Pistol Opera

 is a 2001 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Makiko Esumi.
Storyline.
The film's main character, Miyuki Minazuki, ranked number three in The Assassins Guild, known as the "Stray Cat". A stoic and deadly woman, she is forced to deal with the crumbling Guild, and crazy state of affairs, seeking out the cause of all this, "Hundred Eyes". She lives in a Japanese home with her grandmother, and her weapon is a pistol.
Former number one, now crippled and retired to an honorary ranking of number zero "The Champ" Goro Hanada is an acquaintance of Stray Cat's, offering news and unsolicited advice. Stray Cat regards The Champ as a pitiful shadow of a man, and teases him about his failures. For the most part the other members of the guild also treat him as such. The Champ himself remains deluded about his usefulness, and ignores others opinions.
Stray Cat receives her assignments from the assassins guild from an enigmatic woman in a white dress named Sayoko Uekyo. As the movie opens they are in the midst of a conversation where Uekyo asks her if she has a man, suggesting some lesbian undertones. The relationship between Stray Cat and Uekyo is open to interpretation, at times the two are friendly, and other times they share mutual disregard.
Uekyo gives Stray Cat the news that the number one ranked killer, the mysterious "Hundred Eyes" is now a target, and Stray Cat is offered the job.
Through the course of film Stray Cat finds herself entangled with many characters, particularly a young girl named Sayoko who wishes to become an assassin herself.
Rival assassins.
The Teacher - A wheelchair-using, tracksuit-wearing killer who failed at assassinating a well known-target, due to Stray Cat's involvement.
Painless Surgeon rank #5 - A bearded possibly middle-aged foreigner with a liking for Japanese women and Japanese theatre, who feels no pain. In the style of a true surgeon, he favors knives and blades over firearms. Painless Surgeon claims to be in league with Hundred Eyes, but that is never cleared up.
Dark Horse - A man in a blond wig and black cloak, who claims to be Hundred Eyes. As an assassin, he favors killing people by shooting them in the back of the medulla oblongata, therefore affecting the dying victim's brain nerves, causing them to be dead with the facial expression of a smile. He uses a firearm, with laser scope.
Hundred Eyes rank #1 - A mysterious assassin, no one really knows who he or she is until the climax of the film.
Production.
Hanada is not played by Joe Shishido this time, but by Mikijiro Hira; Suzuki has said that the original intent was for Shishido to play the character again, but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira to play the character instead. The reasons for this are still unclear.


Triss Merigold


David Parry (conductor)

David Parry (born 23 March 1949) is an English conductor who is particularly known for his work in opera. Described as "a man of the theatre with whom directors love to work; he is good with singers; he knows the British opera world like the back of his hand. He is a controversial and outspoken defender of the operatic form, and a passionate advocate of opera in English", his work includes a large discography of complete opera recordings of rarely performed works made on the Opera Rara and Chandos record labels, as well as works recorded with well-known British and European orchestras. Parry is also a member of the support staff of the Cardiff International Academy of Voice
Early career.
Parry was educated at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
He explains how he became a conductor by way of wanting to be a singer: "Audrey Langford, who was a very important singing teacher in the 1960s and '70s, ran a rather good choir which she conducted herself, and with Ande Anderson, who was resident producer at Covent Garden, she'd founded the Kentish Opera Group..One day she simply said, "I think you ought to be a conductor...I'll give you a few lessons, and you can conduct my choir a bit." Well, she did, and I did, and there I was conducting "La traviata". Geraint Evans came to hear it and told me that he thought there was something there and that I should go on conducting."
He continued conducting studies with Sergiu Celibidache in Spain, covering a wide repertory: "I did a lot of Beethoven Ninths...a lot of Spanish contemporary music, too, quite a lot of Handel..I even did the Spanish premiere of Britten's "Peter Grimes"..." and subsequently served on the conducting staffs of the Dortmund Opera, Opera North and Glyndebourne, and became Music Director of English Touring Opera from 1983 to 1987.
Work for Opera Rara and Chandos.
Parry's name has become associated with Chandos Records's recordings of operas in English (principally underwritten by the Peter Moores Foundation), as well as Opera Rara's rare and unusual operas, many from the "bel canto" era of the early 19th century. The latter include the works of composers such as Vincenzo Bellini ("La straniera" where "David Parry leads the LPO in a
gripping account of a tricky piece"), Gioachino Rossini, Giovanni Pacini, Simon Mayr, and Saverio Mercadante. Of his recording of the latter composer's "Emma d'Antiochia", one critic wrote:
Critical reaction to a recording of a rare Rossini opera, "Ricciardo e Zoraide" is instructive:
Recent activities.
In 1992, he founded the Almeida Opera Festival and remains the Artistic Director. Currently he is an Artistic Associate at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and an Artistic Advisor to Opera Rara.
As a guest conductor, Parry has appeared with the English National Opera, Garsington Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Greek National Opera, the New Israeli Opera, Opera North, Portland Opera, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Staatsoper Hannover, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, and Theater Basel among others.
He occasionally teaches privately, and his students have included Stuart Stratford, Dominic Wheeler, Julian Perkins and Tom Hillary.
Awards.
In 2006, the winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production was Anthony Minghella's ENO production of "Madama Butterfly", which Parry conducted.


List of opera companies in Asia, Australia, and Oceania

This inclusive list of opera companies in Asia, Australia, and Oceania contains opera companies with entries in the Wikipedia plus other particularly noted companies based in those regions. For opera companies from other continents, see List of opera companies.


