Paul Jarrico

Paul Jarrico (January 12, 1915 – October 28, 1997) was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism.
Biography.
Early years.
Paul Jarrico was born in Los Angeles, California on January 12, 1915, as Israel Shapiro. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant, a lawyer, poet and socialist. While attending UCLA, Jarrico joined the Young Communist League, where he became an active member of the American Communist Party. His alliance and association with the party lasted from 1937 to 1952. Jarrico married Sylvia Gussin in 1936. Sylvia's younger sister, Zelma, married screenwriter Michael Wilson in 1941.
Film career.
During the 1930s, Jarrico began his writing career. He mostly wrote crime and comedy scripts for lower budget Hollywood films with Columbia Pictures. Among these films were "No Time to Marry" (1937), "I Am the Law" (1938), and "Beauty for the Asking" (1939), starring Lucille Ball. In the early 1940s, Jarrico was sent to Northern Africa and Italy to be a merchant marine in World War II. When he returned home he restarted his career with Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures. His 1941 film "Tom, Dick and Harry", starring Ginger Rogers, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
In 1943, Jarrico co-scripted the feature film "Song of Russia". The film was created under pressure from president Franklin D. Roosevelt to garner sympathy from the public for the Soviet cause in their war against Germany. Some other successful films written by Jarrico in the 1940s include "Thousands Cheer" (1943), "The Search" (1948) and "Not Wanted" (1949).
Blacklisted.
Jarrico had engaged in a protracted legal battle with Howard Hughes, the head of RKO. In 1950, while working on his newest script for the Howard Hughes film, "The White Tower", a friend close to Jarrico gave his name to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Immediately upon hearing the news of Jarrico's subpoena, Hughes dismissed Jarrico from the film. After refusing to testify before HUAC, Jarrico was blacklisted and his passport was confiscated. This made it extremely difficult for him to make films. No American studios were willing to make his scripts into movies, and he could not go to other countries due to his lack of a passport.
In 1954, Jarrico went to New Mexico with Herbert J. Biberman, a fellow blacklist filmmaker, where they created the film "Salt of the Earth". The film was the only one to be made by blacklisted filmmakers, and therefore became blacklisted itself, making it the only blacklisted film. The film was one of 100 films chosen by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry in 1992.
In 1958, he moved to Europe where he lived for over twenty years. During the 1960s he used the pseudonym Peter Achilles to co-script several films, including "Jovanka e l’Altri" (1960), "Call Me Bwana" (1963), "Der Schatz der Azteken" (1965) and "La Balada de Johnny Ringo" (1966). He also wrote scripts for television in Europe all throughout the 1960s.
Personal life and death.
In 1966 Jarrico divorced Sylvia Gussin, his wife of 30 years, to marry a Frenchwoman, Yvette Le Floc'h, from whom he separated in 1977. He then returned to the United States where he met and, in 1992, married Lia Benedetti. He spent the rest of his life in California. He taught courses at the University of California at Santa Barbara and lectured on film theory and the blacklist in the U.S. and Europe.
Jarrico died on October 28, 1997, in a car accident. He was returning home after attending events commemorating the beginnings of the blacklist fifty years earlier. He was 82 years old.


Kasich for US


Georgann Johnson

Georgann Johnson (born Georgia Anne Johnson, August 15, 1926 – June 4, 2018) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was also known as Georgiann Johnson and Georgianne Johnson.
Early years.
Johnson was born in Decorah, Iowa, the daughter of George and Helene (Hjerleid) Johnson. She attended Decorah High School, Luther College, and Northwestern University before becoming an actress in 1952.
Stage.
In 1953, Johnson was cast with her future husband, actor Stanley Prager, in the Broadway revival of "Room Service" starring Jack Lemmon. Johnson and Prager wed in 1956. Her other Broadway credits include "Critic's Choice" (1960), "Drink to Me Only" (1958), and "Reclining Figure" (1954).
Film.
In films, Johnson had roles in "Short Cut to Hell" (1957), "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" (1973), "Health" (1980), "The Day After" (1983), "The Slugger's Wife" (1985), "Murphy's Romance" (1985) and "Quicksilver" (1986).
Television.
Johnson debuted on television in commercials. She played the blind love interest to Charles Bronson, who used his unexpected fortune to pay for surgery to restore her sight, in an episode of "The Millionaire" She went on to play Alice Snowden in "Archie Bunker's Place", Dorothy Jarvis in "Cutter to Houston", Marge Weskitt on "Mister Peepers", and Katherine McKay on "Our Family Honor". She was also a regular on "The Larry Storch Show". During the 1970s, she appeared in long-running cross-over role of Ellen Grant in both "Another World" and its spinoff "Somerset", as well as Jane Spencer in "As the World Turns". She later played Charlotte O'Neill, mother of the title character in "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" (played by Sharon Gless).. She played the part of Doreen Selvy in "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" "The Night of the Execution" about a desperate deputy district attorney who gets a murder conviction against a man for killing his wife, then is confronted by another man who claims he committed the crime.
Personal life.
Johnson married Prager in 1954, and they remained wed until his death in 1972. In 1981, she married Jack Tenner. They remained wed until his death in 2008.
Death.
On June 4, 2018, Johnson died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. She was survived by her four daughters and three grandchildren.
External links.


Young Ones (film)

Young Ones (UK title Bad Land: Road to Fury) is a 2014 action science fiction film directed and written by Jake Paltrow. The film stars Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, Michael Shannon and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The film had its world premiere at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014. The film was released on October 17, 2014 in the United States.
Plot.
In a post-drought apocalypse United States, people kill for water. Ernest Holm lives with his son Jerome and daughter Mary in their small townhouse and field. His wife has been involved in an accident earlier and is now permanently hospitalized in a facility where she can walk while wired to a special frame. While everyone else has left the area, Ernest and his family remain, as Ernest believes that the land will grow once more if only there is irrigation. Ernest gets water for his family by delivering supplies to the "water men" who extract water from deep wells through a government deal. When his mule breaks its legs and he has to kill it, Ernest goes to Sam Lever's auction house and buys a robotic carrier machine called Simulit Shadow ("Sim") to replace it, beating the offers of Flem Lever, Sam's son, a young, troubled man who has been seeing Mary without Ernest's consent.
One morning, Ernest finds the Sim is missing, and he goes looking for it. When he gets to the water men, he is accused of stealing their supplies. He finds Flem transporting the stolen supplies with the Sim; Flem plans to sell them at the border. Ernest takes Flem captive, ties him to the machine, and aims to take the supplies back to the water men. When they stop due to dehydration, Flem convinces Ernest to rehydrate with the liquor they are transporting. Wanting to escape, Flem throws a stone at Ernest's head and frames the machine for Ernest's death.
Flem marries Mary after helping the family obtain illegal irrigation from the water men, thus saving their farm, which was originally Flem's father's. But after finding out Ernest had overwhelming debts to repay to a bank, which is now going to repossess the farm, Flem tricks his friend Robbie into selling his baby behind his wife's back. Robbie is killed and the Sim is lost in an altercation with the buyers. However, the machine returns limping and mangled to its manufacturer, who resides in a city across the border. The owner, Calvin Hooyman, reaches Jerome at the Holm residence via CB radio, informing him about the machine.
Jerome crosses the border with the help of Anna, a girl who lives with the "settlers", people fighting back against the government's regulations and considered terrorists. Jerome meets Calvin, who gives the repaired Sim back to him, and shows Jerome how the machine's laser sensor behaves like a rudimentary video recorder. Jerome plays the recording and finds the truth about Ernest's death. Arriving home before Flem, Jerome questions him as to how the machine found its way home, since Flem claimed to have sold it in order to repay the debt. Flem's lies only infuriate Jerome more, but at first he takes no action. Instead, he lures Flem out in the desert by posing as Robbie via radio and letters, ultimately causing Flem to fall into a pit trap and break his legs. As Flem cries for help, Jerome, who has been secretly following him, comes at the pit's mouth. Flem realizes that Jerome knows about what happened to Ernest. He tries to elicit Jerome's mercy, but Jerome coldly shoots him in the head. Jerome ultimately decides to withhold these events and the circumstances of Ernest's death from Mary, who is pregnant with Flem's child. Brother and sister remain in the house, planning to bring their mother there from the hospital now that they can pay for her brace wires, and wishing the baby will be a girl.
The film is divided into three chapters, named after the main character in each of them: "Ernest Holm", "Flem Lever", and "Jerome Holm", respectively.
Production.
Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, Michael Shannon and Kodi Smit-McPhee joined the cast on February 7, 2013. Giles Nuttgens is the director of photography while Tristan Lynch and Michael Auret are the producers. On May 13, 2014 Screen Media Films acquired the U.S. rights to the film.
Filming.
The shooting of the film began in February 2013 at Namaqualand, Northern Cape, South Africa and shot until March 15.
Marketing.
The first trailer was released on July 6, 2014. Another U.S. trailer was released on July 23.
Release.
The film was released on October 17, 2014 in the United States.
The film later appeared on Amazon Prime Video under the title "Bad Land: Road to Fury"
Reception.
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports a 50% approval rating, based on 34 critical reviews with the average rating of 5.25/10. The critical consensus states: "Visually compelling but narratively barren, "Young Ones" adds little to the dystopian Western genre." Metacritic rated it 47/100 based on 13 reviews. Geoff Berkshire of "Variety" wrote, "Jake Paltrow's visually rich, dramatically spare sci-fi Western bogs down in its primal tale of murder and revenge." David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "There's little refreshment on offer in this parched lo-fi sci-fi drama, despite the distinctive element of its retro rural setting." Jeannette Catsoulis of "The New York Times" called it a "spare but potent melodrama" that focuses on male violence. Robert Abele of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that it "gets lost amid a mishmash of film styles".


