashekharendra Saraswathi Mahaswamiji Jagadguru of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam (1894–1994), also called as Nadamadum Deivam(Walking God) by devotees and followers all over the world
Jagadguru Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swami, Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam
Jagadguru Sri Sankara Vijayendra Saraswathi Swami, Kanchi Kamakoti peetam
Sapta Na Sannyasin Ruchira Buddha Adi Da Samraj Jagadguru of Naitauba Peetham the main Hermitage Ashram called "Samrajashram" in the Fijian Islands. Other Satguru Peethams: Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary, Love's Point Hermitage and Tat Sundaram Hermitage and Tat Sundaram Hermitage, all in Northern California; and Da Love-Ananda Mahal in Kauai, Hawaii

Other teachers
 Adyashanti, popular modern Western teacher.
 Shri Totapuri Maharaj, A sanyasi of the Dashanami order who initiated Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa into Advaita Vedanta.
 રામકૃષ્ણ પરમહંસ (1836–1886) well-known modern proponent of Advaita; the primary source book, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita), was written by an eyewitness devotee Mahendranath Gupta. It documents his later life and conversations with disciples and devotees and serves as the key reference for his philosophy and teachings
 રમણ મહર્ષિ (1879–1950) the silent sage of Tamil Nadu who had a profound realization of nonduality
 સ્વામી વિવેકાનંદ (1863–1902), disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, wrote books on four Hindu Yogas: Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda contains a complete collection of transcribed lectures. He spoke at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.
 સ્વામી શિવાનંદ (1887–1963) – Hindu saint who founded the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, India. Author of more than 300 works of theology and philosophy. Bestowed sanyasa upon Swami Chidananda, Swami Krishnananda, and Swami Chinmayananda, among others. According to disciples, achieved Moksha upon death.
 Swami Krishnananda (1922–2001) – Hindu saint who was the General Secretary of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, India from 1958 to 2001. Foremost disciple of Swami Sivananda. Author of more than 200 works of theology and philosophy. According to disciples, achieved Moksha upon death.
 Shivarudra Balayogi (1954-) - Sage and Yogi, performed intense meditation and other spiritual practices from a young age. Teaches that Advaita is an experience, and the highest path to this experience is meditation.
 Sri Narayana Guru (1856–1928)- Vedic scholar, mystic philosopher, prolific poet and social reformer, from the present-day Kerala.
Mannargudi Raju Sastri (1815–1903), Formed 'The Adwaita Sabha' for propagating the tenets of the Adwaita faith
 શ્રી ઓરોબિંન્દુ (1872–1950) Bengali philosopher-sage who synthesized Advaita thought with Western philosophical theories of evolution.
 Swami Tapovan Maharaj - A virakta mahatma
 સ્વામી કરપાત્રજી (1905–1980), a well-known sannyasi of Varanasi
 Swami Chinmayananda Jnana diksha bestowed under Sri Swami Tapovan Maharaj in Uttarkashi. Disciples founded the Chinmaya Mission. 'Chinmaya' = "pure consciousness of bliss".
 Shri Swami Dayananda Saraswati, (c. 1824-1883) a contemporary Advaitin who united disparate Hindu sects under a single body known as the Arya Samaj.
 Swami Atmananda  (1883–1959) lived in Kerala.
 Swami Dayananda Saraswati, (c.1930-) originally student of Chinmaya above. He has set up many traditional gurukula (vedanta schools) in India and Western countries.
 Sacchidanandendra Saraswati, a profound Advaitin and the founder of the Adhyatma Prakasha Karyalaya in Holenarasipura
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj A twentieth-century master of Advaita from Mumbai
 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation programme and movement, which have practices and philosophy firmly routed in the Advaita tradition. The TM initiation puja references Adi Shankara and the monastery set up by his devotee Trotakacharya at Jyotir Math. This was the same monastery re-established by Sri Brahmananda Saraswati, Maharishi's master, often referred to as "Guru Dev."
 Sri H.W.L. Poonja (1910–1997), or Papaji. Disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi, he denied being part of any formal tradition, and remained always available, welcoming newcomers to his home and satsangs.
 Tibbetibaba - Hindu Bengali Saint whose life was based on both Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana principles.
 Adi Da (1939–2008) American-born teacher of enlightenment whose followers state he is the promised Hindu Avatar and first seventh stage realizer, who wrote over 70 books on "Advaitayana Buddhism", the unique philosophy that transcends both Advaita thought and the philosophical theories of Buddhism.
American yogi, Richard Hittleman, who was the first person to bring Hatha and Raja Yoga to English-speaking audiences via the medium of a television series (in the 1950s and 1960s). His teachings were essentially those of Advaita Vedanta and Ramana Maharshi(Richard Hittleman, Guide for the Seeker, Bantam Books, 1978, p. 92)
American yogini, Gangaji (Toni Roberson); disciple of Papaji (see above) and author of several books.
 Swami Prajnanapada (1891–1974) disciple of Niralamba Swami and a great exponent of Advaita philosophy. He was in charge of Channa Ashram in West Bengal, India.

