Horror in the East

Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II (2000) is a two-part BBC documentary film that examines certain actions, including atrocities, and attitudes, of the Imperial Japanese Army in the lead up to and during World War II. The film also examines attitudes held by the British and Americans, toward the Japanese. It was written and produced by Laurence Rees and narrated by Samuel West.
Synopsis.
In the First World War the Japanese fought on the same side as the British and captured German soldiers who were fighting in Asia. They were treated well, even, following an Imperial Order of 1882, 'as guests'. The question arises: "How could the Japanese behave with such kindness towards their prisoners in World War I and then, less than thirty years later, act with such cruelty?"
Part One - Turning Against the West.
In the opening decades of the twentieth century Japan appeared enthusiastically to adopt western values, 'from dancing to democracy'. As far back as 1885 a Japanese academic had coined what became a popular slogan - "Abandon Asia, go for the West." Crown Prince Hirohito had visited London in the early 1920s.
Like the rest of the country, the Japanese monarchy was changing too - but not in a way that made it resemble Western royalty. In the 1920s the Japanese were being taught that their emperor, living in a park in central Tokyo, was more than just a mere human being - he was called a living god. Children were educated to think of the emperor as a god in the form of a human being. In Japan it was in the interests of one group more than any other that the emperor be perceived as an all powerful living god - the armed forces. Only ultimately accountable to their supreme commander Hirohito, as long as they acted in the name of their 'divine' emperor, elected Japanese politicians found it almost impossible to control them - and by the late 1920s many within the army thought that Japan should act decisively, and expand. Masatake Okumiya (Japanese Imperial Navy): "Japan's population was increasing - its natural resources could not sustain such an increase. Ideally we hoped to receive co-operation from other countries to solve the problem but, back then, the world was under the control of the west and a peaceful solution seemed impossible. We decided, as Britain, America and France had done in the past from time to time, to "use force to solve the problem."" By the early 1930s western countries had colonized much of Asia.
Britain - Hong Kong, Burma, Malaya; Holland - Dutch East Indies; U.S - Philippines; France - French Indochina.
Japan, late on the scene, only had under its control, Taiwan, a few islands in the Pacific, and Korea. In 1931, the Japanese army launched an attack on Manchuria. At the League of Nations in Geneva the Japanese actions were condemned. Japan left the League accusing the Western powers of hypocrisy. In Japan, in face of growing economic depression and a sense of the West's double standards, the call was to expand even further and conquer more territory within Asia. By 1937 the Japanese army was five times what it had been around 1900. Many in the military thought that in an army that had grown so much, to maintain discipline, it was necessary to make the training of recruits more brutal. If the soldiers made the smallest mistake they were beaten, with fists or bamboo sticks. Recruits were instructed also to hit each other. And the Japanese military did not just want to mould their own soldiers but the general population too. Japanese who adopted western values were ridiculed, women who rejected a tradition of subservience were attacked. Many ordinary Japanese, as well as politicians and businesspeople, now supported the drive toward a bigger empire on the Asian mainland, and the minority who openly opposed military expansion risked assassination. Seven prominent Japanese, including two Prime Ministers, were murdered by army officers during the 1930s. Seeking to create a giant colony the Imperial army moved in 1937 into eastern China. The Chinese were not worthy of the land according to the dominant ideology; they were called bugs, animals, below-human. Yoshio Tsuchiya, ("Japanese Secret Military Police"):" The Chinese were inferior - didn't belong to the human race. That was the way we looked at it." In December 1937 the Japanese Army reached the then capital of China, Nanking. (Film taken by John Magee is shown). Men were set on fire, women beaten, bayoneted, raped. After Nanking atrocities followed in the Chinese countryside - the Chinese used for bayonet practice. Yoshio Tsuchiya (imprisoned 1950-56 for war crimes): " The first time you still have a conscience and feel bad, but if you are honoured and given merit and praised, that will be the driving power for the second time - after the second time I didn't feel anything." A soldier is asked why he felt no guilt or shame raping and killing women. He replies : " Because I was fighting for the emperor. He was a god; in the name of the emperor we could do whatever we wanted against the Chinese." Meanwhile the god-emperor of Japan spent most of his time secluded behind the walls of his palace. Even today opinion is divided among historians as to the extent the emperor knew of the barbaric crimes his soldiers were committing in China. " What is certain is that no evidence has surfaced that he ever attempted to hold his soldiers to account for their vicious conduct in China" Rees's film concludes.
Representative examples are then given of pre-Pearl Harbor attitudes towards the Japanese amongst the British and Americans. Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, overall Commander in Chief of the British in the Far East is quoted, and Gene La Rocque (USS Macdonough (DD-351) :" Our concept of the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor was that they were a weak, not very sophisticated people..so foreign to us ..just of small stature, not a very friendly but also not a very intelligent group of people - obviously, of course, we were wrong."
But there was another western nation which did value the Japanese - Nazi Germany. Indeed, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan wanted to form an alliance. A formal treaty of alliance was signed between Germany, Japan and Italy on 27 September 1940. Japan used the moment to move into northern Indo-China. This had been a French colony but the Germans had just overrun France so for the Japanese it was ripe for the picking. Japan wanted to create "a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere". The slogan was "Asia for the Asians" - in essence the locals were swapping one colonial master for another. In Washington the American government, nervous about Japanese colonial intentions, announced that fuel sales to Japan would be suspended if Japan did not reconsider her aggressive actions. With no fuel resources of its own Japan believed it could now either give up its imperial ambitions, or fight the Americans. They attacked Pearl Harbor and, moments after, attacked Hong Kong.
As the Japanese advanced into Hong Kong the Chinese inhabitants of the city became a particular target. Rees's film interviews too a British nurse who tells of how, on 25 December 1941, the day of the British surrender, - nurses at the makeshift hospital at the Hong Kong Jockey Club were raped.
By the spring of 1942, Singapore, Burma, Malaya, and the Philippines all fell to the Japanese. Japanese newsreel and commentary :" 60,000 prisoners were lined up along the road so that they could have the honour of seeing the great commander Yamashita. The prisoners consisted of soldiers from Britain, Malaya, Australia, India, a parade of mongrel troops." About 350000 POWs eventually fell into Japanese hands in south-east Asia. More than one in four died in captivity.
Part Two – Death before Surrender.
Writer-producer Laurence Rees looks at the Kamikaze phenomenon - " What could be more impossible to understand?" [yet] he says, "one of the most extraordinary things which making the series has done is this - I think I understand now why some of them did it, down to a meeting with a kamikaze pilot, he actually volunteered to become a pilot - he explained the "dreadful" social pressure that he and his family were living under - if he didn't go to volunteer he knew his family would be ostracised, shunned, - from his point of view it was a sensible, sane thing to do."
When U.S. Marines tried to re-take Japanese-held islands like Tarawa in 1943, the ferocious way in which the Japanese were prepared to fight to the death did not make the Americans respect them more. To many Americans, their refusal to surrender, like their attack on Pearl Harbor and their mistreatment of prisoners, became another sign they were a dishonourable foe. Michael Witowich: "I thought they were very cruel, sadistic, and they wanted to die for their emperor and we had to go on and help them die for their emperor." (The film soundtrack plays an excerpt from "We're gonna have to slap, the dirty little jap", recorded New York, 18 February 1942). Gene La Rocque (USS MacDonough): "We had been taught that the Japanese were sub-human when we got into the attack, but of course we had no love for Hitler, or the Nazis - but we also had many people in America of German descent, Italian - it was an entirely different view we had of the Italians, of the Germans, than we had of the Japanese." Rees's documentary shows a photo published in the war in "Life" – the girlfriend of an American sailor next to a souvenir from him – the skull of a Japanese signed by her boyfriend's comrades.
Japanese soldiers fighting the Australians in New Guinea committed cannibalism. Japanese forces were sent to New Guinea in 1942 but without sufficient preparation – they were simply abandoned. In late 1943, forbidden to surrender and cut off from their supplies, they began to starve – some resorted to cannibalism of their own and enemy dead. According to Professor Yuki Tanaka: "The cannibalism was organised group practice, rather than individually practised." A Japanese major-general wrote an order prohibiting the eating of human flesh but this meant flesh "excluding enemy flesh".
The first signs that large numbers of civilians as well as soldiers might be prepared to die for their emperor rather than surrender came in 1944, south of the home islands of Japan, on the island of Saipan. Japanese propaganda about Saipan emphasised the nobility of dying in the struggle against the British and Americans. With the capture of islands like Tinian and Saipan, heavy bombers were now in easier range of targets on the home islands of Japan and the Allies now launched the biggest aerial bombardment the world had ever seen - more than 160000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Japan in an effort to make the Japanese accept unconditional surrender.
On 10 March 1945 Tokyo was fire bombed. Over 300 Boeing B-29 bombers dropped incendiaries which caused a fire storm. About 100,000 died. Despite the destruction in Tokyo opinion was still divided in the Japanese government in the months that followed about what should be done. Accepting unconditional surrender might, some feared, mean the elimination of the institution of the emperor itself. Hirohito and his military leaders believed that, in order to negotiate a more advantageous peace, Japan needed to win one big victory - and the Kamikaze would provide the means. Sporadic isolated kamikaze attacks had occurred in 1944 - now in the spring of 1945 kamikazes were to sortie "en masse" for the first time. A student from Tokashiki Island: "I didn't think that they were wasting their lives, I believed they were sacrificing their lives for their country. The Japanese people belonged to the emperor - we were his children." The testimony of a pilot suggests that not all kamikaze volunteered as freely as the propaganda sometimes suggested. Kenichiro Oonuki: " All the fighter pilots, about 150 of us at the training base, were called in - a senior officer told us they were recruiting people for a special mission. They said, 'If you go on this mission, you won't come back alive.' Everyone thought this was ridiculous and nobody really was ready to go. We wanted to answer, 'No, I don't want to go'..But later on we thought, 'Wait, if we "want" to say no, can we "really" say it, "can" we say no to this officer?..We told each other that we should calm down and think about the consequences..if people rejected the offer they might be shunned and sent to the most severe battlefront in the south and would meet certain death anyway - then when their family was informed of this, how would they feel? They would be ostracised from the community...so nobody wanted to volunteer but everybody did.." The biggest kamikaze assault of the war was on the British and American fleets during the battle for Okinawa in the spring of 1945.
The British warships with their armoured decks did not suffer as much under kamikaze attacks as the Americans. In March 1945 as the kamikaze flew around them, the Americans landed on the small island of Tokishiki. As on Saipan, the civilians were told by the Japanese army that the Americans would rape and murder them and encouraged them to adopt kamikaze tactics. To some they gave two hand grenades – one to throw at the Americans, the other to blow themselves up with. Shigeaki Kingjou, a student in 1945, looking back in the year 2000: "I think we were dreadfully manipulated - as I got older, my soul started to suffer. 55 years since the end of the war and I still suffer today." By the spring of 1945, the Japanese empire had been pulled apart. Now the Imperial Japanese Army ordered a heroic stand to be made on Okinawa, less than from Tokyo.
The Americans expected the Japanese to defend the beaches on Okinawa but on 1 April 1945 when 50000 American troops came ashore they found their arrival virtually unopposed. "But" more than 80000 Japanese troops were dug into the fabric of the island interior, some in concrete pill boxes underneath the trees. In Okinawa, as the Americans pushed to the south of the island there were many civilian suicides, some thousand at Cape Kyan. Once more the Japanese military played a crucial role in encouraging the civilian population to kill themselves – on nearby islands where there were no Japanese soldiers there were no mass suicides. Around 8000 American troops, 60000 Japanese soldiers, and 150000 Japanese civilians died on Okinawa.
Media information.
DVD release.
The series was released on Region 2 DVD by BBC Video as part of the "BBC World War II DVD Collection".