Just About The Gaming EXperience


Do not contact


Michael Gordon (film director)

Michael Gordon (born Irving Kunin Gordon; September 6, 1909 – April 29, 1993) was an American stage actor and stage and film director.
Life and career.
Gordon was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Paul Luis Gordon (1876-1957), who was born in Lithuania, and Eva "Rachel" Kuhen (1885-1940), who was born in Russia, and raised in a middle class, Jewish community. Michael was the second of three boys born to the Gordon family; first born was Bertram Ira Gordan (1914-1985) who was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, and the third born was Leo Allenby Gordon (1919-2005).
Michael Gordon was a member of the Group Theatre (1935–1940), and was blacklisted as a Communist in the McCarthy era. He later joined the faculty of the UCLA Theater Department. Gordon summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre.
As a result of being blacklisted, Gordon's Hollywood career fell into two phases. In 1940, he started as a dialogue director and directed B-movies. In the late 1940s, he distinguished himself by directing action movies, melodramas, and films noir. He also directed the 1950 film "Cyrano de Bergerac", for which José Ferrer won a Best Actor Academy Award. After being blacklisted, he was forced to stop directing films temporarily, but was called back to Hollywood at the end of the 1950s by producer Ross Hunter, who wanted him to direct "Pillow Talk", a vehicle for Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Gordon's second creative phase was concerned with light-hearted, comedy films.
Gordon and his wife Elizabeth Cohn had three children: Jonathan, Jane (mother of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and Susannah.


We Live In Two Worlds

We Live In Two Worlds is a 1937 filmed talk by British writer J. B. Priestley, in which he expounds on the benefits of cross-border trade and communications, contrasting such commerce with the military preoccupations of individual nations.
The film was directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, the second of seven that the writer and director made for the Swiss telephone company Pro Telephone Zurich between 1936 and 1939.


Steel not flesh


NuWave

NuWave LLC is a manufacturing company of kitchen appliances.
Products.
NuWave, LLC produces the NuWave Pro Infrared Oven, a countertop oven that combines infrared, convection, and conduction heat to cook food.
The company also makes various other culinary products, including the NuWave Precision Induction Cooktop, the NuWave Brio Digital Air Fryer, NuWave Flavor-Lockers, NuWave Nutri-Pot Digital Pressure Cooker and Duralon Non-Stick Cookware.
Consumer complaints.
On 23 January 2014 the Better Business Bureau issued a consumer warning regarding Hearthware, Inc. for a variety of issues. According to Dennis Horton, director of the Rockville, IL office of the Better Business Bureau, the company has been the subject of repeated complaints regarding shipping costs and other issues:
The single largest number of complaints allege that consumers were charged either for free products or in exorbitant shipping and processing fees associated with products they thought were free. This is a distinct pattern of complaints, which the company has not corrected. In addition, other complaint topics include: faulty product, difficulty in returning or receiving a refund, misleading advertising practices, and difficulty in contacting the company with emails and phone calls unanswered.


Audio tape specifications

Since the widespread adoption of reel-to-reel audio tape recording in the 1950s, audio tapes and tape cassettes have been available in many formats. This article describes the length, tape thickness and playing times of some of the most common ones.
All tape thicknesses here refer to the total tape thickness unless otherwise specified, including the base, the oxide coating and any back coating. In the USA, tape thickness is often expressed as the thickness of the base alone. However, this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and also between tape formulations from the same manufacturer. Outside of the USA, the overall thickness is more often quoted, and is the more relevant measurement when relating the thickness to the length that can be fit onto a reel or into a cassette.
Reel-to-reel ¼".
The tape decks of the 1950s were mainly designed to use tape ¼" wide and to accept one of two reel formats:
In each case the shaft or hub had three splines. In machines designed to allow for vertical mounting, the upper part of the shaft or hub could commonly be rotated by 60° so the upper splines locked the reel in place. Some tape decks could accommodate either format by using removable hubs for the larger reel size. When in use these hubs were locked onto the cine spindles by the same mechanism used to secure the smaller reels.
Reel capacity is affected by both the reel diameter and the reel hub diameter. The standard ten and a half inch reel has approximately twice the capacity of the seven inch reel, which in turn has twice the capacity of the five inch. Some (not all) reels described as three inches are in fact three and a quarter inches in diameter, in order to have half the capacity of a five-inch reel.
Long play, double play, triple play.
The first commonly available increase in tape length resulted from a reduction in thickness to 25 µm or 1.0 mil, which allowed 3600', 1800' and 900' tapes to fit on ten-and-a-half, seven-, and five-inch reels respectively. These were known as long play tapes.
Also manufacturers also referred to 3¾-ips tape speed as "long-play".
A further reduction resulted in double-play tapes of 2400' on a seven-inch reel. This and thinner tapes were not commonly used on ten-and-a-half-inch reels, as the tape was too fragile for the angular momentum of the larger reels, particularly when rewinding.
Thinner tapes with thicknesses of 12.5 µm or 0.5 mil fitting 3600' on a seven-inch reel and 1800' on a five-inch reel were known as triple-play tapes. Triple-play tape was too fragile for many tape decks to safely rewind even on a full seven-inch reel, and was more commonly used on five-inch- and smaller reels. However 3600' tapes on seven-inch reels were commercially available for those who wanted them.
Studio- and otherwise professional-quality ¼"-width tapes thinner than long-play were not commercially available in either reel format. However some specialised applications, such as call logging, used ten-and-a-half or larger reels of double-play or thinner tape for extended recording times. These machines were extremely restricted in the reel sizes for which they were designed, and often had no rewind or fast forward facility at all, or even playback. These functions were instead performed on a dedicated machine in the event of playback being required.
In the days when long-distance telephone calls were expensive and often very low quality, three-inch or smaller reels of triple-play or even thinner tape were used for sending long recorded messages by post, most often using 17⁄8-ips tape speed. These were known as message tapes.
Reel size compatibility.
Although smaller reels could be easily mounted on any machine designed for seven inch reels, in practice there were three limitations on using varying sizes of reel:
Mixing NAB and smaller cine spindle reels was rarely if ever supported, although many machines could physically mount the combination by using one hub adaptor.
Studio tape formats.
As well as ¼" tape, studio and multitrack machines use tape widths of ½", 1" and 2", and at least one 3" machine was available for a time.
There is also a 35 mm width, but this variety is more similar to the motion picture stock of the same width. It is referred to by the recording and motion picture industries as "magfilm". It is used for recording analog sound for a motion picture, and for interlocked playback of sound with a picture reel when editing motion picture film on a flatbed editor. It has also seen use for studio audio recording and mastering, a few albums released by the Command label in the 1960s were mastered using 35 mm magfilm. It has the same sprocket holes and the thicker acetate (or polyester) base of 35 mm negative or reversal cinema stock, but instead has a magnetic oxide layer, coating the full width of the film base (as opposed to a photographic emulsion). This variety is referred to as "fullcoat magfilm". Another variant, "stripe magfilm", has only three separate oxide "tracks" on the base, with the rest of the base being clear, with the same 35 mm sprocket holes as well.
Tapes of ½", 1" and 2" width are available in many professional formulations, especially but not only formulations of 35 µm thickness (the thickness known as "long play" when used as ¼" tape). The wider tape also made it possible to produce professional quality tapes of about 25 µm thickness (the thickness known as "double play" in ¼" applications) in ½" and wider formats.
In all tape widths including ¼", some studio machines use one-sided platters instead of reels. As normal studio practice is not to rewind immediately after recording or playing but rather to store tape with the start end in to take advantage of the even tension produced by the tape transport, tapes from these machines were generally stored on the platters even if the machine was capable of mounting an NAB reel. Other machines used NAB or custom reels in the larger width.
The sizes of platters and their hubs varies, NAB hubs being most common, and tape lengths up to 5000' not uncommon.
Compact audio cassettes.
The tape in a compact audio cassette is nominally ⅛ inch but actually slightly wider (). The small mass of the spools and mechanism generally allows thinner tape to be used than is practical with reel-to-reel.
The thickest tape normally used in cassettes is about 16 µm in thickness, and is used in C60 cassettes and in shorter lengths such as the C46. As the standard tape speed for a compact cassette is 1⅞ ips and a C60 cassette records 30 minutes per side, a C60 cassette in theory holds 281¼' (85.73 m) of tape. In practice there is some variation, for example Maxell quote their C60s as being 90 m (295') in length.
Tape about 11.2 µm in thickness is used in C90 cassettes, and also for those intermediate between a C60 and a C90, for example the C74 produced specifically for recording a standard length CD. Most equipment manufacturers optimize their equipment for C90 cassettes but fully support shorter cassettes using either 11.2 µm or 16 µm tape.
A cassette longer than a C90, such as a C120, must use even thinner tape. Many equipment manufacturers discourage the use of these longer cassettes, partly because the tape is so fragile, and also because of the difficulty of providing optimum recording over an extended range of tape thicknesses (thinner tape is more prone to "print through" echo). However C180 cassettes have been produced both for the consumer market and for specialised applications such as call logging.
Rumours have sometimes associated C120 and longer cassettes with double or triple play reel-to-reel tape, but in fact even C60 cassettes use tape thinner than double play and little thicker than triple play. The main thing that the longer cassettes have in common with double and triple play reel-to-reel tapes is that they are pushing similar limits of technology, and as a consequence suffer similar problems.
Microcassettes.
Although the microcassette uses tape thinner than the C90 compact cassette (the width is the same), much of its reduced size comes from using shorter tapes at slower recording speeds. The original standard MC60 microcassette contained 43.2 m (142') of tape for 30 minutes recording per side at 2.4 cm/s (about 15⁄16 ips, making it half the standard speed of a compact cassette). Most recorders also provide a slower speed of 1.2 cm/s, doubling the recording time but with poor sound quality. The only other common sizes are the MC30 with half the length of slightly thicker tape, and the MC90 with 50% more tape length then the MC60, and correspondingly thinner tape.
Tape speeds.
In sound recording, magnetic tape speed is often quoted in inches per second (abbreviated ips) for historical reasons. Magnetic tape speeds are commonly an even fraction of 30 ips:
Tape recording first became common enough for the issue of compatibility between tape deck manufacturers to become an issue in the 1950s. At this time the most common speeds for professional recording were 30 ips and 15 ips, and some machines already supported both speeds. As the tape speed was determined by the speed of a synchronous motor driving a capstan, one way of achieving this was to switch the poles of the motor to a different configuration, halving or doubling the speed.
This system was extended to domestic tape decks, and so slower speeds as they were adopted tended to be exactly half the previous slowest speed. Pre-recorded tapes were mostly 71⁄2 ips, with a few at 33⁄4 ips. Message tapes transmitted by post and call logging tapes were commonly recorded at 17⁄8 ips or even 15⁄16 ips. The most common reel-to-reel speed of 71⁄2 ips is approximately 19 cm/s.
Another cause of incompatibility between tape decks was the lack of standardisation of track widths and the use of alternate (rather than adjacent) stereo tracks by many manufacturers (which limited compatibility with mono equipment).
When Philips introduced the compact audio cassette, they chose to specify the reel-to-reel standard of 17⁄8 ips (approximately ). Although with narrower and thinner tape. Higher speed machines using compact cassettes commonly use 33⁄4 ips.
Although the microcassette is specified to have a standard record speed of 2.4 cm/s and low speed of 1.2 cm/s, in the dictaphone application for which it was designed these speeds are in practice identical to 15⁄16 ips and 15⁄32 ips. Playback speed is not specified, and on many machines is continuously variable.