St. Gallen embroidery

St. Gallen embroidery, sometimes known as Swiss embroidery, is embroidery from the city and the region of St. Gallen, Switzerland. The region was once the largest and most important export area for embroidery.
Around 1910, its embroidery production was the largest export branch of the Swiss economy with 18 percent of the overall export value. More than 50 percent of the world production came from St. Gallen.
With the advent of the First World War, the demand for the luxury dropped suddenly and significantly and so a lot of people were unemployed, which resulted in the biggest economic crisis in the region.
Today, the embroidery industry has somewhat recovered, but it will probably never again reach its former size.
Nevertheless, the "St. Galler Spitzen" (as the embroidery is also called) are still very popular as a raw material for expensive haute couture creations in Paris and count among the most famous textiles in the world.
History.
Beginnings.
Initial figures state that there were already up to 100,000 employees in the St. Gallen embroidery industry at the end of the 18th century, long before the invention of the hand embroidery machine. This figure is probably somewhat exaggerated, but it is an indication of the importance of embroidery in eastern Switzerland.
The strengthening of the embroidery industry was accompanied by the decline of the canvas industry, especially in the city of St. Gallen itself. It had already been weakened substantially by the production of cotton started by Peter Bion, and by foreign competition. Those without livelihood in the cotton industry changed to embroidery. Later during the Continental Blockade around 1810 the cotton industry too suffered. The "General-Societät der englischen Baumwollspinnerei in St. Gallen", the first Swiss stock company founded in 1801, had to close in 1817 due to lack of money.
First embroidery machines.
The expansion of the embroidery industry began with the invention of the hand embroidery machine by Joshua Heilmann of Mulhouse in 1828. Just one year later, "Franz Mange" (1776-1846) ordered two such machines from Heilmann, under the condition that he sold no other machine in Switzerland or its immediate surroundings without Mange's consent. However, Mange allowed the "Maschinen-Werkstätte und Eisengießerey", that Michael Weniger had recently opened in St. Georgen (city district of St. Gallen), the production of such machines. He himself had improved the design and several machines were exported abroad, but without lasting success for the local industry.
Mange's company passed in 1839 to his son-in-law "Bartholome Rittmeyer" (1786-1848), but shortly afterwards to Rittmeyer's son "Franz Rittmeyer" (1819-1892). Together with his mechanic and thanks to the support of Anton Saurer he improved the machinery such that the quality was now nearly equal to that of hand-embroidery. Thus, from 1852 the hand embroidery machines were manufactured in series, including at the already mentioned Maschinenfabrik in St. Georgen. Production amounted to more than 1,500 machines until 1875. The machines had the disadvantage that they were only able to do hand-like embroidery. The simultaneous invention of the sewing machine could, however, fix the problem, because now even smaller pieces could be sewn in great numbers on towels. A businessman from Hamburg called these new products "Hamburghs" to deceive the competitors as to the real origin of the article. Rittmeyer had to relocate and expand his factory several times because the ever-increasing demand could no longer be covered. Just by itself, the 1856-completed embroidery factory in Bruggen (later relocated to Sittertal) worked temporarily 120 machines. The sewing machine also inspired the shiffli embroidery machine which built upon the hand machine, but used a lock stitch like the sewing machine. Shiffli machines became fully automated which greatly increased productivity and thus reduced the cost of embroidery.
Rapid ascent.
The meteoric rise of St. Gallen embroidery can only be explained by a combination of economic, political, and technical conditions in the second half of the 19th century. In the political environment, it was the end of the American Civil War and the onset of free trade politics; economically, inter alia, the very popular mode of the second Rococo at the French court; and in the technical conditions the development of the machines. In the years after 1860, the demand for embroidered products rose so sharply that embroidery companies sprang up like mushrooms. Many farmers, artisans, and former weavers had an embroidery machine installed in their houses for credit.
Thus, embroidery had soon become in large part homework and a major addition to the income of the peasants and craftsmen, mainly in winter, as it had partially been before in the linen or spinning time.
For the former, it was particularly the bad reputation of the factory and the dependence on a single employer, which let them decide for this kind of economic model; for the latter it was the capability to benefit from the possibility to increase and decrease the capacities very quickly and to let the entire economic risk remain with the workers.
The embroiders also appreciated the freedom to schedule their working hours and the unlimited use of child labor, especially since the introduction of the federal factory labor law in 1877, which denied young people under 14 years of age work in factories. Particularly benefiting from the development of home embroidery were the traders, who imported the commondies for the embroiders and distributed the finished products back around the world.
In the period from 1872 to 1890, the number of installed embroidery machines in the cantons of St. Gallen, Appenzell and Thurgau rose from 6,384 to 19,389, but at the same time, the number of machines installed in factories decreased from 93% to 53%. The value of goods exported to the Americas alone increased between 1867 and 1880 from 3.1 to over 21 million Swiss francs. Representatives of trading companies from overseas visited St. Gallen regularly to select patterns and to place new orders. The shipping company Danzas advertised in newspapers and praised itself as a "special agency for the embroidery traffic in St. Gallen" with postal ships to North America, East India, China, Japan, Australia and several other locations around the world. In this context we must also mention the "Kaufmännische Corporation", which kept improving the framework conditions for the export trade. They built a duty-free storehouse in the city and opened a school for pattern designers; they also started today's Textile Museum.
Further developments.
To the next thrust, the embroidery industry rose in 1863 with the invention of the "Schifflistickmaschine" by Isaak Gröbli (father of the mathematician Walter Gröbli). An experimental machine was first built in Winterthur, and later went into series production at the Adolph Saurer AG in Arbon.
In 1869 a new factory with 210 of these machines opened. A temporary setback affected the embroidery industry in 1885 due to its own overproduction in a time of economic crises. Orders suddenly declined significantly, resulting in wages dropping substantially. Only around 1898 did the embroidery industry recover through various internal reforms, restrictions on maximum working hours and minimum wages, and the rise of the global economy. The last crucial step in the technical development of embroidery, the invention of the so-called "automatic" machines, in which the design is no longer entered using the pantographs but by punched card.
