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Fantasy comics. Fantasy comics have been around as long as comics. The classification fantasy comics broadly encompasses illustrated books set in an other-worldly universe or involving elements or actors outside our reality. Fantasy has been a mainstay of fiction for centuries, but burgeoned in the late 1930s and early 1940s, spurred by authors such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. They inspired comic book producers. Fantasy-themed books—driven by superhero comics gaining popularity through the 1960s—grew to dominate the field. In the 1990s, authors such as Neil Gaiman helped expand the genre with his critically acclaimed Sandman series. In the American market, fantasy comics began in the Golden Age of Comic Books, which was populated with notable works such as All-American Publications (and later DC Comics). Greek myth inspired super heroes including Wonder Woman and Dells Tarzan. Starting in the late 1940s, horror-themed fantasy anthologies gained prominence, including EC Comics Tales from the Crypt, Haunt of Fear, and Vault of Horror; and titles such as American Comics Group Adventures into the Unknown and Forbidden Worlds. This trend faded with the publication of Dr. Fredric Werthams book Seduction of the Innocent, which led to a Senate hearing that claimed a purported relationship between comics and juvenile violence. Fantasy comics survived in this new atmosphere, though in a diminished capacity. Fantasy-themed super heroes continued to populate comics through the 1950s and regained popularity in the 1960s with such characters as Steve Ditkos Doctor Strange published by Marvel Comics and Jack Kirbys Thor. In the 1970s, Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard, became one of the most popular publications of Marvel Comics.
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Sligo. Sligo (/ˈslaɪɡoʊ/; Irish: Sligeach [ˈʃl̠ʲɪɟəx]; lit. abounding in shells) is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the countys largest urban centre (constituting 29.5% of the countys population) and the 24th largest in the Republic of Ireland.[2][3] Sligo is a commercial and cultural centre situated on the west coast of Ireland. Its surrounding coast and countryside, as well as its connections to the poet W. B. Yeats, have made it a tourist destination. Sligo is the anglicisation of the Irish name Sligeach, meaning abounding in shells or shelly place. It refers to the abundance of shellfish found in the river and its estuary, and from the extensive shell middens in the vicinity.[4][5] The river now known as the Garavogue (Irish: An Gharbhóg), perhaps meaning little torrent, was originally called the Sligeach.[6] It is listed as one of the seven royal rivers of Ireland in the ninth century AD tale The Destruction of Da Dergas Hostel. The river Slicech is also referenced in the Annals of Ulster in 1188.[6] The Ordnance Survey letters of 1836 state that cart loads of shells were found underground in many places within the town where houses now stand. The whole area, from the river estuary at Sligo, around the coast to the river at Ballysadare Bay, is rich in marine resources which were utilised as far back as the Mesolithic period.
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Burbank Animation Studios. Burbank Animation Studios was an Australian film animation production company, formerly named Burbank Films Australia. The companys first animated productions in 1982 were a series of adaptations of books from Charles Dickens; these first few films characterized themselves by their grim appeal. The sketch-styled backgrounds and the simplicity of the original score, such as in Oliver Twist (1982), added to the dramatic tone of those first stories. The eight total Dickens adaptations were produced during two years. At the same time, in 1983, the company produced a short series of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, adapted from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the years that followed, until 1988, Burbank adapted the works of many other well-known authors and legends,[1] including Kenneth Grahames The Wind in the Willows, Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote, J. M. Barries Peter Pan, Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers among many others.[2] By 1987, the animation was entirely made in Philippines (Burbank Animation Incorporated based in Manila).[3]
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (musical). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a musical comedy based on the 1876 novel by Mark Twain conceived and written by Ken Ludwig, with music and lyrics by Don Schlitz. The musical is the story of a fourteen-year-old boy growing up in the heartland of America. This Broadway musical version of Mark Twains novel is set in 1840 in St. Petersburg, Missouri, a bustling town on the banks of the Mississippi River. In the course of the story, Tom matches wits with his stern Aunt Polly, falls in love with the beautiful, feisty Becky Thatcher, and goes on the adventure of his life with Becky and Huckleberry Finn. Along the way he meets a terrifying villain named Injun Joe, Toms bratty half-brother Sid, and all the other boys and girls in the village. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer opened on Broadway at the Minskoff Theater on April 26, 2001 and closed on May 13, 2001, after 21 performances and 34 previews.[1] The musical was directed by Scott Ellis with choreography by David Marques, and featured Joshua Park as Tom Sawyer, Kristen Bell as Becky Thatcher, Jim Poulos as Huckleberry Finn, with Linda Purl (Aunt Polly), Tom Aldredge (Muff Potter), Stephen Lee Anderson (Doc Robinson/Pap), Jane Connell (Widow Douglas), John Dossett (Judge Thatcher) and Kevin Durand (Injun Joe). In 1840, Tom Sawyer is fishing outside St. Petersburg, Missouri as his friends arrive, and the children play a game of Robin Hood (Hey, Tom Sawyer). Toms Aunt Polly sends him to school, where he tricks the schoolmaster, Mr. Dobbins, into letting the class have the day off. Aunt Polly, Mr. Dobbins and the preacher, Reverend Sprague, lament that they can’t do a thing about the boy. That Saturday, Aunt Polly orders Tom to whitewash a fence in front of their house, and Toms half-brother, Sid, is happy. Frustrated, Tom plans to run away (Heres My Plan). As Tom procrastinates, he meets beautiful newcomer Becky Thatcher, and they are mutually attracted. The towns outcast and Toms best friend Huckleberry Finn appears and arranges for the two of them to meet at the local graveyard that night so that Huck can cure his warts. Huck remarks that painting the fence looks like fun, and Tom then swindles his friends into painting the fence for him after having them trade their valuables. (Smart Like That).
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (video game). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989 by SETA and was based upon the 1876 book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a platformer similar to The Goonies 1 or 2, wherein one plays as Tom Sawyer. The game is not to be confused with Squares Tom Sawyer. Inexplicably, the level order is changed in the English version (perhaps so as not to confuse players by starting with the rafting stage). The Japanese originals level 5, the pirate ship, is the English versions level 1, making the beginning of the game much more difficult. Tom Sawyer is dreaming, and in this dream he must save Becky from Injun Joe, travelling through six stages to get to her. He encounters various creatures, including a giant octopus, a giant alligator in the Mississippi River, ghosts and ghouls in a haunted house, and a dragon. He wakes up from the dream and finds himself in his Missouri classroom, where he finds one feather on his desk that had belonged to Injun Joe. It is never made clear whether or not the events of the game were real. This platform game-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Tom Sawyer (1973 film). Tom Sawyer is the 1973 American musical film adaptation of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and was directed by Don Taylor. The film was produced by Readers Digest in collaboration with Arthur P. Jacobs, and its screenplay and songs were written by the Sherman Brothers, Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. During the 46th Academy Awards, the film received three nominations for Best Original Song Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design, but failed to win any. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, seeking adventure and superstition, skip school to attempt resurrecting a dead cat through an incantation they believe will be empowered by the imminent death of a man named Hoss Williams. During their escapade, they encounter Muff Potter, the town drunk. Their discussion is interrupted by Injun Joe, who informs them that Doc Robinson seeks their assistance to exhume Williams body. Concurrently, Tom consistently evades school, weaving elaborate tales to excuse his absences at dinner. When Aunt Polly, his guardian, seeks to discipline him for his truancy, Tom cunningly persuades other children to undertake his punitive chores, demonstrating his mischievous and manipulative nature. Following Williams death, Tom and Huck visit the cemetery, only to discover Muff Potter and Injun Joe exhuming Williams grave under Doc Robinsons orders. An altercation ensues when Joe demands additional payment, and in the ensuing chaos, Robinson inadvertently incapacitates Muff with a shovel. In a violent response, Joe strikes Robinson, knocking him into the grave, then fatally stabs him with Muffs knife. Horrified, Tom and Huck witness the entire event and flee the scene, binding themselves with a pact of silence over the gruesome murder they observed.
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University College Dublin. University College Dublin (Irish: Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Irelands largest university.[4] UCD originates in a body founded in 1854, which opened as the Catholic University of Ireland on the feast of St. Malachy with John Henry Newman as its first rector; it re-formed in 1880 and chartered in its own right in 1908. The Universities Act, 1997 renamed the constituent university as the National University of Ireland, Dublin, and a ministerial order of 1998 renamed the institution as University College Dublin – National University of Ireland, Dublin.[5] Originally located at St Stephens Green[6] and Earlsfort terrace in Dublins city centre, all faculties later relocated to a 133-hectare (330-acre)[7] campus at Belfield, six kilometres to the south of the city centre. In 1991, it purchased a second site in Blackrock,[8] which currently houses the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. A report published in May 2015 asserted that the economic output generated by UCD and its students in Ireland amounted to €1.3 billion annually.[9] Notable alumni and faculty of UCD include five Nobel laureates,[10][11] four Taoisigh of Ireland, three Irish Presidents, and one President of India.[12][13] The university has produced 32 Chief Justices of the Supreme Court,[14] 29 Rhodes Scholars, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 3 Pritzker Prize recipients.[15] Additionally, UCD is associated with writers such as James Joyce, William Butler Yeats,[16] and Gerard Manley Hopkins; physicist Dennis Jennings; Golden Globe Award recipients Carroll OConnor and Gabriel Byrne; Academy Award winner Neil Jordan; one of the co-developers of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Teresa Lambe; and many CEOs, including those of Unilever, Aer Lingus, Mediahuis Ireland, Chevron Corporation, and BP.[17]
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Fantasy. Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or magical elements, often including completely imaginary realms and creatures.[1][2] The genres roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression fantastic literature is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics.[3][4][5][6] An archaic spelling for the term is phantasy.[7] Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness.[8]
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Comedy. Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Comedy originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters.[1] The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a Society of Youth and a Society of the Old.[2] A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.[3] Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor. Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them. Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy, which is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, which can often be taken as offensive by the subjects of the joke. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.
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Elizabeth Karlsen. Elizabeth Karlsen is an American–British film producer. Her career has spanned over three and a half decades, and in 2019, she was awarded the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.[1] Her work has garnered a total of 52 BAFTA nominations and wins, and 20 Academy Award® nominations and wins.[2] In 2002, she co-founded Number 9 Films with production partner and husband, Stephen Woolley.[3][4] She has produced independent films in the US and Europe including: Todd Haynes’s CAROL[5] (nominated for 6 Academy Awards®, 6 Golden Globe Awards and 9 BAFTA Awards)[6][7][8][9] Mark Herman’s LITTLE VOICE[10] (winner of a Golden Globe Award, nominated for 1 Academy Award®, 6 Golden Globe Awards and 6 BAFTA Awards)[11][12][13][14] Neil Jordan’s THE CRYING GAME[15] (winner of an Academy Award®, a BAFTA Award and nominated for 6 Academy Awards®),[16][17][18] MADE IN DAGENHAM[19] (nominated for 3 BAFTA Awards)[20][21] and Phyllis Nagy’s MRS HARRIS[22] (nominated for 12 Emmy® Awards, 3 Golden Globe Awards and a PGA Award)[23][24][25] and Wash Westmoreland’s COLETTE[19] (Nominated for 4 BIFA’s and an Independent Spirit Award).[26][27][28] Other work includes: ON CHESIL BEACH,[29] written by Ian McEwan and directed by Dominic Cooke;[30] THEIR FINEST,[31] directed by Lone Scherfig;[32] THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM[33] written by Jane Goldman and directed by Juan Carlos Medina,[34] GREAT EXPECTATIONS,[35] written by David Nicholls and directed by Mike Newell,[36] THE NEON BIBLE[37] directed by Terence Davies[38] and BYZANTIUM[39] directed by Neil Jordan[40] and as co-producer Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH [41] (nominated for 1 Academy Award® and winner of 3 European Film Awards).[42][43][44] She also produced the international box office success Ladies in Lavender,[45] starring Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.[46] She has had multiple films selected for Palme D’Or competition in Cannes[47] and premieres in international film festivals including TIFF, LFF, NY and Sundance.[47] In addition to film work, MADE IN DAGENHAM: THE MUSICAL opened in London’s West End in 2014 starring Gemma Arterton.[48]
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Water. Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula H2O. It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless,[c] and nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earths hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms in which it acts as a solvent. Water, being a polar molecule, undergoes strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding which is a large contributor to its physical and chemical properties.[20] It is vital for all known forms of life, despite not providing food energy or being an organic micronutrient. Due to its presence in all organisms, its chemical stability, its worldwide abundance and its strong polarity relative to its small molecular size; water is often referred to as the universal solvent.[21] Because Earths environment is relatively close to waters triple point, water exists on Earth as a solid, a liquid, and a gas.[22] It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds consist of suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor. Water covers about 71.0% of the Earths surface, with seas and oceans making up most of the water volume (about 96.5%).[23] Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%), and in the air as vapor, clouds (consisting of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation (0.001%).[24][25] Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Water plays an important role in the world economy. Approximately 70% of the fresh water used by humans goes to agriculture.[26] Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies has been, and continues to be, a major source of food for many parts of the world, providing 6.5% of global protein.[27] Much of the long-distance trade of commodities (such as oil, natural gas, and manufactured products) is transported by boats through seas, rivers, lakes, and canals. Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of substances, both mineral and organic; as such, it is widely used in industrial processes and in cooking and washing. Water, ice, and snow are also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, diving, ice skating, snowboarding, and skiing.