Shu Lea Cheang

Shu Lea Cheang () (born April 13, 1954) is a Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker who lived and worked in New York City in the 1980s and 90s, until relocating to the EuroZone in 2000. Cheang received a BA in History from the National Taiwan University in 1976 and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University in 1979. Since the 1980s, as a multimedia and new-media artist, she has navigated topics of ethnic stereotyping, sexual politics, and institutional oppression with her radical experimentations in digital realms. She drafts sci-fi narratives in her film scenario and artwork imagination, crafting her own “science” fiction genre of new queer cinema. From homesteading cyberspace in the 1990s to her current retreat to post net-crash BioNet zone, Cheang takes on viral love, bio hack in her current cycle of works.
Over the past decade, she has emerged as a prominent figure in new media art. Cheang is one of the leading multimedia artists dealing with multidisciplinary topics. She is regarded as a pioneering figure in internet-based art, with her multimedia approach at the interface between film, video, internet-based installation, software interaction and durational performance. Her work is often interactive. She is most noted for her individual approach in the realm of art and technology, creatively intermingling social issues with artistic methods.
Cheang's work employs film, video, net-based installation, and interface to explore "...ethnic stereotyping, the nature and excesses of popular media, institutional – and especially governmental – power, race relations, and sexual politics." Cheang has also written and directed the feature films "I.K.U." and "Fluidø".
Life events.
Cheang was born during a time when the island of Taiwan was under martial law in 1954. From Taiwan, Cheang moved to New York in the 1980s. She admitted to feeling liberated after moving, calling it a process of “self-acknowledgment and affirmation.” Her art career seeded and bloomed in New York. Shortly after she moved to New York, she joined the collective Paper Tiger Television and started producing live weekly programs that used public-access channels to reach cable subscribers.
After 20 years in New York, she went on a decade of a self-imposed lifestyle as a digital nomad which she says “liberated me from monthly fixed payments of rent, electricity and phone bills.” She lived in Japan, Holland, the United Kingdom, and finally relocated to Paris in 2007, where she currently works and resides. Cheang concluded her 20 years spent in New York with "Brandon" (1998–1999), the first Guggenheim Museum web art commission/collection.
Tough social themes such as racial politics help progress her work. She recalls, “When I first got to New York, I was more concerned about certain kinds of racial discrimination or stereotypes of being an Asian woman — there were many different kinds of fantasies about Asian women.”
2019 Venice Biennale.
Shu Lea Cheang represented Taiwan at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. She is the first woman to represent Taiwan with a solo-exhibition. Her site-specific work was installed at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, a former prison across from the Palazzo Ducale in Piazza San Marco. Curated by philosopher Paul B. Preciado, the immersive installation explored pervasive technologies of control, from surveillance to incarceration, drawing from historical and contemporary cases in which people have been imprisoned due to their gender, sexual orientation, or race.
The Influencers 2019.
In her talk for The Influencers 2019, "Genre Bending Gender Fxxxking", Cheang reflects on her eventful trajectory mixing, messing genres and genders in her multi-disciplinary art practices, from "BRANDON" (1998-1999, Guggenheim Museum), "3x3x6" (2019, Venice Biennale) to her current projects in process, "UNBORN0x9" and "UKI", an interruptive cinema.
Notable works.
"Color Schemes", is an interactive three-channel video installation exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1990. The video features people of different ethnicities and reveals the complex attitudes surrounding ethnic stereotyping embedded in American Culture.
In 1994, Cheang directed the film "Fresh Kill". The title refers to a garbage dump in Staten Island. The film "envisions a post-apocalyptic landscape strewn with electronic detritus and suffering the toxic repercussions of mass marketing in a high-tech commodity culture."
"Bowling Alley", commissioned by the Walker Art Center and funded by AT&T New Art/New Visions, was exhibited in 1995. The installation linked the Walker's Gallery 7, the city's community bowling alley (Bryant-Lake Bowl), and the World Wide Web. "Bowling Alley" mixed real-life with cyberspace to illustrate the similarities and differences of how people communicate with one another face-to-face and through the Internet. "Bowling Alley" was Cheang's first cybernetic installation. Cheang collaborated with other Minneapolis artists to present a work which set to challenge the idea of what is personal and public, popular art and fine art by intertwining these oppositions.
Another major Web-based project Cheang created was "Brandon" (1998–1999). The one-year narrative project explored the issues of gender fusion and techno-body in both public space and cyberspace. The site got its name from Brandon Teena, a trans man who was raped and murdered in 1993 after his biological sex was revealed. "Brandon" was the first Web-based artwork commissioned by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. It explores Brandon Teena's story in an experimental way that conveys the "fluidity and ambiguity of gender and identity in contemporary societies." In addition to the website, "Brandon" included live public events at the Guggenheim Museum, the De Waag Society for Old and New Media in Amsterdam, and Harvard University.
Over time, as web browsers evolved, "Brandon" stopped displaying correctly. In 2017, the artwork was digitally restored and made publicly viewable again in a joint initiative by the Guggenheim's conservation department and New York University's department of computer science. "Brandon" was also featured in Rhizome's Net Art Anthology, an online exhibition of one hundred important net artworks. "Brandon" is currently accessible at http://brandon.guggenheim.org. The project was a major achievement in the conservation of net.born art. Contemporary web browsers could no longer recognize much of the early HTML code used on the site, or support the unique Java applets used to animate its text and images. In December 2016, Conserving Computer-Based Art (CCBA), a joint initiative of the Guggenheim and NYU, obtained approval from Cheang to restore the work.
In 2000, Cheang directed the feature film "I.K.U.", a pornographic film which she claimed was inspired by "Blade Runner." "I.K.U." was nominated for an International Fantasy Film Award.
Recent works.
Cheang's "Locker Baby Project" (2001-2012) is a playfield of sonic imagery triggered only by human interaction. Her baby series project proposes a fictional scenario set in year 2030. The transnational DPT (DollyPolly Transgency) advances clone babies as an intelligent industry. The Clone Generation holds the key to unlock the networked inter-sphere of ME-motion (Memory+Emotion).
Cheang wrote and directed the 2017 science fiction film Fluidø.