The first of these machines came from Plauen. In 1911, Arnold Groebli, the son of Isaac, improved the machine at Saurer (in Arbon) so that they were in almost all respects superior to the German ones. The Schiffli- and hand embroidery machines were not removed completely, despite the now much higher speed, because the preparation of punched cards was often not worth the effort for small jobs.
Since the various products of the industry had very different requirements, even in 1945, some orders were fulfilled with hand embroidery machines, or it was even embroidered entirely by hand.
The big crisis and the recovery.
The decline of the embroidery industry began in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War. The demand for luxury products–and embroidery counted among these–collapsed suddenly, and also the free trade zones were disrupted. Partially neutral countries were still customers, but they could only compensate in the short term.
To preserve wages somewhat from the free-fall, maximum working hours and minimum wages were now also fixed. In fact, these measures were rather counter-productive–only workers who demanded less than the minimum wage got a job. The year 1917, still in the middle of WWI, temporarily brought a surprising turn: the Entente forbade the export of cotton products to Germany, but not the export of embroidery. Therefore, every cloth to be sold to Germany was embroidered in some way, as embroidery could be sold. A year later, the sale of embroidery to Germany was forbidden, too, and this meant the end of the brief upturn. The last little flurry of exports came in 1919 after the end of the war, when the reconstruction of the war-stricken countries brought another short rise. With the start of the economic crisis, the heyday for the St. Gallen embroidery was finally ended. One sign of the extent of the crisis, is that from 1910 to 1930, the population of St. Gallen was reduced by emigration (as a result of unemployment) from 75,482 to 64,079.
Although embroidery exports rose again after the war, the time of the biggest economic crisis for the city began no later than the 1920s. Between 1920 and 1937, the number of embroidery machines was reduced from about 13,000 to less than 2,000. In 1929 the federal government subsidized a reduction of machines–compared with 1905, the number of people employed in industry declined by 65%. The absolute low point was reached in 1935 with an embroidery export of 640 tonnes (compared to 5,899 tons in 1913). In 1937, however, exports rose again for the first time to over 20 million Swiss francs, and the majority of the 97 newly opened facilities in the area were in the textile industry.
Working conditions.
Initially, embroidery was primarily or even almost exclusively women's work, this changed abruptly with the introduction of embroidery machines. The work on the machine was now exclusively men's work, the woman was, however, still required as a helper – she took care of the replacement of broken needles and the threading, if the threads had ended (the threads in a hand-embroidery machine are only about one meter long, and it has hundreds of needless).
In traditional historiography, the above-mentioned advantages of home work were accentuated – in 1877 Dr. Wagner from the "Schweizerische Gemeinnützige Gesellschaft" wrote about factory work that „The greatest misery of our time is the dissolution of the family“. Today this is judged more critically. First, the earnings of homeworkers were at times very low, and secondly, many children and even grandparents had to work at the embroidery machines, in order to earn enough to survive.
While the majority of the home-workers lived in a reasonable housing with a comfortable quality of life, the workrooms were often bad, because these were in damp, poorly heated and poorly ventilated rooms (which was, for the quality of the produced textile, an advantage). The traditional historiography always emphasized the interaction between the textile industry and agriculture. The farmers, ideally would use their free time productively, have job variation, and a supplement to their poor income. Undeniably, this was actually true for a few farms. However, the competition was fierce and the loan for the machine would have to be paid back, so that often little time was left for agriculture. Also, the rough work of a farmer was not conducive for the fine embroidery work, so that many of these agricultural enterprises could only perform coarser embroidery works. Excluded from this was the pure hand embroidery by women, as it was predominantly done in Appenzell-Innerrhoden until well into the 20th century.
The earnings of the embroiderers were generally quite good, especially for the self-employed homeworkers. It was worse for the auxiliaries, who often lived from hand to mouth. The working days, notably in times of great demand, were very long. The workday lasted 10–14 hours, which caused health damage because of straining of the muscles-most embroidery machines were still operated by hand-and anemia or pulmonary tuberculosis. Moreover, the position of the embroiderers in front of the pantographs was, from an ergonomic point of view, extremely bad-the chest was severely compressed in its development and the spine was crooked. A full 25% of all embroiderers were already classified "unfit for service" at their mustering.
Also, the infant mortality in the northern, industrialized districts of the canton of St. Gallen was extraordinarily high. Various doctors tried to counteract this problem with studies and public education in the areas of health, nutrition counseling, and child care-with measurable success. Through the awareness especially of the teachers for hygiene and in the hiring of specific medics for schools, the hygiene awareness of the population improved considerably. Since 1895, the soldiers in the barracks were also supposed to shower regularly . In addition to external cleanliness the attention of the doctors also came to the "hygiene of the stomach"-the diet. Dairy and meat products were advertised as healthy and tobacco and carbohydrates came into disrepute. This benefitted the agricultural sector, which also increasingly focused on the livestock industry. Even the hitherto totally normal consumption of large amounts of alcohol was discouraged.
Embroidery today.
Although embroidery no longer has the significance for the region as at the beginning of the last century, it is still an economic factor. Embroidery machine producing companies such as Benninger AG are among the larger employers in the region. Big names such as Akris, Pierre Cardin, Chanel, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, Emanuel Ungaro Hubert de Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Nina Ricci, Hemant and Yves Saint Laurent work with embroidered fabrics from St. Gallen. In the city itself embroidery products are, in addition to the traditional fashion show on the CSIO and the "OFFA Frühlings- und Trendmesse St. Gallen" presented during the St. Gallen Kinderfest. This festival owes a large part of its importance and its character to the embroidery on display. The great boom of embroidery and the associated wealth of the city also has influenced its development. From today's perspective, one can say that the city was built around 1920 - apart from the later extensions at the edge of the city. The Art Nouveau and Neu-Renaissance buildings constructed from 1880 to 1930 define the image of the commercial districts built around the old city. The names of these former business places suggest the past significance of world trade for the city: Pacific, Oceanic, Atlantic, Chicago, Britannia, Washington, Florida, and so forth.