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Horror film. Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers.[2] Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Horror films have existed since the early 20th century. Early inspirations predating film include folklore; the religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures; and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From its origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror became a codified genre only after the release of Dracula (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, erotic horror, slasher films, splatter films, supernatural horror, and psychological horror. The genre has been produced worldwide, varying in content and style between regions. Horror is particularly prominent in the cinema of Japan, Korea, and Thailand, among other countries. Despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society, and generated popular culture icons. The book The Film Experience: An Introduction (2021) defines the horror film as a genre with origins in Gothic literature that seeks to frighten the viewer. The authors highlight the fundamental elements of the horror film as characters with physical, psychological, or spiritual deformities; narratives built on suspense, surprise, and shock; and visual compositions that move between the dread of not seeing and the horror of seeing.[2]
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Hishikawa Moronobu. Hishikawa Moronobu (Japanese: 菱川 師宣; 1618 – 25 July 1694)[1] was a Japanese artist known for popularizing the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock prints and paintings in the late 17th century.[2] He consolidated the works of scattered Japanese art styles and forged the early development of ukiyo-e.[3] Born in Hoda at the distant end of Edo Bay, Moronobu was the son of a well-respected embroiderer of rich tapestries who produced them for the use of temples and wealthy patrons. His initial works consisted designs for embroidery.[4] After moving to Edo in the 1660s, Moronobu, who had likely learned skills from his fathers craft, and studied both Tosa and Kanō-style painting.[3] He thus had a solid grounding in both decorative crafts and academic painting, which served him well when he then turned to ukiyo-e, which he studied with his mentor, the Kanbun Master.[citation needed] The earliest known illustration of Moronobu that can be dated comes from his work titled One Hundred Warrior Poets from 1672, although earlier works may yet surface.[3] By the mid-1670s Moronobu had already become the most important ukiyo-e printmaker, a position he maintained until his death.[7] He produced more than 100 sets of illustrations, perhaps as many as 150, with around 20 being of an erotic nature.[3] Though it is difficult to attribute to him many unsigned examples (for example, the scholar Kiyoshi Shibui established, in 1926, a basis for crediting some of the designs previously given to Moronobu as the work of Sugumura Jihei). Very few of Moronobus single-sheet prints have survived, and most, if not all, are unsigned. Moronobu assimilated inchoate ukiyo-e designs by previous artists, creating the first truly mature form of ukiyo-e, in a style of great strength and presence that would set the standards for generations of artists who followed. In 1685, the ukiyo-e book Kokon Bushidō ezukushi (古今武士道絵つくし, Images of Bushidō Through the Ages) by Moronobu was published.[8] It features heroic popular tales of samurai warriors with simple descriptions for each artwork.[8] The title includes the word bushido and was meant for children, which shows that it had spread among the general population.[8]
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The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō. The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (東海道五十三次, Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi), in the Hōeidō edition (1833–1834), is a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created by Utagawa Hiroshige after his first travel along the Tōkaidō in 1832.[1] The Tōkaidō road, linking the shōguns capital, Edo, to the imperial one, Kyōto, was the main travel and transport artery of old Japan. It is also the most important of the Five Roads (Gokaidō)—the five major roads of Japan created or developed during the Edo period to further strengthen the control of the central shogunate administration over the whole country. Even though the Hōeidō edition is by far the best known, The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō was such a popular subject that it led Hiroshige to create some 30 different series of woodcut prints on it, all very different one from the other by their size (ōban or chuban), their designs or even their number (some series include just a few prints). The Hōeidō edition of the Tōkaidō is Hiroshiges best known work, and the best sold ever ukiyo-e Japanese prints.[2] Coming just after Hokusais Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, it established this new major theme of ukiyo-e, the landscape print, or fūkei-ga, with a special focus on famous views. The Tōkaidō was one of the Five Routes constructed under Tokugawa Ieyasu, a series of roads linking the historical capital of Edo with the rest of Japan. The Tōkaidō connected Edo with the then-capital of Kyoto. The most important and well-traveled of these, the Tōkaidō travelled along the eastern coast of Honshū, thus giving rise to the name Tōkaidō (Eastern Sea Road). Along this road, there were 53 different post stations, which provided stables, food, and lodging for travelers.
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Utamaro. Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川 歌麿; Japanese pronunciation: [ɯ.ta.ma.ɾo],[1] c. 1753 – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his bijin ōkubi-e large-headed pictures of beautiful women of the 1790s. He also produced nature studies, particularly illustrated books of insects. Little is known of Utamaros life. His work began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s with his portraits of beauties with exaggerated, elongated features. He produced over 2000 known prints and was one of the few ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his lifetime. In 1804 he was arrested and manacled for fifty days for making illegal prints depicting the 16th-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and died two years later. Utamaros work reached Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was very popular, enjoying particular acclaim in France. He influenced the European Impressionists, particularly with his use of partial views and his emphasis on light and shade, which they imitated. The reference to the Japanese influence among these artists often refers to the work of Utamaro. Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The art form took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the ukiyo floating world lifestyle of the pleasure districts. Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre.[2] Ukiyo-e art was aimed at the common townspeople at the bottom of the social scale, especially of the administrative capital of Edo. Its audience, themes, aesthetics, and mass-produced nature kept it from consideration as serious art.[3]
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Steven Rea. Steven Rea (also known as Steven X. Rea) is an American journalist, film critic,[2][3] web producer, and writer. He was a film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1992 through late 2016. Rea was born in London, and raised in New York City.[4] He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York. Rea went to the West Coast for college, earning an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He attended the Writers Workshop graduate program at the University of Iowa. Rea has written for multiple publications since 1975, as well as working for major record labels such as Island Records.[4] In 1982, he joined The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he covered pop culture topics including movies, pop music and books.[2] He became one of its film critics in 1992 and left that post in late 2016.[2][4] Other periodicals for which he has written include: Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Family Fun,[2] Crawdaddy!, Music World, Phonograph Record Magazine, High Fidelity, Folk Scene, Los Angeles, New West, Trouser Press, Oui, Chic, Record World, and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.[4] His film reviews and movie columns have been syndicated.[1] Rea was an adjunct professor in the Cinema and Television program at the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University.[5] He hosts Talk Cinema events. He served on the Narrative Features jury of the 2012 Florida Film Festival[1] and the FIPRESCI jury at the 2014 Palm Springs International Film Festival. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC).[6] Rea is the author of Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling with the Stars (2012),[7] an expansion on his blog featuring photos of stars riding bikes, in which Rea explores his obsession with the details of these images and stARS. It received good reviews from The Telegraph (UK)[8] and the San Francisco Chronicle.[9] He later published Hollywood Cafe: Coffee With The Stars (2016), which was favorably covered in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Metro US, and numerous other publications and websites. He is the curator of the Tumblr blog, Rides a Bike www.ridesabike.com. His essay on the British New Wave is published in the book European Cinema (2012).[10]
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Abbey Theatre School. The Abbey Theatre School or the Abbey School of Acting, was a drama school associated with the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland. Established in 1911 by W. B. Yeats,[1]: 59 it was developed by Lady Gregory to continue performances in Dublin while the main cast of the theatre was overseas, usually in America.[2] The schools first director was the theatre director Nugent Monck, whom Yeats asked to begin the school.[1]: 59 The first play performed by the school was The Countess Cathleen, written by Yeats. The school was the primary place in Ireland where amateur actors could receive training for an acting career before breaking into paid work.[3] In the beginning, the schools plays were performed in the Abbey Theatre, but in 1927 the venue for them became the newly constructed Peacock Theatre, located on the first floor of the Abbey Theatres building.[4]: 138 Many well-known Irish actors and directors attended or taught at the school. Among them were Lennox Robinson,[5]: 513 [6]: 49 Stephen Rea,[7] and Frank Fay.[8]: 181
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Sharaku. Tōshūsai Sharaku (東洲斎 写楽; Japanese pronunciation: [toː.ɕɯꜜː.sai | ɕaꜜ.ɾa.kɯ],[1] active 1794–1795) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer, known for his portraits of kabuki actors. Neither his true name nor the dates of his birth or death are known. His active career as a woodblock artist spanned ten months; his prolific work met disapproval and his output came to an end as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. His work has come to be considered some of the greatest in the ukiyo-e genre. Sharaku made mostly yakusha-e portraits of kabuki actors. His compositions emphasize poses of dynamism and energy, and display a realism unusual for prints of the time—contemporaries such as Utamaro represented their subjects with an idealized beauty, while Sharaku did not shy from showing unflattering details. This was not to the tastes of the public, and the enigmatic artists production ceased in the first month of 1795. His mastery of the medium with no apparent apprenticeship has drawn much speculation, and researchers have long tried to discover his true identity—amongst the dozens of proposals, some suggest he was an obscure poet, others a Noh actor, or even the ukiyo-e master Hokusai. Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries. The artform took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the ukiyo floating world lifestyle of the pleasure districts. Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre.[2] Ukiyo-e art was aimed at the merchants at the bottom of the social scale, especially of the administrative capital of Edo (modern Tokyo). Its audience, themes, aesthetics, and mass-produced nature kept it from consideration as serious art.[3] After the mid-18th century, full-colour nishiki-e prints became common, printed with a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour.[4] Critics have come to see the late 18th century as a peak period in the general quality of the work.[5] Shunshō of the Katsukawa school introduced the ōkubi-e large-headed picture in the 1760s.[6] He and other members of the Katsukawa school popularized ōkubi yakusha-e actor prints and the dusting of mica in the backgrounds to produce a luxurious glittering effect.[7] In contrast to earlier actor prints, which used stereotyped features and poses of anonymous actors, these ōkubi yakusha-e aimed for recognizable likenesses.[8] Tōshūsai[a] Sharakus works appeared in the middle of the Kansei era (1789–1801), when the nation faced hard economic times that the military government responded to with reactionary policies such as the Kansei Reforms intended to strengthen the feudalistic shogunal system. Some of the policies restricted extravagant fashions, and Kabuki theatres faced strict control over their perceived excesses and limits on actors incomes. Late Edo-period art nevertheless flourished, and new works and popular actors continued to rapidly appear in kabuki theatre, where realistic performances came in vogue.[10] Yakusha-e came to favour a greater emphasis on the individuality of the actors, and buyers came to expect pictures with the actors likenesses,[b] rather than the stereotyped images of the past, such as those by the once-dominant Torii school.[11]
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Dolours Price. Dolours Price (16 December 1950 – 23 January 2013) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer. She grew up in an Irish republican family and joined the IRA in 1971. She was sent to jail for her role in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and released in 1981. In her later life, Price was a vocal opponent of the Irish peace process, Sinn Féin, and Gerry Adams. She married actor Stephen Rea in 1983; they divorced in 2003. Dolours Price was born on 16 December 1950 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[1][2] She and her sister, Marian, also an IRA member, were the daughters of Albert Price, a prominent Irish republican and former IRA member from Belfast,[3] and Christina (née Dolan), a member of Cumann na mBan. Both parents were imprisoned at different times. The name Dolours derives from the dolours (sorrows) of the Virgin Mary; however, the family was not particularly religious.[1] Christinas sister Bridie Dolan was blinded and lost both hands in an accident handling IRA explosives, and lived with the family.[4][5]: 9–13 [1]
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Handsome Harry. Handsome Harry is a 2009 American film written by Nicholas T. Proferes and directed by Bette Gordon.[1] It was the first film produced by Worldview Entertainment and stars Jamey Sheridan, Steve Buscemi, Mariann Mayberry, Aidan Quinn, John Savage, Campbell Scott, Titus Welliver, and Karen Young. The film premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival[2][3] and was released theatrically in 2010 by Paladin/Emerging Pictures and on DVD/VOD by Screen Media Films. Handsome Harry is the story of Harry Sweeneys journey to find forgiveness from an old Navy friend. One day, Harry gets a call from an old Navy buddy, Kelley, on his deathbed. At first, Harry wants nothing to do with Kelley, but soon, memories and guilt overcome him, and he goes on a journey to confront his old friends. First, he meets Kelley in a Philadelphia hospital. Kelley asks Harry to seek forgiveness from David on his behalf. Kelley dies in the hospital the next day. Harry then goes on to meet more of his Navy buddies to find the truth about what happened the night they assaulted David together. Somebody dropped a generator on Davids hand that night, but Harry could not recollect who it was. In time, its revealed that Harry and David had an affair back in the Navy. Kelley found Harry and David in a sexually compromising position in the shower. In fear of repercussion, Harry turned on David. Kelley and the rest of the gang, including Harry, got drunk and assaulted David. It was in the end revealed that Harry was the one who dropped the generator on David, maiming him for life.
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Action film. The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as David Bordwell suggested they were films that favor spectacle to storytelling, others such as Geoff King stated they allow the scenes of spectacle to be attuned to storytelling. Action films are often hybrid with other genres, mixing into various forms such as comedies, science fiction films, and horror films. While the term action film or action adventure film has been used as early as the 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and the rise of anti-heroes appearing in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s drawing from war films, crime films and Westerns. These genres were followed by what is referred to as the classical period in the 1980s. This was followed by the post-classical era where American action films were influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and the growing using of computer generated imagery in film. Following the September 11 attacks, a return to the early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative.[2] Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It, writing that the reception to the genre as being the emblem of what Hollywood does worst.[3] In the Journal of Film and Video, Lennart Soberson stated that the action film genre has been a subject of scholarly debate since the 1980s.[4] Soberson wrote that repeated traits of the genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define the genre.[4] David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are told that spectacle overrides narrative in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by excessive spectacle as a desperate attempt to mask the lack of content.[3][5] Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it.[6] Soberson stated that Harvey OBrien had perhaps the most convincing understanding of the genre, stating that the action film was best understood as a fusion of form and content. It represents the idea and ethic of action through a form in which action, agitation and movement are paramount.[4] OBrien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just a series of action sequences, stating that that was the difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988), that while both were mainstream Hollywood blockbusters with a hero asserting masculinity and overcoming obstacles to a personal and social solution, John McClane in Die Hard repeatedly firing his automatic pistol while swinging from a high rise was not congruent with the image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in the backstreets of Cairo.[7] British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as a hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents.[8]
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Aodhan Quinn. Aodhan Quinn (born March 22, 1992) is an American professional soccer player who currently plays for Indy Eleven in the USL Championship. Quinn played college soccer at Bradley University in 2010 and at the University of Akron between 2011 and 2013.[1] During his time at college Quinn also played for USL PDL clubs Akron Summit Assault during their 2011 season,[2] and Seattle Sounders FC U-23 during their 2012 and 2013 seasons.[3][4] Quinn was selected by Philadelphia Union in the third round of the 2014 MLS SuperDraft (52nd overall), but wasnt signed by the club.[5] Quinn later signed with USL Pro club Orlando City on March 19, 2014.[6] He was released upon the conclusion of the 2014 season, a casualty of the clubs transition to Major League Soccer.[7] Quinn signed with Louisville City on May 11, 2015.[8] In January 2017 it was announced that Quinn was leaving Louisville City FC to play for FC Cincinnati.[9] Following the close of the 2017 season, FC Cincinnati announced they would not exercise the option to have Quinn return in 2018.[10]