Radio Waitomo

Radio Waitomo 1ZW was a radio station that broadcast on 1170AM in Te Kuiti, New Zealand. The station was started on 15 March 1985 by the Radio New Zealand Commercial network. Local content was limited to just a few hours per day, programming was shared with King Country Radio at other times and on air at these times branded as "King Country Radio and Radio Waitomo".
In July 1996 the New Zealand Government sold off the commercial arm of Radio New Zealand, the sale included Radio Waitomo. The new owner was The Radio Network, a subsidiary of APN News & Media and Clear Channel Communications, which operated as a division of the Australian Radio Network.
Local content was limited to just a few hours per day. At other times the station took a feed from King Country Radio or 1ZH (Hamilton) or National Radio.
In June 1998, Radio Waitomo joined the newly established Community Radio Network. As a result, the station continued to run a local breakfast show between 6-10am, but outside of these times the station carried the network feed from Taupo.
On 1 December 2001, the Taupo-based Community Radio Network was replaced with the Classic Hits network programme from Auckland. Radio Waitomo was subsequently re-branded as Classic Hits Radio Waitomo.
In November 2003, due to dwindling listenership and rising costs, The Radio Network decided to close the station.
The following year, The Voice Of Waikato/Waitomo Trust arranged a lease of the station and the frequency and it was re-launched as The Voice Of Waitomo.
In July that year, the station reverted to its original name: Radio Waitomo 1ZW.
Less than a year later, Radio Waitomo closed down permanently due to poor management and lack of local support.


Southern Cross Media Group

Southern Cross Media Group (formerly Macquarie Media Group) is one of Australia's major media companies, as the parent company of Southern Cross Austereo. The group's head office (ASX registered) is located at Level 2, 257 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne.
History.
On 3 July 2007 Southern Cross Broadcasting recommended Macquarie Media Group's offer of A$1.35 billion, for a takeover of the corporation. Under the deal, Macquarie Media Group would then onsell the metropolitan radio stations to Fairfax Media. On 5 November 2007, the company officially acquired Southern Cross Broadcasting's assets. On 17 December 2009 shareholders approved a restructuring plan. The company was then renamed from Macquarie Media Group to its current name on 17 December 2009.
In March 2016, Macquarie Group sold a 15.7% stake in Southern Cross Media worth $130 million, and of that 9.9% was purchased by Nine Entertainment Co., the owner of the Nine Network. Nine sold this stake in the business six months later.


Television Kiribati

Television Kiribati Ltd, or TV Kiribati, was the sole, state-owned television service in Kiribati.
Programming.
Established in 2002, it broadcast "local and foreign programmes", and was accessible only in South Tarawa (the country's capital) and in the neighbouring island-town of Betio. It provided "about one hour of local programming" on weekdays, and did not broadcast over week-ends.
Undetermined Suspension.
Television Kiribati was suspended by the government in March 2013, due to "serious financial problems", and its personnel's "lack [of] expertise and knowledge in programming and production". The government announced a review to determine whether the closure should be permanent. As it was the only television service, viewers in Tarawa South were left with access to radio and newspapers as their media for information.


Melinda Rackham

Melinda Rackham (born 1959) is an Australian artist, writer and curator.
Education and early Art.
Rackham studied sculpture and performance at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, graduating in 1989 with the Sculpture and Alumni prizes. It was here she was first involved in Australian artist-run initiatives, initially as co-Director in 1987 (with Adrienne Doig) of ArtHaus laneway gallery in Darlinghurst, then as a member of Ultimo Project Studio Collective in Ultimo and Glebe in Sydney.
In 1995, whilst completing a Master of Arts in Women's Studies at the University of Wollongong, Rackham became one of the earliest Australian curators of Internet Art. In collaboration with Louise Manner, Ali Smith and Sandy Indlekofer-O’Sullivan, Rackham produced the 1995 exhibition WWWO : Wollongong Worlds Women Online - an Australian online women's group exhibition, featuring the first or early digital works from 30 Australian women including Francis Dyson and Mez Breeze.
In 2000, Rackham's "carrier" won The Mayne Award for Multimedia as part of the Adelaide Festival Awards. In an interview with Eugene Thacker in CTheory Rackham speaks of dealing with the body at a molecular level" infectious agents .. steaming open protoplasmic envelopes, penetrating cellular cores, crossing species boundaries, and shattering illusions of the discrete autonomy of ourselves"
As a pioneering artist and commentator on identity, locality and sexuality in networked, 3d multi-user, game and mobile environments, Rackham's artworks were widely exhibited during the first wave of internet art (1995–2003) being included in seminal exhibitions like Art Entertainment Network, Beyond Interface, Arco Electronico, File, ISEA, European Media Art Festival, transmediale, lab3D, Perspecta99, la Biennale de Montreal 2000, and Biennial of Buenos Aires 2002.
She is founder and producer the online media arts forum, –empyre–, from 2002 as part of her doctoral thesis on Art and Identity in Virtual Reality Environments. -empyre- featured in events at NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, and documenta in the Documenta 12 magazines project (2006).
Building "empyrean" - one of Australia's first multi-user virtual reality environments, Rackham explored the conception of electronically mediated environments as "soft skinned space", and encouraged users' to explore their relationship with their avatars.
Two of Rackham's internet artworks are included in N. Katherine Hayle's "Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary" - a book designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom along with the CD "The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1". Hayles's systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, the complex and compelling issues at stake and wide-ranging implications for literary study.
Work.
In 2003-04, Rackham was invited to be the inaugural Curator of Networked Media at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne and later 2010-2102 partner curator for Australia's Royal Institution.
Rackham was Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology from 2005 until 2009. She fostered the development of wearable technologies - producing the re:Skin Masterclass, and curating Coded Cloth exhibition of wearable technology at Samstag Museum in 2008.
As an adjunct professor at RMIT University,from 2009-2012, Rackham continued to curate and write on the emerging art and cultures manifesting across networked, responsive, biological, wearable and distributed practices and environments. In 2010 she curated "Dream Worlds: Australian Moving Image", platforming artists on the 27 meter long public screen in Beijing's exclusive Sanlitun Village and large screens in Xian, and examined the cultural impact of media arts in China and Hong Kong.
After researching and writing the substantial monograph "Catherine Truman : Touching Distance" published in 2016, she took a sabbatical and lived part-time over a period of two years on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Indigenous Homelands of Central Australia.
In 2017 Rackham was appointed Adjunct Research Professor at UniSA Creative, University of South Australia where she continues to investigate and publish on the arts, environment and feminisms. In 2019 she completed a suite of Essays for Cyberfeminist sheroes VNS Matrix Archive, and is co-authoring with Elvis Richardson, the forthcoming "CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008" documenting the origins and evolution of "CoUNTess" and proposing interventions into gender asymmetry in the Australian artworld.
Adoption.
Adopted at the age of 1 month from St. Anthony's Foundling Home in Croydon, NSW, Kerri Anne Burgess was renamed Melinda Mary Rackham. She grew up in Tamworth - a socially awkward only child who excelled academically. At 15 she gave birth to a son, Brendan Rackham, who, due to lack of adoptive family support was also removed for adoption. In 1982 Rackham discovered Brendan was profoundly disabled and had died several months earlier. Prompted after 30 years by then Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2013 Adoption Apology, she became an advocate for exposing the secrecy and trauma of Forced adoption in Australia.
Rackham was an active member of the adoptee advocacy group IDentityRites from 2014-2017. She served on the Steering Committee which commissioned "The Space Between", a commemorative public artwork in recognition of the long lasting effects of Forced Adoption practices in South Australia, located in Grundy Gardens along Adelaide's River Torrens, unveiled on 14 July 2016.
With IDentityRites, Rackham co-authored and co-produced a volume of poetry and prose, "ADOPTED", in 2017., and in 2018 she featured in Heather Waters documentary film on the lifelong effects of adoption 'You Should be Grateful'