San Diego International Fringe Festival

The San Diego International Fringe Festival is a non-profit fringe theatre festival project of conTACT ARTS, in association with the Actors Alliance of San Diego, designed to help provide a platform for artists while also helping the community as a whole - boosting arts and culture within the City of San Diego.
During the festival, artists from across the United States and around the world participate alongside home-grown talent in art forms including theater, buskers/street performers, cabaret, comedy, circus, dance, film, poetry, spoken word, puppetry, music, visual art, design and other forms.
Key to the operation of San Diego International Fringe Festival is its role to support, encourage, and facilitate producers, artists, presenters, venues, and businesses. The festival works to ensure that artists and all participants involved have the best possible experience.
Features.
The San Diego International Fringe Festival provides Fringe-managed venues as well as the opportunity for artists to bring their own venues via BYOV (Bring Your Own Venue). Material presented can include site-specific works that take advantage of city features, as well as works staged in theaters, including San Diego REP's Lyceum Theatres and the Historic Spreckels Theatre.
The defining virtues of the festival are that it is open-access and uncensored, it is not juried, and 100% of its ticket income is given to the artists.


Flight of the Navigator

Flight of the Navigator is a 1986 American science fiction adventure film directed by Randal Kleiser and written by Mark H. Baker, Michael Burton and Matt MacManus. It stars Joey Cramer as David Freeman, a 12-year-old boy who is abducted by an alien spaceship and finds himself caught in a world that has changed around him. It features an early film appearance by Sarah Jessica Parker as Carolyn McAdams, a key character who befriends David in a time of need.
The film's producers initially sent the project to Walt Disney Pictures in 1984, but the studio was unable to approve it and it was sent to Producers Sales Organization, which made a deal with Disney to distribute it in the United States. It was partially shot in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and in Norway, being a co-production with Norwegian company "Viking Film".
"Flight of the Navigator" is notable for being one of the first Hollywood films to use extensive CGI effects, namely, it was the first use of image-based lighting, and an early use of morphing in a motion picture. The film is also known to be one of the first Hollywood productions to feature an entirely electronic music film score, composed using a Synclavier, one of the first digital multi-track recorders and samplers.
"Flight of the Navigator" has since become a cult classic, and has a large cult following among science fiction and Disney fans. In September 2017, Walt Disney Pictures announced that a reboot of "Flight of the Navigator" was in the works.
Plot.
On the night of July 4, 1978, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 12-year-old David Freeman walks through the woods to pick up his 8-year-old younger brother, Jeff, from a friend's house when he accidentally falls into a ravine and is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he discovers that eight years have passed and it is now 1986. Police are shocked to see David fits exactly the same photo on a missing child poster, having not aged at all. David is reunited with his aged parents and the now 16-year-old Jeff.
Meanwhile, an alien spaceship crashes through power lines and is promptly captured by NASA. David is taken to the hospital for tests, where his brainwaves reveal images of the spaceship. Dr. Louis Faraday, who has been studying it since its arrival, persuades David to come to a NASA research facility for just 48 hours for extra tests, promising him that they can help him learn the truth about what happened to him. There, Dr. Faraday discovers that David's mind is filled with alien technical manuals and star charts covering expanses of the galaxy far exceeding NASA's research. It tells the scientists that he was taken to a planet called Phaelon, 560 light years away, in just over 2.2 hours. They realize that he has experienced severe time dilation as a result of having traveled faster than the speed of light, explaining why eight years have passed on Earth, but not for him. He is unable to comprehend what Dr. Faraday tells him and flees the room, making Dr. Faraday decide to keep David confined to finish his investigation, severely breaking his 48-hour promise.
The next morning, following a telepathic communication from the spaceship, David secretly boards it and meets its robotic commander, "Trimaxion Drone Ship" (or "Max" for short), which refers to David as the "Navigator". After they escape from the facility, Max tells David that his mission was to travel across the galaxy, collect biological specimens, take them to Phaelon for analysis, and then return them to their homes. Phaelon's scientists discovered humans only use 10% of their brain and, as an experiment, filled the remainder of David's with miscellaneous information. This includes all of the star charts discovered by Phaelon's astronomers, some of which were shown to the NASA scientists during David's interrogation. Max then returned him to Earth, but did not take him back to his own time, having determined that a human would be unlikely to survive a trip back in time. Before leaving Earth, Max accidentally crashed the spaceship, erasing all the computer's star charts and data. Therefore, he needs the information in David's brain to return home.
While Max programs the spaceship for a mind transfer, David is shown the other remaining alien specimens on board, and bonds with a "Puckmaren", a tiny bat-like creature that is the last of his kind after a comet destroyed its planet. Max performs the mind transfer on David to reacquire the star charts, but in the process also contracts human emotional attributes, resulting in Max behaving eccentrically and making goofy laughs. He and David start bickering, and their antics trigger several UFO reports in Tokyo and the US. Meanwhile, NASA intern Carolyn McAdams, who has befriended David, contacts David's family and tells them about his escape in the spaceship; as a result, Dr. Faraday has them confined to the house, and Carolyn is sent back to the facility.
When the spaceship stops at a gas station in the Florida Keys, David calls Jeff and asks him to send a signal to locate their new home, and Jeff sets off fireworks on the rooftop. David and Max arrive at the house, but NASA agents, having tracked the spaceship's every move, get there first. Fearing that he would be institutionalized for life if he remains in 1986, he orders Max to return him to 1978. Max warns this could vaporize David, but David accepts the risk. After the journey back in time, he wakes up in the ravine, walks home, and finds everything as he left it. During the Fourth of July celebration, Jeff is surprised to see the Puckmaren in David's backpack; David tells him to keep it secret while Max flies home across the firework-lit sky, remarking "See you later, navigator!".
Production.
The Trimaxion Drone Ship was rendered in computer-generated imagery (CGI) by Omnibus Computer Animation, under the supervision of Jeff Kleiser, the brother of director Randal Kleiser.
Soundtrack.
The music score for the film was composed and performed by Alan Silvestri. It is distinct from his other scores in being entirely electronically generated, using the Synclavier, one of the first digital multi-track recorders and samplers.
Critical reception.
The film received mainly positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 84% based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The consensus reads, "Bolstered by impressive special effects and a charming performance from its young star, "Flight of the Navigator" holds up as a solidly entertaining bit of family-friendly sci-fi."
Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" said its biggest plus was "its entirely believable, normal American family." "The New York Times" described it as "definitely a film most children can enjoy." "People" declared it "out-of-this-world fun." "Empire" gave it 3/5 stars, saying it was "well-made enough to keep the family happy, but it certainly won’t challenge them." "Variety" was more critical, announcing that "instead of creating an eye-opening panorama, "Flight of the Navigator" looks through the small end of the telescope." Dave Kehr gave it 3 stars and described it as "a new high for Disney."
Remake.
In May 2009, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that Disney was readying a remake of the film. Brad Copeland was writing the script and Mandeville partners David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman would serve as producers. In November 2012, Disney hired "Safety Not Guaranteed"s director Colin Trevorrow and writer/producer Derek Connolly to rewrite the script.
In September 2017, Walt Disney Pictures announced that a reboot of "Flight of the Navigator" is in pre-production with Joe Henderson from TV's "Lucifer" writing the script. Shortly after the Lionsgate/Henson announcement, in November at the same year, Neill Blomkamp tweeted that Oats Studios has begun developing a reboot as its first feature film. However as of 2021, no remake has appeared. A feature documentary "Life After the Navigator" was released in 2020 which profiles the rollercoaster career of actor Joey Cramer who played the central character David Freeman in the 1986 movie.