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Okumura Masanobu. Okumura Masanobu (Japanese: 奥村 政信; 1686 – 13 March 1764) was a Japanese print designer, book publisher, and painter. He also illustrated novelettes and in his early years wrote some fiction. At first his work adhered to the Torii school, but later drifted beyond that. He is a figure in the formative era of ukiyo-e doing early works on actors and bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women). While Masanobus early life is largely undocumented, he is believed to have been born about 1686, possibly in Edo (modern Tokyo). Edo was a small fishing village when Tokugawa Ieyasu chose it as his administrative capital of the Tokugawa shogunate, and by the early 17th century the city had prospered and its population had grown to half a million.[1] Masanobu appears to have been self-taught painter (though he did study poetry under Tachiba Fukaku); he is not known to have belonged to any artistic school.[2] His early work shows the influence of the Torii school of ukiyo-e painting, particularly Torii Kiyonobu I, and he likely learned from the examples of Torii Kiyomasa and the early ukiyo-e artist Hishikawa Moronobu. A print album published by Kurihara Chōemon in 1701 depicting courtesans in the Yoshiwara pleasure district is Masanobus earliest surviving signed work, followed by a similar work ten months later. Moronobu provided the illustrations, and sometimes text, for at least twenty-two ukiyo-zōshi novels and librettos for puppet theatre between 1703 and 1711. These included a modernized illustrated version of the 11th-century Tale of Genji in eighteen volumes, whose translation was by Masanobu.[1] After 1711 Masanobus output of book illustrations shriveled[3] as he turned his attention to albums of prints, usually about a dozen per set, on a variety of themes—most outstanding of which were the comic albums. These prints, influenced perhaps by 12th-century Toba-e and the caricature paintings of Hanabusa Itchō (1652–1724), depicted humorous scenes from, or parodies of, Noh, kabuki, and Japanese mythology.[4] This period also saw Masanobu produce large kakemono-sized[a] portraits of courtesans, whose designs had a warmth and humanity largely absent from the earlier Torii and Kaigetsudō beauties. The financial restraints of the Kyōhō Reforms begun in 1717 brought an end to the luxury of these large prints, replaced by smaller hosoban-sized[b] prints, which were often sold as triptychs—which when placed together were little smaller than the kakemono-sized prints.[5] At least as early as 1718, Masanobus were some of the earliest urushi-e prints, printed with brass powder sprinkled on the ink, which created a lacquer effect. About 1721 Masanobu abandoned the publishers of his earlier works and opened his own wholesaler, Okumura-ya, in Tōri Shio-chō in Edo. His trade mark was a gourd-shaped sign, a mark he thereafter stamped on the works he printed.[6]
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2009 in film. The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films. Also in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of that year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five (the first time since the 1943 awards). Film critic Philip French of The Guardian said that 2009 began with the usual flurry of serious major movies given late December screenings in Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars. Theyre now forgotten or vaguely regarded as semi-classics: The Reader, Che, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, Gran Torino, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It soon became apparent that horror movies would be the dominant genre once again, with vampires the pre-eminent sub-species, the most profitable inevitably being New Moon, the latest in Stephenie Meyers Twilight saga, the best the subtle Swedish Let the Right One In and the worst the British horror spoof Lesbian Vampire Killers. Documentaries continued to flourish, introducing us to fascinating new worlds: Afghan TV talent shows (Afghan Star), Australian exploitation cinema (Not Quite Hollywood), haute couture (The September Issue). Animation thrived, the 3-D comeback threatened to become permanent rather than a gimmick, and the two were conjoined in a dozen 3-D animated features, the finest being DreamWorks Animations Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixars Up. Remakes and sequels abounded, none of any merit. The same went for films based on comic strips and graphic novels. British cinema generally bubbled in the doldrums. The well-acted Fish Tank was overrated, as was the dull costume drama The Young Victoria. The best films by native directors were fuelled by our obsession with soccer (Ken Loachs Looking for Eric and Tom Hoopers The Damned United) or directed by foreigners (New Zealander Jane Campions Bright Star, and two films by Danes: Nicholas Winding Refns Bronson and Lone Scherfigs An Education). The most original British film was Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlors low-key, low-budget Helen, a formally innovative look at provincial life. 2009 was a mostly undistinguished year for Hollywood, with indifferent films from Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Michael Mann (Public Enemies) and others, and deadly blockbusters such as Angels & Demons and 2012. The Coen brothers, however, were on form, examining their midwestern Jewish roots in A Serious Man, and Kathryn Bigelows The Hurt Locker was the best film yet about Iraq. From Europe we had several striking revisionist accounts of violent resistance to Nazi occupation in the second world war: Flammen & Citronen (Denmark), Max Manus: Man of War (Norway) and The Army of Crime (France). But they were drowned in the tsunami of Quentin Tarantinos lunatic second world war fantasy Inglourious Basterds. The most likable European picture was the Italian Mid-August Lunch, the directorial debut of 60-year-old Gianni Di Gregorio (screenwriter on Gomorrah), and the three most memorably argumentative and provocative were Paolo Sorrentinos Il Divo, Lars von Triers Antichrist and Michael Hanekes The White Ribbon. The performances I most enjoyed were impersonations: Meryl Streeps Julia Child (Julie & Julia) and Christian McKays Orson in Me and Orson Welles.[1] The top 10 films released in 2009 by worldwide gross are as follows:[2] Avatar surpassed Titanic as the highest-grossing film of all time on January 25, 2010.[3] Avatar then became the first film to earn more than $2 billion at the box office on January 31, 2010.[4] Avatar was surpassed by Avengers: Endgame as the highest-grossing film of all time on July 21, 2019.[5] Due to a re-release, Avatar retook the title from Endgame on March 13, 2021.[6] Palme dOr (62nd Cannes Film Festival):
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Queens University Belfast. The Queens University of Belfast, commonly known as Queens University Belfast (Irish: Ollscoil na Banríona; abbreviated Queens or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of the Queens University of Ireland and opened four years later, together with University of Galway (as Queens College, Galway) and University College Cork (as Queens College, Cork). Queens offers approximately 300 academic degree programmes at various levels.[6] The current president and vice-chancellor is Ian Greer. The annual income of the institution for 2023–24 was £474.2 million, of which £105.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £345.9 million.[1] Queens is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, Universities UK and Universities Ireland. The university is associated with two Nobel laureates and one Turing Award laureate. Queens University Belfast has roots in the Belfast Academical Institution, which was founded in 1810 and which remains as the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.[7] The present university was first chartered as Queens College, Belfast when it was associated with the simultaneously founded Queens College, Cork, and Queens College, Galway on 30 December 1845 as part of the Queens University of Ireland – founded to encourage higher education for Catholics and Presbyterians, as a counterpart to Trinity College, Dublin, then an almost exclusively Anglican institution.[7] Queens College, Belfast, opened in 1849.[7] Its main building, the Lanyon Building, was designed by the English-born architect, Sir Charles Lanyon. At its opening, it had 23 professors and 195 students.[8] Some early students at Queens University Belfast took University of London examinations.[9]
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Palace of Nations. The Palace of Nations (French: Palais des Nations, pronounced [palɛ de nɑsjɔ̃]) is the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva, located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was built between 1929 and 1938[2] to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. It has served as the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva since 1946 when the secretary-general of the United Nations signed a Headquarters Agreement with the Swiss authorities, although Switzerland did not become a member of the United Nations until 2002. In 2012, the Palace of Nations hosted more than 10,000 intergovernmental meetings.[3] The Palais Wilson was used until 1936 as the main building of the League. However, from 1920 to 1929, the Assembly met in Geneva at the Salle de la Réformation (in a building at the corner of Boulevard Helvétique and Rue du Rhône), then from 1930 to 1936 at the Bâtiment électoral or Palais Électoral (Rue du Général-Dufour 24, later used by the Red Cross affiliated International Prisoners-of-War Agency). For special sessions, the Assembly met at the Pavillon du désarmement adjacent to the Palais Wilson.[4] In 1937, the Assembly moved into the Assembly Hall of the Palace of Nations. An architectural competition held in the 1920s to choose a design for the complex described the project as follows:
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Lists of sovereign states and dependent territories. This is a list of lists of countries and territories by various criteria. A country or territory is a geographical area, either in the sense of nation (a cultural entity) or state (a political entity).[1] The production, distribution and consumption of goods and services: The study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets: The value of goods and services produced within a country:
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Dependent territory. A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state and remains politically outside the controlling states integral area. A dependent territory is commonly distinguished from a country subdivision by being considered not to be a constituent part of a sovereign state. An administrative subdivision, instead, is understood to be a division of a state proper. A dependent territory, conversely, often maintains a great degree of autonomy from its controlling state. Historically, most colonies were considered to be dependent territories. Not all autonomous entities are considered to be dependent territories.[1][failed verification] Most inhabited, dependent territories have their own ISO 3166 country codes. Some political entities inhabit a special position guaranteed by an international treaty or another agreement, thereby creating a certain level of autonomy (e.g. a difference in immigration rules). Those entities are sometimes considered to be, or are at least grouped with, dependent territories,[2] but are officially considered by their governing states to be an integral part of those states.[2] Such an example is Åland, an autonomous region of Finland. The lists below include the following: This list includes all territories that have not been legally incorporated into their governing state, including several territories that are not on the list of non-self-governing territories of the General Assembly of the United Nations.[3] All claims in Antarctica are listed in italics.
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Novelist. A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to support themselves in this way or write as an avocation. Most novelists struggle to have their debut novel published, but once published they often continue to be published, although very few become literary celebrities, thus gaining prestige or a considerable income from their work. Novelists come from a variety of backgrounds and social classes, and frequently this shapes the content of their works. Public reception of a novelists work, the literary criticism commenting on it, and the novelists incorporation of their own experiences into works and characters can lead to the authors personal life and identity being associated with a novels fictional content. For this reason, the environment within which a novelist works and the reception of their novels by both the public and publishers can be influenced by their demographics or identity. Similarly, some novelists have creative identities derived from their focus on different genres of fiction, such as crime, romance or historical novels. While many novelists compose fiction to satisfy personal desires, novelists and commentators often ascribe a particular social responsibility or role to novel writers. Many authors use such moral imperatives to justify different approaches to novel writing, including activism or different approaches to representing reality truthfully. Novelist is a term derivative from the term novel describing the writer of novels. The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes other definitions of novelist, first appearing in the 16th and 17th centuries to refer to either An innovator (in thought or belief); someone who introduces something new or who favours novelty or An inexperienced person; a novice.[1] However, the OED attributes the primary contemporary meaning of a writer of novels as first appearing in the 1633 book East-India Colation by C. Farewell citing the passage It beeing a pleasant observation (at a distance) to note the order of their Coaches and Carriages..As if (presented to a Novelist) it had bin the spoyles of a Tryumph leading Captive, or a preparation to some sad Execution[1] According to the Google Ngrams, the term novelist first appears in the Google Books database in 1521.[2] The difference between professional and amateur novelists often is the authors ability to publish. Many people take up novel writing as a hobby, but the difficulties of completing large scale fictional works of quality prevent the completion of novels. Once authors have completed a novel, they often will try to publish it. The publishing industry requires novels to have accessible profitable markets, thus many novelists will self-publish to circumvent the editorial control of publishers. Self-publishing has long been an option for writers, with vanity presses printing bound books for a fee paid by the writer. In these settings, unlike the more traditional publishing industry, activities usually reserved for a publishing house, like the distribution and promotion of the book, become the authors responsibility. The rise of the Internet and electronic books has made self publishing far less expensive and a realistic way for authors to realize income.
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Liam Neeson filmography. Liam Neeson is an Irish actor. Neeson has had an extensive career in film, television and stage. He made his professional acting debut playing Jesus Christ in the film Pilgrims Progress (1978). That same year he acted in the BBC anthology series Play for Today (1978). A few years later he made his stage debut in the Brian Friel play Translations (1980). He earned notoriety for his early roles as Gawain in the John Boorman medieval fantasy film Excalibur (1981), Charles Churchill in the Roger Donaldson historical drama The Bounty (1984), Father John Fielding in the Roland Joffé religious epic The Mission (1986), and a charming writer in the Woody Allen romantic comedy-drama Husbands and Wives (1992). Neeson gained prominence and acclaim for his leading role of Oskar Schindler in the Steven Spielbergs holocaust epic drama film Schindlers List (1993). He established himself as a leading man in a string of prestige films playing the title role of the romance drama Ethan Frome (1993), a town doctor in the drama film Nell (1994), the starring role in the historical drama Michael Collins (1996), and Jean Valjean in the costume drama Les Misérables (1998). He expanded his career gaining worldwide attention for his roles in franchise films such as Qui-Gon Jinn in the George Lucas space opera film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Henri Ducard / Ras al Ghul in the Christopher Nolan superhero film Batman Begins (2005), Aslan the Lion in the The Chronicles of Narnia series (2005–2010), and Zeus in Clash of the Titans (2010). He also acted in the Martin Scorsese historical epic Gangs of New York (2002), the British romantic comedy Love Actually (2003) and the historical drama Kinsey (2004). He then established himself as an action star taking the leading role as a father out for vengeance in the action drama Taken (2008) followed by Taken 2 (2012) and Taken 3 (2014). He then starred in several action films such as The Grey (2012), Non-Stop (2013), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Run All Night (2015), The Commuter (2018), Cold Pursuit (2019), Honest Thief (2020), Blacklight (2022), and In the Land of Saints and Sinners (2023). During this time he took roles in the fantasy drama A Monster Calls (2016), the historical epic Silence (2016), the western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), and noir-thriller Widows (2018). He took comedic roles playing John Hannibal Smith in the action comedy The A-Team (2010), an outlaw in the western comedy in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) and a bumbling officer in the crime comedy The Naked Gun (2025). On stage, he acted in Broadway revivals of the Eugene ONeill play Anna Christie (1992), the David Hare play The Judas Kiss (1998), and the Arthur Miller play The Crucible (2001). Neeson has been nominated for a number of awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. Empire magazine ranked Neeson among both the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History and The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time.[1]
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Screenwriter. A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television commercials, video games, and the growing area of online web series.[1] In the silent era, screenwriters were denoted by terms such as photoplaywright, photoplay writer, photoplay dramatist, and screen playwright.[2] Screenwriting historian Steven Maras notes that these early writers were often understood as being the authors of the films as shown, and argues that they could not be precisely equated with present-day screenwriters because they were responsible for a technical product, a brief scenario, treatment, or synopsis that is a written synopsis of what is to be filmed.[2] Screenwriting is typically a contracted freelance profession, not a hired position. No education is required to be a professional screenwriter, but good storytelling abilities and imagination give aspiring screenwriters an advantage. Many screenwriters start their careers doing speculative work (work on spec), practicing their screenwriting with no guaranteed financial compensation. If one of these scripts is sold, it is called a spec script. Amateur screenwriters will often pursue this work as writers in training, leading these spec scripts to often go uncredited or come from unknown screenwriters. Further separating professional and amateur screenwriters is that professionals are usually represented by a talent agency. These screenwriter-specific employment agencies work to handle the business side of the screenwriting job, typically taking on legal, financial, and other important representative roles for the screenwriter.[3] These professional screenwriters rarely work for free.
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Ballymena. Ballymena (/ˌbæliˈmiːnə/ BAL-ee-MEE-nə;[1] from Irish: an Baile Meánach [ənˠ ˌbˠalʲə ˈmʲaːn̪ˠəx]ⓘ, meaning the middle townland)[2] is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 31,205 people at the 2021 United Kingdom census, making it the seventh largest town in Northern Ireland by population.[3] It is part of the Borough of Mid and East Antrim. The town was built on the Braid River, on land given to the Adair family by King Charles I in 1626, with a right to hold two annual fairs and a Saturday market in perpetuity. Surrounding villages are Cullybackey, Ahoghill, Broughshane, and Kells-Connor. The recorded history of the Ballymena area dates to the Early Christian period, from the fifth to the seventh centuries. Ringforts are found in the townland of Ballykeel, and a site known as Camphill Fort in the townland of Ballee may also have been of this type. There are a number of souterrains within a 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) radius of the centre of Ballymena. Two miles (3.2 kilometres) north in the townland of Kirkinriola, the medieval parish church and graveyard show signs of Early Christian settlement, including a souterrain. Also in 1868, a gravedigger found a large stone slab on which was carved a cross with the inscription ord do degen. This refers to Bishop Degen, who lived in Ireland during the seventh century. This stone is now in the porch of St Patricks Church of Ireland, at the end of Castle Street. At the end of the fifth century, a church was founded in Connor, five miles (8.0 kilometres) south of Ballymena. This was followed by a monastery at Templemoyle, Kells. In 831, Vikings invaded the area and burned the church. In the late 12th century, the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland and conquered much of what is now eastern Ulster, creating the Earldom of Ulster. They built a motte-and-bailey fort in what is now the Harryville area of Ballymena. It is one of the best-surviving examples of this type of fortification in Northern Ireland.