Cooperative Stock Market


Ellen Levy

Ellen Levy, also known as Ellen K. Levy, is an American multimedia artist and scholar known for exploring art, science and technology interrelationships since the early 1980s. Levy works to highlight their importance through exhibitions, educational programs, publications and curatorial opportunities; often through collaborations with scientists including NASA, some in conjunction with Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. She is a past president of the College Art Association and has published widely on art and complex systems.
Education.
She earned her doctorate from the University of Plymouth in 2012 on the study of art and the neuroscience of attention, and received her diploma in painting from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, following a BA from Mount Holyoke College in Zoology.
Career.
Levy, "whose fascination with technology is not only tinged by skepticism but also rivaled by an interest in the acts of God that are sometimes visited on grand technological schemes -- witness the Challenger," was one of the early artists commissioned by the NASA Art Program, in 1985. Her early career focused on painting and exhibitions at then alternative science spaces such as the New York Academy of Sciences in 1984, NASA; and the National Academy of Sciences, and is also in their collection. She has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including at Associated American Artists and Michael Steinberg Fine Arts in New York City. "Shared Premises: Innovation and Adaptation" was exhibited at the National Technical Museum in Prague. Her work was also included in the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art exhibit, "Petroliana (Oil Patriotism)".
Her talks and exhibitions explore attention, perception, and genetics, including human error and inattention blindness in "Stealing Attention"; in exhibitions involving the environment such as "Weather Report and Climate Change," (2004) curated by Lucy Lippard, and "Face Off" (2004), curated by Ronald Feldman; and a two-person exhibition based on data from the magazine Skeptical Inquirer; and in her New York Public Library site-specific exhibition "Meme Machines", using mixed media to visualize cultural evolution and ways of creating and transmitting knowledge, which was also the subject of an "Art Talk" interview with novelist Siri Hustvedt.
Former chair of Leonardo/ISAST's LEAF (Leonardo Education and Art Forum) initiative, Levy co-directs, with Patricia Olynyk, the New York City-based "Leonardo Art and Science Evening Rendezvous" (LASER), part of Leonardo/ISAST's international program of evening gatherings that brings artists and scientists together for informal presentations and conversations. A twice invited participant to The Watermill Center’s "Art & Consciousness Workshop", she was President of the College Art Association from 2004 to 2006, Special Advisor on the Arts and Sciences at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts(IDSVA) from 2012 to 2017, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Arts and Sciences at Skidmore College in 1999, a position funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, and named one of the "66 Brilliant Women in Creative Technology".
Levy has published in many books and journals including Leonardo/ISAST's journal Leonardo. In 1996 she was guest editor of Art Journal's "Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code", the first widely distributed, in-depth academic publication about contemporary artistic responses to genetics, genomics, which included articles by Stephen J. Gould, Roald Hoffmann, Robert Root-Bernstein, Martin Kemp, and Dorothy Nelkin, and was cited in Cambridge University Press's "Science in Context, Writing Modern Art and Science – An Overview." Her article "Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code: New Models and Methods of Representation", was cited in Stephen Wilson's 2003's "Information Arts, Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology," an introduction to the work and ideas of "a who's who of international scenemakers," artists who use and influence science and technology; and in 2016, with her essay "Art Enters the Biotechnology Debate: Questions of Ethics," was listed in Oxford University Press's authoritative guide to the current scholarship on "Science and Contemporary Art."


Radio Active (New Zealand)

Radio Active is an alternative radio station broadcasting in Wellington, New Zealand. It broadcasts on 88.6FM (formerly 89 FM) as well as streaming online at www.radioactive.fm. It began as the student radio station for Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association (VUWSA) in 1976, broadcasting on the AM frequency with the call sign 2XA. The station was named Radio Active as a protest against the recent visit to Wellington of the American nuclear warship USS Truxton. The station began with only temporary licences to cover specific events such as Student Orientation, and each time it applied for a licence it faced opposition from established stations. Although it began as a student radio station, Radio Active was originally not permitted to broadcast any religious, political, trade union or controversial matter. On 22 February 1982 it became the first radio station in Wellington to commence broadcast on the newly available FM frequency. In August 1992 VUWSA decided that Radio Active could not make any more losses, and sold the station to radioactive ltd in the hope that the station could become financially viable. Radio Active commenced online broadcasting in 1997, being one of the first radio stations in New Zealand to do so. In 1998 Radio Active moved off the campus and downtown because the Student Association needed the space it occupied in the union building.
Today radioactive.fm has a very strong presence and following throughout the capital. It has a very strong listenership of around 45,000 weekly plus a huge online audience via its website. With a highly talented pool of volunteer announcers, many of whom have been with the station for over fifteen years, Radio Active is renowned for the wide variety of interesting music that it plays.


Ram Chandra Bharadwaj

Ram Chandra Bharadwaj, also known as Pandit Ram Chandra was the president of the Ghadar Party between 1914 and 1917. As a member of the Ghadar Party, Ram Chandra was also one of the founding editors of the Hindustan Ghadar and a key leader of the party in its role in the Indo-German Conspiracy. He assumed the role of the president of the party following Lala Har Dayal's departure for Switzerland in 1914 and, along with Bhagwan Singh and Maulvi Mohammed Barkatullah, was key in rallying the support of the South Asian community in the Pacific Coast in the wake of the Komagata Maru incident for the planned February mutiny.
Ram Chandra was assassinated on 24 April 1918 on the last day of the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial by Ram Singh, a fellow defendant who believed that Ram Chandra was a British agent.


Europe Business Assembly

The Europe Business Assembly (EBA) is an Oxford-based organisation selling what "The Times" has called "fake awards", or what are more widely known as "vanity awards".
The awards, which include "The International Socrates Award" and "The Queen Victoria Commemoration" among others, are not associated with or endorsed by the University of Oxford.
Once the "winner" has paid the fee, which has been reported to exceed €10,000, the award is presented at a ceremony at venues such as Oxford Town Hall and the Institute of Directors in London. A former representative of EBA was reported as saying "If you paid for it, you got it".
Background.
EBA was founded in 2000, by Ukrainian businessman Anton Savvov, and he runs it from Oxford and Ukraine, along with his son Ivan Savvov, a former student at Oxford Brookes University, who is the company's director.
EBA advertises itself as being an "Oxford institution", but is not affiliated or otherwise linked with the University of Oxford.
Activities.
EBA offers various "awards", an "academic union", and an "almanac". The awards are presented in venues including Oxford Town Hall and the Institute of Directors in London with ceremonies including trumpeters, bagpipes, processions, and period costumes. The awards are often presented by John Netting, a former lecturer at Oxford Brookes University who once taught Ivan Savvov. Winners pay for the awards and for participation in the ceremonies; in one case participation in a ceremony cost €11,000, and an award cost around €7,300.
The Center for Investigative Reporting found that companies and individuals in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia had been buying awards from EBA for many years and claiming that they were "outstanding results achieved in a prestigious competition". Other countries that buy awards are in the Middle East or Eastern Europe and Russia where "the idea that money buys you credentials is still there", according to a former employee of Europe Business Assembly quoted in "The Times".
Winners have included the Dumpong Rural Bank in Ghana, which won a "Best Enterprise Award" and Od Phongsavanh of the Phongsavanh Bank in Laos, who won an "International Socrates Award".
In July 2019, the (Confederation of Industry and Transportation of the Czech Republic) presented an "Oxford diploma" to its president Jaroslav Hanák on its official website and its official Twitter channel. According to a spokeswoman of the confederation, the degree is given regularly to top managers from various sectors, and the exact name of the institution was visible on the photo. She asserted that he paid the costs of the ceremony (air-fare and accommodation) himself. Hanák himself said: "I paid the ceremony and I don't know whether the degree was in it". He said that the organisation approached him by e-mail. He said: "I was looking nothing from them. As it was written, it didn't look wrong". Hanák presented his "degree" a few days after he criticized Greta Thunberg's school strikes for climate.
Criticism.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported of the EBA and similar organizations that "anyone who replies, shows interest and agrees to pay gets an award".
In 2015, an Indonesian magazine criticized EBA for selling "meaningless accolades to egotistical officials, especially those from countries notorious for corruption". The report noted at least two Indonesian officials had purchased the "nonsense awards". In 2017, two Malaysian councils were criticized for buying awards from EBA in 2013 and 2014. Malaysian local legislator Muhammad Farid Saad equated the acquisition of the honors to "buying fake academic degrees”. Also in 2017, Chinese media reported that China's state-run Longyuan Power Group had "allegedly paid for the made-up award of Best Enterprise" in 2011 from EBA. The "South China Morning Post" said the scam traded on the University of Oxford's name to sell fake awards to companies.
In July 2017, "The Times" reported that the "University of Oxford's academic reputation is being exploited by Ukrainian businessmen selling millions of pounds worth of fake awards and honours".


Anne Froelick

Anne Froelick Taylor (December 8, 1913 – January 26, 2010) was an American screenwriter from 1941 to 1950, and later a playwright and novelist. Her screenwriting career ended when she was identified as a communist by two witnesses at a hearing before the HUAC.
Biography.
Anne Froelick was born in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, but her family moved to Princeton, New Jersey when she was a child. She briefly attended Smith College before moving to New York City at the age of 19 to try to start an acting career. Beginning in her career in 1938, Taylor was onetime model and actress in New York City, Taylor began her writing career while serving as secretary to Howard Koch, then a writer for Orson Welles' "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". Taylor assisted Koch on his adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" which made radio history when it was broadcast that same year.
When Koch went to work as a writer at Warner Bros., he wanted the studio to hire Taylor as a writer. After helping Koch on the psychological themes and rewriting some of the scenes for his screenplay for "The Letter", Warner Bros. signed Taylor to a writing contract. Her first screen credit was the 1941 drama "Shining Victory", which she co-wrote with Koch. Her screenwriting credits followed: "The Master Race", "Miss Susie Slagle's", "Easy Come, Easy Go", and "Harriet Craig".
Taylor was involved in causes such as fighting fascism and promoting unions and desegregation, which reportedly had led her to join the Communist Party. In 1951, Taylor's party membership caused her husband, Philip Taylor, to lose his job as a manufacturing planner at Lockheed. She continued to try to make a living as a writer using her married name. She wrote four plays that were produced locally, including "Storm in the Sun". Along with that, she co-wrote a comic novel, "Press on Regardless", with Fern Mosk, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 1956.
Anne Froelick Taylor died of natural causes on January 26, 2010, aged 96, in a nursing home in Los Angeles.


