Dock Boggs

Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs (February 7, 1898 – February 7, 1971) was an American old-time singer, songwriter and banjo player. His style of banjo playing, as well as his singing, is considered a unique combination of Appalachian folk music and African-American blues. Contemporary folk musicians and performers consider him a seminal figure, at least in part because of the appearance of two of his recordings from the 1920s, "Sugar Baby" and "Country Blues", on Harry Smith's 1951 collection "Anthology of American Folk Music". Boggs was first recorded in 1927 and again in 1929, although he worked primarily as a coal miner for most of his life.
He was rediscovered during the folk music revival of the 1960s and spent much of his later life playing at folk music festivals and recording for Folkways Records.
Biography.
Early life.
Boggs was born in West Norton, Virginia, in 1898, the youngest of ten children. In the late 1890s, the arrival of railroads in central Appalachia brought large-scale coal mining to the region, and by the time Dock was born, the Boggs family had made the transition from subsistence farming to working for wages and living in mining towns. Dock's father, who worked as a carpenter and blacksmith, loved singing and could read sheet music. He taught his children to sing, and several of Dock's siblings learned to play the banjo.
In an interview with Mike Seeger in the 1960s, Boggs recalled how, as a young child, he would follow an African-American guitarist named "Go Lightning" up and down the railroad tracks between Norton and Dorchester, hoping the guitarist would stop at street corners to play for change.
Boggs's version of the ballad "John Henry" was based in part on the version he learned from Go Lightning during this period. He also recalled sneaking over to the African-American camps in Dorchester at night, where he first observed string bands playing at dances and parties. He was enamoured of the bands' banjo players' preference for picking, having previously been exposed only to the "frailing" style of his siblings.
Around the time he began working in coal mines, Boggs began playing music more often and more seriously. He learned much of his technique during this period from his brother Roscoe and an itinerant musician named Homer Crawford, both of whom shared Dock's preference for picking. Crawford taught him "Hustlin' Gambler," which was the basis for Boggs's "Country Blues." He also picked up several songs (such as "Turkey in the Straw") from a local African-American musician named Jim White. Boggs probably began playing at parties around 1918.
Early career, 1927–1931.
In the mid-1920s, various record companies sent representatives to southern Appalachia to hold auditions in hopes of finding new talents. Around late 1926 or early 1927, Boggs tried out at one such audition, held by Brunswick Records at the Norton Hotel. Although he played on a banjo borrowed from a local music store and needed whiskey to calm his nerves, he played well enough to gain a contract to record several sides in New York later that year. He recorded only eight sides for Brunswick, however, as he deemed their payment sufficient for only that number.
Boggs's records sold moderately well, and he returned to the mining areas of southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky, where he began to play at parties, gatherings, and mining camps. Around this time, his brother-in-law Lee Hansucker, who was a Holiness preacher and singer, began teaching him religious songs from the Holiness and Baptist traditions. Boggs also learned a large number of songs from listening to Hansucker's vast record collection. By 1928, he was making enough money to quit working in coal mines and focus exclusively on music. He bought a new banjo and formed a band known as "Dock Boggs and His Cumberland Mountain Entertainers". At one point, he was earning three to four hundred dollars a week.
While Dock was experiencing a moderate amount of success, the life of a travelling musician often left him at odds with his religious neighbors, who considered such a life sinful. His wife, Sarah, whom he had married in 1918, despised secular music and was opposed to his earning a living by playing music. The constantly moving mining camps were fraught with excess and violence, and Boggs was consistently engaging in drunken brawls that often left him or an opponent badly injured. The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression hit southern Appalachia particularly hard, and few people had the means to pay musicians to play at gatherings or buy records.
In 1929, Boggs travelled to Chicago to record four sides for Lonesome Ace Records. However, with the onset of the Great Depression, he was unable to profit from these recordings. In 1930, he travelled to Atlanta, where OKeh Records had set up a live audition on radio station WSB. Because of stage fright, however, he performed poorly. He was offered several other recording auditions over the next three years, but he could not raise enough money to cover his travel expenses. He eventually pawned his banjo and gave up hopes of making a living playing music.
Rediscovery.
In June 1963, at the height of the folk music revival in the United States, the folk music scholar Mike Seeger sought out and found Boggs at his home near Needmore, Virginia. Seeger was delighted to learn that Boggs had recently repurchased a banjo and had been practicing the instrument for several months before his arrival. He persuaded Boggs to play at the American Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, later that year. With Seeger's help, Boggs began recording again, eventually recording three albums for Folkways Records. Throughout the 1960s, he toured the United States, playing in clubs and at folk music festivals, including a performance before an audience of 10,000 at the Newport Folk Festival.
In the early 1970s, Boggs's health began to deteriorate, and he died on his 73rd birthday. In 1968, his protégé Jack Wright started the Dock Boggs Festival, which is still held annually in Boggs's hometown of Norton, although it is now known as the Dock Boggs & Kate Peters Sturgill Festival.
He is buried in Norton, Virginia.
Technique.
While Boggs was familiar with the clawhammer style, or "frailing", he typically played in a style known as up-picking, which involves picking upwards on the first two strings and playing one of the other three strings with the thumb. He played several songs in a lower D-modal tuning. His technique, which Seeger considered "a style possessed by no other recorded player," was adapted to fit previously unaccompanied mountain ballads.
Boggs learned traditional mountain songs from his siblings, including , "Sugar Baby," from his brother John; "Danville Girl," which he learned from his brother Roscoe; and "Little Omie Wise," which he learned from his sisters. Lee Hansucker, his brother-in-law, taught him various religious songs, including "O Death", "Little Black Train", "Prodigal Son", and "Calvary". Along with "Turkey in the Straw" and "John Henry", he learned songs such as "Banjo Clog" and "Down South Blues" from African-American blues musicians. The song "Wise County Jail", written by Boggs in 1928, was inspired by an incident in which he had to flee to Kentucky after attacking a lawman who tried to break up a party at which he was playing.


Robert Parker (music producer)

Robert Parker is a Swedish electronic musician from Stockholm, known for his synthwave works.
Making tracker music during the 1990s, he started making retro music in 2009 after buying a Korg Polysix analog synthesizer, and uses a variety of hardware synthesizers in his music like the Roland Juno 106 and the Moog Minimoog.
Composing.
His style takes elements from 1980s music and movies, as well as from French house and disco. In 2013 he released his debut album "Drive. Sweat. Play" followed by the EP Modern Moves on Future City Records. In 2015 he released the EP " Cardinal" and the album "Money Talks". In 2016 he released the vinyl "Crystal City" on NewRetroWave Records collaborating with Maethelvin from the Valerie collective In 2017 he released the EP "Awakening" on Lazerdisc records, also appearing on the Lakeshore Records 2018 soundtrack release to the motion picture "Videoman".
Parker featured in the 2019 documentary film "The Rise of the Synths" which explored the origins and growth of the Synthwave genre, appearing alongside various other composers from the scene, including John Carpenter who also starred in and narrated the film. Parker also appeared on the film's soundtrack compilation "The Rise Of The Synths",also released on Lakeshore Records.


Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo (; 8 April 1533 – 4 May 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He was born in Correggio and died in Parma. Born Claudio Merlotti, he Latinised his surname (meaning little blackbird) when he became famous in Venetian cultural clubs.
Life.
Little is known about his early life except that he studied in Correggio with Tuttovale Menon, a famous madrigalist who also worked in the Ferrara court; he also studied with Girolamo Diruta, an organist. It is likely that he studied with Zarlino at St. Mark's in Venice. While in Venice he became close friends with Costanzo Porta, a friendship which was to endure for his entire life. On 21 October 1556, he was appointed organist at Old Cathedral of Brescia (Duomo Vecchio), and his skill as an organist must have been impressive, because he became organist at St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious positions for an organist in Italy, in 1557; he was selected over a list of candidates that included Andrea Gabrieli. This was the first important event of his career, and he was considered to be the finest organist in Italy.
It is important to note that in St. Mark's there were two organs, and two separate organists were appointed to play them: in 1557 Merulo was appointed to the second, smaller organ, while Annibale Padovano remained at the post of first organist.
After Padovano's hurried departure from Venice in 1566, Merulo was appointed to the first organ, and Andrea Gabrieli became the second organist. He was appointed as ambassador of Venetian Republic at the marriage of Franceso de’ Medici and Bianca Cappello in 1579 and wrote music of celebration for Henry III of France, who visited Venice in 1574.
In 1584, he suddenly left this position in Venice. The reasons for this are unclear, and somewhat surprising; in Venice he was well-paid, and had a very good reputation; and St. Mark's was one of the most important places for an organist. However, in December 1584 his name appears in payment register of Farnesia Court of Parma.
In 1587 he was appointed as organist in Parma Cathedral and from 1591 also in Church of Santa Maria della Steccata. While here, he requested improvements to the organ, carried out by Costanzo Antegnati, the last heir of the great Brescian family of organ makers. We can deduce that Merulo used the Steccata's organ for his proofs of new composition, based on his Venetian experience, and continued to compose in this style.
He lived in Parma until his death. During this period, he made several trips in Venice and Rome, where he published his famous two volume "Toccate per organo".
Merulo died in Parma on 4 May 1604 and was buried in Parma Cathedral near to the tomb of Cipriano de Rore. He left a daughter and his wife Amabilia Banzola.
Music and influence.
Merulo is famous for his keyboard music. His Toccatas, in particular, are innovative; he was the first to contrast sections of contrapuntal writing with passageworks; often he inserts sections which could be called ricercars into pieces which otherwise are labelled toccatas or canzonas. (In the late 16th century, these terms are only approximately descriptive; different composers clearly had different ideas of what they meant). Often his keyboard pieces begin as though they are to be a transcription of vocal polyphony, but then gradually add embellishment and elaboration until they reach a climactic passage of considerable virtuosity. Sometimes, especially in his later music, he develops ornaments which acquire the status of a motif, which is then used developmentally; this anticipates a principal generative technique in the Baroque era. Often Merulo casually ignores the "rules" of voice-leading, giving the music an expressive intensity more associated with the late school of madrigalists than with keyboard music of the time. His keyboard music was hugely influential, and his ideas can be seen in the music of Sweelinck, Frescobaldi and others; because of the immense influence of Sweelinck as a teacher, much of the virtuoso keyboard technique of the north German organ school, culminating in Johann Sebastian Bach, can claim to be descended from the innovations of Merulo.
Even though the fame of his instrumental music has overshadowed much of his a cappella vocal output, Merulo was also a madrigalist. Since he was a member of what is known today as the Venetian School, he also wrote motets for double choir in the manner of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. He published two books of Madrigali a 5 voices (1566 and 1604), one of Madrigali a 4 (1579) and a 3 (1580).
The famous essay of keyboard technique "Il Transilvano" (1593), by Girolamo Diruta, was dedicated to Merulo, indicating his status as one of the most important keyboard players of the Italian Renaissance.