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Kagoshima Prefecture. Kagoshima Prefecture (鹿児島県, Kagoshima-ken; Japanese pronunciation: [ka.ɡo.ɕi.ma, -maꜜ.keɴ, ka.ŋo-][2]) is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands.[3] Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 km2 (3,547 sq mi). Kagoshima Prefecture borders Kumamoto Prefecture to the north and Miyazaki Prefecture to the northeast. Kagoshima is the capital and largest city of Kagoshima Prefecture, with other major cities including Kirishima, Kanoya, and Satsumasendai.[4] Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southernmost point of Kyūshū and includes the Satsunan Islands group of the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefectures mainland territory extends from the Ariake Sea to Shibushi Bay on the Pacific Ocean coast, and is characterized by two large peninsulas created by Kagoshima Bay. Kagoshima Prefecture formed the core of the Satsuma Domain, ruled from Kagoshima Castle, one of the most important Japanese domains of the Edo period and the Meiji Restoration. Kagoshima Prefecture corresponds to the ancient Japanese provinces Ōsumi and Satsuma, including the northern part of the Ryukyu Islands (Satsunan).[5] This region played a key role in the Meiji Restoration (Saigō Takamori), and the city of Kagoshima was an important naval base during Japans 20th century wars and the home of admiral Tōgō Heihachirō. More recent incidents are the sinking of a North Korean spy ship (100 ton class) in 2001 by the Coast Guard, which was later salvaged and exhibited in Tokyo, and the abduction of an office clerk from a Kagoshima beach in 1978 by agents from the same country. This became known only recently under the Koizumi administration. The two main ethnic groups of Kagoshima Prefecture are the Japanese and the Ryukyuans (Amami Islands). Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu on the Satsuma Peninsula and Ōsumi Peninsula. This prefecture also includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest of Kyushu for a few hundred kilometers. The most important group is the Amami Islands. Surrounded by the East China Sea to the west, Okinawa Prefecture in the south, Kumamoto Prefecture to the north, and Miyazaki Prefecture to the east, it has 2,632 km (1,635 mi) of coastline (including the 28 islands). It has a bay called Kagoshima Bay (Kinkowan), which is sandwiched by two peninsulas, Satsuma and Ōsumi. Its position made it a gateway to Japan at various times in history. While Kyushu has about 13 million people, there are less than 2 million in this prefecture.
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Member states of the United Nations. The United Nations comprise 193 sovereign states and the worlds largest intergovernmental organization. All members have equal representation in the United Nations General Assembly.[3] The Charter of the United Nations defines the rules for admission of member states. Membership is open to all states which accept certain terms of the charter and are able to carry them out. New members must be recommended by the United Nations Security Council. In addition to the member states, the UN also invites non-member states to be observer states at the UN General Assembly. A member state that has persistently violated the principles of the United Nations Charter can be expelled from the United Nations.[4] The criteria for admission of new members to the UN are established in Chapter II, Article 4 of the UN Charter:[5]
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Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, 6th Baronet. Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 6th Baronet KStJ CVO DSO (10 September 1887 – 30 May 1969), also known by his pen name Henry Wade, was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire from 1954 to 1961.[1] He was also one of the leading authors during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Aubrey-Fletcher was the only son and second child of Sir Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 5th Baronet and Emily Harriet Wade (married 18 April 1882 St Anne, Soho, London). His father had already had another son by a previous marriage, but the child died in infancy. He was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford.[1] He fought in both the First World War and Second World War with the Grenadier Guards, being awarded the Distinguished Service Order[2] and French Croix de guerre[3] in 1917. He was a member of Buckinghamshire County Council and appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1925.[1] He played Minor counties cricket between 1921 and 1928 for Buckinghamshire.[4] He was also, under the pen name of Henry Wade, a noted mystery writer and one of the founding members of the Detection Club.[5]
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Belfast. Belfast (/ˈbɛlfæst/ ⓘ, /-fɑːst/;[a] from Irish: Béal Feirste [bʲeːlˠ ˈfʲɛɾˠ(ə)ʃtʲə]ⓘ)[3][4] is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel. It is the second-largest city in Ireland (after Dublin), with an estimated population of 348,005 in 2022,[2] and a metropolitan area population of 671,559.[5] First chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the towns early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians. Their descendants disaffection with Irelands Anglican establishment contributed to the rebellion of 1798, and to the union with Great Britain in 1800—later regarded as a key to the towns industrial transformation. When granted city status in 1888, Belfast was the worlds largest centre of linen manufacture, and by the 1900s her shipyards were building up to a quarter of total United Kingdom tonnage. Sectarian tensions existed with the Irish Catholic population that was drawn by mill and factory employment from western districts. Heightened by division over Irelands future in the United Kingdom, these twice erupted in periods of sustained violence: in 1920–22, as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six northeast counties retaining the British connection, and over three decades from the late 1960s during which the British Army was continually deployed on the streets. A legacy of conflict is the barrier-reinforced separation of Protestant and Catholic working-class districts. Since the Good Friday Agreement, the electoral balance in the once unionist-controlled city has shifted, albeit with no overall majority, in favour of Irish nationalists. At the same time, new immigrants are adding to the growing number of residents unwilling to identify with either of the two communal traditions.
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Tokusatsu. Tokusatsu (特撮; lit. special filming) is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, tokusatsu mainly refers to science fiction, superhero, fantasy, or horror media featuring such technology but is also occasionally dubbed a genre itself. Its contemporary use originated in the Japanese mass media around 1958 to explain special effects in an easy-to-understand manner and was popularized during the first monster boom (1966–1968). Prior to the monster boom, it was known in Japan as tokushu gijutsu (特殊技術; lit. special technology) or shortened tokugi (特技; lit. special technique).[1] Subgenres of tokusatsu include kaiju such as the Godzilla and Gamera series; superhero such as the Kamen Rider and Metal Hero series; Kyodai Hero like Ultraman, and Denkou Choujin Gridman; and mecha like Giant Robo and Super Robot Red Baron. Some tokusatsu television programs combine several of these subgenres, for example, the Super Sentai series. Tokusatsu is one of the most popular forms of Japanese entertainment, but only a small proportion of tokusatsu films and television programs are widely known outside of Japan. Nevertheless, certain properties have attained popularity outside of Japan; for example, Godzilla has featured in popular American-made movies. Tokusatsu has origins in early Japanese theater, specifically in kabuki (with its action and fight scenes) and in bunraku, which utilized some of the earliest forms of special effects, specifically puppetry.[citation needed] Japanese cinema pioneer Shōzō Makino is credited as the founding father of tokusatsu techniques, having directed several jidaigeki films starring Matsunosuke Onoe that featured special effects.[2] Makinos effects work inspired filmmaker Yoshirō Edamasa to employ such technology in his own movies, notably Journey to the West (1917) and The Great Buddha Arrival (1934).[2]
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Natasha Richardson. Natasha Jane Richardson (11 May 1963 – 18 March 2009) was a British actress. A part of the Redgrave family, Richardson was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. She was married to Liam Neeson. Early in her career, Richardson portrayed Mary Shelley in Ken Russells Gothic (1986) and Patty Hearst in the eponymous 1988 biopic film directed by Paul Schrader and later received critical acclaim and a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 1993 revival of Anna Christie. Richardson also appeared in The Handmaids Tale (1990), Nell (1994), The Parent Trap (1998), Maid in Manhattan (2002), and The White Countess (2005). For playing Sally Bowles in the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Richardson died in 2009 at the age of 45 from a head injury after a skiing accident in Quebec.[1]
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Order of the British Empire. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities.[2] It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or a dame if female.[3] There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with the order, but are not members of it. The order was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V, who created the order to recognise such persons, male or female, as may have rendered or shall hereafter render important services to Our Empire.[3] Equal recognition was to be given for services rendered in the UK and overseas.[4] Today, the majority of recipients are UK citizens, though a number of Commonwealth realms outside the UK continue to make appointments to the order.[5] Honorary awards may be made to citizens of other nations of which the orders sovereign is not the head of state. The five classes of appointment to the Order are, from highest grade to lowest grade: The senior two ranks of Knight or Dame Grand Cross and Knight or Dame Commander entitle their members to use the titles Sir for men and Dame for women before their forenames, except with honorary awards.[6]
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Mystery fiction. Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story.[1] Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader.[2] Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. Mystery fiction can involve a supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, whose titles such as Dime Mystery, Thrilling Mystery, and Spicy Mystery offered what were then described as complicated to solve and weird stories: supernatural horror in the vein of Grand Guignol. That contrasted with parallel titles of the same names which contained conventional hardboiled crime fiction. The first use of mystery in that sense was by Dime Mystery, which started out as an ordinary crime fiction magazine but switched to weird menace during the later part of 1933.[3] The genre of mystery novels is a young form of literature that has developed since the early 19th century. The rise of literacy began in the years of the English Renaissance and, as people began to read over time, they became more individualistic in their thinking. As people became more individualistic in their thinking, they developed a respect for human reason and the ability to solve problems.[4][5] Perhaps a reason that mystery fiction was unheard of before the 19th century was due in part to the lack of true police forces. Before the Industrial Revolution, many towns would have constables and a night watchman at best. Naturally, the constable would be aware of every individual in the town, and crimes were either solved quickly or left unsolved entirely. As people began to crowd into cities, police forces became institutionalized, and the need for detectives was realized – thus the mystery novel arose.[6]
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Constable & Robinson. Constable & Robinson Ltd. is a British book publisher. It serves as an imprint of Little, Brown, publishing fiction and non-fiction books and ebooks. Constable & Co. was founded in 1795 in Edinburgh, Scotland by Archibald Constable, and became the publisher of works by Sir Walter Scott. In 1827, following the death of his father, Thomas Constable took over the company. In 1860, Thomas Constable sold the publishing part of his business to Edmonston & Douglas, while continuing the printing activities of his firm. In 1861, the company employed 50 compositors for printing work. In 1865, Thomas son Archibald joined the firm as a partner and the firm began publishing as T. & A. Constable Ltd. In 1897, Constable released the well-known horror novel, Bram Stokers The Un-Dead, albeit with a last-minute title change to Dracula. In 1813, the company was the first publishing company to give an author advance against royalties. [citation needed]
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Geneva. Geneva (/dʒɪˈniːvə/ jin-EE-və,[5] Arpitan: [dzəˈnɛva] ⓘ; French: Genève [ʒ(ə)nɛv] ⓘ)[note 1] is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic and Canton of Geneva. Geneva is a global city, an international financial centre, and a worldwide centre for diplomacy, which has led to it being called the Peace Capital.[6] It hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world,[7] including the headquarters of many agencies of the United Nations[8] and the ICRC and IFRC of the Red Cross.[9] It was where the Geneva Conventions on humanitarian treatment in war were signed, and, in the aftermath of World War I, it hosted the League of Nations. It shares a unique distinction with municipalities such as New York City, Bonn, Basel, and Strasbourg as a city which serves as the headquarters of at least one critical international organization without being the capital of a country.[10][11][12] The city of Geneva (Ville de Genève) had a population of 203,856 in January 2021[13] within its municipal territory of 16 km2 (6 sq mi).[14] The Geneva metropolitan area as officially defined by Eurostat,[15] including suburbs and exurbs in Vaud and the French departments of Ain and Haute-Savoie, extends over 2,292 km2 (885 sq mi)[16] and had a population of 1,053,436 in 2021.[17] The Canton of Geneva, the Nyon District, and the Pôle métropolitain du Genevois français [fr] (a federation of eight French intercommunal councils), form the Grand Genève (Greater Geneva), a Local Grouping of Transnational Cooperation [fr] in charge of organizing cooperation within the cross-border metropolitan area of Geneva.[18] The Grand Genève GLCT extends over 1,996 km2 (771 sq mi)[19] and had a population of 1,046,168, with 58.3% of them living on Swiss territory, and 41.7% on French territory.[20] In 2025, Geneva was ranked as the worlds fifteenth most important financial centre by the Global Financial Centres Index, fourth in Europe behind London, Frankfurt and Dublin.[21] In 2024, Geneva was ranked as the third most liveable city in the world by Mercer,[22] as well as the fourth most expensive city in the world.[23] In a UBS ranking of global cities in 2018, Geneva was ranked first for gross earnings, second most expensive, and fourth in purchasing power.[24]
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Crime fiction. Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder.[1] Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction and science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has several subgenres,[2] including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Proto-science and crime fictions have been composed across history, and in this category can be placed texts as varied as the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, the Mahabharata from ancient India, the Book of Tobit, Urashima Tarō from ancient Japan, the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), and more.[3] One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of The Three Apples, one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights. In this tale, a fisherman discovers a heavy locked chest along the Tigris River, and he sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, who then has the chest broken open, only to find inside it the dead body of a young woman who was cut into pieces. Harun orders his vizier, Jafar ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days, or be executed if he fails his assignment.[4] The story has been described as a whodunit murder mystery[5] with multiple plot twists.[6] The story has detective fiction elements.[7] Two other Arabian Nights stories, The Merchant and the Thief and Ali Khwaja, contain two of the earliest fictional detectives, who uncover clues and present evidence to catch or convict a criminal, with the story unfolding in normal chronology and the criminal already being known to the audience. The latter involves a climax where titular detective protagonist Ali Khwaja presents evidence from expert witnesses in a court.[8] The Hunchbacks Tale is another early courtroom drama, presented as a suspenseful comedy.[3] The earliest known modern crime fiction is E. T. A. Hoffmanns 1819 novella Mademoiselle de Scudéri. Also, Thomas Skinner Surrs anonymous Richmond is from 1827; another early full-length short story in the genre is The Rector of Veilbye by Danish author Steen Steensen Blicher, published in 1829. A further example of crime detection can be found in Letitia Elizabeth Landons story The Knife, published in 1832, although here the truth remains in doubt at the end.
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Chicago. Chicago[a] is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the third-most populous city in the United States with a population of 2.74 million at the 2020 census,[9] while the Chicago metropolitan area has 9.41 million residents and is the third-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Chicago is the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the United States. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century.[10][11] In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless,[12] but Chicagos population continued to grow.[11] Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.[13][14] Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It has the largest and most diverse finance derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone.[15] OHare International Airport is routinely ranked among the worlds top ten busiest airports by passenger traffic,[16] and the region is also the nations railroad hub.[17] The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018.[18] Chicagos economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.[15] Chicago is a major destination for tourism, with 55 million visitors in 2024 to its cultural institutions, Lake Michigan beaches, restaurants, and more.[19][20] Chicagos culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel,[21] and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Professional sports in Chicago include all major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams. The city also hosts the Chicago Marathon, one of the World Marathon Majors.
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Fable. Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphised, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters.[1] Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, μῦθος (mythos) was rendered by the translators as fable[2] in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter.[3] The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree,[4] less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country. The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesops Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic Prince Alexander, he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of myth that Aesop had introduced to the sons of the Hellenes had been an invention of Syrians from the time of Ninos (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos (ruler).[5] Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables.[6] Many familiar fables of Aesop include The Crow and the Pitcher, The Tortoise and the Hare and The Lion and the Mouse.