Anthem of Krajna

The "Anthem of Krajna" is a song whose lyrics were written by Paweł Jasiek. It is used by the inhabitants of Krajna, Poland as an unofficial anthem.
The song was composed in the 1930s. The lyrics were written by Paweł Jasiek on August 25, 1932, in Olsztyn, having just returned from a visit to his hometown of Zakrzewo. Music was written roughly at the same time as the lyrics. In 1975 a citizen of Łódź, Professor Bernard Pietrzak, worked out an arrangement for a four-person mixed choir. The anthem of Krajna is also used by the Ziemia Krajeńska Elementary School in Samsieczno as the school anthem.


Gustave Lassalle-Bordes

Gustave Lassalle-Bordes (1814/1815, Bezolles or Auch - 17 November 1886, Auch) was a French painter in the Romantic style, known primarily for historical scenes.
Biography.
He was born to a family of the petty nobility in Gascony and sometimes styled himself de Lassalle-Bordes. At the age of seventeen, he went to Paris to study historical painting. He became a student of Paul Delaroche and collaborated with Charles-Philippe Larivière, a well known history painter. Then he assisted Jules-Claude Ziegler; helping him create paintings in the cupola of the Église de la Madeleine. His first exhibit at the Salon came in 1835. Two years later, his canvases caught the attention of Eugène Delacroix
The following year found him working in Delacroix's studio, where he became the principal assistant and, later, the manager. One of his major projects involved assisting with the murals at the . By 1848, however, his relationship with Delacroix had soured and he is known to have complained to the art critic, Philippe Burty (who was editing Delacroix's letters) that he was tired of working in the shadows.
At the Salon of 1850, his work "Le Martyre des sept frères Macchabées", or "La Mort des Macchabées", was purchased by the French government, further stoking his desire for independence. That same year, Delacroix was commissioned to paint murals at the Église Saint-Sulpice and chose Pierre Andrieu, another of his employees, as his chief assistant; citing an "indisposition" by Lassalle-Bordes.
The final break came in 1851, when he accused Delacroix of having prevented him from receiving commissions from the Prefect, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, to decorate the sanctuary at the and other important projects at the Conseil d’État.
Embittered, he returned to his native province and settled permanently in Auch in 1853. There, he capitalized on his relationship with Delacroix and the rave reviews he had received from Charles Baudelaire at the 1846 Salon for his "Death of Cleopatra". He served as a drawing teacher in the local schools for the rest of his life, although he received numerous commissions for work at churches and chateaux in the region. In 1854, he was hired to paint murals at the . The curé, Joseph-Emmanuel de Vivie, is on record as having complained about how difficult it was to work with him.
He participated in many regional exhibitions and, in 1865, he was awarded a commission to decorate the Château de Montbrun, in Cologne (which was being restored), with a series of mythological figures. This was followed by a series of portraits; of illustrious local citizens, to decorate the town halls in Auch, Lectoure and Condom. Eight of those portraits received an official inauguration ceremony in Auch in 1868. In 1872, he was named a Professor at the Auch lycée.


Clarissa (TV series)

Clarissa is a 1991 British period drama television miniseries starring Sean Bean, Saskia Wickham and Lynsey Baxter. It aired on the BBC in four episodes between 27 November and 11 December 1991. It was based on the novel "Clarissa" published in 1747-48 by Samuel Richardson. It follows a virtuous young woman who is oppressed by her ambitious family and a rake who becomes obsessed with her.
Plot.
The virtuous Clarissa (Wickham) inherits a fortune from her grandfather but gives it into the control of her jealous family. Clarissa is the image of a youthful, virtuous young woman. Lovelace (Bean) arrives to seduce Clarissa's sister Arabella (Baxter) and the two go out for a walk. Clarissa is also in the gardens and comes across the two in embrace. Lovelace catches sight of Clarissa and is immediately enchanted by her, which Arabella notices and becomes disgusted. From that point onwards, Lovelace attempts to see Clarissa again even as her family tightens their grip of control on her and bans her from seeing Lovelace. This control is primarily backed by her devious sister Arabella and brother James (Phillips), both of whom plot to foil any chances at happiness for Clarissa. Eventually the family decides that Clarissa will marry the wealthy Mr. Solmes (Firth). In an attempt to force her hand in this marriage, the family bans Clarissa from writing or sending letters and removes Clarissa's dear friend Anna Howe (Norris) from the household, also replacing a maid who informs James about Clarissa's every move. Clarissa repeatedly tries to reach her family, including having her new handmaid deliver letters to her uncle, father, and mother. All three of whom she used to be close to, the handmaid returns with all three letters having been ripped up and unread. Her brother and sister also physically incapacitate Clarissa and force the realization of a dull future with Mr. Solmes onto her.
Realizing the severity of her situation and feeling isolated, Clarissa feels forced to seek the protection of Lovelace and his family. Clarissa delivers a letter to Lovelace through a loose brick in the henhouse. Clarissa dreams that night of her wedding, all in white, with her family in attendance. Lovelace appears and draws his sword on her family in threat before turning it towards Clarissa and fatally stabbing her through the heart. Lovelace acts genuine towards Clarissa but is actually a rake who wants to seduce her. Clarissa leaves on the night of her letter to meet Lovelace and ends up, reluctantly, going with him to an inn. The two sleep in separate rooms but Lovelace blatantly hints at his true intentions. They bicker the next day and Clarissa continues to hold on to her virtue and deny Lovelace his affections. Lovelace continues to press her, but changes tactics to beg Clarissa for help in becoming a better man himself. He approaches Clarissa with the Bible and informs her that he is practicing reformation. She agrees to assist him in his repentance but wonders what Lovelace's true intentions are.
He lodges her with a madam and her prostitutes. Her reputation ruined, she tries to run away, but is tricked into coming back, ostensibly to marry him and restore her reputation. As the whores hold her down, Lovelace rapes her. He insists he wants to marry her, but she wants no part of him and escapes. Distraught, Clarissa starves herself to death. Lovelace's family reject him and his erstwhile friend kills him for ruining her.
Reception.
John J. O'Connor, of The New York Times, stated that the show was, "Nothing very revolutionary, granted, but reasonably promising" in his review.