Barbara Ling

Barbara Ling is an American production designer. In 2020, she and set decorator Nancy Haigh won the Academy Award for Best Production Design for their work on "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood".
Biography.
She grew up in Los Angeles and worked on numerous films, including "Batman Forever", and "Batman & Robin".


The Sims Castaway Stories

The Sims Castaway Stories is the third and final game in "The Sims Stories". It was released on January 29, 2008, with a port for Mac OS X released by Aspyr on March 17, 2008.
Despite sharing a similar name with "", "The Sims Castaway Stories" is not a PC port of the former game.
An updated version of the Mac OS X port was released on December 10, 2015 to the Mac App Store by Aspyr for OS X Mavericks or later. After the announcement of macOS Catalina dropping support for 32-bit apps, Aspyr removed the port from the Mac App Store on June 17, 2019, though it still remains available to play for users on older versions of macOS who previously purchased the game.
Features.
"The Sims Castaway Stories" features the choice of either playing in a story-driven mode titled "Shipwrecked and Single" or a more sandbox "Wanmami Island".
Shipwrecked and Single.
In the "Shipwrecked and Single" mode, the player is subjected to a semi-linear scenario-driven style of gameplay. The player must choose whether to play as David Bennett, Jessica Knight, or a customized Sim, who boards a cruise ship for singles named Solomon Queen, only to have it crash and leave them drifting on the ocean clinging to a crate. The crate happens to float onto land, after which the player is left to help the Sim survive.
Wanmami Island.
Gameplay on Wanmami Island is much more open-ended, enabling gameplay reminiscent of more traditional Sims games. The player is allowed to design their own Family and start Jobs as in The Jobs 5, The Jobs 6 & The Jobs 7.
Reception.
The "Sims Castaway Stories" was generally well received. "GameRankings" has an average score of 77% based on 7 reviews, while "Metacritic" has a score of 73%. "PC Gamer US" gave the game an 83%, praising the low system requirements, the music, the original setting, as well as the low retail price, but noting that there are a few bugs and long loading times. "IGN" gave the game an overall score of 7.3 out of 10, stating "The Sims: Castaway Stories is the first game in the entire series that really feels different despite being based on the same engine and principles", but also saying that there is little to no replayability. Some critics enjoyed the game less than others, however. PC Zone said "By peddling this sort of single-minded crud to children EA are creating a new generation of absolute morons who won't be able to think one step ahead of themselves."


Katia Kuethe

Katia Kuethe is a German-born creative director living and working in the United States.
Early life and education.
She was born in Stuttgart, Germany and graduated from State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart with a degree in graphic and editorial design.
Career.
In 2002, Kuethe moved to New York City and took a job at Lloyd & Co. as Senior Art Director, working with brands like Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. This was followed by stints as Art Director at J. Crew and Ann Taylor, leading to a job at Teen Vogue as Creative Director.
Kate Spade being in the midst of a "refresh" in 2012, hired Kuethe as Senior Director of Creative, after leaving her job at Teen Vogue. In 2013, Katia followed her time at Kate Spade as Creative Director of Lucky Magazine. Shortly after Lucky went out of print in 2015, Katia assumed the role of Creative Director at Abercrombie & Fitch. At Abercrombie, Kuethe worked on 2015 winter campaigns for A+F, as well as sister brand Hollister. In 2018, started work for Bergdorf Goodman as Consulting Creative Director, this led to following work with Bergdorf's parent company Neiman Marcus.
Personal life.
Kuethe lives in New York City with her son Paz.


Emily Oberman

Emily Oberman is a New York-based multidisciplinary designer and a partner at design studio Pentagram. Formerly, Oberman was a co-founder of design studio Number Seventeen and a designer at Tibor Kalman's studio M & Co..
Biography.
Oberman was born and raised in Yonkers, New York by graphic design and painter parents. She studied at Cooper Union and began her career working with Tibor Kalman at his studio M & Co., where from 1987 to 1993 she collaborated with Kalman to create work for Knoll, Wieden & Kennedy, new wave group Talking Heads and the Benetton-sponsored "Colors" magazine.
In 1993, she founded design studio Number Seventeen with Bonnie Siegler. Number Seventeen specialized in graphics for print, film, and television media, with clients including Saturday Night Live, NBC Universal, Herman Miller, and Jane Magazine. Oberman's book design work has included projects for the Type Directors Club, HBO’s "Sex and the City", Glamour magazine, and the deluxe illustrated edition of Stephen Dubner’s "Superfreakonomics".
In 2006, Oberman was one of the co-founders and creative directors of the website and daily bulletin Very Short List.
In 2012, Number Seventeen closed it doors and Oberman joined Pentagram’s New York office as partner in April 2012. Later that year, she worked alongside Naz Sahin to redesign the website for radio show This American Life.
Oberman's work has been recognized by the AIGA, the Type Directors Club, and the Art Directors Club. In 2004, she was awarded the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award for distinguished alumni from her alma mater Cooper Union. She has served on the national board of AIGA and as president of its New York chapter. While on the AIGA board she was responsible for two national conferences on design for television, DFTV.001 and DFTV.002.
Oberman has taught at the Cooper Union, the Yale University School of Art, and Parsons The New School for Design. Currently, she teaches at the School of Visual Arts.
M&Co.
Upon her graduation from the Cooper Union in New York City, Oberman began working at the Tibor Kalman studio, M&Co. In collaboration with Kalman, she created work for Knoll (company), Wieden & Kennedy advertising, and (the now closed) Florent (restaurant). Some of Obermans first works for M&Co include covers for the 1987 November and December issues of Artforum, an international monthly magazine focused on contemporary art.
Beginning in 1988 Oberman worked with the american rock band The Talking Heads to create a number of materials, including a video casing for Storytelling Giant, as well as the music video for the song "(Nothing But) Flowers." In 1991, Oberman was the first designer for the launch of Benetton’s critically acclaimed magazine, Colors. Other M&Co works include multiple printed ads for Isaac Mizrahi, and Florent restaurant. As well as album covers for musical artists Jerry Harrison
, Laurie Anderson and David Byrne.
Number 17.
In 1993, Oberman founded her own design firm under the name "Number Seventeen." This firm was cofounded by friend and peer Bonnie Siegler. The firm advertised its abilities in thinking, writing and designing. Both founders also professed at The Cooper Union, the School of Visual Arts and Yale University. In the firms seventeen year life span, the firm served over 80 clients. Including Newsweek, Lucky, Saturday Night Live, HBO, Orbitz, ABC and more.
At the firms beginning in 1993, it served one of Oberman's former clients from her time at M&Co, Colors. For NBC Universal, the studio created logos for TV series "30 Rock", "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", and "Saturday Night Live". The studio also designed the opening title sequence for TV series "Will and Grace". Other media work included the identity, promotion and launch advertising for radio network Air America and the creation of Lucky magazine for Condé Nast.
Beyond media work, the firm also accomplished identity developments for multiple retail and accommodation entities. These include The Mercer Hotel, The Maritime Hotel, Madstone Theaters, The Zinc Building, Spice Market and Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe.
In mid-2000s, Number Seventeen was commissioned to develop the brand and identity of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum of which the building and grounds were designed by contest winners, Michael Arad and Peter Walker.
In 2008, Number Seventeen served Tina Brown in designing the launch and resurrection of journalism publication and blog, "The Daily Beast".
In 2012 Number Seventeen ceased accepting clients, as Oberman and Sieglar parted ways to begin each of their owns next step. Intentionally or not, the firm lasted seventeen years. Sieglar, founding her own new studio titled "Eight and a Half". Oberman, accepting a partner position at the NY design collective, Pentagram.
Pentagram.
Oberman took her position at Pentagram in 2012. At Pentagram Oberman has served as a designer and director in the development of materials for clients including film review website Rotten Tomatoes, 2018 film "Ready Player One", PBS series "Third Rail with OZY", co-working space The Wing, Hudson River & Bike NY, and more.
In 2012, Oberman was hired by the band They Might be Giants to develop the music video for their song "Alphabet of Nations". In 2016, Oberman helmed the redesign of a new logo for American comics publisher DC Comics. Oberman also headed the branding and identity of "The Queen Latifah Show." Oberman has also created identities for media entities including Tina Fey’s TV series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", the 2016 film "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", and the 2017 film "Justice League". Oberman also designed a new iteration of the "shield" logo for Warner Bros. and its subsidiaries.
Oberman continues to develop work for NBC′s "Saturday Night Live." In 2015, she designed a coffee table book entitled "Saturday Night Live: The Book," which was edited by Alison Castle and published by Taschen. In 2018, the show's title sequence was redesigned by Pentagram under Emily Oberman's leadership, with custom typography and aesthetics influenced by the titles of Jean-Luc Godard films and the New York post-punk scene of the '80s.
Personal life.
Emily Oberman is married to designer Paul Sahre.