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Folklore. Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture.[1] This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions.[2][3] This also includes material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also encompasses customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, including folk religion, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as festivals, weddings, folk dances, and initiation rites.[2] Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain from a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another, either through verbal instruction or demonstration.[4] The academic study of folklore is called folklore studies or folkloristics, and it can be explored at the undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. levels.[5] The word folklore, a compound of folk and lore, was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms,[6] who contrived the term as a replacement for the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature. The second half of the word, lore, comes from Old English lār instruction. It is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group frequently passed along by word of mouth.[7][8] The concept of folk has varied over time. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, and illiterate peasants. A more modern definition of folk is a social group that includes two or more people with common traits who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a flexible concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family.[9] This expanded social definition of folk supports a broader view of the material, i.e., the lore, considered to be folklore artifacts. These now include all things people make with words (verbal lore), things they make with their hands (material lore), and things they make with their actions (customary lore).[10] Folklore are no longer considered to be limited to that which is old or obsolete. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, and always in multiple variants. The folk group is not individualistic; it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, computer programmers.[11] In direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within a common social group.[12]
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Picaresque (album). Picaresque is the third studio album from The Decemberists. It was released in 2005 on the Kill Rock Stars record label. The word picaresque refers to a form of satirical prose originating in Spain, depicting realistically and often humorously the adventures of a low-born, roguish hero living by their wits in a corrupt society.[2] The album was recorded at the Prescott Church in northeast Portland, which the band rented for one month in the summer of 2004. To facilitate the creative process and avoid creative block, band members filled a used bike helmet with slips of paper listing strategies and ideas to try out. Non-traditional rock instruments used in the albums recording included an accordion and a hurdy-gurdy. The album was produced by Chris Walla, also the guitarist for the band Death Cab for Cutie.[3] The album includes the track Sixteen Military Wives, the music video of which was distributed by the band via BitTorrent.[4] A double vinyl version was released in the United States that contained the album on the first three sides with an EP of outtakes named Picaresqueties on the fourth side.[5] This EP was the bands final release for the Kill Rock Stars label. In Europe, a single-disc vinyl version was released on Rough Trade without the Picaresqueties EP; the first six tracks appear on Side A, and the final five are on Side B.[6] A limited edition tenth anniversary pressing of the album on red vinyl was released for Record Store Day 2015. It was formatted as three sides, with the tracks from the Picaresqueties EP as the fourth side.
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Folk play. Folk plays such as Hoodening, Guising, Mummers Play and Soul Caking are generally verse sketches performed in countryside pubs in European countries, private houses or the open air, at set times of the year such as the Winter or Summer solstices or Christmas and New Year. Many have long traditions, although they are frequently updated to retain their relevance for contemporary audiences. With the rise in folklore studies as an academic discipline, research into folk plays has increased. Notable organizations in this area (in the UK in particular, often centred on Yorkshire) have included: In addition, although the Morris dance has no direct link with folk plays, members of the Morris Federation, Open Morris and Morris Ring often perform mumming plays on the side. This theatre-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Family law. Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations.[1] Subjects that commonly fall under a nations body of family law include: This list is not exhaustive and varies depending on jurisdiction. Issues may arise in family law where there is a question as to the laws of the jurisdiction that apply to the marriage relationship or to custody and divorce, and whether a divorce or child custody order is recognized under the laws of another jurisdiction.[8][9][10][11] For child custody, many nations have joined the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in order to grant recognition to other member states custody orders and avoid issues of parental kidnapping.[12]
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Legitimacy. Legitimacy, from the Latin legitimare meaning to make lawful, may refer to:
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Lazarillo de Tormes. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities (Spanish: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades [la ˈβiða ðe laθaˈɾiʎo ðe ˈtoɾmes i ðe sus foɾˈtunas jaðβeɾsiˈðaðes]) is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its anticlerical content. The oldest editions were published in 1554 in four different locations : Alcalá de Henares, Burgos and Medina del Campo in Spain and Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. It is assumed that they were not the original edition of the novella, which was published at an unknown date.[1] The Alcalá de Henares edition adds some episodes which were most likely written by a second author. Lazarillo de Tormes is the first book establishing the style of the picaresque satirical novel. Lázaro is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca. After his stepfather is accused of thievery, his mother asks a wily blind beggar to take on Lazarillo (little Lázaro) as his apprentice. Lázaro develops his cunning while serving the blind beggar and several other masters, while also learning to take on his fathers practice. Table of contents: *(or treatise) Besides its importance in the Spanish literature of the Golden Age, Lazarillo de Tormes is credited with founding a literary genre, the picaresque novel, from the Spanish word pícaro, meaning rogue or rascal. In novels of this type, the adventures of the pícaro expose injustice while amusing the reader. This extensive genre includes Cervantes Rinconete y Cortadillo and El coloquio de los perros, Henry Fieldings Tom Jones and Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Its influence extends to twentieth century novels, dramas and films featuring the anti-hero.
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John Romeril. John Henry Romeril AM (born 1945) is an Australian playwright and teacher. He has written around 60 plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, and is known for his 1975 play The Floating World. John Henry Romeril was born in 1945 and grew up in Melbourne, living in Moorabbin until 1966. He attended Bentleigh West State School, Brighton Tech., and Brighton High Schools, and then undertook a BA at Monash University, graduating in 1970 with majors in English Literature and Politics.[1] Over the course of his career, Romeril wrote plays for theatre, film, radio, and television, including stage, musicals, puppet theatre, pantomimes, and street theatre.[2] In 1968 he became involved with La Mama Theatre, which had been established in that year by Betty Burstall. In 1969 a group involved with the theatre founded the Australian Performing Group (APG) in 1970 established the Pram Factory. The APG went on to perform many of Romerils plays, which were performed at the Pram Factory. Romeril also worked collaboratively with other APG writers, including Jack Hibberd and Tim Robertson.[1] His first plays, I Dont Know Who To Feel Sorry For (1969) and Chicago, Chicago (1970) were written while he was still a student.[3]
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Helen Mirren. Dame Helen Mirren (/ˈmɪrən/; born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff;[a] 26 July 1945) is an English actor. With a career spanning over six decades of screen and stage, her accolades include an Academy Award, five Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a BAFTA Film Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. She is the only person to have achieved both the US and UK Triple Crowns of Acting, and has also received the BAFTA Fellowship, Honorary Golden Bear, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Mirren was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.[11][12] Mirren started her career at the age of 18 as a performer with the National Youth Theatre, where she played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1965). She later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and made her West End stage debut in 1975. She went on to receive the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for playing Elizabeth II in the Peter Morgan play The Audience (2013). She reprised the role on Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She was Tony-nominated for A Month in the Country (1995) and The Dance of Death (2002). Mirrens first credited film role was in Herostratus (1967) and her first major role was in Age of Consent (1969). She gained further recognition for her roles in O Lucky Man! (1973), Caligula (1979), The Long Good Friday (1980), Excalibur (1981), The Mosquito Coast (1986), and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989). She received Academy Award nominations for her performances in The Madness of King George (1994) and Gosford Park (2001), before winning Best Actress for her portrayal of Elizabeth II in the drama The Queen (2006). She was nominated again for her performance in The Last Station (2009), and went on to appear in further films such as The Tempest (2010), Hitchcock (2012), Eye in the Sky (2015), and Trumbo (2015). She has also appeared in the action film Red (2010) and its 2013 sequel, as well as four films in the Fast & Furious franchise. On television, Mirren played DCI Jane Tennison in ITVs police procedural Prime Suspect (1991–2006), for which she earned three British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress and two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie.[13] She also earned Emmy Awards for portraying Ayn Rand in the Showtime television film The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999) and Queen Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I (2005).[14] Her other television roles include Door to Door (2002), Phil Spector (2013), Catherine the Great (2019), 1923 (2022), and MobLand (2025).
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Monarch. A monarch (/ˈmɒnərk/) is a head of state[1][2] for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, or others may wield that power on behalf of the monarch. Usually, a monarch either personally inherits the lawful right to exercise the states sovereign rights (often referred to as the throne or the crown) or is selected by an established process from a family or cohort eligible to provide the nations monarch. Alternatively, an individual may proclaim oneself monarch, which may be backed and legitimated through acclamation, right of conquest or a combination of means. If a young child is crowned the monarch, then a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. Monarchs actual powers vary from one monarchy to another and in different eras; on one extreme, they may be autocrats (absolute monarchy) wielding genuine sovereignty; on the other they may be ceremonial heads of state who exercise little or no direct power or only reserve powers, with actual authority vested in a parliament or other body (constitutional monarchy). A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously. For example, the 15 Commonwealth realms are all separate sovereign states, but share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles – king or queen, prince or princess (e.g., Sovereign Prince of Monaco), emperor or empress (e.g., Emperor of China, Emperor of Ethiopia, Emperor of Japan, Emperor of India), archduke, duke or grand duke (e.g., Grand Duke of Luxembourg), emir (e.g., Emir of Qatar), sultan (e.g., Sultan of Oman), or pharaoh. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is generally (but not always) associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family (whose rule over a period of time is referred to as a dynasty) and trained for future duties. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood (male preference or absolute), primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. While traditionally most monarchs have been male, female monarchs have also ruled, and the term queen regnant refers to a ruling monarch, as distinct from a queen consort, the wife of a reigning king.
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Fairy tale. A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale,[1] magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre.[2] Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies.[3] Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described)[4] and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, monarchy, pixies, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments. In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in fairy-tale ending (a happy ending)[5] or fairy-tale romance. Colloquially, the term fairy tale or fairy story can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially to describe any story that not only is not true, but also could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real within their culture; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place once upon a time rather than in actual times.[6] Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form (literary fairy tale); the name fairy tale (conte de fées in French) was first ascribed to them by Madame dAulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of todays fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world.[7] The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because often only the literary forms survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, some to the Bronze Age.[8][9] Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.
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Japan (disambiguation). Japan is an archipelagic country in East Asia, located in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Japan may also refer to:
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Vagrancy. Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants[a] usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, vagrancy was historically a crime punishable with forced labor, military service, imprisonment, or confinement to dedicated labor houses. Both vagrant and vagabond ultimately derive from the Latin word vagari, meaning to wander. The term vagabond and its archaic equivalent vagabone come from Latin vagabundus (strolling about). In Middle English, vagabond originally denoted a person without a home or employment.[2] Vagrants have been historically characterised as outsiders in settled, ordered communities: embodiments of otherness, objects of scorn or mistrust, or worthy recipients of help and charity.[citation needed] Some ancient sources show vagrants as passive objects of pity, who deserve generosity and the gift of alms. Others show them as subversives, or outlaws, who make a parasitical living through theft, fear and threat.[citation needed]
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Folk music. Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a peoples folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms.[1] Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. Folk music is fascinating – in that just about everybody and their uncle has an opinion on what it is, and what it isn’t! The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes.[3] The term further derives from the German expression Volk, in the sense of the people as a whole as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier.[4] Though it is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive.[5][6] Some do not even agree that the term folk music should be used.[5] Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics[3] but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers,[7] another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary process of oral transmission... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character.[8]
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Jack Charles. Jack Charles (5 September 1943 – 13 September 2022), also known as Uncle Jack Charles, was an Australian stage and screen actor and activist, known for his advocacy for Aboriginal people. He was involved in establishing the first Indigenous theatre in Australia, co-founding Nindethana Theatre with Bob Maza in Melbourne in 1971. His film credits include the Australian film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), among others, and more recently appeared in TV series Cleverman (2016) and Preppers (2021). He spent many decades in and out of prison and as a heroin addict, which he ascribed largely to trauma that he experienced as a child, as one of the Stolen Generations. In later life he became a mentor for Aboriginal youth in the prison system along with musician Archie Roach, and was revered as an elder. As a gay man, Charles was considered a gay icon and role model for LGBTQI+ Indigenous youth. Among other awards and honours, he was Victorian Senior Australian of the Year in 2015, and Male Elder of the Year in the 2022 National NAIDOC Week Awards. Jack Charles was born on 5 September 1943 at the Royal Womens Hospital, Carlton, in Melbourne, Victoria,[1][2] to a Bunurong mother, Blanche,[3] who was 15 years old at the time,[2] and a Wiradjuri father, Hilton. Charles great-great-grandfather was a Djadjawurrung man, among the activists who resisted government policy at the Coranderrk reserve in Victoria in 1881.[4]
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Monarchy. A monarchy is a hereditary form of government in which political power is legally passed on to the family members of the monarch, a head of state who rules for life.[1] While monarchs gain their power depending on specific succession laws, they can also gain their authority via election.[2] Monarchies were the most common form of government until the 20th century, when republics replaced many monarchies, notably at the end of World War I.[3][4] As of 2024[update], forty-three sovereign nations in the world have a monarch, including fifteen Commonwealth realms that share King Charles III as their head of state. Other than that, there is a range of sub-national monarchical entities. Most of the modern monarchies are constitutional monarchies, retaining under a constitution unique legal and ceremonial roles for monarchs exercising limited or no political power, similar to heads of state in a parliamentary republic.[4] The word monarch first appeared in the mid-15th century as monark, meaning “a supreme governor for life, a sole or autocratic ruler of a state.” It comes from the Old French monarche (14th century, Modern French monarque) and directly from the Late Latin monarcha, which in turn derives from the Greek monarkhēs, meaning “one who rules alone” (see monarchy).[5] The term monarchy dates back to the mid-14th century, when it referred to a kingdom or territory ruled by a monarch, and by the late 14th century it also meant rule by a single person with supreme power. It comes from Old French monarchie (13th century), meaning “sovereignty” or “absolute power,” which was borrowed from Late Latin monarchia and ultimately from Greek monarkhia, “absolute rule,” literally “ruling of one,” from monos (“alone”) and arkhein (“to rule”).[6] The similar form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric. Chiefdoms provided the concept of state formation, which started with civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley civilization.[7] In some parts of the world, chiefdoms became monarchies.[8] Some of the oldest recorded and evidenced monarchies were Narmer, Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt c. 3100 BCE, and Enmebaragesi, a Sumerian King of Kish c. 2600 BCE.
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Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese: 天命; pinyin: Tiānmìng; Wade–Giles: Tien1-ming4; lit. Heavens command) is a Chinese political doctrine that was used in Ancient China and Imperial China to legitimize the rule of the king or emperor of China.[1] According to this doctrine, Heaven (天, Tian) bestows its mandate[a] on a virtuous ruler, called the Son of Heaven (天子, Tianzi), who is the supreme universal monarch that will rule the world (天下, Tianxia; [all] under heaven).[3] If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler and his dynasty were unworthy and had lost the Mandate.[4] It was also a common belief that natural disasters such as famine and flood were divine retributions bearing signs of Heavens displeasure with the ruler, so there would often be revolts following major disasters as the people saw these calamities as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn.[5] The Mandate of Heaven does not require a legitimate ruler to be of noble birth. Chinese dynasties such as the Han and Ming were founded by men of common origins, but they were seen as having succeeded because they had gained the Mandate of Heaven. Retaining the mandate is contingent on the just and able performance of the rulers and their heirs. Corollary to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler. The Mandate of Heaven was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that had few other checks. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that Heaven had withdrawn its mandate from the ruler. Throughout Chinese history, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement. The classical statement of the legitimacy of rebellion against an unjust ruler, found in the Mencius, was often edited out of that text. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven also extends to the rulers family having divine rights[1] and was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty to legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty. It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new dynasties, including by non-Han dynasties such as the Qing dynasty. The Mandate of Heaven has been called the Zhou dynastys most important contribution to Chinese political thought,[6] but it coexisted and interfaced with other theories of sovereign legitimacy, including abdication to the worthy and five phases theory. The prosperous Shang dynasty saw its rule filled with multiple outstanding accomplishments. Notably, the dynasty lasted for a considerable time during which 31 kings ruled over an extended period of 17 generations. The rule of the Shang kings has been described as hegemonic. Royal authority flowed from the person of the king, enforced by his military. Neighbouring clans were allied through marriage and adopted into the Shang ancestral temple.[7]
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Nippon (disambiguation). Nippon is a formal way of pronouncing the native name of Japan (日本). Nippon may also refer to:
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Family. Family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order.[1] Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as members mature and learn to participate in the community.[2] Historically, most human societies use family as the primary purpose of attachment, nurturance, and socialization.[3][4][5][6] Anthropologists classify most family organizations as matrifocal (a mother and her children), patrifocal (a father and his children), conjugal (a married couple with children, also called the nuclear family), avuncular (a man, his sister, and her children), or extended (in addition to parents, spouse and children, may include grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins). The field of genealogy aims to trace family lineages through history. The family is also an important economic unit studied in family economics. The word families can be used metaphorically to create more inclusive categories such as community, nationhood, and global village. One of the primary functions of the family involves providing a framework for the production and reproduction of persons biologically and socially. This can occur through the sharing of material substances (such as food); the giving and receiving of care and nurture (nurture kinship); jural rights and obligations; also moral and sentimental ties.[8][9] Thus, ones experience of ones family shifts over time.