Paddy Crean

Patrick Crean (27 June 1911 – 22 December 2003) was a British actor and theatrical fight director who was one of the most influential figures in the art of modern stage combat.
Crean was born in London to parents Surgeon-Major Thomas Crean VC and Victoria Heredia. Crean, who had a background in competitive fencing, began choreographing fights in 1932 when he was working in England as an actor in "The Legends of Don Juan". He received public acclaim for choreographing the impressive fight scenes for John Guilgud's 1944-45 season of Hamlet at the Haymarket, with a personal feature on Pathé News and in Post Magazine. Crean and his partner Rex Rickman were frequently hired to stage fight scenes for theatrical productions as well as in films such as "The Master of Ballantrae" (1953) and "Sword of Sherwood Forest" (1960). They both ran the Sophy School of Fencing in London and used it to teach many celebrities sword work for stage and films. He worked with actors including Paul Scofield, Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard, Alec Guinness, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Errol Flynn, often performing as Flynn's stunt double in films.
Crean travelled to the Canadian Stratford Theatre Festival in 1962 to serve as the fight arranger for Macbeth, directed by Peter Coe. After his second season in 1963, he decided to make Stratford, Ontario his home and worked as the festival's fight director until 1983. Among festival productions for which he arranged the swordplay, "The Three Musketeers", directed by John Hirsch in 1968, received great acclaim for its stage action. Crean returned from retirement in 1988 to assist fight director Jean-Pierre Fournier for "The Three Musketeers" as directed by Richard Ouzounian.
Crean's choreographic philosophy included tenets such as matching the combat to the character and included research into various historical and cultural forms of swordplay. His system of stage combat safety protocols were highly influential around the world. Those guidelines were codified through the Society of British Fight Directors, for which Crean was a fight master. He was also a certified fight master with Fight Directors Canada as well as being an honorary member of the Society of American Fight Directors.
Crean continued to work as an actor, sometimes taking small roles in shows for which he had done fight arranging and also performing his one-man show about Rudyard Kipling, The Sun Never Sets, at Stratford's Avon Theatre in 1970.
His autobiography, "More Champagne, Darling" (), was published in Toronto by McGraw-Hill Ryerson in 1981.
The annual Paddy Crean International Stage Combat Conferences, named in honour of Mr. Crean, present a wide range of seminars run by prominent stage combat and martial arts instructors.
Patrick Crean died on 22 December 2003, at the age of 93. He was once married to the actress Helen Christie.