Leah McSweeney

Leah Christine McSweeney (born August 27, 1982) is an American fashion designer and television personality. She founded the women's streetwear line Married to the Mob in 2004, and has starred on the reality television series "The Real Housewives of New York City" since 2020.
Early life.
McSweeney was born in Manhattan to Bryan and Bunny McSweeney and raised in an Irish-Italian family.
Career.
Married to the Mob.
Married to the Mob (MTTM) has made several collaborations since its initiation. Amongst its first major collaborations featured a Kangol cashmere 'beanie' cap and a Kaws two-piece graphic swimsuit. Later, MTTM would collaborate with German accessory brand MCM, and French boutique Colette for a limited-edition Reebok lip-print sneaker. MTTM would later create another limited-edition sneaker with Nike. MTTM have also collaborated with French graffiti artist Fafi, Krink, and Jessy "Nite Rider" Kennedy. MTTM has also released collections with models including Chanel West Coast, Kid Sister, Lil Debbie, and the Clermont twins.
Reality television.
In 2010, McSweeney appeared as a client on an episode on Bravo's "The Millionaire Matchmaker." Her appearance on "Matchmaker" was well received by critics, and has led to appearances and cameos on other television programs, including VH1's "."
McSweeney was first speculated to be joining the cast of "The Real Housewives of New York City" after being seen filming with cast member Tinsley Mortimer in August 2019. She was confirmed to have joined the series during an appearance at Bravo's "BravoCon" fan convention in November 2019. McSweeney was referred to production by former cast member Bethenny Frankel, who left the series after the previous season.
McSweeney has officially signed on for her second season as a full-time cast member of "The Real Housewives of New York City". McSweeney held off on renewing her contract until she was offered a higher salary, being paid only $3,000 an episode during her season 12 stint.
Overall, McSweeney has been highly praised by fans and critics for her performance on "The Real Housewives of New York City".
Other projects.
In 2015, McSweeney became a featured recurring star on Shade 45's "Lip Service" with Angela Yee of Power 105.1. The following year, she began "Improper Etiquette" with Laura Stylez of Hot 97. On the podcast, McSweeney and Stylez provide candid perspectives and advice on lifestyle and current issues with occasional celebrity interviews.
McSweeney has been a frequent contributor to the online publication Hypebeast, where she offers commentary on wellness, streetwear style, and motherhood. She also writes an advice column for "Penthouse" magazine.
On June 27, 2018, McSweeney wrote a controversial article for "Penthouse" titled "Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?" where she criticized #MeToo Movement pioneers Rose McGowan and Asia Argento. McSweeney received wide backlash and harsh judgement for her op-ed piece. Six weeks after McSweeney's article had been published, actor Jimmy Bennett revealed Argento had statutory-raped him when he was only 17 years old, offering him a bribe of $380,000 to remain silent amidst her #MeToo Movement fame.
Personal life.
McSweeney gave birth to her only child with Cristofaro, daughter Kier Marie, in 2007.


Helene Hovanec

Helene Hovanec is a former elementary school teacher who has authored 66 puzzle books, 59 of which are for children.
Hovanec earned a B.S. in Child Development from Cornell University and an M.S. in Early Childhood Education from Hunter College. She taught elementary school in New York and New Jersey. Her children's puzzle books, which are geared for kids between the ages of three and 12, have sold over two million copies worldwide.
In addition to her books Hovanec is involved in the grown-up puzzle world, mainly through her connection to Will Shortz. With Shortz she:
An interview with Hovanec was published on Jim Horne's New York Times Wordplay blog on August 30, 2009.


Costanzo Porta

Costanzo Porta (1528 or 1529 – 19 May 1601) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance, and a representative of what is known today as the Venetian School. He was highly praised throughout his life both as a composer and a teacher, and had a reputation especially as an expert contrapuntist.
Biography.
Porta was born in Cremona. Details of his early life are slim, but he probably was educated at the Convent Porta San Luca in Cremona. Around 1550 he is thought to have studied with Adrian Willaert, who was "maestro di cappella" at St. Mark's in Venice; while he was there he met Claudio Merulo, who was also a student; they remained close friends throughout their lives. In 1552 Porta became "maestro di cappella" at Osimo Cathedral; in 1565 he took a position in Padua briefly, but took a more important position in Ravenna the next year, where he was hired to build an entirely new music practice at the cathedral. By 1580 his services were much in demand, and there was competition for him; he declined an offer from Milan, moving instead between positions in several cities. In addition he had become a renowned teacher by this time, and numerous composers of the next generation learned their contrapuntal skills from Porta. His last years were spent in Padua, and they were clearly difficult. Musical standards there began to decline, and he faced in addition the burden of ill health and the jealousy of the man who was eventually to replace him. He died in Padua. He is buried in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua.
Style.
Most of Porta's output is sacred music, especially motets. He published at least eight books of motets, one of which is lost, as well as books of masses, introits, and a huge cycle of hymns for Vespers.
Porta's music is even more polyphonic than that of Gombert, and he showed a liking for academic, even severe contrapuntal devices, although they are used so skillfully that the text can always be clearly understood. Often his music uses strict canons; one motet from his book of 52 motets from 1580, in seven voices, has no less than four of the voices entirely derived canonically. Another motet from this same book is a mensuration canon, that most difficult of all contrapuntal forms to carry off. While many composers were reacting to the strictures of the Council of Trent against excessive polyphonic practice, Porta evidently felt unobliged to follow them; perhaps he had sufficient confidence in his skill in conveying the text. His music is as carefully controlled as that of Palestrina, with cautious use of dissonance and chromaticism, while displaying polyphonic virtuosity to a degree uncommon in other composers of sacred music at the end of the 16th century.
Some of the later motets use polychoral writing extensively. Although Porta was not in Venice in the late part of the century, where this style had become famous (see Venetian polychoral style), he had spent years there as a student studying with Willaert, and the influence clearly lasted throughout his life. Most likely he was familiar with the current practice in Venice, and adopted some of the innovations which worked best with his highly learned style.
Porta also wrote madrigals. Many of these were clearly intended for specific occasions, such as weddings and large social events in the families of his employers; they are in a much simpler style than his sacred works, much in keeping with contemporary practice.


Asa Martin

Asa F. Martin (June 25, 1900 – August 15, 1979) was an American old-time musician, singer, and guitarist, who made many recordings during the 1920s and 1930s and was closely associated with renowned fiddle player Doc Roberts, for whom he played rhythm guitar. In turn, Roberts frequently played mandolin on Martin's recordings; Roberts' son James also sang duets with Martin under the name Doc Roberts Trio.
Biography.
Martin was born in Winchester, Kentucky, into a music-loving family. His mother, who was a piano teacher, also played the guitar, and his father played the fiddle. Because of low finances, Martin decided to drop out of medical school and try his hand at a career in music. In the early 1920s, he played in several dance bands, and in the meantime, he worked in a cinema as a background musician for silent movies. With the advent of talking pictures, he had to find another job. Martin met fiddler Doc Roberts at a fiddler's convention in Winchester. They began performing together, and soon, Martin and Roberts went to Richmond, Indiana, for a recording session. Martin made his recording debut with Doc Roberts on May 14, 1928, for Gennett Records. They recorded two songs at their first session together, "Second Love", and "Lost Love"'. Their recordings sold well, and Martin soon became one of the best-selling old-time artists of Gennett Records. At their second session in August 1928, Doc Roberts' son James was added as a singer. In 1931, the band switched to ARC Records. In addition to being a recording star, Martin performed on radio stations in Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1935, he hired an aspiring young banjo player, David Akeman. Martin gave Akeman the moniker "String Beans" during an onstage presentation when he could not remember the banjo player's name. The name eventually became "Stringbean".
Martin's pseudonym on the Champion label was Jesse Coats.
Martin retired from music in the 1940s and went to work at a steel plant in Ohio. In the 1950s, he moved to Irvine, Kentucky, where he had purchased land just outside the town. He resumed his musical career on a small-scale basis in the 1960s with his new band, the Cumberland Rangers. In the early 1970s, they recorded an album for Rounder Records, "Dr. Ginger Blue". Martin died at home in 1979 from a heart attack.


Special When Lit

Special When Lit is a feature length documentary film about pinball written and directed by Brett Sullivan. The film is produced by Steam Motion and Sound.
Production.
Filming took place from mid-2006 to 2008 in several trips to the U.S., France, Italy, Sweden, Australia and the UK. Post production was completed at Steam Motion and Sound in London during 2008 and 2009.
Synopsis.
The pinball industry made more money than the American film industry during the 1950s through the 1970s. "Special When Lit" explores the former pop icon of the pinball machine, and through interviews with fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe, traces pinball's history through to the present day.
Recognition.
"Eye for Film" wrote "It's not the sort of subject that you'd think would suit a documentary, but it works surprisingly well." It "offers fascinating insights and makes for an enjoyable watch. Special When Lit is reminiscent of that other great documentary Spellbound. Both draw the audience into a world of obsession, impress upon you the level of devotion, and charm you with the people in that world"
"Tallahassee Democrat" wrote that the film was a "surprisingly compelling documentary".
"Chicago Sun-Times" called the film a "significant flick in a lineup that runs the gamut from light to heavy religious to political".
Raindance Film Festival director Elliot Grove wrote that the documentary was "masterfully shot" and that its director, Brett Sullivan, was able to bring out a certain nostalgia in his film that was both intriguing and fascinating, with its interviews like "an emotional and sensitive area, with pinball’s fans describing of the game like a relationship, their faces lighting up as if they were recounting their first kiss." He found the winning film to be "encapsulating and absorbing."
The "Montana Kaimin" wrote "With a gripping intro, the film draws you in and keeps your attention with its larger-than-life characters."
Release and distribution.
First premiered in October 2009 at London's Raindance Film Festival where it was nominated for Best Documentary.
Subsequent festivals included: Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Atlanta International Documentary Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Calgary International Film Festival, Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival, Bronx International Film Festival, Indianapolis International Film Festival, Da Vinci Film Festival, Tallahassee Film Festival, Los Angeles United Film Festival, USA Film Festival, and Wisconsin Film Festival.
The film was picked up by PBS International Distribution for worldwide sales outside the United States. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in January 2011. The Documentary Channel in the United States premiered Special When Lit 21 May 2011. The PBS Channel in the UK premiered Special When Lit 5 November 2011.