Notes

Advaitin philosophers
Advaita Vedanta

અદ્વૈત વેદાંતના આચાર્યોની યાદી


The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) are the first-stagerockets made for Space Shuttle. The Space Launch System will also use them. They are the most powerful rocket motors ever flown. Each rocket generates 13,800 kilonewtons of thrust during the first two minutes of flight. Before the rocket reached orbit, the SRBs were released and fell into the Atlantic Ocean where they were towed back to shore for reuse.

Rockets
Space Shuttles

Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters


The Argead dynasty (, ) was an ancient Macedonian royal house. They were the founders and the ruling dynasty of the kingdom of Macedon from about 700 to 310 BC.  From about 700 BC the founder of the dynasty, Perdiccas I, led the people who called themselves Macedonians eastward from their home on the Haliacmon River. Aegae (today Vergina) became the capital, and by the reign of Amyntas I (6th century BC) Macedonian power extended eastward beyond the Axius (Axiós) River to dominate the neighbouring Thracian tribes.

People of the Argead royal house supposedly believed they were descended of Heracles' family. Famous kings included Philip II of Macedon (reigned 359-336 BC) who subdued Greece and famously united the defeated Greek city states as the League of Corinth with the Macedonians as Hegemon, and his son Alexander the Great (reigned 336–323 BC) who led his army along with allied armies to conquer much of the known world at the time, creating a vast Empire stretching from Macedonia and Greece, to Egypt, and the Indus River, also defeating the Persian Achaemenid Empire.

The Argead family dynasty ended during the wars of the Diadochi when Alexander IV of Macedon and his mother Roxana were murdered.

List of Kings
 Karanus of Macedon
 Koinos of Macedon
 Tyrimmas of Macedon
 Perdiccas I of Macedon 700-678 BC
 Argaeus I of Macedon 678-640 BC
 Philip I of Macedon 640-602 BC
 Aeropus I of Macedon 602-576 BC
 Alcetas I of Macedon 576-547 BC
 Amyntas I of Macedon 547-498 BC
 Alexander I of Macedon 498-454 BC
 Perdiccas II of Macedon 454-413 BC
 Archelaus I of Macedon 413-399 BC
 Craterus of Macedon 399 BC
 Orestes of Macedon 399-396 BC
 Archelaus II of Macedon 396-393 BC
 Amyntas II of Macedon 393 BC
 Pausanias of Macedon 393 BC
 Amyntas III of Macedon 393 BC
 Argaeus II of Macedon 393-392 BC
 Amyntas III of Macedon (restored) 392-370 BC
 Alexander II of Macedon 370-368 BC
 Ptolemy I of Macedon 368-365 BC
 Perdiccas III of Macedon 365-359 BC
 Amyntas IV of Macedon 359 BC
 Philip II of Macedon 359-336 BC
 Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) 336-323 BC
 Philip III of Macedon 323-317 BC (supposedly)
 Alexander IV of Macedon 323-309 BC (supposedly)

References

Other websites
 List of the Kings of Macedonia
Ancient Greek dynasties

Argead dynasty


The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar that gives browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, pan-fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, as well as many other foods, undergo this reaction.

The reactive carbonyl group of the sugar reacts with the nucleophilic amino group of the amino acid, and forms a complex mixture of poorly characterized molecules responsible for a range of aromas and flavors. At higher temperatures, caramelization and subsequently pyrolysis become more pronounced.