Axminster carpet


Jan Haag

Jan Haag (born December 6, 1933) is the founder of the American Film Institute (AFI) Directing Workshop for Women and a world-famous textile artist and poet.
Life and work.
Jan Haag (née Smith), born in Marysville, WA, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, graduated from Seattle's Holy Names Academy, and went on to study art and painting at Burnley School for Professional Art. Haag continued her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, The New School for Social Research in New York, University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University, UCLA, and Southwestern University School of Law. Haag also studied painting with Frederick E. Smith, dance with Eleanor King, and singing and tabla with Ali Akbar Khan and Swapan Chaudhuri.
In Seattle, Haag managed poetry readings, an art gallery, and the Shakespeare Workshop for ABC Bookstore. As an actress, she performed in regional theaters during the 1950s and 1960s, and directed plays in Washington, Oregon and California. Haag has exhibited her work in West Coast museums, competitions, and galleries—including the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye Museum, the Otto Seligman Gallery, and the Woessner Gallery.
In Los Angeles, Haag served as Film and Television Director for the John Tracy Clinic, where she directed a series of forty-two films, "Teaching Speech to the Profoundly Deaf," for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1971 she joined the staff of the American Film Institute where, as Director of National Production Programs, she administered the nation's largest film granting program, the Independent Filmmaker Program, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1974, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, she founded AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, a program in which accomplished women—such as Joanne Woodward, Lee Grant, Margot Kidder, Ellen Burstyn, Maya Angelou, Karen Arthur, Anne Bancroft, Dyan Cannon, Julie Phillips, Kathleen Nolan, Cicely Tyson, Brianne Murphy, Nessa Hyams, and Randa Haines could develop their directing skills. The DWW became the fountainhead back to which the careers of many women, now directing film and television, can be traced. Haag also served on the boards of many film festivals/programs, including the Bellevue Film Festival, Filmex, the Sundance Institute, and the International Women Filmmakers Symposium.
Between 1975 and 2008, Haag created twenty-three needlepoint canvases, working on some of these simultaneously. One work took ten years to complete. The more complex of these canvases required hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of application. An accomplished painter and poet familiar with different mediums, Haag writes of the textile art medium: “Compared with the roughhouse immediacy of painting and sculpture, one can cite many a rug, tapestry, piece of stitchery which took a year to make or, at times, a decade. Back and back and back, millennia by millennia, the history and lore of weaving/stitchery recedes as we, at the near end of the time scale, proceed -- cloth, grid arts, fractals and computer -- into the future.”
Haag explains: “Over the years, working on these pieces has become one of my primary ways of understanding both the world and my experience of it. The works… transmit knowledge. Not only the powerful subjective awareness of light and color, but the pleasure associated with study -- in this case, study of music, astronomy, mathematics, travel, archaeology, and the iconographic, mystical and esoteric traditions of many cultures.”
These textile pieces became a life’s work. Through determined experimentation and applying techniques and iconography learned from a lifetime of travel, including treks on foot alone through India, Korea, China, Thailand, Nepal, Russia and Europe, Haag would forever change the perceptions and possibilities of needlepoint.
In 1982, Haag retired from AFI to focus on her art and writing. She has written thousands of poems and given poetry readings in theaters, museums, libraries, galleries, and private salons. A limited edition of "Amanita Caesarea", a legend, with original drawings by Roger Landry, was published by Gallery Plus in Los Angeles. Haag has written stories, novels, plays, film scripts, articles, essays, and a vast journal—the manuscripts of which are on deposit in Special Collections at the Blagg Huey Library of Texas Woman's University in Denton, TX. Haag's travel stories have appeared in four of the prize-winning "Traveler's Tales" series of books: "India," "A Woman's World," "The Spiritual Gifts of Travel", and "Spain". During a 1991 writer's fellowship at the Syvenna Foundation in Texas, Haag wrote a novel "Cantalloc". In 1992, during a writer's fellowship at Blue Mountain Center in New York, she completed "No Palms", a California/Texas novel centering on water rights, real estate fraud, and murder. After 50 years of research and study, in 2009, Haag published "Jocasta", an original play based on the Oedipus myth seen from Jocasta's point of view. "Ascesis", a 600-page volume of poetry, was published in 2014.
Personal life.
Haag was married for ten years, 1957–68, to John Haag, Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Pennsylvania State University.


Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria

Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria was a weekly Basque Country periodical.
The periodical was established in Pamplona, under the direction of Mirentxu Purroy Ferrer, and the first issue was published in April 1976.
One of its collaborators was the linguist José María Sánchez Carrión.
In January 1979 it was closed. In April of that year they began a new phase under a new director, Xabier Sánchez Erauskin, and based in San Sebastian.


La France a un incroyable talent (series 4)

Series 4 of "La France a un incroyable talent" aired from 24 November to 30 December 2009, and saw contestants compete by showcasing their talents before judges. The winner of the series was Les Echo-liés, a dancer.
Background.
Auditions for the fourth series started in late 2008 and successful contestants were notified in December 2008. Filming began on 15 January 2009.
The season was presented by Alex Goude and Sandrine Corman, replacing Alessandra Sublet, host of the previous three seasons. The jury consisted of producer Gilbert Rozon, present since the first season, actress and director Valérie Stroh, and comedian and humorist Smaïn.
Semi-Final 1.
The winner was announced 30 December 2009.
Final


Decadent Evil

Decadent Evil (known by the slightly reworked title of "Decadent Evil Dead" in the UK) is a 2005 vampire film, produced and directed by Charles Band under his Wizard Entertainment banner, released on June 25. The film was shot in and around Los Angeles, California.
The films stars Phil Fondacaro, Debra Mayer, Jill Michelle, Daniel Lennox, Hazell Dean, and Raelyn Hennessee. Porn actress Harmony Rose has a small role as a hooker.
Plot.
A fallen foot tall Homunculus called Marvin (a part human/part reptile creature) is imprisoned in a birdcage by a vengeful lover who is bidding to become the world's most powerful vampire.
Footage from "Vampire Journals" (a spin off from "Subspecies (film series)") is used at the beginning of the movie to explain how Morella, the vampire Queen, left her bloodline behind in Europe. The movie ends with Morella transformed into a Homunculus and having sex in the cage with Marvin.
Reception.
The movie was released to mostly negative reviews. Despite this, a figure of the creature 'Marvin' was produced; a growing trend for Charles Band and Full Moon.
Sequel.
"Decadent Evil II" followed in 2007. The movie reunited Jill Michelle with Danniel Lennox, although Ivan Burroughs was played by Ricardo Gil. Fondacaro does, however, appear as Ivan Burroughs in "Evil Bong".