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Nihon (disambiguation). Nihon is a formal way of pronouncing the native name of Japan (日本). Nihon may also refer to:
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Divine right of kings. Divine right of kings, divine right, or Gods mandation,[dubious – discuss] is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy of a monarchy in Western Christianity during the Age of Absolutism. It is also known as the divine-right theory of kingship. The doctrine asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any earthly authority (such as a parliament or the Pope) because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. Thus, the monarch is not subject to the will of the people, of the aristocracy, or of any other estate of the realm. It follows that only divine authority can judge a monarch, and that any attempt to depose, dethrone, resist or restrict their powers runs contrary to Gods will and may constitute a sacrilegious act. It does not imply that their power is absolute.[1]: 858 In its full-fledged form, the Divine Right of Kings is associated with Henry VIII of England (and the Acts of Supremacy), James VI and I of Scotland and England, Louis XIV of France, and their successors. It is important to understand the medieval context from which the Divine Right of Kings and the Age of Absolutism emerge. This medieval political system, often summarised by the concept of the Res publica Christiana, was far more decentralised and had no concept of absolute monarchical power as held by rulers of the 17th and 18th centuries. In that older system, the legitimacy of a regime was ultimately derivative of Eternal Law (Lex Aeterna), i.e. the divine blueprint for the order of the world, in which humans, by virtue of being rational creatures, participate, giving them knowledge of Natural Law (Lex Naturalis). The Natural Law is universal, but is determined locally by custom, which generates Human Law (Lex Humana). This hierarchical order from eternal to natural to human law is most famously articulated by Thomas Aquinas, and meant that a medieval regime, such as a monarchy, was legitimate so long as it ruled in accordance with that order, obligating the ruler to govern in accordance with Natural Law and to protect local customs. The Church, unsurprisingly, held ultimate authority in interpreting whether a king complied with Natural Law and thus maintained his Divine Mandation, which was the signature feature of the pan-European political order of the Res publica Christiana. This is why Excommunication was dreaded by medieval kings, as it formally invalidated the legitimacy of their rule and gave the Church in Rome Papal deposing power. The power of a king was, consequently, far from absolute, and was furthermore shared with other political institutions of medieval society, such as parliaments (e.g. the Cortes Generales in Iberia) and a powerful nobility. This division was encouraged by the Church and political theory of the time, with Thomas Aquinas promoting constitutional monarchy checked by a strong parliament as the preferred form of government. All this was dramatically changed first by the Reformation, then by the Thirty Years War, which demoted the Church from ultimate political authority and developed the idea of kings as rulers under the authority of God alone, whence the Divine Right of Kings and the onset of Absolutism. The Divine Rights of Kings plays an important role in the development of legal rights qua rights. Its focus on the individual of the monarch stands in contrast to the conception of non-hierarchical, universal human rights, which started being developed in the Middle Ages by scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas (see Natural Law) and were systematised by the thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, e.g. John Locke. Liberty, dignity, freedom and equality are examples of important human rights. Divine right has been a key element of the self-legitimization of many absolute monarchies, connected with their authority and right to rule. Related but distinct notions include Caesaropapism (the complete subordination of bishops etc. to the secular power), Supremacy (the legal sovereignty of the civil laws over the laws of the Church), Absolutism (a form of monarchical or despotic power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites) or Tyranny (an absolute ruler who is unrestrained even by moral law).
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JPN (disambiguation). Japan an island country in East Asia. (JPN is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for the country) JPN may also refer to:
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Okuchichibu Mountains. Okuchichibu Mountains (奥秩父山塊, Okuchichibu Sankai) or the Okuchichibu Mountainous Region (奥秩父山地, Okuchichibu Sanchi) is a mountainous district in the Kantō region and Kōshinetsu region, Japan. It covers the western part of Tokyo, the western part of Saitama Prefecture, the southwestern part of Gunma Prefecture, the southeastern part of Nagano Prefecture, and the northern part of Yamanashi Prefecture. Oku (奥, oku) means the interior, Okuchichibu means the interior of Chichibu (秩父, chichibu). The meaning of the word Okuchichibu is based on the point of view from the Kantō region. This mountain area consists of folded mountains and ranges from 1000 to 2600 meters in height. Mount Kita Okusenjō (北奥千丈岳, Kita Okusenjō-dake) is the highest at 2601m. Most of the range lies in the Chichibu Tama Kai National Park (秩父多摩甲斐国立公園, Chichibu Tama Kai Kokuritsu Kōen).[1] Some of the mountains in the Okuchichibu Mountains include: This Gunma Prefecture location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This Nagano Prefecture location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Seiyu (disambiguation). Seiyū (声優) is the Japanese word for voice actor. Seiyu may also refer to:
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Heir apparent (disambiguation). An heir apparent is someone likely to inherit a throne or title. Heir Apparent may also refer to
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Spanish language. Spanish (español) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with 498 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 600 million speakers total, including second-language speakers.[1] Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations.[4][5] Spanish is the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese;[6][7] the worlds fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the worlds most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.[8] Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group, in which the language is also known as Castilian (castellano). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century,[9] and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas.[10] As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.[11][12] Alongside English and French, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world.[13] Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences.[14] Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese[15] and the second most used language by number of websites after English.[16] Spanish is used as an official language by many international organizations, including the United Nations, European Union, Organization of American States, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, African Union, and others.[4]
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Lycoris radiata. Lycoris radiata, known as the red spider lily, red magic lily, corpse flower, or equinox flower, is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae.[3] It is originally from China, Japan, Korea and Nepal[1] and spread from there to the United States and elsewhere. It is considered naturalized in Seychelles and in the Ryukyu Islands.[4] It flowers in the late summer or autumn, often in response to heavy rainfall. The common name hurricane lily refers to this characteristic,[5] as do other common names, such as resurrection lily;[5] these may be used for the genus as a whole. Lycoris radiata is a bulbous perennial with showy, bright-red flowers. When in full bloom, spindly stamens, likened to the image of spider legs, extend slightly upward and outward from the flowers center.[6] The flowers of the plant generally appear around late August to early September, before the leaves fully develop, on scapes rising 30–70 centimetres (12–28 in) from the ground. Four to six 2-inch long flowers, arranged in umbels, perch atop each plant stalk.[7] Individual flowers are irregular, with narrow segments which curve backwards.[8] The leaves, which tend to emerge in October, are a greyish-green color, parallel-sided, 0.5–1 cm (1⁄4–3⁄8 in) wide and feature a paler central stripe. The plant retains its leaves throughout the winter season, but will begin to shed them away as temperatures start to warm in late spring.[7] The presumed original form of Lycoris radiata, known as L. radiata var. pumila, occurs only in China. It is a diploid, with 11 pairs of chromosomes (2N = 22), and is able to reproduce by seed. Triploid forms, with 33 chromosomes, are known as L. radiata var. radiata. These are widespread in China and also in Japan, from where the species was introduced into cultivation in America and elsewhere. The triploid forms are sterile, and reproduce only vegetatively, via bulbs. The Japanese triploids are genetically uniform. It has been suggested that they were introduced into Japan from China along with rice cultivation.[9] In phylogenetic analyses based on chloroplast genes, Hori et al. found that all the other species of Lycoris they examined were nested within Lycoris radiata. They suggest that the species of Lycoris presently recognized may not be distinct.[9]
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United Kingdom. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain,[m] is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.[n] The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2).[f] Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. The UK has been inhabited continuously since the Neolithic. In AD 43 the Roman conquest of Britain began. The Roman departure was followed by Anglo-Saxon settlement. In 1066 the Normans conquered England. With the end of the Wars of the Roses the Kingdom of England stabilised and began to grow in power, resulting by the 16th century in the annexation of Wales and the establishment of the British Empire. Over the course of the 17th century the role of the British monarchy was reduced, particularly as a result of the English Civil War. In 1707 the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In the Georgian era the office of prime minister became established. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present United Kingdom. The UK became the first industrialised country and was the worlds foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the Pax Britannica between 1815 and 1914. The British Empire was the leading economic power for most of the 19th century, a position supported by its agricultural prosperity, its role as a dominant trading nation, a massive industrial capacity, significant technological achievements, and the rise of 19th-century London as the worlds principal financial centre. At its height in the 1920s the empire encompassed almost a quarter of the worlds landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britains economic power, and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. The UK is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy[o] with three distinct jurisdictions: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Since 1999 Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own governments and parliaments which control various devolved matters. A developed country with an advanced economy, the UK ranks amongst the largest economies by nominal GDP and is one of the worlds largest exporters and importers. As a nuclear state with one of the highest defence budgets, the UK maintains one of the strongest militaries in Europe. Its soft power influence can be observed in the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, and British culture remains globally influential, particularly in language, literature, music and sport. A great power, the UK is part of numerous international organisations and forums.
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Monarchism. Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule.[1] A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. Conversely, the opposition to monarchical rule is referred to as republicanism.[2][3][4] Monarchical rule is among the oldest political institutions.[5] The similar form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric. Chiefdoms provided the concept of state formation, which started with civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley civilization.[6] In some parts of the world, chiefdoms became monarchies.[7] In the 17th and 18th centuries the Enlightenment began.[8] This resulted in new anti-monarchist ideas[9] which resulted in several revolutions such as the 18th century American Revolution and the French Revolution which were both additional steps in the weakening of power of European monarchies. In 1974, one of the worlds oldest monarchies was abolished in Ethiopia with the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie.[10] For most of its history, China was organized into various dynastic states under the rule of hereditary monarchs. Beginning with the establishment of dynastic rule by Yu the Great c. 2070 BC, and ending with the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in AD 1912, Chinese historiography came to organize itself around the succession of monarchical dynasties.[a][b] Besides those established by the dominant Han ethnic group or its spiritual Huaxia predecessors, dynasties throughout Chinese history were also founded by non-Han peoples.[16]
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Canyon. A canyon (from Spanish cañón; archaic British English spelling: cañon),[1] gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales.[2] Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces, eventually wearing away rock layers as sediments are removed downstream. A river bed will gradually reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water into which the river drains. The processes of weathering and erosion will form canyons when the rivers headwaters and estuary are at significantly different elevations,[3] particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two mountain peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas or the Andes. Usually, a river or stream carves out such splits between mountains. Examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite Valley in Californias Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on only one side, are called box canyons. Slot canyons are very narrow canyons that often have smooth walls. Steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope are referred to as submarine canyons. Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents and landslides. The word canyon is Spanish in origin (cañón,[4] pronounced [kaˈɲon]), with the same meaning. The word canyon is generally used in North America, while the words gorge and ravine (French in origin) are used in Europe and Oceania, though gorge and ravine are also used in some parts of North America. In the United States, place names generally use canyon in the southwest (due to their proximity to Spanish-speaking Mexico) and gorge in the northeast (which is closer to French Canada), with the rest of the country graduating between these two according to geography. In Canada, a gorge is usually narrow while a ravine is more open and often wooded. The military-derived word defile is occasionally used in the United Kingdom. In South Africa, kloof (in Krantzkloof Nature Reserve) is used along with canyon (as in Blyde River Canyon) and gorge (in Oribi Gorge).[5] Most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau or table-land level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion and weathering remain exposed on the valley walls.
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Stormfield. Stormfield was the mansion built in Redding, Connecticut for author Samuel Clemens, best known by his pen name, Mark Twain, who lived there from 1908 until his death in 1910. He derived the propertys name from the short story Extract from Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven. The building was destroyed in a 1923 fire. Twain met biographer Albert Bigelow Paine in 1906 while living in New York City. He decided to purchase 195 acres of land in Redding where Paine lived,[1] purchasing his first parcel there March 24, 1906, and buying additional acreage in May and September that year.[2] Twain hired architect John Mead Howells of Howells & Stokes, son of the author William Dean Howells who was a friend and collaborator for 45 years.[3] Twain stipulated the house should be built in the style of a Tuscan villa, after having lived at Villa Viviani (1891–1892) in Settignano and Villa di Quarto (1903–1904) in Sesto Fiorentino outside Florence, Italy.[4] Construction began in 1907; the project was nearly abandoned later that year due to cost and Twains misgivings about Reddings relative isolation, but the younger Howells convinced him that he would suffer a financial loss on work already underway.[5] The house was completed in June 1908,[1] built on elevated land known at the time as Birch Spray Hill on the west bank of the Saugatuck River.[6] The exterior of the house featured a gray stucco finish and green-colored roof, with the foundation measuring 70 feet by 40 feet, flanked by wings measuring 20 feet by 18 feet.[7] Howells designed the interior ground floor to include a central dining room, opening onto garden terraces and a fountain. In one wing was a drawing room opening onto an outdoor seating area; the other wing contained a billiards room decorated with caricatures of Twain.[4][8] The hand-carved mantel for the billiards room fireplace was a gift from the Sandwich Islanders. Twain had purchased a second, ornate mantel from Ayton Castle in Scotland that was installed in the living room; that mantel was damaged in the fire but restored, and is located today at the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut[9] where Twain lived from 1874 to 1891.[10]
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List of anime companies. This is a list of anime industry companies involved in the production or distribution of anime. There are over 500 animation studios in Japan.[1] Below are those notable enough to have an article.
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One-Punch Man. One-Punch Man (Japanese: ワンパンマン, Hepburn: Wanpanman; stylized as OnePunch-Man) is a Japanese manga series created by One, originally released as a webcomic in early 2009. It tells the story of Saitama, an independent superhero who, having trained to the point that he can defeat any opponent with a single punch, grows deeply bored from a lack of challenge. He sets out to find stronger opponents, while making allies of other heroes as well. A digital manga remake, illustrated by Yusuke Murata, began publication on Shueishas Tonari no Young Jump website in June 2012. Its chapters are periodically compiled and published into individual tankōbon volumes. As of August 2025[update], 34 volumes have been released. In North America, Viz Media licensed the manga remake for English language release and has serialized it in its Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine. An anime adaptation produced by Madhouse was broadcast in Japan from October to December 2015. A second season, produced by J.C.Staff, was broadcast from April to July 2019. A third season, also by J.C.Staff, is set to premiere in October 2025. Licensed in North America by Viz Media, the series aired its first season in the United States on Adult Swims Toonami programming block from July to October 2016. The second season also aired on the block from October 2019 to January 2020. By June 2012, the original webcomic manga surpassed 7.9 million hits. By August 2025, the manga remake had over 34 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time.