Organic reactions

Maillard reaction


Petty France is a hamlet in the rural north of South Gloucestershire, near the Gloucestershire border,  in Hawkesbury parish. It is on the A46, which runs from Bath, to Nailsworth and Stroud, just south of another, slightly smaller hamlet, Dunkirk.

Previously, Petty France and Dunkirk were known as road accident hotspots. The proportion of fatal and serious accidents was 46%, significantly higher than the average for South Gloucestershire as a whole, which is 12%. 13 accidents occurred between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2001, including 2 fatal accidents, four were serious and seven were slight., as a result of this the speed through the two hamlets was reduced to 40 MPH. Badminton and Hawkesbury Upton are also nearby.

The Manor House in Petty France was built in 1812 for Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, prime minister from 1812 to 1827.  The house has seen the likes of Lord Wellington, and has been in the ownership of the poet Wordsworth's family, Lord and Lady Apsley and the Duke of Beaufort; today it is a hotel.

Cultural references

In her novel Northanger Abbey (written in 1803, but not published until 1817), Jane Austen mentions Petty France as a dull two-hour rest stop on the road between Bath and the fictional abbey: "There was nothing to be done but to eat without being hungry, and to loiter about without anything to see."

References

External links

Villages in South Gloucestershire District

Petty France, Gloucestershire


Robin Henderson Thompson (5 May 1931 – 14 August 2003) was a rugby union international for Ireland, a former British Lions captain and rugby league player.

Robin Thompson won two Ulster Schools Senior Cup medals with RBAI (Royal Belfast Academical Institution) and played for Ulster Schools. He made the Queen's University RFC senior side in his first year in the university and while still only 18, he made his Ulster début.

He won his first international cap in the second row as a 20-year-old against France in Paris in December 1951. He was also on the team that defeated France in Paris in January 1952. He played throughout the championship and against New Zealand in 1953-54 and the following season captained Ireland against both France and Wales. He was capped 11 times. He won the Ulster Senior League with Queen's University, the Ulster Senior Cup with Instonians, and also played for London Irish, and the Barbarians.

He was made captain of the 1955 British Lions tour to South Africa. He played in three of the four tests on that tour.

Following the tour he turned professional and played rugby league for Warrington (Heritage No. 567). But an injury and subsequent medical advice brought an end to his playing career while still only 25. After returning to Ireland, he subsequently became a media analyst.

External links
Lions skipper Thompson dies

1931 births
2003 deaths
Alumni of Queen's University Belfast
Barbarian F.C. players
British & Irish Lions rugby union players from Ireland
Expatriate rugby league players in England
Footballers who switched code
Instonians rugby union players
Ireland international rugby union players
Irish expatriate rugby league players
Irish expatriate sportspeople in England
Irish rugby league players
Irish rugby union players
London Irish players
Middlesex County RFU players
Queen's University RFC players
Rugby league players from County Down
Rugby union locks
Ulster Rugby players
Warrington Wolves players

Robin Thompson


The term CA commonly means:
 Californie, a U.S. state
 Canadae, a naition on the North American continent
 Chartered Accoontant
 Compressed Air, sic as "CA Pipin"
 Certificate Authority
 Cyanoacrylate, a chemical compoond
 See numerous ether uises belaich, bi category.
The term ca commonly means (mair belaich):
 circa, ca. or c., meanin approximately
 .ca, Internet kintra code for Canadae
The term Ca commonly means:
 Calcium, as a seembol for the chemical element (Ca)
The term cA commonly means:
 Centiampere, an SI unit o electric current (cA)

Fowk
Caesar Augustus, first Roman Emperor
Carmelo Anthony, Naitional Basketbaw Association player
Christina Aguilera, sangster an sangwriter
Clay Aiken, sangster frae American Idol

Organizations

Companies
Air Cheenae, IATA airline designator (CA)
CA Technologies, formerly kent as Computer Associates
C&A stores
Cayman Airways, airline
Channel Americae, a defunct US televeesion network
Classic Airmy, a Hong Kong based manufacturer o airsoft replicas
Continental Airlines, airline
Creative Assembly, PC Gemme Developer
Crédit Agricole, major French bank
Cyber Acoustics, audio equipment