Laolu Senbanjo

Laolu (Olaolu) Senbanjo, also known as "Laolu NYC", is a Nigerian visual artist, musician, singer/songwriter, and former human rights attorney.
Early life.
Senbanjo was born and raised in Ilorin, Nigeria by Yoruba parents. His father was a lawyer, his mother was a nurse. He grew up performing in his church's choir. While in school he had a music group called Light and Fire which performed original songs and covers.
Senbanjo studied law at Nigeria's Law School and, despite wanting to drop out during his second year, received his degree in 2005. He then worked as a human rights lawyer for five years, spending his final three years working at the National Human Rights Commission as a senior legal officer focusing on women and children's rights. Senbanjo travelled to different parts of Northern Nigeria visiting schools and villages to educate men and women about why children should be in school.
"I knew if I pursued a career in the arts, I'd have to live with the fact that some people in my hometown might never talk to me again", said Senbanjo in an interview with 99U. Despite this, in 2010 Senbanjo quit his job as a lawyer and started the Laolu Senbanjo Art Gallery in Abuja, Nigeria.
Senbanjo moved to Brooklyn, New York, in August 2013 to pursue his art career.
Art.
Senbanjo has coined his style of art, Afromysterics, meaning mystery of the African thought pattern. It incorporates African themes and African traditions. His uses charcoal and distinct patterns to create complex, story-rich art designs that draw heavily on his Yoruba heritage and feature ancient Nigerian symbols and patterns. Senbanjo says his Nigerian roots are a major source for his visual inspiration. Though his visual references have been described as sharing "affinities with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring".
He has had commissions from, and formed partnerships with, celebrities and brand titans including Nike, Beyoncé's album "Lemonade", the Grammy Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. He has also partnered with Danielle Brooks (who plays Tasha Jefferson on the Netflix series "Orange Is the New Black"). In June 2015, Senbanjo's new mantra became "everything is my canvas" and he began painting on everything from shoes, to jackets, to people. He created the "Sacred Art of the Ori Ritual", which he describes and explains in an 11 September 2017 TED talk. In his TED talk, Senbanjo talks about his work "Dreamscape". In Laolu Senbanjo’s 2018 print, "Dreamscape", he reflects his frustration with the injustice in the world. Working as a human rights attorney, he saw cases with children who faced the harsh reality of getting forced into marriage or continuing their education at a university. The artwork “is a mind map,” starting where most life does, from a vagina, to then connecting the journey of life and all that comes with that experience to the origin story of being born. Some of the print’s “major themes include religion, war, politics, technology, Egyptology, sexuality, economics, environmental waste, media, history, music, greed and human nature.” Like most of his art, a bold tribal design connects each element in the work inspired by his Yoruba ancestry. Another example of his art style and ancestral Yoruba influence that is more well-known is showcased in Beyoncé’s "Lemonade", where Senbanjo’s body art is showcase throughout the visual album.
Art Appearances in Selected Music Videos.
Senbanjo and his Sacred Art of the Ori Ritual has been featured in various music videos, including:
Brand Collaborations.
Senbanjo has been invited to collaborate with several brands, including:
Music.
Senbanjo is a world music artist who draws influences from Fela Kuti, Sade (singer), Bob Marley, and King Sunny Adé. His musical style is deeply rooted in the traditions of Afrobeat and High Life, mixed with Afro-Soul and Reggae. Senbanjo blends singing in his native Yoruba language and often translates Yoruba folks songs, proverbs and his oriki into English.


Elizabeth Talford Scott

Elizabeth Talford Scott (February 7, 1916 – April 25, 2011) was an American folk artist, known for her quilts.
Early life.
Elizabeth Caldwell was born near Chester, South Carolina, where her family lived as sharecroppers on the Blackstock Plantation, on the land where her grandparents had been enslaved. She was the sixth of fourteen children (seven brothers and seven sisters) born to Mary Jane and Samuel Caldwell, and the third female. Elizabeth grew up in a family of craftspeople who practiced pottery, metalwork, basketry, quilting and knitting. They were also storytellers. Both her parents made quilts, and Elizabeth learned to quilt by the age of 9. Her father was a railroad worker who collected fabric scraps in his travels, and he colored the scraps using natural dyes that he made from berries and clay. In 1940, during the Great Migration, Elizabeth moved north to Baltimore, Maryland to escape bigotry and to seek greater economic opportunities.
Career.
In Baltimore, Elizabeth Talford Scott worked long hours as a domestic servant, a nanny, and a cook, and stopped quilting from around 1940-1970. Upon her retirement from these other jobs, Elizabeth took up quilting again, and soon developed her unique style that expanded upon the traditional strip piecing that she had learned from her family. In addition to piecework, these new quilts often incorporated embroidery, appliqué, bead work, sequins, plastic netting and found objects such as stones, buttons and shells. Her quilts evolved into dense compositions, often abstract and asymmetrical, with references to family rituals, personal stories, and the rural environment of her childhood. Elizabeth regularly presented workshops and demonstrations, and frequently collaborated with her daughter, artist Joyce J. Scott, to educate students about her craft. The quilts of Elizabeth Talford Scott were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and in New York at the Museum of Biblical Art, the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Museum of American Folk Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1987, Scott received the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, Elizabeth and her daughter were featured in the film "." In 1998, the Maryland Institute College of Art held a retrospective of Scott's work, "Eyewinkers, Tumbleturds and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott," which was curated by George Ciscle. That exhibition traveled to the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and the New England Quilt Museum.
The work of Elizabeth Talford Scott can be found in several private and museum collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Delaware Art Museum, the Philbrook Museum of Art, and in exhibitions at Goya Contemporary gallery in Baltimore, MD.
Personal life and legacy.
In 1940 upon moving to Baltimore, Elizabeth Caldwell met and married Charlie Scott, Jr. from Durham, NC. They had one daughter, artist Joyce J. Scott (b. 1948). When Joyce was twelve, Elizabeth and Charlie separated. Charlie Scott Jr. died in 2005. Elizabeth and Joyce continued to live together in Baltimore until Elizabeth's death at age 95 in 2011.