Seymour Bennett

Seymour Bennett was an American screenwriter active during the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography.
Seymour was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1915, the son of William Berkowitz and Jennie Romer. He attended Cornell University, where he wrote plays. He graduated in 1936.
He enlisted in the United States Army in 1941, and listed his occupation at that time as a writer, reporter, and editor.
At some point after serving in World War II, he moved to Los Angeles and began writing film scenarios; his first effort was on 1947's Hemingway adaptation, "The Macomber Affair".
In California, he met and married fellow writer Connie Lee, who wrote several of Westerns and B-movies for Columbia Pictures. They collaborated on the script for 1953's "The Last Posse".
Bennett and Lee were both blacklisted as Communists during the 1950s after being named by screenwriter David Lang, at which point their careers in Hollywood came to an end.


Jerome Chodorov

Jerome Chodorov (August 10, 1911 – September 12, 2004) was an American playwright and librettist. He co-wrote the book with Joseph A. Fields for the original Broadway musical "Wonderful Town" starring Rosalind Russell.
Biography.
Chodorov was born in New York City, and entered journalism in the 1930s. He is best known for his 1940 play "My Sister Eileen", its 1942 screen adaptation, and the musical "Wonderful Town", which was based on his play. Joseph A. Fields was his frequent collaborator. He was Hollywood blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
His brother, Edward Chodorov (1904–1988), was also a playwright, author of the perennial favorite of amateur groups, "Kind Lady".
Works.
Sources: "Playbill"; "Doollee


Betsy Blair

Betsy Blair (born Elizabeth Winifred Boger; December 11, 1923March 13, 2009) was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London.
Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's "Diamond Horseshoe" in 1940. There she met Gene Kelly; they were married the following year, when she was seventeen years old, and divorced sixteen years later in 1957.
After work in the theatre, Blair began her film career playing supporting roles in films such as "A Double Life" (1947) and "Another Part of the Forest" (1948). Her interest in Marxism led to an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Blair was blacklisted for some time, but resumed her career with a critically acclaimed performance in "Marty" (1955) for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She continued her career with regular theatre, film and television, mainly in Europe, work until the mid-1990s.
Early life and education.
Blair was born in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Her father, William Kidd Boger, was a partner in a small insurance brokerage firm; her mother, Frederica Ammon, was a schoolteacher. Both were Episcopalians. At the age of eight, she was enrolled in the Swift Sisters School of Dance, and recalled performing before Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933, winning an amateur contest shortly thereafter, joining a touring amateur show and performing on local radio, as motivating influences in her desire to pursue a dance career. She joined the John Robert Powers modeling agency and by the age of twelve was in regular demand. She enrolled in the Professional Children's School but, as it was not accredited, her mother returned her to her local school so that she might eventually attend college. She graduated at fifteen, securing a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College. However, the Board of Admission considered her too immature for entry and requested she wait one year.
Career.
Stage.
In the interim, Blair joined the chorus at the International Casino in Times Square, and when it closed down, worked in the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe from January 1940 where Gene Kelly was working as choreographer. "Gene fought for me. He said I could dance, and he needed some good dancers," she wrote in her autobiography. Blair and Kelly's relationship blossomed, culminating in their marriage in October 1941. She and Kelly remained married for sixteen years and had one daughter, Kerry Kelly Novick (b. 1942), together before divorcing in 1957.
Blair left Rose's show to accept an offer from choreographer Robert Alton to join the chorus of Panama Hattie, an illustrious line-up which included June Allyson, Doris and Constance Dowling, and Vera-Ellen. Alton—who had previously discovered Gene Kelly—had spotted her when she unsuccessfully auditioned for a part in "Louisiana Purchase". During this period she developed a strong interest in Marxism, having been introduced to Lloyd Gough by Kelly, and attended Gough's weekly Marxist study group, which Kelly did not attend. "And it "was" very serious. Our textbook was "The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union"... I was completely enthralled by the ideas."
In early 1941, Blair secured her first role in a stage play when Kelly's friend William Saroyan chose her to play the female lead role of St. Agnes of the Mice in his play "The Beautiful People" at the Lyceum Theatre, playing opposite Eugene Loring, and securing excellent reviews from leading critics George Jean Nathan and Richard Watts, Jr.. Watts commented, "The gently sweetly sincere and completely moving gravity and innocence of Miss Blair's utterly right performance is so infinitely touching and beautiful than any studied portrayal could be, that her contribution to the work is gracefully enchanting."
Film.
Blair was featured in such films as "A Double Life" (1947), "Another Part of the Forest" (1948), and "The Snake Pit" (1948). She continued to hold left-wing political views and admittedly attempted to join the Communist Party. In her autobiography, she revealed her application was rejected as the Party felt she would be more valuable as the wife of the progressive Kelly. Kelly himself was not a Communist and his status as a valuable star provided the couple some protection.
In the 1950s, Blair was under investigation from HUAC and blacklisted for several years. She almost lost one of her signature roles, that of Marty's girlfriend in "Marty" (1955), but was restored to the role after Kelly threatened to pull out of "It's Always Fair Weather". For her performance, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and prizes from the Cannes Film Festival. Her film career, nonetheless, was damaged during the "red scare" era and she had to seek work on stage in New York and in Europe.
Following her divorce from Kelly, Blair moved permanently to Europe where she paired off with French actor and director Roger Pigaut, and continued to appear in films, including Juan Antonio Bardem's "Calle Mayor" (1956) and Michelangelo Antonioni's "Il Grido" (1957). By those years she self-confessedly became a conspicuous member of the avant la lettre European gauche caviar.
Blair married Czech-born director/ producer Karel Reisz in 1963, and would perform sporadically in later years working with Costa-Gavras' ("Betrayed", 1988) and on the mini-series "Scarlett" in 1994. Reisz died in 2002.
In 1980, she was a member of the jury at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival.
Blair filmed scenes for Stephen Daldry's "The Hours" (2002), initially playing the older version of Julianne Moore's character. It is unclear if she was dropped or if she withdrew from the project. In 2003 she published her autobiography, "The Memory of All That".
Death.
Blair died of cancer in London on March 13, 2009. She is survived by a daughter, three stepchildren and several grandchildren.


Ceres series (France)

The Ceres series was the first postage stamp series of France, issued in 6 different values from 1849 to 1850 as a representation of the French Republic.
The series bore the effigy of Ceres, goddess of growing plants in Roman mythology. Jacques-Jean Barre did the initial drawing and gravure. Anatole Hulot was in charge of the printing of the Ceres series done in Paris in the 19th century.
The drawing was used again by necessity when the Second Empire fell in 1870, with printing in Paris besieged by German armies and in Bordeaux where the French government fled. Two new Ceres series were issued in the 1930s and 1940s.
As first series of France, these stamps appeared regularly on commemorative stamps for philatelic anniversaries and exhibitions, and on the logo of many philatelic organizations and firms.
Stamps of France.
Second Republic, 1849-1851.
The two first postal stamps issued in France were of the Ceres series. They were printed with the effigy of Ceres, goddess of growing plants in Roman mythology. She wore a garland of wheat and a bunch of grapes in her hair. The design, which avoided any specifically republican or Revolutionary connotations, was drawn by Jacques-Jean Barre, general engraver at the Paris Mint, under the supervision of Anatole Hulot, a civil servant who obtained the right to print the stamps at the Mint until 1876.
The issue on the first January 1849 marked the application of a postal reform similar to the one in the United Kingdom of May 1840: to simplify the nationwide postal rates between Metropolitan France, Corsica and French Algeria and to encourage the payment by the sender through the use of postage stamps.
In January 1849, the two first denominations were a 20 centimes black stamp and a 1 franc red. As the postal reform was extended to other rates (local, rural and newspapers), new denominations were issued.
As early as 1849, the first of these stamps that earned philatelic interests afterwards existed. Because the black cancellations can be masked and the 20 centimes black stamp easily reused, the issue of the 40 centimes blue in January was aborted and switched to orange. While the 20 centimes blue was first printed in Spring 1849, it never replaced its black counterpart because of a change of rates in July 1850. In December 1849, part of the much paler red of the 1 franc stamps were recalled by the postal administration because their tint was too close to the 40 centimes orange to be issued in February 1850. The lighter stamps were named "vermilion" by philatelists. Two half-stamps of each tint were stuck on the official order to retrieve the vermilion.
After the coup in December 1851, Prince-President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte decided to have his effigy on French stamps. The first denominations were issued progressively from September 1852 and throughout the Second Empire.
A poor imitation of the French stamps was used by the Corrientes Province local post in Argentina between 1856 and 1880.
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War, after Republicans abolished the Empire of Napoléon III on 4 September 1870, they faced the siege of Paris by the German armies and the lack of postage stamps from the former rule. Houlot had to print new Ceres stamps until the insurrection of the Paris Commune, in Spring 1871. The printer told afterwards he hid the Ceres series material and was forced by the insurgents to print Napoleon III stamps.
At the same time, in Bordeaux, where the provisional government fled, the printing of Ceres stamps was authorized from the 5 November 1870 to the 4 March 1871 to supply the post offices of non-occupied France. The stamps were printed in lithography (instead of typography) by Augée-Delile. Because of this choice, stamps differ repetitively from one another.
Third Republic.
After the war, the Ceres head was kept until 1875, again printed only in Paris by Anatole Hulot. He had to use old material to create new denominations (like the low values created in Bordeaux) because Désiré-Albert Barre, Jacques-Jean's son, broke his association with Hulot in 1866.
In July 1875, the postal administration gave the printing of its postage stamps to the Banque de France to reduce the high cost and delays it accused Hulot. The stamp design was changed too: a competition launched in August 1875 was won by Jules Auguste Sage with its "Commerce and Peace uniting and reigning over the world" allegory. The new stamps were issued in 1876.
1937-1941.
For the philatelic exhibition of Paris in 1937, PEXIP, a minisheet of four bicolored Ceres stamps was issued.
The next year, in 1938, began a new Ceres series with high values (1.75 to 3 francs), alongside the Sower series and the Peace series. The head was kept into a new decorum. All these definitives retired in 1941 and replaced by Philippe Pétain's effigies, the Iris and Mercury series.
Liberation, 1945-1947.
In 1945, a redesign effigy of Ceres by Charles Mazelin was among the numerous definitive series to be issue in liberated France.
Since 1949, on commemorative stamps.
The Jacques-Jean Barre's Ceres effigy had appeared again on stamps commemorating the philatelic and postal history of France:
The logo of the philatelic service of La Poste used the Ceres head.
In the French colonies.
From 1849 to 1924, French Algeria used the same postage stamps and postal rates as in Metropolitan France. The Ceres series from France could be found cancelled in the French colony.
In 1850 and 1851, a little number of colonies used the Second Republic Ceres stamps.
From 1871 to 1877, imperforated Ceres stamps were sent to the colonies to replace the imperforate Napoléon III stamps. They served until the issue of the imperforate "Sage" stamps in 1876. A way to recognize the colonial Ceres stamps is the cancellation with a three letter code for each colony.