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Florida, Missouri. Florida is a village in Monroe County, Missouri, United States. It is located at the intersection of Missouri Route 107 and State Route U on the shores of Mark Twain Lake. In 1910 the population was 200, per the census data in the 1911 Crams World Atlas.[5] As of the 2020 census, however, the reported population was five.[3] The Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site is located in Florida, with Mark Twain State Park nearby. The village was laid out in the winter of 1831. The community took its name from the state of Florida.[6] The founders were Robert Donaldson, Joseph Grigsby, Hugh A. Hickman, a Doctor Keenan, John Witt, and Major W.N. Penn.[7] Hickman owned and operated a mill approximately one half-mile (800 m) south of Florida, while Penn had a dry goods store near there as well. Penn soon moved his store into Florida proper, becoming the towns first business. Mark Twain was born in Florida in 1835. He said his birthplace was a nearly invisible village,[8] and The village contained a hundred people and I increased the population by 1 per cent. It is more than many of the best men in history could have done for a town.[9] In the early years there was some hope of the town becoming a regional point of commerce and shipping. Florida is located at the confluence of the North, South, and Middle forks of the Salt River, 48 miles (77 km) upstream from its mouth emptying into the Mississippi River at Louisiana, Missouri. The location was thought to be strategic because it was felt to be a potential growth center in the settlement of northeast Missouri. For example, John Clemens, father of Mark Twain, along with other investors, had formed the Salt River Navigation Company in 1836 in hopes of developing this water commerce. Several boatloads of flour were shipped from Hickmans mill to the Mississippi and returned with sugar, coffee, and manufactured goods. However, fickle river levels on the Salt made consistent shipping via barge or riverboat impractical.[7] Having no railroad and with river shipping no longer an option, Florida was destined to remain a small village attending to the commerce needs of area farmers.
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Woodlawn Cemetery (Elmira, New York). Woodlawn Cemetery is the name of a cemetery in Elmira, New York, United States. Its most famous burials are Mark Twain and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens. Many members of the United States Congress, including Jacob Sloat Fassett are also interred there. Within Woodlawn Cemetery is the distinct Woodlawn National Cemetery, begun with the interment of Confederate prisoners from the nearby Elmira Prison (dubbed Hellmira by its inmates) during the American Civil War. It is run by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.[2] Both cemeteries are still active and together were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.[2]
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Flag of Japan. The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner with a red circle at its center. The flag is officially called the Nisshōki (日章旗, flag of the sun) but is more commonly known in Japan as the Hinomaru (日の丸, ball of the sun). It embodies the countrys sobriquet: the Land of the Rising Sun. The Nisshōki flag is designated as the national flag in the Act on National Flag and Anthem, which was promulgated and became effective on 13 August 1999. Although no earlier legislation had specified a national flag, the sun-disc flag had already become the de facto national flag of Japan. Two proclamations issued in 1870 by the Daijō-kan, the governmental body of the early Meiji period, each had a provision for a design of the national flag. A sun-disc flag was adopted as the national flag for merchant ships under Proclamation No. 57 of Meiji 3 (issued on 27 January 1870),[1] and as the national flag used by the Navy under Proclamation No. 651 of Meiji 3 (issued on 3 October 1870).[2] Use of the Hinomaru was severely restricted during the early years of the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II; these restrictions were later relaxed. The sun plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion, as the Emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, and the legitimacy of the ruling house rested on this divine appointment. The name of the country as well as the design of the flag reflect this central importance of the sun. The ancient history Shoku Nihongi says that Emperor Monmu used a flag representing the sun in his court in 701, the first recorded use of a sun-motif flag in Japan.[3][4] The oldest existing flag is preserved in Unpō-ji temple, Kōshū, Yamanashi, which is older than the 16th century, and an ancient legend says that the flag was given to the temple by Emperor Go-Reizei in the 11th century.[5][6][7] During the Meiji Restoration, the sun disc and the Rising Sun Ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army became major symbols in the emerging Japanese Empire. Propaganda posters, textbooks, and films depicted the flag as a source of pride and patriotism. In Japanese homes, citizens were required to display the flag during national holidays, celebrations and other occasions as decreed by the government. Different tokens of devotion to Japan and its Emperor featuring the Hinomaru motif became popular among the public during the Second Sino-Japanese War and other conflicts. These tokens ranged from slogans written on the flag to clothing items and dishes that resembled the flag.
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Mark Twain (disambiguation). Mark Twain (1835–1910) was an American writer. Mark Twain may also refer to:
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History of anime. The history of anime can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, with Japan producing its first animated films in the 1910s, influenced by Western animation techniques; the earliest verifiable Japanese animated film dates from 1917. However, it was not until the 1960s, with the work of Osamu Tezuka, often called the God of Manga, that anime began to take shape as a distinct cultural phenomenon. Tezukas Astro Boy (1963) is considered one of the first major anime TV series, setting the foundation for the animation industry. Over the following decades, anime grew in popularity both domestically and internationally, with diverse genres and styles emerging. By the 1980s and 1990s, anime had become a global phenomenon, with influential works such as Akira, Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon reaching international audiences. Today, anime is a major part of global pop culture, known for its unique art styles, storytelling depth, and expansive influence across media.[1] Before the advent of film, Japan already had a rich tradition of entertainment with colourful painted figures moving across a projection screen in utsushi-e (写し絵), a particular Japanese type of magic lantern show popular in the 19th century. Possibly inspired by European phantasmagoria shows, utsushi-e showmen used mechanical slides and developed lightweight wooden projectors (furo) that were handheld so that several performers could each control the motions of different projected figures.[2][3] The second generation of animators in the late 1910s included Ōten Shimokawa, Junichi Kōuchi and Seitarō Kitayama, commonly referred to as the fathers of anime.[4] Propaganda films, such as Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943) and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (1945), the latter being the first anime feature film, were made during World War II. During the 1970s, anime developed further, with the inspiration of Disney animators, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing distinct genres such as mecha and its super robot subgenre. Popular shows from this period include Astro Boy, Lupin III and Mazinger Z. During this period several filmmakers gained worldwide fame, such as Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii. Doraemon, which started airing in 1979, has become the longest-running anime of all time.
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Facebook Stories. Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the users Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered a second news feed for the social media website.[1] It is focused around Facebooks in-app camera which allows users to add fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.[1] As people mostly post photos and videos, Stories is the way they’re going to want to do it, says Facebook Camera product manager Connor Hayes, noting Facebooks shift away from text status updates after ten years as its primary sharing option. Obviously we’ve seen this doing very well in other apps. Snapchat has really pioneered this, explained Hayes.[2] Facebook has seen much success through other applications like Snapchat and Instagram, especially since Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012.[3] After the many failed attempts of trying to incorporate Snapchat-like features on Facebook,[4][5] (date=January 2018) the company decided to test run Messenger Day. In 2016, Facebook created a feature called Messenger Day,[6][7] which allowed users to post videos and pictures with filters for 24 hours only. This project was only used in Poland because of the unpopularity of Snapchat in that region. Users are able to add texts and colorful graphics. However, this was only a test for Facebook to be later turned into a feature on Facebooks app.[8] Facebooks introduction of the Story function may have been in response to the wider success of Instagram Story advertising over the advertising on Facebook Wall; Instagram Story ads were found to be more successful than Facebook Wall advertising in all demographics aside from non-millennial men.[9] As of 2017[update], Facebook Stories is much less popular among social media users than Snapchat and Instagram.[10] In August 2016, Instagram stories, which is a part of the Facebook owned Instagram, was created and as of June 2017, had 250 million active users. Mark Zuckerberg states, It is important to release products that people are familiar with, but (Facebook Stories) is going to have the first mainstream augmented reality platform.[11]
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Article (publishing). An article or piece is a written work published in a print or electronic medium, for the propagation of news, research results, academic analysis or debate. A news article discusses current or recent news of either general interest (i.e. daily newspapers) or of a specific topic (i.e. political or trade news magazines, club newsletters or technology news websites).[citation needed] A news article can include accounts of eyewitnesses to the happening event. It can contain photographs, accounts, statistics, graphs, recollections, interviews, polls, debates on the topic, etc. Headlines can be used to focus the readers attention on a particular (or main) part of the article. The writer can also give facts and detailed information following answers to general questions like who, what, when, where, why and how.[citation needed] Quoted references can also be helpful. References to people can also be made through the written accounts of interviews and debates confirming the factuality of the writers information and the reliability of his source. The writer can use redirection to ensure that the reader keeps reading the article and to draw her attention to other articles. For example, phrases like Continued on page 3 redirect the reader to a page where the article is continued.[citation needed] While a good conclusion is an important ingredient for newspaper articles, the immediacy of a deadline environment means that copy editing occasionally takes the form of deleting everything past an arbitrary point in the story corresponding to the dictates of available space on a page. Therefore, newspaper reporters are trained to write in inverted pyramid style, with all the most important information in the first paragraph or two. If the less vital details are pushed toward the end of the story, then the potentially destructive impact of draconian copy editing will be minimized.[citation needed]
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Short story. A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables, and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.[1] The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques.[citation needed] The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre.[2] Determining what exactly defines a short story remains problematic.[3] A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poes essay The Philosophy of Composition (1846).[4] H. G. Wells described the purpose of the short story as The jolly art, of making something very bright and moving; it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or profoundly illuminating, having only this essential, that it should take from fifteen to fifty minutes to read aloud.[5] According to William Faulkner, a short story is character-driven and a writers job is to ...trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.[6] Some authors have argued that a short story must have a strict form. Somerset Maugham thought that the short story must have a definite design, which includes a point of departure, a climax and a point of test; in other words, it must have a plot.[5] Hugh Walpole had a similar view: A story should be a story; a record of things happening full of incidents, swift movements, unexpected development, leading through suspense to a climax and a satisfying denouement.[5] This view of the short story as a finished product of art is however opposed by Anton Chekhov, who thought that a story should have neither a beginning nor an end. It should just be a slice of life, presented suggestively. In his stories, Chekhov does not round off the end but leaves it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.[5]
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Redding, Connecticut. Redding is an incorporated town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,765 at the 2020 census.[1] The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. At the time colonials began receiving grants for land within the boundaries of present-day Redding, Native American trails crossed through portions of the area, including the Berkshire Path running north–south.[2] In 1639, Roger Ludlow (also referenced as Roger Ludlowe in many accounts) purchased land from local Native Americans to establish Fairfield,[3] and in 1668 Fairfield purchased another tract of land then called Northfield, which comprised land that is now part of Redding.[4] For settlement purposes, Fairfield authorities divided the newly available land into parcels dubbed long lots at the time, which north–south measured no more than a third of a mile wide but extended east–west as long as 15 miles.[5] Immediately north of the long lots was a similar-sized parcel of land known as The Oblong.[6]
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Story (social media). In social media, a story is a function in which the user tells a narrative or provides status messages and information in the form of short, time-limited clips in an automatically running sequence.[1] A story is a short sequence of images, videos, or other social media content, which can be accompanied by backgrounds, music, text, stickers, animations, filters or emojis. Social media platforms typically advance through the sequence automatically when presenting a story to a viewer. Although the sequential nature of stories can be used to tell a narrative, the pieces of a story can also be unrelated. Social media platforms that offer stories will typically have a primary story for each user which consists of everything the user posted to their story over a certain period of time, usually the most recent 24 hours. Most stories cannot be changed afterwards and are only available for a short time. Stories are almost exclusively created on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer and are usually displayed vertically.[2] In October 2013, Snapchat first introduced the story function as a series of Snaps that can together tell a narrative through a chronological order, with each Snap being viewable by all of the posters friends and deleted after 24 hours. Stories soon surpassed private Snaps to become Snapchats most-viewed type of post.[3] After 2015, Snapchat introduced a feature allowing users to post private stories viewable by a chosen subset of their friends.[citation needed] Later other apps would copy this feature.[citation needed] In August 2016, Instagram introduced a stories function that deletes the content after 24 hours.[4] Various commenters have accused the site of copying Snapchat.[5] In February 2017, the instant messenger WhatsApp introduced the Now Status stories function in beta, which was later renamed Status.[6] In March 2017, a story function was introduced in Facebook Messenger.[7]
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Storey. A storey (Commonwealth English)[1] or story (American English),[2] is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are storeys (UK, CAN) and stories (US). The terms floor, level, or deck are used in similar ways as storey (e.g., the 16th floor). However, when referring to an entire building, it is more usual to use storey or story (e.g., a 16-storey building). The floor at ground or street level is called the ground floor (i.e. it needs no number); the floor below ground is called basement, and the floor above ground is called first in many regions.[3] However, in some regions, like the US, ground floor is synonymous with first floor, leading to differing numberings of floors, depending on region – even between different national varieties of English. The words storey and floor normally exclude levels of the building that are not covered by a roof, such as the terrace on the rooftops of many buildings. Nevertheless, a flat roof on a building is counted as a floor in other languages, for instance dakvloer in Dutch, literally roof-floor, simply counted one level up from the floor number that it covers. A two-storey house or home extension is sometimes referred to as double-storey in the UK,[4] while one storey is referred to as single-storey.[5]
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Amuse (music company). Amuseio AB, doing business as Amuse, is a global music company offering digital music distribution, funding and artist services to artists and managements, enabling them to stay independent while growing their careers. The company was founded as a modern alternative to major record labels in 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden by entrepreneurs Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry, and Jimmy Brodd. Amuse is based in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in London, UK and New York, US. In 2024, Giorgio DAmbrosio was appointed interim CEO of the company. Amuses proprietary technology platform uses the streaming data from digital music services to partner with independent artists with momentum.[1] When the company discovers music it can help grow, Amuses Artist & Label Services team can offer artists a tailor made licensing deal, including services like funding, artist marketing and rights management, in return of a revenue split. The licensing deal means that artists remain in control of master rights. Amuses self-service digital distribution service lets any self-releasing and independent artists release and monetize their music, through all major streaming services. Amuse offers three subscription tiers for self-service music distribution - Artist, Artist Plus and Professional[2] - as well as connected services such as automated royalty advances,[3] AI mastering[4] and music performance insights.[5] Amuse was founded in 2015 by Diego Farias, Andreas Ahlenius, Christian Wilsson, Guy Parry, and Jimmy Brodd, with the ambition to redefine artist discovery and record label deals. The first Amuse iOS and Android digital distribution application was released in March 2017, allowing anyone to self-release and manage their music catalog straight from their smartphone.[1] In June 2017, American rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ, record producer, voice actor and philanthropist will.i.am joined the companys list of co-founders.[6] Later on in May 2018 Amuse raised $15,5M USD in series A funding round led by venture capital firms Lakestar and Raine Ventures.[7] In April 2019 the company launched Fast Forward[3] - an automated royalty advance service for self-releasing artists.[8]
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Manga. Manga (Japanese: 漫画; IPA: [maŋga] ⓘ[a]) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan.[1] Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century,[2] and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art.[3] The term manga is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in Japan. In Japan, people of all ages and walks of life read manga. The medium includes works in a broad range of genres: action, adventure, business and commerce, comedy, detective, drama, historical, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction and fantasy, erotica (hentai and ecchi), sports and games, and suspense, among others.[4][5] Many manga are translated into other languages.[6][7] Since the 1950s, manga has become an increasingly major part of the Japanese publishing industry.[8] By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at ¥586.4 billion (US$6–7 billion),[9] with annual sales of 1.9 billion manga books and manga magazines (also known as manga anthologies) in Japan (equivalent to 15 issues per person).[10] The domestic manga market in Japan remained in the ¥400 billion range annually from 2014 to 2019. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased time spent at home, the market rapidly expanded to ¥612.6 billion. Growth continued even after the end of lockdowns, reaching a record high of ¥704.3 billion in 2024. Alongside this rapid expansion, the print manga market has continued to shrink; as of 2024, digital manga accounts for approximately ¥500 billion, while print manga makes up about ¥200 billion.[11] Manga have also gained a significant worldwide readership.[12][13][14][15] Beginning with the late 2010s manga started massively outselling American comics.[16] As of 2021, the top four comics publishers in the world are manga publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan.[17] In 2020 the North American manga market was valued at almost $250 million.[18] According to NPD BookScan manga made up 76% of overall comics and graphic novel sales in the US in 2021.[19] The fast growth of the North American manga market is attributed to mangas wide availability on digital reading apps, book retailer chains such as Barnes & Noble and online retailers such as Amazon as well as the increased streaming of anime.[20][21][22] Manga represented 38% of the French comics market in 2005.[23] This is equivalent to approximately three times that of the United States and was valued at about €460 million ($640 million).[24] In Europe and the Middle East, the market was valued at $250 million in 2012.[25]
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Public company. A public company[a] is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (listed company), which facilitates the trade of shares, or not (unlisted public company). In some jurisdictions, public companies over a certain size must be listed on an exchange. In most cases, public companies are private enterprises in the private sector, and public emphasizes their reporting and trading on the public markets. Public companies are formed within the legal systems of particular states and so have associations and formal designations, which are distinct and separate in the polity in which they reside. In the United States, for example, a public company is usually a type of corporation, though a corporation need not be a public company. In the United Kingdom, it is usually a public limited company (PLC). In France, it is a société anonyme (SA). In Germany, it is an Aktiengesellschaft (AG). While the general idea of a public company may be similar, differences are meaningful and are at the core of international law disputes with regard to industry and trade. Usually, the securities of a publicly traded company are owned by many investors while the shares of a privately held company are owned by relatively few shareholders. A company with many shareholders is not necessarily a publicly traded company. Conversely, a publicly traded company typically (but not necessarily) has many shareholders. In the United States, companies with over 500 shareholders in some instances are required to report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; companies that report under the 1934 Act are generally deemed public companies.[citation needed] A public company possess some advantages over privately held businesses.