Border Reivers (game)

Border Reivers is a light warfare/economic development board game designed by Jackson Pope published in 2006 by Reiver Games in English. Players assume the roles of clans on the Scottish and English Borders during the Middle Ages, striving to achieve ascendancy via economic or military means.
"Border Reivers" can be played by two to four players and takes around 30 to 90 minutes to play.
Gameplay.
Players take it in turns to complete six phases of their turns. The game ends when all but one player have been annihilated, or a player starts their turn with 40 gold.
The six phases are:
Strategy.
Strategically, "Border Reivers" is based around the need to balance spending your money on the reinforcements necessary to cement your clan's safety and improve your economy, while keeping enough money available to rein in a player who tries to race to an economic victory.
The game is often won by the player who best judges when to stop spending their income and start saving for an economic victory. However, careful use of the strategy cards will enable other players to delay or even stop a player saving for victory.
The ability to choose the strategy card received in the reinforcements phase makes the cards a powerful tool for winning the game.


Deus (board game)

Deus is a Civilisation-themed board game designed by Sébastien Dujardin, illustrated by Ian Parovel, Maëva Da Silva, Christine Deschamps & Paul Laffont, published in 2014 by Pearl Games and distributed by Asmodee.
Gameplay.
In "Deus", players work to develop their civilizations. Players start the game with five cards to build their realm. There are six types of cards, each of a different color : green for resources, red for military, brown to get points, yellow for effects, purple for temples, and blue for merchants.
Each time a player constructs a building in a specific location, he must discard the corresponding card to his personal board and then gain effects.
The particularity of the game comes from the way players manage their board and the main terrain, as well as their approach to design.
Reception.
Despite its niche, Deus was acclaimed for its fresh approach with many awards. The game was nominated and selected by As d'Or 2015, 2014 Meeple's Choice, 2014 Board Game of the Year and 2014 Strategy Game of the Year, as well as the 2015 Kennerspiel Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award nomination.


Abraham Godijn

Abraham Godijn or Abraham Godyn (alternative spellings of family name: Goddijn and Abraham Goddyn) (1655/56 – after 1724) was a Flemish painter who, after a stay in Italy, worked for a time as a court painter in Prague where he produced magnificent Baroque frescos. He later returned to Antwerp.
Life.
Details about his life are scarce. Abraham Godijn was probably born in 1655 or 1656 in Antwerp where he studied under the prominent history painter Hendrik Herregouts. He became in 1681 a member of the 'Sodaliteit van de Bejaerde Jongmans', a fraternity for bachelors established by the Jesuit order. Not long thereafter he travelled to Italy. His work was well received in Rome where he became a court painter of the Pope and received the title of 'Painter of the Office of his Imperial and Catholic Majesty'.
He moved on to Prague in 1690 where he worked as a court painter until 1698. He received a commission to paint frescos in the Troja Palace in Prague on which he worked with his brother Izaak. They were part of a group of artists who worked in 1687 for Wenzel Albert Duke of Sternberg on the decoration of the Troja Palace in Prague. This group included Flemish artists such as Johann Baptiste Bouttats.
He is recorded back in Antwerp around 1711 where he became a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke in the same year. He was employed mainly on decorative commissions. He joined in 1716 the Antwerp Confrerie of Romanists when it was reconstituted on purely religious grounds. It was a condition of membership of the Confrerie that the member had visited Rome. He and Jan Pieter van Bredael the Younger were the last artists to become members of the Confrerie. In 1723 he became the dean of the Confrerie. The date and place of his death are not known.
He had many pupils in Prague and in Antwerp, the most prominent of whom was Marten Jozef Geeraerts.
Work.
Very few of his works have survived. He was a painter of history and decorative commissions.
His best-known works are the frescos that he was commissioned to paint by Count Sternberk in the main room of the Troja Castle. The paintings, which he executed in the period 1691 to 1697 with the assistance of his brother Izaak, are considered to be among the best examples of Baroque fresco painting in Northern Europe. The fresco’s use illusionist effects and narrate in a triumphalist way the history of the Habsburg Dynasty. The design follows the Baroque schema of architectural symbolism whereby the ceiling depicts the celestial world and the walls the terrestrial world. The ceiling is decorated with celestial beings that were said to protect the Habsburg territories. Underneath the curved surfaces below the ceiling, angels and "putti" are floating before trompe-l'œil architecture showing scenes from Habsburg history. The walls depict the terrestrial world with one of the scenes on the shorter walls celebrating the victory of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor over the Turks. In one scene we see the trompe-l'œil effect of a Turk falling down with his arms outstretched while his shadow is reflected on the painting (see illustration). The longer wall holds statues or busts of the Habsburg rulers in "grisaille". In the fresco programme Abraham Godijn achieved a sophisticated and complex synthesis of fictionalist painting of architecture and lively figural scenes.
He painted a series of the seven sacraments for the monastery of Saint Martin in Pontoise (now in Pontoise Cathedral).


Chariots of War

Chariots of War is an isometric 2D computer wargame, developed by Slitherine Software and Paradox Interactive, and published by Strategy First.
Gameplay.
The strategic layer of "Chariots of War" is turn-based, though unlike "Civilization", the focus is almost entirely on real-time tactical combat. The game is similar to Slitherine's earlier wargame "Legion", and uses the same graphics engine.
There are 58 different civilizations to play, all divided into the following ethnic groups:
There are nine different resources to collect (food, building materials, copper, tin, wood, gold, gems, incense, and horses), which are used to construct buildings and units. While trade and diplomacy do feature in the game, they are of lesser importance, as conquest is the only way to attain victory.
The battles themselves take place on a separate deployment screen. The player's forces are positioned across one third of the battlefield, and the player alters their formations and gives certain orders. As in "Legion", the actual fighting is automated, so the initial orders are the only input in the battle until it is over.
The game features both campaign and non-campaign modes of play.
Reception.
The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.


Profezia

Profezia (Italian for "prophecy") is a 1991 adventure video game with a multiple-choice interface: as opposed to classic adventures where the player is free to roam around the game world (or part of it), the storyline in "Profezia" develops automatically. Whenever an action is to be taken, the player is presented with a set of choices, which will affect the rest of the adventure.
"Profezia" is set in the Middle Ages, in a mountain area between the two Italian regions of Abruzzo and Lazio. The player takes control of a mercenary who has been hired to retrieve a golden crown from the castle of Capistrello, where Duke Attilio intends to use it on an ancient Pagan rite.
There is no unique path to complete the game: the player may follow alternate branches, provided that the actions which follow are coherent with their previous choices.


Cyrano de Bergerac (play)

Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. There was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, and the play is a fictionalisation following the broad outlines of his life.
The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the classical alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the "dames précieuses" glimpsed before the performance in the first scene.
The play has been translated and performed many times, and it is responsible for introducing the word "panache" into the English language. Cyrano (the character) is in fact famed for his panache, and he himself makes reference to "my panache" in the play. The two most famous English translations are those by Brian Hooker and Anthony Burgess.
Plot summary.
Hercule Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, a cadet (nobleman serving as a soldier) in the French Army, is a brash, strong-willed man of many talents. In addition to being a remarkable duelist, he is a gifted, joyful poet and is also a musical artist. However, he has an obnoxiously large nose, which causes him to doubt himself. This doubt prevents him from expressing his love for his distant cousin, the beautiful and intellectual Roxane, as he believes that his ugliness would prevent him the "dream of being loved by even an ugly woman."
Act I – A Performance at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.
The play opens in Paris, 1640, in the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Members of the audience slowly arrive, representing a cross-section of Parisian society from pickpockets to nobility. Christian de Neuvillette, a handsome new cadet, arrives with Lignière, a drunkard whom he hopes will identify the young woman with whom he has fallen in love. Lignière recognizes her as Roxane, and he tells Christian about her and the Count de Guiche's scheme to marry her off to the compliant Viscount Valvert. Meanwhile, Ragueneau and Le Bret are expecting Cyrano de Bergerac, who has banished the actor Montfleury from the stage for a month. After Lignière leaves, Christian intercepts a pickpocket and, in return for his freedom, the pickpocket tells Christian of a plot against Lignière. Christian departs to try to warn him.
The play "Clorise" begins with Montfleury's entrance. Cyrano disrupts the play, forces Montfleury off stage, and compensates the manager for the loss of admission fees. The crowd is going to disperse when Cyrano lashes out at a pesky busybody, then is confronted by Valvert and duels with him while composing a ballade, wounding (and possibly killing) him as he ends the refrain (as promised, he ends each refrain with "Qu'à la fin de l'envoi, je touche!": "Then, as I end the refrain, thrust home!") When the crowd has cleared the theater, Cyrano and Le Bret remain behind, and Cyrano confesses his love for Roxane. Roxane's duenna then arrives, and asks where Roxane may meet Cyrano privately. Lignière is then brought to Cyrano, having learned that one hundred hired thugs are waiting to ambush him on his way home. Cyrano, now emboldened, vows to take on the entire mob single-handed, and he leads a procession of officers, actors and musicians to the Porte de Nesle.
Act II – The Poets' Cookshop.
The next morning, at Ragueneau's bake shop, Ragueneau supervises various apprentice cooks in their preparations. Cyrano arrives, anxious about his meeting with Roxane. He is followed by a musketeer, a paramour of Ragueneau's domineering wife Lise, then the regular gathering of impoverished poets who take advantage of Ragueneau's hospitality. Cyrano composes a letter to Roxane expressing his deep and unconditional love for her, warns Lise about her indiscretion with the musketeer, and when Roxane arrives he signals Ragueneau to leave them alone.
Roxane and Cyrano talk privately as she bandages his hand (injured from the fracas at the Port de Nesle); she thanks him for defeating Valvert at the theater, and talks about a man with whom she has fallen in love. Cyrano thinks that she is talking about him at first, and is ecstatic, but Roxane describes her beloved as "handsome," and tells him that she is in love with Christian de Neuvillette. Roxane fears for Christian's safety in the predominantly Gascon company of Cadets, so she asks Cyrano to befriend and protect him. This he agrees to do.
After she leaves, Cyrano's captain arrives with the cadets to congratulate him on his victory from the night before. They are followed by a huge crowd, including de Guiche and his entourage, but Cyrano soon drives them away. Le Bret takes him aside and chastises him for his behavior, but Cyrano responds haughtily. The Cadets press him to tell the story of the fight, teasing the newcomer Christian de Neuvillette. When Cyrano recounts the tale, Christian displays his own form of courage by interjecting several times with references to Cyrano's nose. Cyrano is angry, but remembering his promise to Roxane, he holds in his temper.
Eventually Cyrano explodes, the shop is evacuated, and Cyrano reveals his identity as Roxane's cousin. Christian confesses his love for Roxane but his inability to woo because of his lack of intellect and wit. When Cyrano tells Christian that Roxane expects a letter from him, Christian is despondent, having no eloquence in such matters. Cyrano then offers his services, including his own unsigned letter to Roxane. The Cadets and others return to find the two men embracing, and are flabbergasted. The musketeer from before, thinking it was safe to do so, teases Cyrano about his huge nose and receives a slap in the face, and there was much rejoicing.
Act III – Roxane's Kiss.
Outside Roxane's house Ragueneau is conversing with Roxane's duenna. When Cyrano arrives, Roxane comes down and they talk about Christian: Roxane says that Christian's letters have been breathtaking—he is more intellectual than even Cyrano, she declares. She also says that she loves Christian.
When de Guiche arrives, Cyrano hides inside Roxane's house. De Guiche tells Roxane that he has come to say farewell. He has been made a colonel of an army regiment that is leaving that night to fight in the war with Spain. He mentions that the regiment includes Cyrano's guards, and he grimly predicts that he and Cyrano will have a reckoning. Afraid for Christian's safety if he should go to the front, Roxane quickly suggests that the best way for de Guiche to seek revenge on Cyrano would be for him to leave Cyrano and his cadets behind while the rest of the regiment goes on to military glory. After much flirtation from Roxane, de Guiche believes he should stay close by, concealed in a local monastery. When Roxane implies that she would feel more for de Guiche if he went to war, he agrees to march on steadfastly, leaving Cyrano and his cadets behind. He leaves, and Roxane makes the duenna promise she will not tell Cyrano that Roxane has robbed him of a chance to go to war.
Roxane expects Christian to come visit her, and she tells the duenna to make him wait if he does. Cyrano presses Roxane to disclose that instead of questioning Christian on any particular subject, she plans to make Christian improvise about love. Although he tells Christian the details of her plot, when Roxane and her duenna leave, he calls for Christian who has been waiting nearby. Cyrano tries to prepare Christian for his meeting with Roxane, urging him to remember lines Cyrano has written. Christian however refuses saying he wants to speak to Roxane in his own words. Cyrano bows to this saying, "Speak for yourself, sir."
During their meeting Christian makes a fool of himself trying to speak seductively to Roxane. Roxane storms into her house, confused and angry. Thinking quickly, Cyrano makes Christian stand in front of Roxane's balcony and speak to her while Cyrano stands under the balcony whispering to Christian what to say. Eventually, Cyrano shoves Christian aside and, under cover of darkness, pretends to be Christian, wooing Roxane himself. In the process, he wins a kiss for Christian.
Roxane and Christian are secretly married by a Capuchin. Outside, Cyrano meets de Guiche. Cyrano, his face concealed, impersonates a madman, with a tale of a trip to the Moon. De Guiche is fascinated, and delays his journey to hear more. When Cyrano finally reveals his face, de Guiche suggests Cyrano should write a book.
The newly wed couple's happiness is short-lived: de Guiche, angry to have lost Roxane, declares that he is sending the Cadets of Gascony to the front lines of the war with Spain. De Guiche triumphantly tells Cyrano that the wedding night will have to wait. Under his breath, Cyrano remarks that the news fails to upset him.
Roxane, afraid for Christian, urges Cyrano to promise to keep him safe, to keep him out of dangerous situations, to keep him dry and warm, and to keep him faithful. Cyrano says that he will do what he can but that he cannot promise anything. Roxane begs Cyrano to promise to make Christian write to her every day. Brightening, Cyrano announces confidently that he can promise that.
Act IV – The Gascon Cadets.
The Siege of Arras. The Gascon Cadets are among many French forces now cut off by the Spanish, and they are starving. Cyrano, meanwhile, has been writing in Christian's name twice a day, smuggling letters across enemy lines. De Guiche, whom the Cadets despise, arrives and chastises them; Cyrano responds with his usual bravura, and de Guiche then signals a spy to tell the Spanish to attack the Cadets, informing them that they must hold the line until relief arrives. Then a coach arrives, and Roxane emerges from it. She tells how she was able to flirt her way through the Spanish lines. Cyrano tells Christian about the letters, and provides him a farewell letter to give to Roxane if he dies. After de Guiche departs, Roxane provides plenty of food and drink with the assistance of the coach's driver, Ragueneau. De Guiche attempts to convince Roxane to leave the battlefield for a second time. When she refuses, de Guiche says he will not leave a lady behind. This impresses the cadets who offer him their leftovers, which de Guiche declines but ends up catching the cadets' accent which makes him even more popular with the cadets. Roxane also tells Christian that, because of the letters, she has grown to love him for his soul alone, and would still love him even if he were ugly.
Christian tells this to Cyrano, and then persuades Cyrano to tell Roxane the truth about the letters, saying he has to be loved for "the fool that he is" to be truly loved at all. Cyrano disbelieves what Christian claims Roxane has said, until she tells him so as well. But, before Cyrano can tell her the truth, Christian is brought back to the camp, having been fatally shot. Cyrano realizes that, in order to preserve Roxane's image of an eloquent Christian, he cannot tell her the truth. The battle ensues, a distraught Roxane collapses and is carried off by de Guiche and Ragueneau, and Cyrano rallies the Cadets to hold back the Spanish until relief arrives.
Act V – Cyrano's Gazette.
Fifteen years later, at a convent outside Paris. Roxane now resides here, eternally mourning her beloved Christian. She is visited by de Guiche, who is now a good friend and now sees Cyrano as an equal (and has been promoted to duke), Le Bret, and Ragueneau (who has lost his wife and bakery, and is now a candlelighter for Molière), and she expects Cyrano to come by as he always has with news of the outside world. On this day, however, he has been mortally wounded by someone who dropped a huge log on his head from a tall building. Upon arriving to deliver his "gazette" to Roxane, knowing it will be his last, he asks Roxane if he can read "Christian's" farewell letter. She gives it to him, and he reads it aloud as it grows dark. Listening to his voice, she realizes that it is Cyrano who was the author of all the letters, but Cyrano denies this to his death. Ragueneau and Le Bret return, telling Roxane of Cyrano's injury. While Cyrano grows delirious, his friends weep and Roxane tells him that she loves him. He combats various foes, half imaginary and half symbolic, conceding that he has lost all but one important thing – his "panache" – as he dies in Le Bret and Ragueneau's arms.
Stage history.
On 27 December 1897, the curtain rose at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, and the audience was pleasantly surprised. A full hour after the curtain fell, the audience was still applauding. The original Cyrano was Constant Coquelin, who played it over 410 times at said theatre and later toured North America in the role. The original production had sets designed by Marcel Jambon and his associates Brard and Alexandre Bailly (Acts I, III and V), Eugène Carpezat (Act II), and Alfred Lemeunier (Act IV). The earliest touring production of "Cyrano" was set up by Charles Moncharmont and Maurice Luguet. It was premiered in Monte Carlo on 29 March 1898, and subsequently presented in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Algeria, Tunisia and Spain. Special, transportable sets emulating the Parisian production were created for this tour by Albert Dubosq:"La troupe qui interprétera" Cyrano de Bergerac "se composera de quarante personnes. Les costumes et les décors seront identiques à ceux de la Porte Saint-Martin; les costumes, au nombre de deux cent cinquante, faits sur mesure, les armes, cartonnages, tout le matériel seront exécutés par les fournisseurs de ce théâtre; les décors seront brossés par Dubosq qui est allé, ces jours derniers, s’entendre à Paris avec les entrepreneurs de la tournée. ... la troupe voyage avec tout un matériel de décors à appliques, charnières, pièces démontables qui, pouvant se planter sur n’importe quelle scène et se divisant en tous petits fragments, s’installe aisément dans des caisses, sans peser relativement trop lourd et dépasser les dimensions admises par les chemins de fer."Richard Mansfield was the first actor to play Cyrano in the United States in an English translation.
The longest-running Broadway production ran 232 performances in 1923 and starred Walter Hampden, who returned to the role on the Great White Way in 1926, 1928, 1932, and 1936. Hampden used the 1923 Brian Hooker translation prepared especially for him, which became such a classic in itself that it was used by virtually every English-speaking Cyrano until the mid-1980s.
In 1946 Hampden passed the torch to José Ferrer, who won a Tony Award for playing Cyrano in a much-praised Broadway staging, the highlight of which was a special benefit performance in which Ferrer played the title role for the first four acts and Hampden (then in his mid-sixties) assumed it for the fifth. Ferrer reprised the role on live television in 1949 and 1955, and in a 1950 film version for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. It became Ferrer's most famous role.
Other notable English-speaking Cyranos were Ralph Richardson, DeVeren Bookwalter, Derek Jacobi, Michael Kanarek, Richard Chamberlain, and Christopher Plummer, who played the part in Rostand's original play and won a Tony Award for the 1973 musical adaptation. Kevin Kline played the role in a Broadway production in 2007, with Jennifer Garner playing Roxane and Daniel Sunjata as Christian. A taped version of the production was broadcast on PBS's "Great Performances" in 2009. In 2018, David Serero is the first French actor to play Cyrano in America in the English language.
Adaptations.
Films.
See List of film adaptations of "Cyrano de Bergerac"
Radio.
Ralph Richardson as Cyrano in the BBC Home Service production translated by Brian Hooker and adapted for radio by JOHN POWELL - July 1966.
Kenneth Branagh starred as Cyrano, Jodhi May as Roxanne, and Tom Hiddleston as Christian, in a 2008 BBC Radio 3 production using the Anthony Burgess translation and directed by David Timson. This production first aired on BBC Radio 3 on 23 March 2008 and was re-broadcast on 4 April 2010.
Len Cariou and Roberta Maxwell starred in a 1980 CBC Television version directed by Peabody-winner Yuri Rasovsky.
Tom Burke and Emily Pithon starred in a 2015 BBC Radio 4 version for "15 Minute Drama", spanning five 15-minute episodes. It was adapted by Glyn Maxwell, and directed by Susan Roberts.
Opera.
An opera in French, "Cyrano de Bergerac", whose libretto by Henri Cain is based on Rostand's words, was composed by the Italian Franco Alfano and was first presented in an Italian translation in 1936. In recent years, the original French version has been revived in productions including the Opéra national de Montpellier with Roberto Alagna in 2003, and a 2005 Metropolitan Opera production with Plácido Domingo in the title role; both are available in DVD recordings.
Victor Herbert's unsuccessful 1899 operetta "Cyrano de Bergerac", with a libretto by Harry B. Smith based on the play, was one of Herbert's few failures.
Walter Damrosch's "Cyrano", another operatic adaptation of "Cyrano de Bergerac", premiered in 1913 at the Metropolitan Opera.
Eino Tamberg composed another opera titled "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1974, to a libretto in Estonian by Jaan Kross, based on Rostand's play.
The opera "Cyrano" by David DiChiera to a libretto by Bernard Uzan premiered at the Michigan Opera Theatre on 13 October 2007.
Scientific studies: "Cyranoids".
Inspired by the balcony scene in which Cyrano provides Christian with words to speak to Roxane, Stanley Milgram developed an experimental technique that used covert speech shadowing to construct hybrid personae in social psychological experiments, wherein subjects would interact with a "Cyranoid" whose words emanated from a remote, unseen "source".