Ether

Cricket Australie
Bureau o Consular Affairs, a diveesion o the US Department o State
Californie Angels, umwhile name o a professional basebaw team currently kent as Los Angeles Angels o Anaheim
Canadian Alliance, a umwhile Canadian poleetical pairty
Citizens' Alliance, a poleetical pairty in Trinidad an Tobago
Cocaine Anonymous
Conscientious Arsonists, Greek terrorist organisation
Countryside Alliance, UK
Crédit Agricole
Cruising Association
Cycling Australie

Eddication
Canadian Academy, an internaitional schuil in Kobe, Japan
Cary Academy, a North Carolina schuil
Claiborne Academy
Clarksville Academy, a private college-preparatory schuil
Colorado Academy, a private college-preparatory schuil wi k-12 eddication
Connections Academy
The Culver Academies (Culver Militar Academy / Culver Girls Academy), a boardin schuil an simmer camp program

Places
Cả River, a river in Laos an Vietnam
Cagliari, caipital o the island o Sardinia, Italy (CA)
Californie (Unitit States postal abbreviations)
Canadae
 ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, FIPS Pub 10-4 an obsolete NATO digram (CA)
 .ca is the kintra code tap level domain for Canadae
Carlisle, the Unitit Kinrick postcode for the region in north-wastren Ingland served bi the Carlisle postal sortin office
Catamarca Province, in Argentinae
Central Americae
Province o Cádiz in Spain.

Science an medicine
Calcium, seembol for the chemical element (Ca)
Lift coefficient (  or )
Cancer
 Carcinoma
Carbonic anhydrase
Cardiac arrest
Catecholamine
Cellular automaton
Chemical Abstracts, an index o the scienteefic literature in chemistry an relatit fields, supplemented bi abstracts
Chromatic aberration, observed in photographic images when a lens fails tae focus aw colours tae the same convergence pynt
Conversation Analysis, the study o talk in interaction
Cornu ammonis, names o hippocampal subregions
Cyclophosphamide an Adriamycin, a chemotherapy regimen uised tae treat breast cancer
Coronary Artery

Technology
CA (submarine) A Warld war twa Italian midget submarine design
Armored cruiser, U.S. Navy hull classification seembol, pre 1930 (CA)
Cellulose acetate, a teep o plastic.
Centiampere, an SI unit o electric current (cA)
Certificate authority (or Certification Authority) (CA)
Chromatic aberration, a distortion in optical lenses
Compressed Air, sic as "CA Piping" or "CA System" etc.
Computer Animation (CA)
Conditional access, Conditional Access (Broadcast)
Conservation Agriculture
Controlled atmosphere
Cranking amperes, a measurement on an automotive battery
Cultural algorithm (CA)
Cyanoacrylate, superglue
Heavy cruiser, U.S. Navy hull classification seembol (CA)

Ether
The law o Comparative Advantage
Catalan leid, ISO 639 alpha-2 leid code (ca)
Central Admeenistration
Certified archivist, a teep o archivist in the Unitit States
Chartered accountant (CA)
Chief o Airmy (Australie)
Christian anarchism, or an adherent o Christian anarchism
Ceevil Affairs, the offeecial name for militar units that conduct ceevil-militar operations
Class A (disambiguation)
Combat Arms, a popular first-person shuiter
Confidentiality Agreement
Copa América' an association fitbaa tournament
CA are the first twa letters on the license plates o vehicles registered in the Ceety o Cape Toun
 CA, Casio's mobile phones in Japan
 CA, abbreviation for Chief Adjudicator in debating.

CA


Khizi (Xızı) is a raion of Azerbaijan. Its capital is the village of Xızı. This raion has the smallest number of people in Azerbaijan.  The raion has a large variety of landscapes. On the flat Caspian coast there are irrigated cattle and chicken-breeding lowlands around Shurabad. West of Giläzi, the Xızı road goes through semi-desert landscapes known as the Candy Cane Mountains. Around 10 km west of Xızı town, the green, heavily forested hills around Alti Agach which are the Altyaghach National Park. The national park is home to the rare East Caucasian Tur, a mountain dwelling goat antelope found only in the eastern half of the Caucasus Mountains.