Lupinball

Lupinball is a multiplayer bullet hell dodgeball video game developed and published by Craftven for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It was released on 17 August 2017.
Gameplay.
"Lupinball" is a multiplayer bullet hell dodgeball video game for up to four players. Players play as one of seven different wolves, each with their own coloured magic fireballs. The game plays similar to dodgeball, with opposing teams collecting orbs around the playing field in order to shoot fireballs to hit and eliminate the opposing team's players. After being shot, fireballs keep bouncing around the edge of the arena and speed up over time. Players are not affected by their own coloured fireballs, and orbs can also be used to shield from the other team's fireballs. Players earn points for winning individual rounds, and a player wins the match by winning a set number of rounds.
Development.
Michael Ventnor, the head of Craftven, came up with the idea of "Lupinball" during PAX Australia 2014. He told Player2 the idea came about after canning a different idea stemming from playing "Firestriker", to which his friends described as "[reinventing] "Lethal League"", which was unknown to him.
"Lupinball" was unveiled during PAX Australia 2015. Ventnor said: "Anyone can pick it up and play it within seconds. It is a game that caters to everyone’s tastes because everyone seems to get it." In a separate interview with TechRaptor, he stated his passion for the genre, and stated the game was capable of doing "everything to make you remember why this was something you did, and still want to do." A teaser trailer released for the game on 2 November 2015.
Reception.
After playing the game at PAX East 2017, WCSH in Portland, Maine described "Lupinball" as "a near-perfect multiplayer party game", with Mick Pratt of Bull Moose describing the game as easy to pick up and play.
"Lupinball" won PAX Aus' 2015 "Indie Showcase", and was selected in PAX East's 2017 "PAX Rising" category.


Richard Paris (production designer)

Richard Paris is a Canadian production designer and art director based in Vancouver.
With collaborator Linda Del Rosario and director Atom Egoyan, Paris worked on the films "Speaking Parts" (1989) and "The Adjuster" (1991). The three collaborated again on "Exotica" (1994), where Del Rosario and Paris were tasked to design a "lushly rendered tropical set". They shared the Genie Award for Best Art Direction/Production Design for "Exotica".
Filmography.
His films include:


Alexander Reinefeld

Alexander Reinefeld (born 1957) is a German computer scientist and games researcher. He is the head of computer science at Zuse Institute Berlin. His contributions to the field include the NegaScout algorithm.
Biography.
Alexander Reinefeld studied physics at the Technical University of Braunschweig and computer science at the University of Hamburg and during two one-year visits in Edmonton at the University of Alberta. In 1982 he concluded his "Diplom" (equivalent to MSc) in computer science and in 1987 he received his Ph.D at the University of Hamburg.
From 1983 to 1987, he worked as a scientific employee, and from 1989 to 1992 as assistant at the University of Hamburg. During the years 1987 to 1990 he collected industrial experience as a management consultant in the areas of systems analysis, databases and compiler building. In 1992 Reinefeld collaborated with the Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC²) at the University of Paderborn. Since 1998, Alexander Reinefeld leads the area of Computer Science in the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB). He is a member of the Gesellschaft für Informatik, the ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, the German university association Deutscher Hochschulverband (DHV) and Chair of Parallel and Distributed Systems at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Search algorithms.
In 1983 Alexander Reinefeld introduced the NegaScout search-algorithm, an improvement of Judea Pearl's Scout.
Ten years later, in 1993 Reinefeld made an attempt to resuscitate Stockman's SSS* algorithm, and proposed an improvement of the recursive RecSSS*, initially developed by Subir Bhattacharya and Amitava Bagchi. Despite promising results with some trees of depth 8, the space (memory) requirements were still too high, and with the research of Aske Plaat, Wim Pijls and Arie de Bruin concerning the alpha–beta pruning algorithm with zero windows and transposition table in SSS* and Dual* as MT, SSS* was finally declared "dead" by Pijls and De Bruin in 1996.
Chess programs.
In 1979 at the University of Hamburg, motivated and supported by his advisor Frieder Schwenkel, Alexander Reinefeld designed the chess program "Murks", partly implemented in microcode for an Interdata M85 minicomputer. Reinefeld claimed that world chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik played against "Murks" during his visit.
In 1980/81, a team of four students, Manfred Allers, Dirk Hauschildt, Dieter Steinwender and Alexander Reinefeld, ported Murks to a Motorola 68000 microprocessor, then dubbed "MicroMurks". They built their own MC68000 microcomputer from scratch. "Micromurks II" represented by Dieter Steinwender, participated at the WMCCC 1983 in Budapest.


Konger

Konger is a Polish performance art group from Kraków, Poland, established in 1983 by a group of professional artists in protest against the imposition of Martial law in Poland. The artists boycotted all state galleries and took up performance art instead, an obsolete medium in the eyes of the official art critics.
The Group was founded by Wladyslaw Kazmierczak, Artur Tajber, Marian Figiel and Marcin Krzyżanowski. Others included Kazimierz Madej and Peter Grzybowski. The activity was documented by Barbara Maroń.
The artists performed individual art actions at a time when Polish performance art was experiencing political repressions. The performance in Zakład nad Fosą was transmitted live through video equipment and monitors outside the gallery.
The performances of Konger Group triggered strong criticism from the Polish authorities and resulted in a ban on performing in public for Artur Tajber, issued by the local committee of the Polish United Workers' Party.
Selected performances.
The artists stopped performing as a group in 1990 but remain active individually.


Alfred Mosher Butts

Alfred Mosher Butts (April 13, 1899 – April 4, 1993) was an American architect, famous for inventing the board game "Scrabble" in 1938.
Personal life.
Alfred Mosher Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on April 13, 1899, to Allison Butts and Arrie Elizabeth Mosher. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was a high school teacher. Alfred attended Poughkeepsie High School and graduated in 1917. He then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in architecture in 1924.
He was also an amateur artist, and six of his drawings were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He died on April 4, 1993, only 9 days before his 94th birthday.
"Scrabble".
In the early 1930s after working as an architect but now unemployed, Butts set out to design a board game. He studied existing games and found that games fell into three categories: number games such as dice and bingo; move games such as chess and checkers; and word games such as anagrams. Butts was a resident of Jackson Heights, New York, and it was there that the game of "Scrabble" was invented. To memorialize Butts's importance to the invention of the game, there is a street sign at 35th Avenue and 81st Street in Jackson Heights that is stylized using letters, with their values in Scrabble as a subscript.
Butts decided to create a game that utilized both chance and skill by combining elements of anagrams and crossword puzzles, a popular pastime of the 1920s. Players would draw seven lettered tiles from a pool and then attempt to form words from their seven letters. A key to the game was Butts' analysis of the English language. Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how frequently each letter of the alphabet was used. He then used each letter's frequency to determine how many of each letter he would include in the game. He included only four "S" tiles so that the ability to make words plural would not make the game too easy.
Butts initially called the game "Lexiko", but later changed the name to "Criss Cross Words", after considering "It", and began to look for a buyer. The game makers he originally contacted rejected the idea, but Butts was tenacious. Eventually, he sold the rights to entrepreneur and game-lover James Brunot, who made a few minor adjustments to the design and renamed the game "Scrabble".
In 1948, the game was trademarked and James Brunot and his wife converted an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, Connecticut, into a "Scrabble" factory. In 1949, the Brunots made 2,400 sets, but lost $450. The game, however, was steadily gaining popularity, helped along by orders from Macy's department store. By 1952, the Brunots could no longer keep up with demand and asked licensed game maker Selchow and Righter to market and distribute the game. One hundred and fifty million sets have been sold worldwide and between one and two million sets are sold each year in North America alone.
"Alfreds Other Game".
Butts later invented another game titled simply " Other Game". Published in 1985 by Selchow and Righter, it never achieved the commercial success of "Scrabble".


Stephen Semel

Stephen Semel (sometimes credited as Steve Semel or Steven Semel) is an American Primetime Emmy Award-winning film and television editor, film producer, production manager, and actor. He has worked as an editor for mainstream movies, such as "Airheads", "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Fandango", "Kuffs", "License to Drive", "Miracle Mile", "My Giant", "One Eight Seven", "Only the Strong", "Three to Tango", "The Truth About Cats & Dogs", "The Way of the Gun", and "You So Crazy". Semel has also edited episodes of several television series, including episodes of "Century City", "Dragnet", "Kyle XY", "House", "Melrose Place", and "Tales from the Crypt".
Semel has edited forty-one episodes of "Lost", appearing as Adam, one of "The Others", in the season 3 premiere, "A Tale of Two Cities". From 2006 to 2010, Semel was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series for his work on the series, for the episodes "Live Together, Die Alone" (2006), "Through the Looking Glass" (2007), "There's No Place Like Home" (2008), "The Incident" (2009), and "The End" (2010), winning in 2010 (shared with Mark Goldman, Christopher Nelson, and Henk Van Eeghan). In addition, Semel directed two episodes, "Ji Yeon" and "The Last Recruit", in 2008 and 2010, respectively.
As well as editing eight episodes, Semel was an associate producer for "Tales from the Crypt", for eighteen episodes, and was an associate producer for Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories". He was a producer for the VHS releases – Books 1–5, along with being post-production supervisor (credited as Steven Semel) for two episodes of the series.
Semel was also an assistant film editor for "Apocalypse Now" (credited as Steve Semel) and an associate film editor for "Galaxina". He was also an assistant editor for "Back to the Future" and an additional film editor for "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka".