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Narrative Magazine. Narrative Magazine[1] is a non-profit digital publisher of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art founded in 2003 by Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian. Narrative publishes weekly and provides educational resources to teachers and students; subscription and access to its content is free. Narrative was cofounded in 2003 by the former editor of Esquire, Gentlemens Quarterly, and Scribner, Tom Jenks, and New York Times-bestselling author Carol Edgarian. Narrative is headquartered in San Francisco. It publishes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and art of different forms from established and emerging writers . Additionally, Narrative coined the iStory—a short, dramatic narrative, fiction or nonfiction, up to 150 words long—and the iPoem—a short poem that fits within no more than two screens on the iPhone (up to 150 words long). It also publishes features on craft, teaching, and other topics related to professional writing. All works of contemporary writing accepted by the magazine are previously unpublished. All Narrative writers are paid for their contributions.[2] Narratives team of editors include co-founders Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian, Michael Wiegers of Copper Canyon Press, among others.
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Romanization. In linguistics, romanization or romanisation is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, and combinations of both. Transcription methods can be subdivided into phonemic transcription, which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict phonetic transcription, which records speech sounds with precision. There are many consistent or standardized romanization systems. They can be classified by their characteristics. A particular systems characteristics may make it better-suited for various, sometimes contradictory applications, including document retrieval, linguistic analysis, easy readability, faithful representation of pronunciation. If the romanization attempts to transliterate the original script, the guiding principle is a one-to-one mapping of characters in the source language into the target script, with less emphasis on how the result sounds when pronounced according to the readers language. For example, the Nihon-shiki romanization of Japanese allows the informed reader to reconstruct the original Japanese kana syllables with 100% accuracy, but requires additional knowledge for correct pronunciation. Most romanizations are intended to enable the casual reader who is unfamiliar with the original script to pronounce the source language reasonably accurately. Such romanizations follow the principle of phonemic transcription and attempt to render the significant sounds (phonemes) of the original as faithfully as possible in the target language. The popular Hepburn Romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers. A phonetic conversion goes one step further and attempts to depict all phones in the source language, sacrificing legibility if necessary by using characters or conventions not found in the target script. In practice such a representation almost never tries to represent every possible allophone—especially those that occur naturally due to coarticulation effects—and instead limits itself to the most significant allophonic distinctions. The International Phonetic Alphabet is the most common system of phonetic transcription.
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Ticker symbol. A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock or security on a particular stock exchange. Ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters or digits) which provide a shorthand for investors to refer to, purchase, and research securities. Some exchanges include ticker extensions, which encode additional information such as share class, bankruptcy status, or voting rights into the ticker.[1] The first ticker symbol was used in 1867, following the invention of the ticker tape machine by Edward Calahan. It was used to identify shares of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.[2][3][4] Stock symbols are unique identifiers assigned to each security traded on a particular market. A stock symbol can consist of letters, numbers, or a combination of both, and is a way to uniquely identify that stock. The symbols were kept as short as possible to reduce the number of characters that had to be printed on the ticker tape, and to make it easy to recognize by traders and investors. The allocation of symbols and formatting conventions is specific to each stock exchange. In the US, for example, stock tickers are typically between 1 and 4 letters and represent the company name where possible. For example, US-based computer company stock Apple Inc. traded on the NASDAQ exchange has the symbol AAPL, while the motor company Fords stock that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange has the single-letter ticker F. In Europe, most exchanges use three-letter codes; for example, British-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever traded on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange has the symbol UNA and London Stock Exchange has the symbol ULVR. In Asia, numbers are often used as stock tickers to avoid issues for international investors when using non-Latin scripts. For example, the bank HSBCs stock traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has the ticker symbol 5, New York Stock Exchange has the ticker symbol HSBC (bank abbreviation) and London Stock Exchange has the ticker HSBA. Symbols sometimes change to reflect mergers. Prior to the 1999 merger with Mobil Oil, Exxon used a phonetic spelling of the company XON as its ticker symbol. The symbol of the firm after the merger was XOM. Symbols are sometimes reused. In the US the single-letter symbols are particularly sought after as vanity symbols. For example, since March 2008 Visa Inc. has used the symbol V that had previously been used by Vivendi which had delisted and given up the symbol.[5]
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Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Tokyo Stock Exchange (東京証券取引所, Tōkyō Shōken Torihikijo), abbreviated as Tosho (東証) or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. The exchange is owned by Japan Exchange Group (JPX), a holding company that it also lists (TYO: 8697), and operated by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc.,[3] a wholly owned subsidiary of JPX. JPX was formed from the merger of Tokyo Stock Exchange Group, Inc. with Osaka Securities Exchange Co., Ltd.[4] (now Osaka Exchange, Inc.[5]); the merger process began in July 2012, when said merger was approved by the Japan Fair Trade Commission.[6][4] JPX itself was launched on January 1, 2013.[7] The TSE is incorporated as a kabushiki gaisha (joint-stock company) with nine directors, four auditors and eight executive officers. Its headquarters are located at 2-1 Nihonbashi-Kabutochō, Chūō, Tokyo which is the largest financial district in Japan. The main indices tracking the stock market of TSE are the Nikkei 225 index of companies selected by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Japans largest business newspaper), the TOPIX index based on the share prices of Prime companies, and the J30 index of large industrial companies maintained by Japans major broadsheet newspapers. There are also active bond market and futures market. Ninety-four domestic and 10 foreign securities companies participate in TSE trading. See: Members of the Tokyo Stock Exchange
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Political narrative. 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Political narrative is a term used in the humanities and political sciences to describe the way in which storytelling can shape fact and effect understandings of reality.[1] However, political narrative is not only a theoretical concept, it is also a tool employed by political figures in order to construct the perspectives of people within their environment and alter relationships between social groups and individuals.[2] As a result, fiction has the potential to become fact and myths become intertwined into public discourse.[3] Political narrative is consequential in its ability to elicit pathos, allowing the narrative to be influential through the value it provides rather than the truth that is told.[4] Meta-narratives are an important component to political narratives as it encompasses the artificiality of storytelling within a political context.[3] They are central in shaping understandings of reality through the creation of history under the guise of grandeur and tales of development or expansion.[3] The notion of political narrative stems from concepts illustrated in narrative theory, which has become increasingly popular in the humanities and political science as a result of the popularisation of fake news following the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017.[4] The study of narrative began at the beginning of the 20th century and experienced a resurgence in the 1970s when feminist researchers began to highlight the way in which womens lives are framed in storytelling - and this research has subsequently pioneered research on gendered political narrative today.[5] Narrative theory grew from the ideas present within literary theory which experienced reform during the 1940s when novels began to gain validity as a medium for literary study.[3] Poetry and drama had been valued for the aesthetic in its form and structure, however, novels became significant for their ability to influence the reader more broadly.[3] Narrative theory emerged from the notion that stories are able to provide an illustration of human nature rather than just impersonal narrations.[3] Ideas surrounding narrative and political science began as a result of work conducted by scholar Walter R. Fisher who conceptualised the term narrative paradigm in order to contend that narrative is the most persuasive form of communication and is thus central to politics.[5]
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Personal narrative. Personal narrative (PN) is a prose narrative relating personal experience usually told in first person; its content is nontraditional.[1] Personal refers to a story from ones life or experiences. Nontraditional refers to literature that does not fit the typical criteria of a narrative. Charlotte Linde writes about life stories, which are similar to the personal narrative: A life story consists of all the stories and associated discourse units, such as explanations and chronicles, and the connections between them, told by an individual during his/her lifetime that satisfy the following two criteria: The stories and associated discourse units contained in the life story have as their primary evaluation a point about the speaker, not a general point about the way the world is. The stories and the associated discourse units have extended reportability.[2] Linde also mentions that life story and autobiography have similarities and differences: “the primary way autobiography differs from life story is that it is a written, not oral form. More specifically it constitutes literary genre with its history, its demands, and its market.”[3] Jeff Todd Titon also refers to personal narrative as being very similar to a life story. “A life story is, simply, a persons story of his or her life or what he or she thinks is a significant part of that life.”[4] Titon goes on to state that personal narrative arises from conversation. According to Linda Degh, an example of personal narrative would include “any part of life history from the cradle to the grave, including great turning points to insignificant details in family life, occupation, entertainment, celebration, religion, crisis, illness, and travel, may provide material for elaboration into a narrative.”[5] A personal narrative can be organized by two coherence principles of life stories: causality and continuity. Causality is the relationship between cause and effect. This means that one action is the result of the others action. Continuity is the consistent existence of something over some time.[3] William Labov defines personal narrative as “one verbal technique for recapitulating experience, in particular a technique of constructing narrative units which match the temporal sequence of that event.”[6] Labov argues that narrative can be broken down into subcategories such as the abstract, orientation, complication, resolution, evaluation, and coda. The abstract is the summary of the story that usually comes at the very beginning of a story.[6] Labov notes that the orientation (introduction) serves to orient the listener in respect to person, place, time, and behavioural situation. The orientation tells us how the story begins. An example would be “I went to the store in San Francisco.”[6] The complication of a narrative is the conflict. A complication is key in narrative because without complication there can be no resolution. Labov writes that the complication is regularly terminated by a result.[6] This result is referred to as the resolution. Evaluation comes when the author reflects on the events that occurred in the story.[6] This is common in personal narratives. Coda is another word for a conclusion. The coda concludes the evaluation and gives efficient closure to the narrative. Lastly, Labov notes that narrative is usually told in answer to some stimulus from outside.[6]
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The Narrative. The Narrative (or Narrative) is an American independent indie rock band from Long Island, New York, formed in 2008. They are currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. Since 2011, the band has consisted of Suzie Zeldin (vocals, keyboards) and Jesse Gabriel (vocals, guitar). Previously, the group featured the drummer Charlie Seich. The group started its musical career with their debut EP Just Say Yes, released in 2008, where Eyes Closed stands out as the most popular song with more than four million views on YouTube. Its debut album The Narrative was released in 2010. As well the group release two supporting tour-EP, Nothing Without You in 2010 and Kickstarter EP in 2011. A follow-up EP b-side compilation album, B-Sides and Seasides was released online in 2012. The Narrative released its second studio album, Golden Silence, on December 2, 2016. In 2006, after graduating, Jesse Gabriel decided to find some musicians to begin a musical project. He wrote a three-page open advertisement and submitted it to Craigslist. After some answers, he looked saw Suzie Zeldins response, who was also looking for musicians to form a band, and they decided to meet.[1][2] They found that they had studied in the same school on Bellmore, Long Island, but never met. The two decided to collaborate in music, around October 2006, naming the band January Window, before changing it to the Narrative. Zeldin spoke to U-T San Diego, explaining the following about the change of band name, We came up with the name while we were recording the Just Say Yes EP. At one point, we had put together a list of random band names, mostly from literary terms, poems, or song lyrics we liked and sent them around to our friends. For a short time, we settled on January Window which is from a Sylvia Plath poem. We ended up not liking it after a while and revisited the list and found The Narrative Paradigm which seemed a little wordy and pretentious so we shortened it to The Narrative. We decided it was a good name and have been happy with it.[3] The bands first song released was the demo version of End All Arrival, under the name January Window on January 1, 2007, on MySpace,[4] which was later used on their debut album. Jesse would not sing in the band initially, but Suzie asked him and he decided to sing Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls. Following this audition, Suzie was pleased by his voice and Jesse was thus included in the lead vocals and the back vocals.[5] Drummer Charles Seich was added to the band after being introduced to Jesse and Suzie for the purposes of recording their EP.[6] In 2007, Suzie participated in many band projects, singing in Russian on Im Breathing... Are You Breathing Too? by Envy on the Coast,[7] Fairmonts song Melt Your Heart from the album Transcendence,[8] and The Minus Scales song No Matter What I Say Youre Going To Do It. She also sang guest vocals on the Dashboard Confessional side of the New Found Glory split EP Swiss Army Bromance song All About Her, as well as on at least one track on the newest edition of the released Dashboard Confessionals, Wire Tapes Vol 2. Before the Narrative she also released solo material, such as the Excuses EP, featuring four songs.[9]
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Satire (film and television). Satire is a television and film genre in the fictional, pseudo-fictional, or semi-fictional category that employs satirical techniques. Film or television satire may be of the political, religious, or social variety. Works using satire are often seen as controversial or taboo in nature, with topics such as race, class, system, violence, sex, war, and politics, criticizing or commenting on them, typically under the disguise of other genres including, but not limited to, comedies, dramas, parodies, fantasies and/or science fiction.[1] Satire may or may not[2] use humor or other, non-humorous forms as an artistic vehicle to illuminate, explore, and critique[3] social conditions, systems of power[4] (social, political, military, medical or academic institutions[5]), hypocrisy, and other instances of human behavior. Film director Jonathan Lynn generally advises against marketing ones work as satire because according to Lynn it can substantially reduce viewing figures and box office due to a presumed negative perception of satire in the [American] industry: George S. Kaufman, the great Broadway playwright and director, and screenwriter, once said: Satire is what closes on Saturday night. An excellent wisecrack, but it led the way to a general belief in America that satire is not commercial. When you pitch a satirical film idea, dont refer to it as satire. I used to, and I was met with the inevitable response that satirical films dont make money. This view is factually incorrect. Plenty have done so, if budgeted right.[6]
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Satires (disambiguation). Satires are cultural texts in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule. Satires may also refer to:
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