References

Districts of Azerbaijan
Absheron Economic Region

Khizi District


The Grand Prix World Championship (GPWC) refers to a number of proposed alternative world championship auto racing series to rival or replace Formula One. Founded in 2001, the GPWC was created as a tool to assist the companies in bargaining with Bernie Ecclestone for an agreeable extension to the 1997 Concorde Agreement, the contract by whose terms the teams compete in Formula One.

Background
In 1979, the Commission Sportive Internationale, an organization subordinate to the FIA which was at that time the rule-making body for Formula One, was dissolved and replaced by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile, or FISA, which would serve the same function. FISA clashed repeatedly with the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), which represented the teams' interests. FOCA's chief executive at the time was Bernie Ecclestone and his legal advisor was Max Mosley, while the president of FISA was Jean Marie Balestre.

The two organizations' disagreements, which came to be known as the FISA–FOCA war, resulted in several races being cancelled. Goodyear threatened to withdraw entirely from Formula One, an event which would have been commercially disastrous for the sport, so Ecclestone organized a meeting of team managers, Balestre, and other FISA representatives at the offices of the FIA in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, France. On 19 January 1981, after thirteen straight hours of negotiation, all parties present signed the first Concorde Agreement, named after the plaza in Paris where the discussions took place. The Concorde Agreement is a contract with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, Formula One teams and Formula One Administration that dictates the terms by which the teams compete in races and take their share of the television revenues and prize money. In 1995, the FIA granted commercial rights of Formula One to FOA for a period of 14 years in exchange for an annual payment from Ecclestone. Formula One subsequently signed another extensions of the Concorde Agreement in 1987, 1992 and 1997. However, McLaren, Tyrrell, and Williams did not sign the agreement in 1997 citing Ecclestone for not allowing more commercial opportunities to be made available. A subsequent amendment led to the three teams signing the agreement in 1998.

Formation
GPWC Holdings was founded in November 2001 by car manufacturers BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford and Renault. The initial directors of the company were Burkhard Goeschel (BMW), Juergen Hubbert (DaimlerChrysler), Paolo Cantrella (Fiat), Wolfgang Reitzle (Ford) and Patrick Faure (Renault). The company was registered in the Netherlands and Cantrella served as the chairman of the GPWC. The car manufacturers were all originally committed to remain Formula One motor racing for the long-term. Formula One team principals (excluding Arrows team principal Tom Walkinshaw) were introduced to the GPWC in a presentation held in Geneva on 27 November 2001. GPWC contacted German media group Kirch Media, saying that if the media outlet was unable to increase the share of Formula One commercial rights payable to existing teams, GPWC would form their own independent rival racing series in 2008. The car manufacturers proposed a $50 million one-off advance to Ferrari in an effort to join the GPWC with an additional bonus of 4% from commercial revenue. Kirch Bankers offered the car manufacturers a 30% stake in their business with the condition that plans for the rival series were dropped.

A reorganisation occurred in June 2002 when Cantrella resigned and was succeeded by the head of the car division of DaimlerChrysler Juergen Hubbert. The president of Ferrari Luca di Montezemolo would represent Fiat with Group Vice President-Global Product Development of Ford Richard Parry-Jones taking over from Reitzle's position after leaving in May 2002.

The future of the GPWC was cast into doubt in mid-January 2005 when Ferrari, FIAT's F1 team, announced it had secretly come to terms with Ecclestone and signed an extension to the Concorde Agreement for a one-off payment amounting to 100 million dollars (US). Ecclestone expressed his expectation that the remaining teams would shortly follow suit despite the initial 40 million dollar (US) offer being retracted. However, at around the same time Honda and Toyota showed interest in working together with GPWC.

Proposed 2010 breakaway series

Following the FIA's announcement of unilateral rule changes for the 2010 season including voluntary budget limits, the FOTA teams had threatened to pull out of Formula One. On 18 June 2009, FOTA confirmed that they were to form a breakaway series starting in 2010. The teams were quoted saying "We've no alternative than to commence preparation for a new championship," following their four-hour-long meeting. The FIA responded to the teams' move in a statement, saying: "We are disappointed but not surprised by FOTA's inability to reach a compromise in the best interests of the sport."