Anders P. Ravn

Anders Peter Ravn (29 October 1947 – 1 August 2019) was a Danish computer scientist.
Anders P. Ravn was born in 1947 in Caracas, Venezuela, the son of Niels and Henny (Sønder) Ravn. He arrived in Denmark in 1948. Ravn received a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Copenhagen in 1973 and a Doctor of Technology (Dr.Tech.) degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Denmark in 1995.
Between 1969–73, Anders Ravn was a teaching assistant in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen (DIKU). From 1972–76, he was a systems programmer on minicomputers at the early Danish computer company A/S Regnecentralen. He returned to academia and rose from assistant professor (1976–80) to associate professor (1980–84) at DIKU. During 1982–3, he was a visiting scientist at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, United States. He joined the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Denmark (ID-DTH) as a lecturer (1984–9) followed by reader (1989–99) in the Department of Information Technology. During this time, he was also an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark (1985–9), guest researcher at Oxford University (1989–90), and Visiting Professor at the Institut für Praktische Mathematik und Informatik, University of Kiel in Germany (1994). He participated in the ESPRIT ProCoS project on Provably Correct Systems. He was a Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Aalborg University (1999–2004), before being appointed Professor of Computing Science there (2004–16). He then retired, becoming an Emeritus Professor.
Ravn specialized in research into formal methods, especially for embedded systems and hybrid systems. In particular, he worked with Zhou Chaochen and Tony Hoare on the development of Duration Calculus for real-time systems.
He became a member of the Dansk Selskab for Datalogi (DSfD) in 1972, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1983, and was a Life Member of the IEEE Computer Society. He was also a member of the IFIP Working Group 2.2 (covering the Formal Description of Programming Concepts) from 2002.
Anders Ravn received Ulrik and Marie Brinch's honorary award in 1996. He was honoured as a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 2015. He married Annemette Lind on 31 August 1973 and they had two children. Ravn died in Copenhagen on 1 August 2019.
Selected publications.
Ravn produced many research papers and edited several books:


Tom Jolly

Tom Jolly is a board game inventor.
Career.
Tom Jolly's games include "Wiz-War", "Drakon", "Cavetroll", "Light Speed", "Camelot", "Cargo", and he co-designed "DiskWars" and "Vortex/Maelstrom". Additional games he has designed include "Gootmu", "Knots", "WayWord", and "Got It!". The publisher of Wiz-War, Chessex, printed the fourth through the 7th editions of Wiz-War.The seventh edition, came out in 1997. The eighth edition was released by publisher Fantasy Flight Games in 2012. The first expansion set, Malefic Curses, came out in January 2014.
After Fantasy Flight Games published Jolly's "DiskWars" game in 1998, it was mashed up with Alderac Entertainment Group's Rokugan setting to produce "DiskWars: Legend of the Five Rings" (2000), and with Pinnacle Entertainment Group's "Deadlands" to produce "Doom Town Rang Wars" (2000). In January 2014, Diskwars was yet again revived in the form of Warhammer:Diskwars, combining Diskwars mechanics with the Warhammer fantasy world.
Tom Jolly has also written several short SF and Fantasy stories published by a variety of on-line and paper magazines. He has also designed over 40 puzzles, produced by a number of companies and woodcrafters around the world.
Jolly lives in California with his wife, having retired from his career as a electrical engineer.


Charles Grant (game designer)

Charles Grant (died 1979) was a Scottish game author who helped popularize the hobby of tabletop wargaming. He is best known as the author of "The War Game".
Grant was born in Scotland, and served in the Royal Air Force in World War II. Later in Scotland Yard's Special Branch. Contributor to "Military Modelling" and "Battle". Sometime editor of "Slingshot" the Journal of the Society of Ancients.
He has had influence among the designers of Warhammer Ancient Battles. Jeff Jonas describes his writings as inspirational.
Grant died in May 1979. He is survived by his son Charles S. Grant, who is also a published wargamer, and his daughter Nina.


Luella Bartley

Luella Dayrell Bartley (born 1974) is an English fashion designer, magazine editor and former journalist based in the UK.
Biography.
A one-time journalist and fashion editor of "British Vogue" and Evening Standard newspaper, Bartley first attended the further education arts college, Warwickshire School of Arts, before gaining a place at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and launched her eponymous fashion label "Luella" in 1999 with a collection entitled "Daddy, I want a Pony" at a friend's (Steve Mackey – bassist from Pulp) apartment. Bartley is a former roommate of artists Justine Frischmann and Mathangi Arulpragasam (M.I.A.). A year after her first showcase, she was awarded Britain's Young Designer of the Year award. Her designs are influenced by the British music scene and have been acclaimed for her quirky, punk inspired, often distinctly English style. Her LFW debut in February 2000 was the show "Daddy, who were the Clash?"
In 2002, the "Gisele" bag she designed from the best selling "Luella for Mulberry" edition was an instant success and revived the ailing Mulberry brand. This, in turn led to Club21, the Singapore-based retail group, investing in a global licensing agreement for Luella Bartley ready-to-wear and accessories.
In January 2006, Bartley was selected to launch Target's Go International line.
She has showcased her work several times during London Fashion Week. She returned to London for Spring/Summer 2007, after six and a half years based in New York and previously Milan fashion weeks. During the same week she opened her first store, on London's Brook Street.
In 2008, she launched a limited edition bag collection "Friends of Luella" in Hong Kong. Later that year, the British Fashion Council named Luella 'Designer of the Year', having been nominated previously for two consecutive years. Following on from this award, Luella was dubbed 'International Designer of the Year' by Elle Sweden in January 2009.
Wearers of her designs have included Kate Nash, Kelly Osbourne, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sienna Miller, Mischa Barton, Chloë Sevigny, Keira Knightley, Foxy Brown, Christina Aguilera, Reese Witherspoon, Cate Blanchett, Kate Bosworth, Alexa Chung, Pixie Geldof, Zooey Deschanel, and Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Bartley was announced to design the Liberty Christmas decor. Despite this, on 10 November 2009, it was reported that Luella had ceased trading.
Bartley currently lives in Cornwall with her partner, fashion photographer David Sims, and their children.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.