Isabella Francken

Isabella Francken was a Flemish painter who was active in the first part of the 17th century. She was a member of the large Francken family of artists. Only a few works are currently attributed to her. These are history and genre paintings, which are in the style representative of the Francken family workshop.
Life.
Very little is known about the life and training of Isabella Francken. It is believed she was the daughter of Hieronymus Francken I. Her father had been a pupil of Frans Floris and had settled in France in 1578.
Isabella Francken was active in the first half, and possibly even only in the first quarter, of the 17th century.
Work.
Only two works are currently attributed to Isabella Francken: "The Road to Calvary" (Sold at Bonhams on 8 July 2009 in London, lot 76) and a "Witch scene" (Sold at Dorotheum on 2 October 2002 in Vienna, lot 360). Both works are oil on copper paintings.
"The Road to Calvary" is similar to two groups of paintings by her cousin Frans Francken II of the same subject, which are generally dated either to the first decade of the 17th century or to circa 1618. The composition depicts the meeting between Christ carrying the cross and Saint Veronica who has a cloth to wipe Christ's face. It is signed and dated lower left: I. FRANCK.F / 1631.
The "Witch scene" depicts a gathering of witches in an interior. It is very close to the compositions of the same subject by her cousins Frans Francken II and Hieronymous Francken II.


Tarquin and Lucretia

Tarquin and Lucretia is an oil painting by Titian completed in 1571, when the artist was in his eighties, for Philip II of Spain. It is signed, and considered to have been finished entirely by Titian himself. It is one of a series of great works from Titian's last years, but unlike some of these, is fully finished. It is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.
The story from early Roman history (or legend) of the rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius (Tarquin), and her subsequent suicide, was a popular subject in Renaissance art. Tarquin raped Lucretia after threatening to kill her if she rejected his advances; this is the moment shown here. The next day she exposed him and committed suicide, prompting the Romans to revolt and overthrow Tarquin's father Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome, and establish the Roman Republic. This is traditionally dated to 509 BC. Violent subjects are characteristic of Titian's last years, mostly drawn from mythology or religion, but the directness of this composition stands out among them.
The refinement of the poses of the figures is reflected in other contemporary versions of the painting. By this late stage in his career, Titian often took many years over paintings, setting them aside for long periods, only returning to them later. This painting is fully finished, and had been in progress for several years. As one of the latest documented and fully finished paintings by Titian, it is evidence for the much-debated question of whether other late Titians were ever finished or not.
Subject.
Most commonly, art depicted either the moment of the rape, or Lucretia is shown alone at the moment of her suicide. In this near life-size late version, which Titian said in a letter of 1568 (three years before it was completed) was "an invention involving greater labour and artifice than anything, perhaps, that I have produced for many years", the drama of the composition is heightened by small touches in pure white at the tip of the dagger and in Tarquin and Lucretia's eyes.
The head and hand entering from the left belong to a male slave; in Livy's telling Tarquin told Lucretia that if she did not yield to him, he would kill both Lucretia and the slave and then claim to have caught them during the act of adultery. The violent attack is closer to Ovid's account of the story, and although this is the only painting of a historical subject from Titian's last years, his mythological subjects are also all covered by Ovid. Lucretia wears her jewellery to bed, and Tarquin's clothes are modern and rich. Titian's signature is on the slipper at lower right. The painting has been trimmed on all sides, but it is not known when or by how much.
The subject was one of a group showing women from legend or the Bible who were powerless, or only able to escape their situation through suicide, such as Susanna, Dido of Carthage and Verginia. These formed a counterpoint to, or sub-group of, the set of subjects known as the Power of Women, showing female violence against, or domination of, men. These were often depicted by the same artists, and especially popular in Northern Renaissance art. The story of Esther lay somewhere between these two extremes.
Influences and copies.
Either Titian or, as is now thought more likely, his brother Francesco Vecellio (c. 1490-1559/60), had already painted the suicide, as "an elegant dance movement in a landscape", some 50 years earlier (now Royal Collection). Titian, or perhaps Palma Vecchio, had also painted a typical portrait of Lucretia holding a knife, but with the untypical addition of a male figure in deep shadow, either Tarquin or her husband, standing just behind her. This comes from 1514–15 and is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, with an early copy in the Royal Collection.
Titian's new composition can be shown to have been influenced by Northern prints, and was itself immediately popularized by an engraving by Cornelius Cort, dated 1571, which is "evidently from some authorized "modeletto"". This reversed the composition (in a mirror image, as print copies naturally do) but another print published in Rome, presumably pirated, copied the print and so reversed the composition again to restore the original. The exact poses of the individual figures also have precedents, with Lucretia perhaps drawing from the female figure (Dirce) in the famous Roman sculpture known as the "Farnese Bull".
The composition evolved as Titian worked on it, as is shown by x-rays of the painting, and a workshop copy now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (illustrated here), which reflects an earlier composition where the hand with the dagger is much lower, and threatening to thrust upwards not down. Here Lucretia's head is also turned away from Tarquin. The x-rays of the Cambridge painting show that the lower position of the arm had been tried there. There is an unfinished version, or study, with the raised hand but many other differences, now in the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna (illustrated here). This is believed by some to be by Titian, but for others "the uncertainty of form and anatomy makes it likely to be the work of an assistant or pasticheur".
Provenance.
Like many of the paintings of his last years, it was a commission for Philip II of Spain, and was ready for collection by the Spanish ambassador to Venice by August 1571. Titian's own title, from a letter, is "Lucretia romana violata da Tarquino" ("Lucretia of Rome raped by Tarquinius"). It remained in the Spanish royal collection until 1813, when it was taken to France by Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, after he lost the Spanish throne. It probably accompanied him to America from 1817 to 1832. After his death in 1844 it was sold in London in 1845, and after several private owners, it was given by Charles Fairfax Murray to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1918. It was frequently back on the market before this, sold in all six times, probably because of its shocking power. Murray had bought it in 1886, and sold it by 1911, then bought it again.