The Christmas Raccoons

The Christmas Raccoons is the first of four Canadian animated television specials, before the main animated television series succeeding it, "The Raccoons", took place. It was first broadcast in syndication on December 17, 1980. The story takes place in the Evergreen Forest, home of the forest ranger Dan, his children Tommy and Julie, and their pet sheepdog, Schaeffer.
The special was followed by "The Raccoons on Ice" (1981) and "The Raccoons and the Lost Star" (1983), the direct-to-video special "The Raccoons: Let's Dance!" (1984) and finally the television series beginning in 1985.
Plot.
On December 23, Ranger Dan receives a call that all the trees in the forest are disappearing. Tommy and Julie are concerned, but Dan is doing the investigating. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, a trio of raccoons (married couple Ralph and Melissa and their friend Bert) prepare their home, The Raccoondominium, for Christmas. Their joy is cut short when they see in the news that all the trees in the forest are disappearing. Nearby, local aardvark millionaire Cyril Sneer is revealed to be the tree thief hoping to make a profit out of the lumber. His college-educated son Cedric tries to talk him out of his crazed plans to destroy the whole forest. Cyril ignores Cedric and chops down a whole line of trees, including the Raccoondominium. However, Cyril loses the Raccoons' tree and Tommy, Julie, and Schaeffer find it and take it home.
Left without a home, the Raccoons try to find who's behind the destruction of the forest. Ralph sees Tommy, Julie and Schaeffer dragging it to the cabin and deduces they are the forest destroyers and follows them. While Tommy and Julie go out, leaving Schaeffer alone in the cabin, the Raccoons sneak inside and find the Raccoondominium decorated with ornaments, tinsel, and lights. As Melissa tries to get their Christmas stockings back, Schaeffer wakes up from his nap and chases the Raccoons through the forest. The chase leads the four animals to Cyril's sawmill, where they find the source of the forest destruction. As Cyril and Cedric head out to cut down the rest of the trees in the forest, the Raccoons and Schaeffer catch the two Sneers. After some convincing that there's a profit in planting trees, Cyril reluctantly agrees to replant all of the trees.
The animals are pleased they have saved the forest, but the Raccoons are still homeless. Schaeffer returns to the cabin, where Julie and Tommy wait for him. Just then, Julie and Tommy see the homeless Raccoons in the cold and realise that their Christmas tree must be the Raccoons' home. Julie phones their father to ask him to find a new home for them. Dan agrees and the group celebrate. The next day Julie and Tommy wake up only to find it is Christmas Eve and they must have dreamed the events of the previous 'day'. However, Dan tells them that the trees have miraculously stopped being cut down. He reads a newspaper article to them which says that thousands of seedlings were planted overnight, but the tree planter is anonymous. Suddenly, Schaeffer, Julie and Tommy see outside the window the Raccoons settling in a newly re-planted tree nearby.


Yennum Yellow

Yennum Yellow (English: "Always Yellow") is an EP produced by Kerala Blasters as a tribute to its fans. It is the first ever musical album released by an Indian Super League club as a dedication to their fans. The album was released on 19 November 2020, a day before the start of 2020-21 ISL season in collaboration with Manorama Music through various streaming services. The songs on the album are inspired by Kerala's passion towards football and the fanbase of Kerala Blasters.
Background.
The album was released by the Blasters as part of the Yellow Heart Initiative. Its title "Yennum Yellow" translates into English as "Always Yellow" which is a tagline used by the club and its supporters. The club also announced that the album consisting of 6 music tracks is dedicated to the passionate fans of the club across the globe who will be missed at the stands during the 2020–21 Indian Super League season. The tracks of the album are deeply rooted in the fans, culture and the club of Kerala. It has contribution of famous musicians from Kerala. The cover art of the album was designed by local visualist Saju Mohanan.
Track listing.
"Source"


TV Shop

TV Shop is a teleshopping channel broadcasting 24 hours a day. It became famous in Europe by being one of the earliest free-to-air (FTA) channels on the Astra satellite. The service was initially set up by Modern Times Group but in 2007 was sold to American teleshopping giant Guthy Renker. Guthy Renker then sold the brand TVShop in 2016 to the current owner Stratos AG.


Ihar Hershankou

Ihar Piatrovich Hershankou (also "Hershankoŭ"; ; , "Igor' Petrovich Gershankov"; ca. 1981 — 19 or 20 November 2018) was a convicted Belarusian murderer and fraudster.
Hershankou was one of the leaders of "Black Realtor," a group of criminals who took over homes through legal means and then murdered the former owners. Hershankou's criminal activities took place in Mahilioŭ, Belarus. He was convicted of murdering six people between 2009 and 2015. He was sentenced to death in 2017 and executed by firing squad in 2018.
Early life.
Hershankou graduated from a professional college as an automotive mechanic. He served in the Armed Forces of Belarus. After demobilization, he found work as a driver delivering candies to shops. In 2002, he met Tacciana Hershankova and they opened a real estate business that offered financial assistance to pay off debts by exchanging a client's home for a smaller house and a lump sum payment. The couple targeted debt-ridden alcoholics.
In 2009, Hershankou killed a client with a bat after closing a real estate deal. He then strangled the client's partner and buried their corpses in a village cemetery. The double murder remained undiscovered until 2015.
In 2010 Hershankou and Hershankova were sentenced to 5 years in prison for fraud after they refused to make payments to clients.
After an early release in 2012, Hershankou and Hershankova opened another real estate company targeting similar clients. The couple partnered with Siamion Berazhnoy, who at that time; had no history with real estate. As was past practice, Hershankou obtained a list of major debtors and they chose a man named Larionov, who lived in Mogilev.
Berazhnoy pretended to be a municipal employee and showed Larionov a mix of real and forged documents stating that his house would be taken away by city authorities. Hershankou offered to purchase the home before the city could seize it. To celebrate Hershankou and Berazhnoy drank vodka, but laced Larionov's with clonidine. After losing consciousness, Larionov was tied up and buried alive in a village cemetery in Chavusy District. In 2013—2015, three more people were killed the same way.
Hershankou and Berazhnoy were arrested in 2015 after a failed murder attempt. Berazhnoy and Hershankou cooperated with authorities, and Hershankou confessed to the murders.
In 2016, Mahilioŭ regional court sentenced Hershankou and Berazhnoy to death. In 2017, Hershankova was sentenced to 24 years in prison for her role. The Supreme Court of Belarus dismissed the appeal. The UN Human Rights Committee called for the delay and review of Berazhnoy and Hershankou's case.
According to the human rights group Viasna-96, Hershankou and Berazhnoy were executed on the night of 19–20 November 2018.
Amnesty International condemned their executions.


Business Initiative Directions

Business Initiative Directions (BID) is a Madrid-based organisation selling what the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have called "meaningless international awards", more widely known as "vanity awards".
History and people.
Jose E. Prieto is the president and CEO of Business Initiative Directions. He founded the company in the US and Spain in 1986, after which it expanded to Europe. The company says it is focused on the principles of the Total Quality Management movement.
Awards.
BID market a number of awards:
Criticism.
The Center for Investigative Reporting and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have called the awards "meaningless".
Sri Lanka's Honorary Consul in Spain said that BID was possibly a scam company. The Spanish Consulate in Mumbai stated BID was a fraudulent company.
Botswana's Consumer Watchdog reported that the "so-called 'World Quality Commitment Convention', run by 'Business Initiative Directions' is remarkably similar to the equally ridiculous Bizz Awards scam we exposed some months ago."


Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man is a 2005 American documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film includes some of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with brown bears before 2003, and of interviews with people who knew, or were involved with Treadwell, as well as professionals dealing with wild bears.
Treadwell and his then girlfriend Amie Huguenard, who were both originally from New York state, lost their lives to a bear on October 6, 2003. Treadwell's footage was found after his death. The bear that killed Treadwell and Huguenard was later encountered and killed by the group retrieving the partially consumed remains of the victims. An audio recording of the attack was captured by Treadwell's camera, but has never been released. The final film was co-produced by Discovery Docs, the Discovery Channel's theatrical documentary unit, and Lions Gate Entertainment. The film's soundtrack is by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson.
Synopsis.
Herzog used sequences extracted from more than 100 hours of video footage shot by Treadwell during the last five years of his life. He also conducted and filmed interviews with Treadwell's family and friends, and bear and nature experts. Park rangers and bear experts commented on statements and actions by Treadwell, such as his repeated claims that he was defending the bears from poachers. Park rangers noted that there had never been a recorded incident of poaching at Katmai National Park.
As another example, Treadwell claimed he had "gained the trust" of certain bears, sufficient to approach and pet them. Park rangers pointed out that bears are wild and potentially dangerous animals; given that, Treadwell was lucky to have survived as long as he had without being mauled. One park ranger suggested that the bears were so confused by Treadwell's direct, casual contact that they were not sure how to react to him. Other park rangers point out that the bears were not threatened by poachers, but Treadwell's actions put them at real risk of harm and death. By familiarizing them with human contact, he increased the likelihood that they would approach human habitation seeking food, and cause a confrontation in which humans would kill them.
In 2003, Treadwell was camping in Katmai National Park with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. Treadwell usually left the park at the end of summer but that year stayed into early October. This put him and Huguenard at greater risk, as in this period, bears are aggressive about searching for food to store up calories for hibernation during the winter. Herzog speculates that their staying later in the season ultimately resulted in Treadwell's and Huguenard's deaths.
In addition to presenting views from friends and professionals, Herzog narrates and offers his own interpretations of events. He concluded that Treadwell had a sentimental view of nature, thinking he could tame the wild bears. Herzog notes that nature is cold and harsh; Treadwell's view clouded his thinking and led him to underestimate danger, resulting in his death and that of Huguenard.
Treadwell's video camera captured an audio record of the bear attack. Herzog refrained from making this a part of the film, but he is shown listening to it, clearly disturbed. The director advises Jewel Palovak, the owner of the tape, to destroy it rather than listen to it herself. He would later repudiate his own advice, saying it was:
Stupid ... silly advice born out of the immediate shock of hearing—I mean, it's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life. Being shocked like that, I told her, 'You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy it. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time.' [But] she slept over it and decided to do something much wiser. She did not destroy it but separated herself from the tape, and she put it in a bank vault.
The coroner gave Palovak Treadwell's wristwatch, which had been retrieved from his left arm, one of the few remains found. Willy Fulton, the pilot who discovered the remains of Treadwell and Huguenard, had noted seeing the lone arm with the wristwatch and not being able to keep the image out of his mind.
Production.
Treadwell spent thirteen summers in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Over time, he believed the bears grew to trust him; they allowed him to approach them and he had even touched them. He gained some national notoriety for his work with the bears and founded Grizzly People with his friend Jewel Palovak. They worked to protect bears in national parks by raising awareness.
Park officials repeatedly warned him that his interaction with the bears was unsafe to both him and to the bears. "At best, he's misguided," Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, told the "Anchorage Daily News" in 2001. "At worst, he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk." Treadwell filmed his exploits, and used the films to raise public awareness of the problems faced by bears in North America. In 2003, at the end of his thirteenth visit, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were attacked, killed, and partially eaten by a bear. The events that led to the attack are unknown.
Producer Erik Nelson had begun work on developing a narrative television special based on Treadwell's life and career. However, during a chance encounter with director Werner Herzog at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival, Nelson was convinced to turn the project into a feature-length documentary and to give Herzog directing duties. With the project now having taken the direction of a documentary, Jewel Palovak was sought out to make use of Treadwell's archival footage.
Jewel Palovak, co-founder of Grizzly People and a close friend of Treadwell's, had to give her approval for the film to be produced, as she controlled his video archives. The filmmakers had to deal with logistical as well as sentimental factors related to Treadwell's footage of his bear interactions. Grizzly People is a "grassroots organization" concerned with the treatment of bears in the United States. After her friend's death, Palovak was left with control of Grizzly People and Treadwell's 100 hours of archival footage. As his close friend, former girlfriend, and confidante, she had a large emotional stake in the production. She had known Treadwell since 1985 and felt a deep sense of responsibility to her late friend and his legacy.
Palovak said that Treadwell had often discussed his video archives with her. "Timothy was very dramatic," she once said. She quoted Treadwell as saying, "'If I die, if something happens to me, make that movie. You make it. You show 'em.' I thought that Werner Herzog could definitely do that."
Exhibition.
"Grizzly Man" premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and its limited US theatrical release began on August 12, 2005. It was later released on DVD in the United States on December 26, 2005. The Discovery Channel aired "Grizzly Man" on television on February 3, 2006; its three-hour presentation of the film included a 30-minute companion special that delved deeper into Treadwell's relationship with the bears and addressed controversies related to the film.
The DVD release lacks an interview with Treadwell by David Letterman, which was shown in the original theatrical release. Letterman had joked that Treadwell would be eaten by a bear. The versions televised on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet both retain this scene.
Response.
Box office.
"Grizzly Man" opened on August 12, 2005 in 29 North America venues. It grossed US$269,131 ($9,280 per screen) in its opening weekend, ranking number 26 in the box office. At its widest point, it played at 105 theatres, and made US$3,178,403 in North America during its run, with $882,902 overseas for a worldwide total of $4,061,305.
Critical reception.
Upon its North American theatrical release, "Grizzly Man" was acclaimed by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% "Certified Fresh" score based on 136 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's consensus states: "Whatever opinion you come to have of the obsessive Treadwell, Herzog has once again found a fascinating subject." Metacritic reports an 87 out of 100 rating based on 35 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
David Denby of "The New Yorker" said:
Narrating in his extraordinary German-accented English, Herzog is fair-minded and properly respectful of Treadwell's manic self-invention. He even praises Treadwell as a good filmmaker: as Treadwell stands talking in the foreground of the frame, the bears play behind him or scoop up salmon in sparkling water; in other shots, a couple of foxes leap across the grass in the middle of a Treadwell monologue. The footage is full of stunning incidental beauties.
Film critic Roger Ebert, a longtime supporter of Herzog's work, awarded the film four out of four stars.
'I will protect these bears with my last breath', Treadwell says. After he and Amie become the first and only people to be killed by bears in the park, the bear that is guilty is shot dead. Treadwell's watch, still ticking, is found on his severed arm. I have a certain admiration for his courage, recklessness, idealism, whatever you want to call it, but here is a man who managed to get himself and his girlfriend eaten, and you know what? He deserves Werner Herzog.
Charlie Russell, a naturalist who studied bears for many years, lived near them and raised them for a decade in Kamchatka, corresponded with Treadwell and wrote about the film:
Herzog is a skillful filmmaker so a large percentage of those who watch the movie "Grizzly Man", overlook Timothy's amazing way with animals even though to me this stands out very strongly. The fact that Timothy spent an incredible 35,000 hours, spanning 13 years, living with the bears in Katmai National Park, without any previous mishap, escapes people completely. Even with his city-kid background, I found myself mesmerized by what he could do with animals.
The film placed at No. 94 on "Slant Magazine"s best 100 films of the 2000s.


SoundScriber

SoundScriber is a dictation machine introduced in 1945 by The SoundScriber Corp. (New Haven). It records sound with a groove embossed into soft vinyl discs with a stylus. Similar competing recording technologies are the Gray Audograph and Dictaphone DictaBelt. The machine can record 15 minutes of dictation on each side of a thin (.01-inch) flexible 6-inch vinyl disc spinning at a rate of RPM, at a density of 200 grooves per inch. The discs originally cost about 10 cents each . The machine has two tonearms: a recording arm driven by a worm gear that creates the groove with a diamond stylus, and a pickup arm with a sapphire stylus for playback. A foot-operated playback/pause—and-reverse switch is used for transcribing.
Unlike some other recording technologies of the time, the recording stylus creates the groove not by cutting the vinyl but by embossing (plastically deforming) the surface, leaving no waste plastic chips to get into the mechanical works.
The format remained popular for two decades before it was superseded by magnetic tape recorders, due in part to the robustness of the discs and the ease with which they could be mailed. The green discs with their characteristic square center hole came in three sizes, 6 inches (known as "Mail Chute") that played for fifteen minutes per side, a 5-inch disc with 10 minutes of recording time per side, and 4-inch "Memo Discs" with eight minutes of recording time. The soft vinyl medium limited the number of times a disc could be played back without degradation of the audio quality.
A SoundScriber is a plot device in the 1952 Joan Crawford film Sudden Fear.


Enrique Marquez Jr.