Age of Wonders

Age of Wonders is a 1999 turn-based strategy game co-developed by Triumph Studios and Epic MegaGames, and published by Gathering of Developers.
"Age of Wonders" underwent a long production cycle, and was originally developed under the name "World of Wonders". In 1997, the team scrapped its existing work and restarted development, which resulted in "Age of Wonders".
The game won positive reviews and was a moderate commercial success, with global sales of roughly 200,000 units by 2001. It began a franchise and was followed by four sequels: ', ', "Age of Wonders III", and "". In 2010, the first game was re-released on GOG.com and Steam.
Gameplay.
"Age of Wonders" is a turn-based strategy game that takes place from an isometric perspective, which consists of hexagonal tiles. Units are arranged into groups (also known as parties or stacks) of up to eight units; a single such group occupies one tile. Cities occupy between one and four tiles, and other structures generally occupy a single tile. Units within the game have a limited number of "movement points", which are replenished at the beginning of each turn. Two turn systems are used - sequential (or "classic"), where players take their turns in order, or simultaneous, where all players can move units at once. In practice, actions in the latter system are added and executed via a queue.
The game has a single-player campaign, playable from two sides (more campaigns have been made by the community since release), and many maps, both included and user-created that can be played in Hotseat mode, over a LAN, on the Internet, or by email (PBEM). Up to 12 players can participate in a single game, depending on the map. Simultaneous turns are only available in single player and live multiplayer games; PBEM and hotseat games, and all combat, use the sequential turn system.
Each player leads a certain race. There are 12 races available in the game, though not all of them may be present on every map, and of those which are, not all may be playable. List of races includes traditional fantasy Elves, Lizardmen, Humans, Goblins, Dark Elves, Undead, Orcs, Dwarves and Halflings, as well as several unique ones such as Frostlings, Azracs, and Highmen. Races, as well as units not belonging to any specific race, such as dragons and giants, have a certain alignment, which can be good, neutral, or evil. According to their alignment and certain other factors, cities and independent units of one race can be friendly or hostile towards another race. This can manifest itself in different ways; for example, an orc city is not likely to surrender to the elves, and if conquered, may revolt unless there is a strong military presence in it to oppress the population. Units of hostile races forced to fight alongside each other in a single group will have lower morale, and are more likely to desert. Race relations can be improved by acts of goodwill towards other races, such as upgrading their cities, or hampered by razing, looting, or migrating cities belonging to that race. Diplomacy can also affect this and even an alliance with one race might affect the relation of another race. There are also several spells which have a global effect on race relations.
There are two resources, gold and mana. Gold is used to build units, buy heroes, cities and spells (in Wizard Towers), upgrade cities. Mana is used to cast and research spells and use altars. Units can be built in cities, which can be further upgraded to produce more advanced units. Also, wandering "independent" (not belonging to any player) groups of units can be hired, if they are well-disposed towards the player. Units may have different strength, reflected by their "level", which can vary from 1 to 4. Units under player control require a certain amount of gold every turn as an "upkeep", the size of which depends upon the level of the unit. Summoned units use mana for upkeep instead of gold. Units earn experience for killing other units. The amount of experience earned depends on the number of enemy units killed as well as their level - the level of the enemy killed is the amount of experience gained. Upon earning a certain amount of experience, the unit gets a "silver" medal, and later on a "gold" one. Higher level units require more experience to earn medals. Units with medals also get slight increases to their basic parameters, or otherwise improve their combat performance.
A special type of unit, a "hero", can only be hired when they appear at random at one of the player's cities. Heroes earn experience points just like all other units do; however, instead of getting medals for it, they gain "levels" to a maximum of level 30. Upon reaching the next level, they get a number of skill points, which a player can then spend to improve their parameters and teach them special abilities. This point system is similar to that used in many role-playing video games. In addition to that, heroes are the only units in the game which can learn the "Spell Casting" special ability, allowing them to cast spells. The "Spell-Casting" special ability can be upgraded from level I to level V. Each level provides more mana income/research points and also improves the "channeling points" allowing the hero to cast more/better spells each turn. Some spells require many turns to cast even with level V "Spell-Casting". Heroes can not work together to cast one spell - each must cast it individually. Unlike common units, heroes can be brought from dead by magical means, although such experience will greatly decrease their morale.
Scattered across the board are a series of structures known as altars. These altars harness different types of magic and can be used as large-scale weapons. To fire off an altar, a player must first take control of it, then target a spot on the board (within a certain range), then click to cast the spell over the targeted area. Altars require 500 mana to fire. Each turn, they accumulate 50 mana charge, requiring 10 turns to fully recharge. Players with enough mana crystals may fire an altar multiple times sequentially without recharging.
Spells are divided into three types - unit spells which enhance a single unit, combat spells which are used to directly damage or handicap the enemy during combat, and global spells which can affect terrain, structures and groups of units on the global map, or summon magical creatures to player's aid. All have different mana costs depending on how advanced they are, and some of the more powerful unit and global spells can take more than one turn to cast. Counterspells to block and dispel unit and global enchantments are also available. Each spell furthermore belongs to one of the eight spheres of magic: "Life", "Death", "Air", "Earth", "Fire", "Water", "Cosmos" and "Secret"/"Chaos". Mana, the magical energy required to research and cast spells, is channeled from magic "nodes". Some of those are generic, and provide equal (though small) amount to caster of any sphere. Others are linked to one of the elemental planes, and only channel a specific kind of energy; thus, a Fire node, for example, can only be used by a player who chose the Fire sphere. Heroes with "Spell-Casting" also generate mana, your King/Leader more so than others.
Combat.
Combat is initiated by one player attempting to move a stack onto a hex occupied by another player. If the players are at war, the attacker has the option of selecting tactical combat, where the players move individual units on a small map representing the battlefield, or automatic ("fast") combat, where the computer determines how the battle would have taken place by weighing off each side's attack, defense and movement parameters. Tactical combat is only available on single player maps, against independent units in PBEM games, and (optionally) against human players in live multiplayer games. Both forms of combat use the sequential turn system.
Spells may be cast during combat, though global spells are disabled. Combat spells may target a unit or a group of units of the enemy collectively, damaging or temporarily handicapping them. Handicaps are usually introduced alongside direct damage, and vary from short-term paralysis to poisoning or a curse. Most spells have a maximum range. All ranged attacks (including some types of spells), and some melee strikes can result in friendly fire. For example, an archer firing an arrow at a target can hit and injure a friendly unit if it is on the line of fire. Trees, buildings and other obstacles scattered around combat maps also hamper ranged attacks as well as movement to various degrees, and can be used to one's advantage to great effect.
Unit parameters and special abilities play a heavy role in combat. "Attack" is matched against target's "defence" to determine whether a hit was scored, and then "damage" determined the number of hit points the target loses. Some offensive spells have to beat the target's "resistance" instead, or even both "defence" and "resistance". Physical attacks (such as "archery") target defence, while other attacks (such as "venomous spit") target resistance. Equal values of the attacker and the defender parameters results in a 50% chance to hit, and for each point of difference this is changed by 10% (but to a minimum of 10%, or a maximum of 90%). While most commonly only physical damage is dealt, sometimes attacks are partially or fully magical in nature, and can result in additional negative effects on the target: a fire strike has a chance of setting the target aflame, a lightning strike can paralyse the target, and so on. At the same time, units often have protection and/or immunity against specific forms of attacks. Protection reduces the damage of that effect by 50% e.g. "lightning bolts" with "marksmanship II" (a skill to improve attack/damage of a ranged attack) has 7 attack 4 damage, but would do a maximum of 2 damage against a unit with "lightning protection", and none against a unit with "lightning immunity".
Development.
"Age of Wonders" underwent a long development cycle. "CNET Gamecenter"s Mark Asher joked that it had "been in development ever since programming a computer was a matter of punching holes in cards". It was originally developed under the name "World of Wonders" for MS-DOS, and was later upgraded for Windows 95. The team ultimately scrapped this version of the game in 1997, leading to the final released version of "Age of Wonders". The game originally incorporated several role-playing video game elements that were dropped when simultaneous turns were implemented.
The music files within Age of Wonders are in Impulse Tracker (.IT) format and were composed by Michiel van den Bos, who has also composed for other notable titles such as "Deus Ex" and the "Unreal" series of games. There are 20 tunes in the main gameplay, and also 4 other tunes to accompany different situations within gameplay. The 21st tune called "In The Company of Elves" was included with the demo version of "Age of Wonders", but not with the final release of the game. In the demo version all songs beside the title song were in the Scream Tracker (.s3m) format.
Reception.
The game received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. "IGN" reviewer Jason Bates wrote, "if you are at all interested in turn-based strategy games with a fantasy theme, go get this game". Bates praised many of the game's features including the graphics, gameplay mechanics, editor, and online connectivity, but said the music was uninspiring and called the sound effects "serviceable but bland". "AllGame"s Nick Woods wrote: "If you love strategy and role playing games, "Age of Wonders" is worth the purchase", giving it three-and-a-half stars out of five. However, "GameZone"s Jason Lambert gave it 6.3 out of 10, writing: "Small flaws and annoyances made this game a little less than expected. If you are wanting to play something different than the "Heroes of Might and Magic", "Warlords", or the new "", then you may want to try this game. If you are happy with what you are currently playing, then save your money and buy your mom a Christmas present". Greg Vederman of "NextGen" wrote that ""Age of Wonders" stands tall as one of the best games of the year".
The game sold 20,975 copies by April 2000, and totaled 71,000 copies by October 2001. Its global sales had reached roughly 200,000 units by March 2001. At the time, "PC Player" noted that "Age of Wonders" was "not necessarily one of the biggest sellers in gaming history", but that its commercial performance was adequate to justify a sequel.
"PC Gamer US" and "CNET Gamecenter" nominated the game for their 1999 "Best Turn-Based Strategy Game" awards, both of which ultimately went to "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri". The staff wrote that the former game "took the tired fantasy-based theme we've seen time and again and breathed new life into it".
Legacy.
"Age of Wonders" began the "Age of Wonders" series. It was followed by four sequels: ', ', "Age of Wonders III", and "".
Modding.
The "Age of Wonders" came with a basic map editing utility "AoWEd", that allows players to create their own scenarios or to edit existing scenarios included in the game. Scenario makers (also referred to as 'mapmakers') were able to draw maps with rich stories from their own imaginations, or took inspiration from classic fantasy worlds such as that of Tolkien, "Dungeons & Dragons", etc. Many of such carefully crafted scenarios have been touted as being of higher quality than that which came with the game. Having scenario makers actively utilising the AoWEd to make new scenarios meant that players were almost never in short supply of new maps to try out and enjoy. Custom made scenarios were also often used in multiplayer / PBEM tournaments. Thus, the AoWEd was largely responsible for keeping the fans of the game entertained until the release of the sequel, "Age of Wonders 2".
The AoWEd was also used to generate the maps for the free online multiplayer game "Battlemaster". The first mod released was known as "Warlock's Ruleset", after the player who created it. The mod changed some in-game costs and added new units and structures. Since the accidental release of the developer's editor (known as DevEd), many more mods have been made by the fan community (notably at HeavenGames), including the very popular "Lighthawk's Rules". However, there are some aspects of the game that can only be changed by use of a hex editor.


Flag of the Kalmar Union


Neo Naturists

The Neo Naturists is a performance based live art practice started during the early 1980s in London, UK.
History.
The Neo Naturists were started by Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie, and Wilma Johnson in 1981 in London. Grayson Perry appeared in many performances. The most recent performance was at the Hayward Gallery in June 2012. This was the first time the three main founders had performed together since 1986. There were many performances in the interim years.
In the world of urban Thatcherism The Neo Naturists were seen as unfashionable hippies. With an enthusiastic spirit of anarchy, they used this unfashionability to enact a challenge. They challenged the highly fashionable Blitz Kids of the early 1980s by creating performances which brought smudged body paint, nudity, cooking, fish fingers, pancakes, calor gas, modern hunter gatherer carrier bags, bosoms, patchouli, sweat and messy exuberance into the heart of the self-conscious New Romantic club scene. Their work brought the aesthetics and vision of William Blake and Samuel Palmer, Cecil Collins and Neo-Romanticism of the 1940s into direct collision with the slick gesturing of New Image painting and Neo Expressionism.
The Neo Naturists subtextually, used their own female bodies in the context of the, often gay and exquisitely dandyesque, club scene, such as The Blitz, to play with feminist sexuality issues and sexual politics. As living, naked paintings they performed ancient and modern rituals, everyday actions and rituals on stages lit like kitchens. They juxtaposed ritual action with ‘common sense’ to create messy exuberant happenings.
The Neo Naturists have an intention to become Neo Naturist octogenarians and to continue performing with body paint on, into their 80s.


Gail Elliott

Gail Elliott (born 1966) is an English fashion designer and former model.
Early life.
Elliot was born in the Balham neighborhood of London, England in 1966. She is a mix of Anglo-Indian, English, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, and Scottish.
Career.
Modeling.
Elliot began to model when she was 17 years old, at the suggestion of her ballet teacher. She moved to Tokyo, Japan, where she worked as a model for two years, after which she moved to New York City. Over the years, Elliott modeled for some of the world's major fashion brands such as Versace, Valentino, Armani, Ralph Lauren, Karl Lagerfeld, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs, Chanel, Tom Ford, and Donna Karan. Elliot worked with photographers such as Steven Meisel and Mario Testino. Her modeling career spanned a period of 24 years.
Little Joe Woman.
Elliot ventured into fashion design, starting a clothing label with her husband Joe Coffey in 2002, which was named Little Joe Woman. The label was started in New York and was subsequently based out of Sydney, Australia. The company's headquarters was later transferred to Bali, Indonesia. Elliot's husband is the brand's CEO while Elliot is its creative director. The brand, which has been described as "a rock-chic, luxe-resort fashion line", originally offered slip dresses and camisoles.
Personal life.
During her first trip to Australia, Elliott was introduced to her now-husband Coffey by INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence, who at the time was the boyfriend of her model friend Helena Christensen. Elliott and Coffey were married in 1997. Her wedding gown was designed by Azzedine Alaïa, while Christensen, Cindy Crawford, and Yasmin Le Bon were some of her bridesmaids.