On 23 June 2009, FOTA took the threat further by leaking a provisional calendar for a breakaway series in order to counter claims by the FIA that the teams lacked the sufficient funding to organize their own tournament. The schedule included 17 races made up of some circuits that were currently hosting a Grand Prix in the 2009 Season (such as Singapore), some circuits that had not held a Grand Prix in recent years (such as Jerez), and some that have never held a F1 Grand Prix. Some circuits were ones that have been controversially removed from F1 calendars by the FIA, including Montreal having been removed from the 2009 Season.
However, on 24 June 2009, FOTA reached an agreement with the FIA to continue with F1. However, on 8 July, the FOTA group of teams were informed that they were not yet officially entered for the 2010 season. On 1 August, it was announced that the FIA had signed the new Concorde Agreement, bringing an end to the crisis and securing the sport's future until 2012.

Leaked provisional 2010 calendar

See also

 A1GP

References

Bibliography

Grand Prix motor racing
Formula One
Proposed sports leagues

Grand Prix World Championship


Thomas Buckner (born 1941) is an American baritone vocalist specializing in the performance of contemporary classical music and improvised music.  In his work, he utilizes a wide range of extended (non-traditional) vocal techniques.

Buckner also works as a concert promoter; in Berkeley, California, he founded the 1750 Arch Concerts, which presented over 100 musical events per year for eight years.  He also founded the record label 1750 Arch Records, which released more than 50 LPs.  Also in Berkeley, he co-led the 23-member Arch Ensemble with composer Robert Hughes. He operates the record label Mutable Music.

Buckner has performed with Roscoe Mitchell, Gerald Oshita, Phill Niblock, Borah Bergman, David Darling, Gustavo Aguilar, Wu Man, and Earl Howard.  More than 70 composers have created works for him; these include Robert Ashley, Noah Creshevsky, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Bun-Ching Lam, Morton Subotnick, Jerome Cooper, David Wessel, Tom Hamilton, Leroy Jenkins, Wadada Leo Smith.

Biography

Buckner is a grandson of International Business Machines founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr.  In the early 1970s, while his uncle John N. Irwin, II served as the U.S. Ambassador to France, Buckner was one of approximately 500 left-leaning Americans on Richard Nixon's so-called "enemies list."

He grew up in Westchester County, New York, and has lived in New York City since 1983.  His wife is the bharatanatyam dancer Kamala Cesar, whom he married in 1992.  He is the brother of painter Walker Buckner and children's advocate Elizabeth Buckner.

Buckner is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, where he attended in 1970.

Discography

With Muhal Richard Abrams
The Visibility of Thought (Mutable, 2001)

With Jerome Cooper
Alone, Together, Apart (Mutable, 2003)

With Roscoe Mitchell
8 O'Clock: Two Improvisations (Mutable, 2001)
Numbers (RogueArt, 2011)

References

External links
Thomas Buckner official site
"Baritone Buckner Follows a Different Drummer", by Sybil Fix, from The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), June 7, 1997

American operatic baritones
1941 births
Living people
Contemporary classical music performers
Place of birth missing (living people)
Santa Clara University alumni
Music Academy of the West alumni
RogueArt artists

Thomas Buckner


T.D. (for TouchDown) is the official mascot of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins' official website jokingly states that T.D. was signed on April 18, 1997 by former head coach Jimmy Johnson. The Dolphins conducted a "Name the Mascot" contest that drew over 13,000 entries, covering all 50 states and 22 countries. 528 names were suggested and the winning entry was announced at the annual Dolphins Awards Banquet on June 4, 1997. T.D. first appeared at a Dolphins home game on August 10, 1997 against the Chicago Bears; his first Dolphins home playoff appearance was January 2, 1999 in a win against the Buffalo Bills. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and was the first NFL mascot to participate in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio in 2001. He was invited to Hong Kong to participate in the 2005 Chinese New Year's Day Parade, and recently on May 2, 2015, T.D. was invited to participate at 2015 NFL Draft Town in Chicago, Illinois.

See also
Flipper (mascot)
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

External links

National Football League mascots
Miami Dolphins
1997 establishments in Florida

T. D. (mascot)