Centennial (novel)

Centennial is a novel by American author James A. Michener, published in 1974. It traces the history of the plains of northeast Colorado from prehistory until the early 1970s. Geographic details about the fictional town of Centennial and its surroundings indicate that the region is in modern-day Weld County.
"Centennial" was made into a popular twelve-part television miniseries, also titled "Centennial", that aired on NBC from October 1978 through February 1979, and was filmed in several parts of Colorado. NBC Universal released a six volume DVD set in 2008.
Overview.
Michener lived in Greeley during the late 1930s and was familiar with the area. He used a variety of source material for his fictional town taken from various areas in eastern Colorado, and Centennial is not meant to represent a single settlement. His description of the town's location places it at the junction of the South Platte River and the Cache la Poudre River. This is roughly halfway between the Colorado towns of Greeley and Kersey, in central Weld County on the High Plains about east of the base of the Rockies. There is a city called Centennial, Colorado, but it did not exist until 2001 and its location and history are not at all similar in any way to the town described in either the book or miniseries.
Many episodes in the book are loosely based on actual historical events in eastern Colorado and southeast Wyoming, which for novelistic reasons are brought to a single locale. For example, "The Massacre" is based on the Sand Creek Massacre which took place in Kiowa County, Colorado, in 1864. Other parts of the book are loosely based on a family from Sterling in Logan County. In explaining fact from fiction, Michener states in the text that: This is a novel. Its characters and scenes are imaginary. There was no Venneford Ranch, no prairie town of Line Camp, no Skimmerhorn cattle drive of 1868, no Centennial. None of the families depicted here were real, nor founded upon real precedents. There was no Lame Beaver, nor Skimmerhorn nor Zendt nor Grebe. On the other hand, certain background incidents and characters are real. There was a great convocation in 1851 at Fort Laramie. There was a drought in 1931-5. Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill, did frequent the English ranches near Cheyenne. Charles Goodnight, one of the great men of the west, did haul the corpse of his partner home in a lead box. Melchior Fordney, the master gunsmith, was murdered. The South Platte River did behave as described.
Characters.
Most of the primary characters of the novel are represented in the ancestry of Paul Garrett as follows:


No More Blood

"No More Blood" is the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of "Scandal", and is the 60th overall episode. It aired on February 19, 2015, in the U.S. on ABC.
Plot.
Olivia is about to be handed off to the Iranians when she speaks their language and foils the deal. Gus reopens the auction, allowing Huck one more chance to bid on Olivia using Marie's credentials. Meanwhile, Fitz and Cyrus disagree on how to handle the situation, eventually leading Cyrus to plot with the CIA to kill Olivia to prevent international secrets from being leaked. Mellie explains to Fitz that Andrew's blackmail threatens her chance at becoming President herself, and Fitz agrees to let Andrew walk. However, Mellie also plots with Elizabeth to take Andrew down. Olivia is eventually sold to a group in Russia, despite Huck tying for the winning bid. Stephen Finch shows up and rescues Olivia, then brings her back to America, shortly before Andrew has a massive stroke. Fitz goes to Olivia's apartment, but she reveals her disgust at his decision to go to war with West Angola for her, and tells him that she is on her own.
Production.
The episode was written by Heather Mitchell and directed by Randy Zisk. The episode focuses on the continuing auction of Olivia on the free market and how everyone tries to rescue her. Showrunner Shonda Rhimes explained on Twitter that the twelfth and thirteenth episode was one extended episode and was therefore divided into two episodes; Gladiators Don't Run and "No More Blood".
The episode saw the return of former cast-member Henry Ian Cusick playing the character Stephen Finch, after leaving the show after the first season as the character would be living a normal life with his fiancé Georgia. Shonda Rhimes explained the return saying “It was the only sensible solution when you think about Olivia’s life, where she’s gone and where she’s been". She further explained that the character was the only one Olivia hadn't abandoned and there was no baggage in their relationship. Darby Stanchfield teased the return of Cusick when interviewed about the storyline of the kidnapping of Olivia, saying “There is the most freakin’ hugest surprise that happens in the next four episodes that the original Gladiators are going to freak out over." Katie Lowes also mentioned the twist saying “It’s a real surprise for the original Gladiators, the people who have been here since the beginning. It’s a real OG situation.”
Reception.
Broadcast.
"No More Blood" was originally broadcast on Thursday, February 19, 2015 in the United States on ABC. The episode's total viewership was 9.62 million, up 4 percent from its comparable telecast from last year. In the key 18-49 demographic, the episode scored a 3.2/10 in Nielsen ratings, up 10 percent from last year. It was the top TV show in the 9:00 p.m. slot, beating "The Blacklist", the series finale of "Two and a Half Men", "Backstrom" and "Reign".
The 9.62 million people tuned into the episode marked a 2 percent increase from the previous episode (9.32), in addition to the installment's 3.2 Nielsen rating in the target 18–49 demographic marked a 3 percent increase from 3.1, which was from the previous episode. The Nielsen score additionally registered the show as the week's second-highest rated drama and third-highest rated scripted series in the 18–49 demographic, only behind Fox's "Empire" and CBS's "The Big Bang Theory". Seven days of time-shifted viewing added on an additional 1.6 rating points in the 18–49 demographic and 4.26 million viewers, bringing the total viewership for the episode to 13.89 million viewers with a 4.9 Nielsen rating in the 18–49 demographic.


The Eighth Wonder

The Eighth Wonder is a 1995 opera by Alan John and with a libretto by Dennis Watkins about the building process of the Sydney Opera House.
Production history.
"The Eighth Wonder" was premiered by The Australian Opera at the Sydney Opera House on 14 October 1995 in the presence of the composer and librettist. The opera was broadcast on television by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the Friday evening following the world premiere performance.
It was revived by the same company (by this time known as Opera Australia) again at the Sydney Opera House in 2000.
Lyndon Terracini, artistic director of Opera Australia, announced that the work would be performed as part of the 2016 season at the Sydney Opera House, retitled as "Sydney Opera House: The Opera". This new adaptation was performed outdoors on the steps of the Opera House, with the audience wearing headphones to hear the singers and orchestra with clarity.
In 2020, spurred by composer Stephen Rae's desire to listen to the opera and finding it unavailable, a project commenced to promote the opera through a comprehensive website dedicated to the opera. the website was launched in March 2021 and resulted in a cover story feature in the April 2021 edition of "Limelight" magazine.
Plot.
The opera tells the story of the very building in which it was performed. Soon after the building was commissioned and work had commenced the State Premier who administered its genesis died.
The opera suggests that the Premier believed that if the work was not sufficiently advanced and there was a change of government then the project would be cancelled. Therefore, the foundation work was commenced before the architect had solved the problem of how to build the main structure of the building. The time and cost estimates were also understated to ensure work commenced. There were many other engineering and design problems that had not been solved when work had commenced.
The opera supports the idea that the architect was fully competent to solve these problems and indeed was able to provide solutions that were far more elegant than anything that anyone less inspired, less talented and at one with a vision could provide.
Some time after that there was indeed a change of government. There was much hostility toward the building and the new government was not willing to let the architect complete the project. Much scandal was made of the time and cost of the project. The state bureaucracy wrested control from its architect and the architect's intentions for the interiors of the building were never realised. The architect left the country and disowned the building.
Characters in the opera include the politicians, the architect, an engineer, socialites, and a prominent conductor (the maestro) who betrays the cause of opera for the cause of concert music (see full cast list below). There are also two young artists who firmly identify their future with the building. The names of the characters do not match their real-life counterparts and there are, no doubt, certain other fictional elements.
There is a large chorus and the music is quite accessible, with several bright choral climaxes. The opera consists of two acts, with a total of 15 scenes including Parliament House, the construction site and the suburban backyard where the young artists spend time with their families.
The opera concludes leaving the audience with a sense of loss for the complete vision that was never realised but also with an enormous sense of gratitude and wonderment that as much of that vision that has been completed has been.
Premiere cast and creatives.
Cast:
Creative team:


Vasily Sergeyevich Smirnov (painter)

Vasily Sergeyevich Smirnov (Russian: Василий Сергеевич Смирнов; 12 August 1858 – 17 December 1890) was a Russian painter in the Academic style who specialized in scenes from ancient history.
Biography.
He was born to a family of the Russian nobility. His father served as a chamberlain at the Imperial Court and Marshal of the nobility in the Klinsky District. He apparently decided upon art as a career through the influence of Vasily Perov, a friend of the family. In 1875, he enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He participated in an exhibition there in 1878, winning a silver medal.
That same year, he transferred to the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, where he studied with Pyotr Shamshin and Pavel Chistyakov. In 1882, he was granted leave from the Academy due to "chronic catarrh" of the lungs. The following year, he was awarded the title of "Artist" and a stipend to study abroad.
He went to Italy, via Vienna, and eventually settled in Rome. The summer heat proved too intense, so he moved to Turin, then spent some time in Paris, exhibiting at the Salon. After travelling throughout Northwestern Europe, he returned to Italy, where he lived with , who became a sort of mentor.
In 1885, he made sketches at Pompeii, which was the start of his interest in Classical subjects. The following year, he began work on "The Death of Nero", which took two years to complete. It was sent to Saint Petersburg and, after several showings, was bought by Tsar Alexander III.
In 1889, he became an associate professor at the Academy, but stayed for only a short time as his lung condition (diagnosed as tuberculosis) continued to worsen. The Italian climate had no beneficial effect so, sensing the end was near, he decided to return to the family estate. He died while in transit, on the train between Kubinka and Golitsyno. His brother organized a major exhibition in 1891, which included several unfinished paintings.