8-Bit Hordes

8-Bit Hordes is a real-time strategy video game developed by Petroglyph Games, which was released on August 12, 2016 for Microsoft Windows. It uses the same engine as its predecessor "8-Bit Armies", but is now based in a fantasy themed scenario.
Development.
"8-Bit Hordes" is the sequel to the game "8-Bit Armies". It uses the same engine and interface. After the release of "8-Bit Armies", Petroglyph Games wanted to release more factions via DLC, but then decided to make an entire spin-off, which led to the release of "8-Bit Hordes" a few months later on August 12, 2016. Due their similarities, both games offer various cross-over functionalities.
Gameplay.
"8-Bit Hordes" is a real-time strategy game designed to mirror the look and gameplay of classic RTS games of the 90s. It features a singleplayer campaign and a multiplayer mode in which players battle each other or the AI in the cooperative game mode. The game takes a very simplistic approach in its gameplay and graphical elements. The graphic features a blocky 8-bit retro-art voxel style with partially destructible terrain. Gameplay is very similar to the classic "Warcraft" franchise. The player starts with a castle building which he uses to expand his base so he can build various military units to fight his opponents. Resources are gathered via lorries which gather gold from nearby mines to the main castle. Units and buildings are built via a clickable menu on the right side of the screen, similar to the "Command & Conquer" franchise. The players have to build farms to provide upkeep for their forces. The game is situated in a generic fantasy scenario featuring orcs, dwarfs, mages or dragon units. Featured in the game are 2 factions, the "good" "Lightbringers" and the "bad" "Deathsworn".
The game also features cross-game multiplayer battles with "8-Bit Armies" players, allowing them to play against each other with all factions from both games. This is even possible when the player only owns one of the two games.
Reception.
"8-Bit Hordes" was released digitally on Steam and GOG.com on August 12, 2016. Reviews of the game were mixed to positive. Reviewers acknowledged the game as an homage to the classic "Command & Conquer" franchise with a similar simplistic game play approach and a classic retro graphic style. The classic RTS gameplay has been praised as the core strength of the game. Some reviews criticized the lack of variety: the campaign features no distinctive storyline and the gameplay may feel repetitive, as simple aggressive rush tactics usually lead to a fast victory. The lopsided AI opponents that are merely just enough for warm-up play as well as sometimes bad pathfinding were also criticized. It has also been noted that the game is essentially a reskinned version of "8-Bit Armies", now with dragons instead of tanks. The soundtrack, which was composed by former "Command & Conquer" composer Frank Klepacki, has received positive reviews. Overall, reviews described the game as a nostalgic flashback that lacks variety and long-term playability but still manages to be fun for a short while.


Scott Campbell (artist)

Scott Campbell (born December 28, 1973), known professionally as Scott C., is an American artist and production designer, known for his work for LucasArts and Double Fine Productions.
Early life.
Born and raised in San Jose, California, Scott studied illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and graduated with a BFA in Illustration focusing on comic and children's book illustration in 1992.
Career.
After graduation, Campbell began at LucasArts as concept artist on children's "Star Wars" games. In 2000, he left to join Tim Schafer at Double Fine Productions as Art Director on such games as 2005's "Psychonauts" and 2009's "Brütal Legend". Alongside this career in games, he has been involved in comics (including being featured in the comic anthology "Flight") and created paintings that have appeared in galleries around the world as well the alternative DVD cover for "".


Red Clay Ramblers

The Red Clay Ramblers are a North Carolina-based band founded in Durham, North Carolina, performing continuously since their formation in 1972. The current touring band has been together since 1987, with Jack Herrick (trumpet, bass), Bland Simpson (piano), Clay Buckner (fiddle), and Chris Frank (guitar). The original members included Mike Craver (guitar) Tommy Thompson (banjo), Bill Hicks (fiddle), and Jim Watson (mandolin, bass).
Career.
Mike Craver joined Red Clay Ramblers in 1973, and recorded with them on their first record, which was released by Folkways under the title "The Red Clay Ramblers with Fiddlin' Al McCanless." The quartet continued their recording career with "Stolen Love" on the Flying Fish label, recorded in 1974 and released in 1975 during their successful run in "Diamond Studs." Jack Herrick joined the band in 1976 as a bass and trumpet player. The band recorded, concertized and performed in theatrical productions, most notably "Diamond Studs" (Bland Simpson/Jim Wann) off-Broadway in 1975. Their 1977 recording, "Merchants Lunch", described a trucker's disastrous visit to a Nashville diner. (The diner still exists at the same location, but has been renamed the "Merchant's Restaurant").
The recordings produced by the Red Clay Ramblers during their first decade include "Stolen Love," "Twisted Laurel," "Merchants Lunch," "Meeting in the Air," "Chuckin' the Frizz," and "Hard Times," all on the Flying Fish label, and all available as CDs through Rounder Records. The first decade of the Ramblers also produced album-collaborations with other musicians, including Debby McClatchy in 1976 and Si Kahn in 1981. "Chuckin' the Frizz" is noteworthy as a live album. "Meeting" is an album of all Carter Family songs featuring the singing of Tommy Thompson, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson. These early albums featured several writing collaborations by Mike Craver and Tommy Thompson, the most "famous" of which are "Merchants Lunch" and "The Ace." Debby McClatchy recorded Hicks' most infamous original composition, "You Were Only F**king, While I Was Making Love."
Fiddler Clay Buckner joined the band when fiddler Bill Hicks left the band in 1981. The Red Clay Ramblers continued to perform steadily, including an Off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's "Lie of the Mind" in 1985-86. Following that production the personnel of the group changed, with Shawn Colvin and Bland Simpson replacing Watson and Craver. Colvin left the band August 1987, replaced by Chris Frank on guitar-accordion-tuba.
The lineup of Thompson, Herrick, Buckner, Simpson and Frank toured internationally from 1987 through 1993, including scoring two Sam Shepard movies ("Far North", 1988 and "Silent Tongue",1994). They acted in "Silent Tongue", appearing as an 1870s medicine show band, where they met clowns Bill Irwin and David Shiner and spawned the seeds of what became "Fool Moon", which they first performed on Broadway between February and September 1993. "Fool Moon" returned to Broadway twice more (1995, 1998) and won a Special Tony Award in June, 1999.
Founder Tommy Thompson, who retired from the band at the end of 1993, suffering from Alzheimers, died on January 24, 2003.
The band continues to perform and record as a quartet, with banjoist Rick Good of Dayton, Ohio, and drummer Rob Ladd, including composed works for the Atlanta Ballet (2003) and the Carolina Ballet (2005), and the musical "Lone Star Love" off Broadway in 2004-2005


Act of Aggression

Act of Aggression is a 2015 real-time strategy game developed by Eugen Systems and published by Focus Home Interactive.
Gameplay.
The game is a real-time strategy game set in the near future, and its gameplay is similar to the "Command & Conquer" series. The game tasks players to build a base for their army, collect and manage resources, develop new army types and units, and participate in battles against artificial intelligence. In addition to the single-player mode, the game also features competitive multiplayer and co-operative multiplayer.
Story.
Setting.
Act of Aggression is set in 2025, following the "Shanghai Crash", a global trade market collapse engineered by the Cartel (a shady organization with presumed roots to anti-communist US participants during the JFK administration), which seeks to use the economic recession, terrorist acts and the unstable political climate to their advantage, to the point where even the United States Army is involved.  However, the suspicious nature of the Shanghai Crash has led to the United Nations Organization to organize a covert multi-national task force with cutting edge technological support and free reign to act as necessary, called the Chimera.  The campaign begins shortly after another of the Cartel's actions, a staged coup d'etat in Baja California, Mexico, draws the attention of the Chimera.
Plot.
In 2023, Piet Vermaak, a former South African Special Forces captain presumed deceased, is contacted and hired by the Cartel's "Olympus Cell" leader, "'Poseidon"', to orchestrate the ascension of Raul Escobedo, a businessman with ulterior motives, as a leading political power by deposing the governor of Baja California and forming a separatist state, the "Republica Democratica de Nueva California" (New California's Democratic Republic), plunging Mexico into a civil war that warrants an US Army intervention led by General James Wittel, called by the media the ""Hero of Isfahan".  However, two years later, the involvement and exposure of Zhang Yao, a former Chinese hacker with an Interpol arrest warrant (And Vermaak's aide in his operations), draws the attention of Chimera, whose task force under the command of Colonel Greg C. Schaefer attempts to unsuccessfully intercept her by covertly invading the RDNC at the same the US Army launches their offensive.  As Yao is unable to completely destroy her laptop drive before she's forced to evacuate by Veermak, Chimera is able to acquire the remaining data, mostly referencing Escobedo, prompting Schaefer to launch a missile strike at Escobedo's escape train and covertly capture him for interrogation, earning the "Olympus Cell"'s interest in Chimera.
Following Escobedo's capture and transfer to the Hague, the Cartel attacks the International Criminal Court, killing Escobedo in the process, using the Serbian mercenary unit "White Wolves"" under self-promoted Colonel Dragan Vesnic as their military force, backed by cutting-edge technology.  Schaefer is deployed to try and capture Vesnic and any intact military technology as clues, but the Cartel acts beforehand, deploying Veermak to eliminate Vesnic and as many evidence as possible before Chimera arrives.  The evidence points to a possible collusion between Weyland Defense Corps (A main military supplier for the US Army) and the Yueng Corporation (The company which Yao once worked for before joining the Cartel), using the WDC as a front.  Schaefer leads an illegal covert force into the Yeung holdings in China to acquire the data related to Yao and Escobedo.  The operation reveals that most of Yeung Corporation's military assets (including guidance systems for ballistic missiles) were smuggled worldwide via Escobedo's network to Damocles (An influential private military contractor for the United States and Veermak's last employer prior to his "death"), intended on using its control of military assets to coerce the US government into obeying them.
The information is transferred to the US government, which deploys General Wittel to neutralize Damocles (With Schaefer's assistance as an 'observer'), prompting the Cartel to counterattack utilizing experimental orbital weaponry, but Chimera is able to evacuate surviving assets in time.  Simultaneously, the Cartel strikes a blow against Chimera as Veermak is deployed to eliminate captured prisoners and erase retrieved data from a secondary base in South-East Asia.  Knowing that the orbital weapon requires resupplying, Schaefer leads an assault on the Baikonour Cosmodrome with the assistance of the Russian military, securing the Cartel's database, preventing the supplying of the orbital weapon which was intended on striking down the State of the Union address in Washington DC and exposing multiple high-profile US personnel as members of the Cartel, including General Wittel, whom is a high-ranking member of the "Olympus Cell", codenamed "'Hermes"'.
Exposed, Wittel is forced to escape to Mexico, covered by Veermak, after failing to organize a force of defecting US troops to stand against the government.  Schaefer leads a final assault against Wittel's forces and eliminates him, with Wittel being vilified as the supposed head of the Cartel, as the "Olympus Cell" disbands, fully exposed.  However, Veermak and Yao manage to escape by deserting the "Olympus Cell" and joining the "Heliopolis Cell", whose leader "'Osiris"' grants entry to Veermak and Yao after they assist "Heliopolis" in being rid of Wittel's incriminating data during Chimera's attack.  The Cartel then convenes through the secure channels concerning how and if should they deal with Chimera, the decision being made unknown.
Development.
The game was officially announced on August 9, 2014. It is a successor to Eugen System's "", which was released in 2005. The developer promised that "Act of Aggression" would play similarly to "90s Golden Age of Real-Time Strategy Games". A multiplayer beta for the game was released on July 16, 2015. "Act of Aggression" was released for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2015.
Reception.
"Act of Aggression" scored mixed-positive reviews, due to its similarities with "Act of War". It has a 71/100 out of 100 on Metacritic. PC Gamer gave it a 70% rating.