Source of the Nile (board game)

Source of the Nile is a board game by Ross Maker and David Wesely for 1-6 players. It was released by Discovery Games in 1977 and re-released by Avalon Hill in 1979. The inventors released a 25th anniversary edition of the game in 2003.
Description.
Set in the 19th century, the object of the game is to explore the interior of Africa, make an important discovery, and report it back to European civilization. The explorers must outfit their expeditions and choose a method of travel, be it canoe, camel or foot. At the outset of the game the map of the interior of Africa is blank. As explorers enter each unexplored hex, a card is drawn to determine the terrain and events, if any, that befall the explorers. Crayons are used to draw terrain on the map as it is discovered.
The explorers must confront dangers such as starvation, disease, river cataracts and hostile natives. The game is, in fact, highly lethal to explorers, but if a player loses an explorer he or she may create a new one who re-enters the game at a coastal port.
The player must choose a profession, and the number of points a player gains for particular discoveries will vary depending on their choice. In particular:
Reception.
In the November 1978 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 20), Gary Gygax called it a complex but "most enjoyable game".
"Source of the Nile" won the Charles S. Roberts Awards for "Best Pre-20th Century Game of 1978" and "Best Amateur Game of 1978".


Peter F. Rothermel

Peter Frederick Rothermel (July 8, 1817 – August 15, 1895) was an American painter.
Biography.
Rothermel was born in Nescopeck, Pennsylvania on July 8, 1812, although various sources give his birth year as 1813, 1814, and 1817. The artist's gravestone in Philadelphia gives the date as 1812. He had a common-school education, and studied land surveying. At age 20, he moved to Philadelphia and became a sign painter. Then at age 22, he took up the study of art. He was instructed in drawing by John Rubens Smith, and subsequently became a pupil of Bass Otis in Philadelphia.
His 1844 work "De Soto discovering the Mississippi" was purchased by the Art Union and marked his first success as an artist. He served as vice president of the Artists' Fund Society in 1844 and as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1847 to 1855.
During 1856-1859 he was in Europe, residing for about two years in Rome, and visiting also the principal cities in England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. On his return to the United States, he returned to Philadelphia and was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he also taught notable artists of that era, including Charles Lewis Fussell.
He specialized in portraits and dramatic historical paintings. His most famous paintings include "Patrick Henry before the Virginia House of Burgesses" (1852) and a massive oil painting of the Battle of Gettysburg (finished in 1871) that hangs in the State Museum of Pennsylvania. This latter work was commissioned by Gettysburg lawyer David McConaughy. Another of his more popular historical works is "Columbus Before the Queen", painted in 1844. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1873.
In 1877, he moved from Philadelphia to “Grassmere,” his country home near Linfield, Pennsylvania, where he resided until his death. His estate still exists today on Limerick Center Road; it is now a residential site. Rothermel's son, Peter F. Rothermel, Jr., was District Attorney of Philadelphia.
Other works.
Besides those mentioned, other works of Rothermel include:


IRIS Magazine

IRIS is an English and Irish language magazine which focuses on Irish republicanism, Irish politics, current affairs, history and foreign affairs. The first issue of the magazine was published in 1981. Its headquarters is in Belfast.
Name.
"IRIS" was named after a republican weekly publication which existed between 1973 and 1980. IRIS is also the Irish language word for "journal" as well as being the initials of the "Irish Republican Information Service".
History.
"IRIS" first appeared in April 1981 and its content focused heavily on The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The magazine was originally intended to be a quarterly news and current affairs publication aimed at foreign readership. The magazine faced considerable difficulties in first two years but appeared regularly between 1982 and 1993. Gerry Adams described the magazine as being ""of central importance of discussion, debate and education to the ongoing development of the republican struggle". " The magazine ceased publication in 1993 but was relaunched in 2005.
Editors.
Former editors include:


Philip Gyselaer

Philip Gyselaer, also Giselaer ("c". 1620 – after 1650), was a Flemish painter specialized in history painting in the tradition of Willem van Herp. He was registered at the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke as a pupil of Adriaen van Utrecht in 1634.
Only a few of his works are known. One of his works depicting "Mercury and Jupiter in the House of Philemon and Baucis" is in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.


Madam Secretary (season 2)

The second season of "Madam Secretary" an American political drama television series originally aired in the United States on CBS from October 4, 2015, through May 8, 2016. The season was produced by CBS Television Studios, with Barbara Hall as showrunner and executive producer. Debuting on September 21, 2014, the series was renewed for a second season on January 12, 2015. "Madam Secretary" was renewed for a third season on March 25, 2016.
The series follows Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni), a former CIA analyst and professor who becomes United States Secretary of State at the behest of President Conrad Dalton (Keith Carradine) after her predecessor is killed in a plane crash. Elizabeth works alongside a dedicated staff, including Nadine Tolliver (Bebe Neuwirth).
Episodes.
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Production.
Development.
"Madam Secretary" was renewed for a second season on January 12, 2015. "Madam Secretary" was renewed for a third season on March 25, 2016.
Casting.
Madeleine Albright guest role as herself a former Secretary of State, Jill Hennessy joined cast in recurring role as Jane Fellows, Chris Petrovski was cast as a recurring for the second season as Dmitri Petrov,
Broadcast.
Season two of "Madam Secretary" premiered on October 4, 2015.
Home media.
The DVD release of season two is set to be released in Region 1 on September 13, 2016.


Flambards in Summer

Flambards in Summer is a novel for children or young adults by K. M. Peyton, first published by Oxford in 1969 with illustrations by Victor Ambrus. It completed the "Flambards trilogy" (1967–1969) although Peyton continued the story a dozen years later, and controversially reversed the ending in "Flambards Divided". Set in England just after World War I, "Flambards in Summer" features Christina Parsons as a young widow, returning to the decrepit Flambards estate to recover a life there.
Plot summary.
The final novel in the original Flambards trilogy opens in the middle of the First World War with Christina, now a widow, returning to Flambards. Flambards has greatly deteriorated since she left with Will, and is almost in ruins. As distraction from her grief over Will's death and the news that his brother Mark has been reported missing and presumed dead, Christina sets herself the tedious and difficult task of restoring the farm. She not only wishes to restore the house and grounds but also a semblance of her old life, the people, horses and hounds.
Finding she is pregnant with Will's baby, Christina adopts Mark and Violet's six-year-old son 'Tizzy' Thomas, along with an original Flambards bitch called Marigold and a nervy five-year-old bay thoroughbred called Pheasant. Eventually she persuades Dick to come back to work on the farm and things slowly begin to go smoothly, until the reappearance of Mark. Christina's joy quickly turns to anxiety and apprehension as Mark tells her that if she wishes to remain at Flambards, she must marry him. But Christina fears Mark will become like his father, and when she finds she has feelings for Dick, her confusion increases as she still loves Will.
Publication history.
World Publishing Company of New York issued the first U.S. edition in 1970, retaining the Ambrus illustrations.
Awards.
Peyton and "Flambards in Summer" were commended for the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. She won that year's award for the second book, "The Edge of the Cloud".
For the trilogy Peyton won the 1970 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, selected by a panel of British children's writers, a once-in-a-lifetime award that ordinarily recognises one fiction book published during the preceding calendar year. Exceptionally the 1970 award recognised the series completed in 1969.
Adaptions.
The trilogy was adapted as a 13-part television series in 1979, "Flambards" starring Christine McKenna as Christina Parsons. Peyton then continued and partly reversed the story.
External links.
 —immediately, first US edition


Sanditon (TV series)