VHDL-VITAL

VHDL-VITAL or simply VITAL, "VHDL Initiative Towards ASIC Libraries", refers to the IEEE Standard 1076.4 Timing.


Robert Cartwright

Robert Cartwright (born August 1930) is an English art director. He was nominated for four Academy Awards (all shared) in the category Best Art Direction.


Can Kickers

The Can Kickers are an Americana band based out of New London, Connecticut. The group formed in 2000 while the members were attending Connecticut College.
Career.
The Can Kickers are an Americana band based in New London, Connecticut. According to the "Huntsville Times", The Can Kickers sound like "the Carter family meets the Ramones." They have toured Germany, the United States, Ireland, Mexico, and the Netherlands. On January 31, 2006 the band's live show in Philadelphia was recorded for a live CD and released on Fistolo Records. The Can Kickers played their 500th show in September 2006 at the El 'n' Gee in New London.
The Can Kickers played over 30 shows on their Mexican tour and travelled with Polka Madre y La Comezon. While touring in Mexico their van was pulled over 17 times. During this 2007 Mexican tour, of their show in Guadalajara, "Mural" said that they and Polka Madre were a "perfect combination which mixes such quite distinct styles as polka with a punk attitude."
They are represented on the 2006 compilation album "Towers of New London, Vol. 4: Eminent Domain" (Cosmodemonic Telegraph) with the song "Johnny Walker".


Ethan Tobman

Ethan Tobman (born May 30, 1979) is a Canadian film production designer and director.
Tobman is from Montreal. He directed the short film "Remote", which screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. "The Hollywood Reporter" positively reviewed Tobman's production design for the 2014 film "That Awkward Moment."
He served as production designer for the 2015 Canadian-Irish film "Room", for which he and Mary Kirkland won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design. In designing the eponymous Room set at Pinewood Toronto Studios, he set out with the idea "that every square inch of Room needed to have a backstory." Tobman also proposed an "inverted Rubik's Cube" for a set, with removable parts. Tobman subsequently worked on Felix van Groeningen's 2018 "Beautiful Boy". Using the house from the TV series "Big Little Lies" for a set, he made numerous alterations including to the counters.
Tobman has also served as a production designer for music videos, including "Formation" and "Lemonade" by Beyoncé. In 2014, for the music video "The Writing's on the Wall" by the U.S. band OK Go, he was tasked with helping create a number of perspective illusions.


Shelley Day

Shelley M. Day (born April 16, 1957) is a former producer of video games. She began her career in 1985, at Electronic Arts. Day also worked for Accolade, Taito and LucasArts before founding Humongous Entertainment together with colleague Ron Gilbert. She created the famous "Putt-Putt" series' eponymous protagonist as a bedtime story for her son, which later became a popular series of children's video games. In 1999 she was listed on Time Magazine as one of the "Cyber Elite". After leaving Humongous Entertainment in 2001, Day and Gilbert founded Hulabee Entertainment to provide online games for kids, with approximately 20 former Humongous Entertainment staff joining them.
Fraud conviction.
On December 2, 2005, she was sentenced to 30 months in prison and five years on supervised release for defrauding the Asia Europe Americas Bank of Seattle of more than in order to buy her "dream home" on Mercer Island. She was convicted of falsely claiming to the bank loan officer that Disney Interactive had agreed to buy part of Hulabee Entertainment and presenting forged documents to support that claim.


New Society for Visual Arts

The New Society for Visual Arts (Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst or nGbK) is a German art association, which was established in 1969. It is headquartered in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, Germany.
History.
The New Society for Visual Arts was created in 1969 after the dissolution of the German Society of Fine Arts.
Program.
nGbK exhibition program is well known for its political and social engagement, as well as for being decided on through direct democratic way with votes of members on annual assemblies. Unlike most German art associations, nGbK members themselves (also with non-members) set up working groups of 5 or more and then submit projects to be presented and voted on. If an application is approved and project selected, it is executed in the next year program or for longterm projects in the next two years. nGbK working group losses its active status after the completion of the project. This basic principle distinguishes this from the other major German art associations, where usually the members have no direct influence on exhibition planning.
Before moving to its current headquarters at Oranienstraße 25 in Kreuzberg, the organization's exhibition space was at Tempelhofer Ufer 22.
Archived information of the projects and some of the publications are compiled and available online.


David Gallo

David Gallo (born January 10, 1966) is an American scenic designer and media/projection designer for Broadway, international productions, television, and arena shows.
Gallo won the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design and the Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Set Design in 2006 for "The Drowsy Chaperone". He has designed over 30 Broadway shows, including the Tony Award-winning musicals "Memphis" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie".
Also known for his longtime collaboration with playwright August Wilson, Gallo designed the Broadway premieres of all his later works, including "Jitney", "King Hedley II", "Gem of the Ocean", "Radio Golf", and the revival of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". "Jitney, Gem of the Ocean", and "Radio Golf" earned the designer three additional Tony Award nominations. Gallo was honored to design the Kennedy Center's tribute production of August Wilson’s Twentieth Century.
Gallo has designed for regional theaters throughout the United States, including Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Two River Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Goodspeed Opera House, and La Jolla Playhouse, working with notable directors Kenny Leon, Ed Stern, Christopher Ashley, Keith Glover, Mark Wing-Davey, and Marion McClinton.
Outside of the US, Gallo is a frequent collaborator with Netherlands-based Joop van den Ende's Stage Entertainment and has served as his designer for productions throughout dozens of cities within the European Union including Amsterdam, Antwerp, Vienna, Hamburg, Oberhausen, Berlin, Stuttgart, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Moscow, Barcelona, and many more. He also works with many producing interests in Asia, including Seol and Company, Atlantis Productions, Creative Productions, and Broadway Asia. Recent Asian ventures include the immersive Peter Pan-themed "Neverland" in a 50,000 square foot venue in Beijing and the original musical, "Tears of Heaven", in Seoul. "NINE" premiered in Manila, Philippines in fall 2012.
Gallo designed the 2009 New Year’s Eve extravaganza in Miami for jam band Phish and was creative director for its 2010 New Year’s Eve production at Madison Square Garden, where the global version of "Meatstick" was born. Gallo was the creative collaborator with Phish for New Year’s Eve at the Garden in 2011 and production designer in 2012 where he threw a "Garden Party" and staged a runaway golf cart marathon. In 2013, Gallo re-created the band's original tour truck and customized a flatbed-turned-stage where Phish performed "in the round" in the world's most famous arena. In 2016, Gallo returned to Madison Square Garden with the band as creative director of a 25-minute gag featuring a cast of 17, floating umbrellas on nano winches, an astonishing rain effect, and a maelstrom of "raining" inflatable cats and dogs and customized foam raindrops. In 2017, he filled the Garden with "an ocean of light and love" with performing riggers operating a rotating mast of sails amid an audience twinkling with LED wristbands. The following year, he directed ten aerialists in nets with ten specialty "Phish droid" moving colored fog and light machines, that appeared to blast the performers with spray paint and fire. Afterwards, two of the band members "flew" in the air while playing, and a large cast danced in inflatable alien costumes and flung air freshener-covered inflatables into the audience.
Since 2014, Gallo has been production designer of the children's television show, Sesame Street. His redesign of the classic set garnered him significant press attention and the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Art Direction/Set Decoration/Scenic Design in 2017 and 2018 as well as the 2019 Art Director's Guild Award for best production design of a multi-camera series.
Often credited with a whimsical style, many of Gallo's projects have been centered on children and family entertainment. Gallo designed the 135th Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and served as the production designer for many youth-oriented live productions including "Yo Gabba Gabba!"; "Madagascar"; "Super Why"; "Blue's Clues"; "Dora the Explorer"; "Go, Diego, Go!"; "Clifford the Big Red Dog"; "SpongeBob SquarePants"; and various projects for Nickelodeon. He designed the popular Christmas television special "Elmo's Christmas Countdown" for Sesame Street and was honored by the Jim Henson Company with a true Muppet crafted in his likeness.
Gallo designed the 2010 Broadway Cares Collection Official Snow Globe to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids Fund. He has served as creative consultant for Live Design's Scenic Design Master Class and as performing arts/design contributing editor at Stated Magazine.
In 2000, Gallo's body of work was chosen to represent innovative contemporary American set design in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum inaugural National Design Triennial. His paintings for the 1997 Broadway revival of "A View from the Bridge" are in the Smithsonian Institution archives and the payphone he designed and painted for "Jitney" is on display in the August Wilson section of the National Museum of African American History & Culture. The hot dog he flew around Madison Square Garden with Phish in it is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Gallo's designs were featured in the 2003 Prague Quadrennial, and many can be found in the permanent collection of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas as well as in assorted public and private collections.