Sanditon is a British historical drama television series adapted by Andrew Davies from an unfinished manuscript by Jane Austen and starring Rose Williams and Theo James in the lead roles. Set during the Regency era, the plot follows a young and naive heroine as she navigates the new seaside resort of Sanditon.
The series first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 25 August 2019 in eight parts, and on PBS in the United States on 12 January 2020, which supports the production, as part of its "Masterpiece" anthology.
Due to the unfinished nature of the novel (Austen completed only eleven chapters), the original work is used for the majority of the first episode, and then Davies used the developed characters to complete the story. The novel is set in a seaside town during a time of social change. At the time of her death in 1817, Austen had completed 24,000 words of the novel.
A second and third series were commissioned as part of a collaboration between PBS and BritBox in May 2021, with ITV acquiring the series for later linear broadcast. Filming is expected to begin in late 2021.
Overview.
A chance accident brings Charlotte Heywood to Sanditon, a seaside resort on the cusp of dramatic change. Spirited and unconventional, Charlotte is initially keen to experience everything the town has to offer but is then shocked by its scheming and ambitious inhabitants and intrigued by the secrets they share. When Charlotte is tactlessly forthright about the family of enthusiastic entrepreneur Tom Parker, she immediately clashes with his handsome but wild younger brother Sidney. Amidst the rival suitors and unexpected danger, can Charlotte and Sidney see past each other's flaws and find love?
Production.
Many of the Sanditon scenes were filmed in Somerset including the seaside towns of Clevedon, Brean and Weston-super-Mare. Dyrham Park near Bath, Somerset was used as the location for Sanditon House. The bridge at Iford Manor was used in the first Episode. The majority of interior filming took place on interior and exterior sets built at The Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol.
Critical reception.
Critical reception has been mixed. Some UK media outlets reported that viewers were shocked at the depictions of sex and nudity in the opening episode, considering it to be untrue to the works of Jane Austen.
Many viewers critiqued the ending as unusual and very “un-Austen-like”. Viewers claim Austen would have liked a happy ending for all characters, as she has happy endings in all of her stories; however, this could have been a set up for a second season.
On Rotten Tomatoes Sanditon achieved 62% critic approval but 95% audience approval.


Harperism (book)

Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada is a non-fiction book written by Vancouver-based Donald Gutstein, media critic and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University's School of Communication. Gutstein's work focuses on links between business, the media, and politics.
Themes.
Gutstein explores the relationship between business, corporations and politics.
In his 2009 book entitled "Not a conspiracy theory : how business propaganda hijacks democracy", Gutstein traced the rise of "prolonged" corporate "propaganda campaigns" in the United States that influence public opinion on social and political issues. In "Harperism", Gutstein writes that Canadian think tanks such as the Fraser Institute established in 1974, the C.D. Howe and the 1990s "cohort of right wing think-tanks across Canada, such as Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), the Montreal Economic Institute and Frontier Centre for Public Policy, have increasingly harnessed the media. In 2006 Peter Munk’s Aurea foundation funded neoliberal think tanks. In 2009 the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary functioned as "a neoliberal think tank" at the university. Gutstein cites as examples media coverage of medicare, climate change, and Canada's economic integration with the United States. Gutstein points out that think tanks succeeded in establishing consensus on the benefits of "small government", "perpetual war", and a "free market and the disadvantages of "tax increases to fund social programs" which has "severely" limited "political discourse".
In his chapter entitled "Convince Canadians of the importance of economic freedom," Gutstein described how neo-liberals and libertarians perceive Canada's Supply management as an obstacle to economic freedom and how think tanks and the media have attacked Canada's supply management. Under Stephen Harper, neo-liberal think tanks and through them, the media, called for the elimination of supply management with its alleged market distorting mechanisms. The Fraser Institute's use of the "egg marketing cartel" in a 1981 report by American economist Thomas Borcherding, marked the beginning of an aggressive campaign to end supply management in the ensuing decades. Gutstein sharply challenged journalist and editor Neil Reynolds (1940 – 2013), a libertarian, who criticized supply management in his call for economic freedom in thirteen "Globe and Mail" columns from c. 1997 through 2012, for an inaccurate portrayal of New Zealand's dairy industry.
Reviews.
In his review published in the "Canadian Journal of Communication", Brian Gorman described how Gutstein calls for "a new role for government … one that doesn’t treat everything as an offshoot of the economy, but reincorporates social and political rights into its mandate while addressing the dominance of the market in social and political life."
Canadian columnist and editor Andrew Coyne ridiculed Gutstein's premise that Harper and Coyne himself as a Donner Canadian Foundation board member, were part of a "vast network of free-market policy shops...The dullest commonplaces of mainstream economics are here transformed into a strange and threatening "neo-liberal" conspiracy, while pimply economists in threadbare offices are endowed with an occult power they never knew they possessed."


The Perfect Candidate

The Perfect Candidate is a 2019 Saudi Arabian drama film directed by Haifaa al-Mansour. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. It was also selected as the Saudi Arabian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Premise.
A young female Saudi doctor's run for office in the local city elections forces her family and community to accept their town's first female candidate.
Reception.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A message movie admirable for its subtlety as well as its execution, "The Perfect Candidate" faces oppression and powerfully advocates for change." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Writing for "The Hollywood Reporter", Deborah Young called the film a "simplistic feminist tale with an irresistible heroine" and said: ""The Perfect Candidate" offers a candid view on Saudi Arabian society that will pique the curiosity of Western audiences."


End of the Rainbow

End of the Rainbow is a musical drama by Peter Quilter, which focuses on Judy Garland in the months leading up to her death in 1969. After a premiere in Sydney, Australia in 2005, the show has played on the West End in London and a Broadway production opened at the Belasco Theatre in 2012. The award-winning 2019 film "Judy" starring Renée Zellweger is a screen adaptation of the play for which Zellweger won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Garland.
Synopsis.
Judy Garland is staying in London, along with young new fiancé Mickey Deans and loyal friend and pianist Anthony, preparing for her five-week run of shows at The Talk of the Town. Garland hopes that her act will help her maintain her star profile, especially considering a recent string of bad press against her. However, she still struggles with both her drug addictions and her strained relationships with the men around her.
Production history.
"End of the Rainbow" evolved from an earlier Peter Quilter play entitled "Last Song of the Nightingale" which had starred Tracie Bennett as a fictitious past-her-prime diva: premièring as a London fringe production in the spring of 2001, "Last Song..." had encored (with Bennett) in 2003 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and also Off West End. Although Quilter would state the play's protagonist was a gender-switch on an alcoholic male cruise ship performer of the playwright's acquaintance, "Last Song..." would be viewed by theater-goers and critics - and its star Tracie Bennett - as a theatrical Judy Garland roman à clef: Quilter eventually decided to revise his original play to overtly focus on Garland, with the resultant "End of the Rainbow" premièring in August 2005 at the Sydney Opera House in Australia with Caroline O’Connor as Garland, a role O'Connor reprised first in a May 2006 production at the Theatre Royal, Sydney and then at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival engagement of "End of the Rainbow" in August 2006. O'Connor won three Best Actress awards for her performances.
"End of the Rainbow" was then performed from February 5–20, 2010 at Northampton's Royal & Derngate Theatre. This production was directed by Terry Johnson and starred Tracie Bennett as Judy Garland, with Hilton McRae as Anthony and Stephen Hagan as Mickey Deans. "End of the Rainbow" ran in the West End from 16 November 2010 to 21 May 2011 at Trafalgar Studios, starring Tracie Bennett. The West End production received nominations for four Olivier Awards, including Best Actress for Bennett, Best Actor in a Supporting Role for McRae and Best New Play. The show then toured in the UK from 25 August and ending in December 2011 at Richmond Theatre. .
"End of the Rainbow" had its American premiere at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, running from January 28 to March 11, 2012. Directed by Terry Johnson, Tracie Bennett repeated her role as Garland. The play opened on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre on March 19, 2012 in previews and officially on April 2. In addition to Bennett, the cast featured Michael Cumpsty as Anthony, Tom Pelphrey as Mickey Deans, and Jay Russell. Bennett and Cumpsty received Tony Award nominations for their performances. Bennett also received the Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play. The show ran 176 performances on Broadway and subsequently played a critically acclaimed season at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
"End of the Rainbow (Al final del arcoíris)" premiered in Madrid, January 2011, at the Teatro Marquina with Natalia Dicenta as Judy Garland, Miguel Rellán as Anthony and Javier Mora as Mickey Deans.
"End of the Rainbow (El final del arcoíris)" was premièred in Mexico City on 29 May 2015, at the Foro Cultural Coyoacanense Hugo Argüelles, with Alejandra Desiderio starring as Judy Garland, José Antonio López Tercero as Anthony and Mario Sepúlveda as Mickey Deans directed by Rosa Alicia Delain and is a production of Re-Crea Teatro under the supervision of Alis Ortega and Fernanda Prado. There was a revival at Foro Shakespeare in 2016 and another revival at Teatro Rafael Solana in 2018.
Leading actresses.
There have been productions of the show in Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Florence, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Kraków, Prague, Sofia, Rotterdam and Helsinki. New productions played in the 2013–14 season in Christchurch, Rome, Klagenfurt, Miami, Atlanta, Denver and Milwaukee.
Recording.
A cast recording of the London production was released on January 31, 2011 by Angel Recording Studios featuring Tracie Bennett's renditions of both the play's songs and other Garland numbers.
Track listing.
All tracks performed by Tracie Bennett, unless noted.
Awards and nominations.
4 Olivier Award nominations in London's West End in 2011 - Best New Play, Best Actress, Best Sound, and Best Supporting Actor.