Irene Williams

Irene Williams (1920–2015) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, although she made her quilts "in solitude" and "uninfluenced." Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Life.
Irene Williams was the daughter of Sandy and Tom Williams. She grew up on a farm with common crops like cotton, watermelon, etc. They also raised various livestock.
She completed school until the ninth grade. She married Cornelius Williams, a man whom she adored, and together they raised six children – three boys and three girls. One of her sons died young, trying to save a logging truck driver from his wrecked vehicle.
Williams' sister-in-law was fellow quilter, Liza Jane Williams.
Work.
Williams did not begin making quilts until she was married and began to have children. Although members of her family and community made quilts, Williams always quilted alone in her house. having never participated in quilting bees, William's style developed on its own, uninfluenced by her peers.


Pancartes

Pancartes were medieval historical documents, drawn up by a monastery, that recorded a sequence of gifts to the monastery. They were created in order that the whole group of grants or gifts could be confirmed by the ruler. They are known from Normandy and other northern French regions. Sometimes they were created over a number of years as successive gifts were added to the original document. Generally the various grants were tied together with a narrative, usually quite short, that linked the various gifts to a short history of the religious house. These documents were a frequent product of monastic houses in Normandy during the early 11th century and afterwards. Normally, they were not a product of the lay administration's chanceries, but came from ecclesiastical sources.
The historian David Bates has argued that the term "pancartes" has been overused in historical studies, pointing out that the strict definition of the term is "a charter which reproduces the text of more than one charter". The important point to Bates is that the document duplicates the original diplomatic of the copied charter.
Sometimes the "pancarte" was recopied after a number of additions had been made to the original, and this could occasionally lead to errors in chronology, as the additions to the original might have been made without respect to the actual order of the donations. The historian Marjorie Chibnall states that the medieval historian Orderic Vitalis used now lost "pancartes" of various Norman monastic houses as sources for his historical writings. The surviving "pancartes" are important not only for their recording of now-lost charters, but also for understanding the history of historical writing.
The practice of writing "pancartes" influenced English monasteries, which were in contact with Norman houses after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Post-Conquest cartularies, such as "Hemming's Cartulary", bear many similarities to the Norman "pancartes". Later, in the reign of King Henry II of England, the monastic writers Benedict of Peterborough, Roger of Howden, and Ralph Diceto also built on the "pancarte" when they inserted documents into their narratives, although their connecting stories were much more elaborate than many other "pancartes".


Jane Stickle

Jane A. Blakeley Stickle (1817-1896) was an American artist. She is most known for a quilt she completed in 1863, known as the 'Dear Jane' quilt.
Early life.
Jane A. Blakeley was born in Shaftsbury, Vermont on April 8, 1817. She was married to Walter Stickle and together they took in at least three local children. In the 1860 census, Jane Stickle was recorded as living apart from her husband. She was also recorded as being an invalid, and though she would reunite with her husband before his death, it is thought that she completed her quilt during her illness and separation from him.
Quilt.
Stickle's magnum opus quilt was created of linen and cotton and is composed of 5602 pieces. These pieces make 169 blocks measuring five inches square, and a scalloped border. Sickle embroidered her name and the words “In War Time 1863”, and the number of pieces used into one corner of the quilt. She also embroidered the initials 'SB' on the back, a reference to her mother Sarah Blakely who had given her the linen fabric. Stickle used many different fabrics in her quilt, and each printed fabric appears in only one block on the quilt. It has been determined that while 30% of the block patterns on the quilt were documented traditional blocks, the bulk of the designs were created by Stickle.
In October of 1862, the Bennington Banner reported that Stickle had won a prize of $2 for the “Best patched quilt” at the county agricultural fair.
The quilt is in the permanent collection of Bennington Museum. It is exhibited for short periods of time in the autumn of each year to reduce wear and aging. It has also been exhibited virtually.
In 1996, Brenda Papadakis published Dear Jane: The Two Hundred Twenty-five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt, sparking global interest in the quilt, which, through the book's title became known as the Dear Jane Quilt. Modern quilters now create their own Dear Jane quilts. Many books, kits, software, and patterns exist to aid quilters in their Dear Jane projects.


Lessons Learned (film)

Lessons Learned is a 2014 fantasy short film written and directed by Toby Froud. The film's visuals were achieved widely through the use puppetry and animatronics.
Production.
"Lessons Learned" was written and directed by Toby Froud, son of the fantasy illustrators and puppet makers Brian and Wendy Froud. Toby, who had appeared as the baby Toby Williams in Jim Henson's "Labyrinth", had developed an interest in puppetry from an early age. The film was executive produced by Heather Henson, daughter of the puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson, who financed the film as part of her Handmade Puppet Dreams series.
To raise money for the film, Froud launched a Kickstarter campaign on July 2, 2013, with a goal of $25,000. The campaign closed on August 1, 2013, having successfully raised $53,330.
Release.
The film premiered in April 2014. It also played at the Portland Film Festival in August 2014.


Torchon lace

Torchon lace (Dutch: stropkant) is a bobbin lace that was made all over Europe. It is continuous, with the pattern made at the same time as the ground. Torchon lace is notable for being coarse and strong, as well as its simple geometric patterns and straight lines. It does not use representational designs. Torchon lace was used by the middle classes for edging or insertion, and also to trim cotton and linen underwear, where it was ideal because of its strength and because it was inexpensive. Torchon lace was originally made from flax, but cotton is used as well, and has been for a long time. It is made in strips 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) wide. Torchon lace generally has a gimp outlining the pattern. The gimp was first used in Sweden, but now is used generally. Colored threads are occasionally used, but in general Torchon lace is white.
Torchon lace is one of the oldest laces, and is common to many lace-making regions such as Belgium, France, Italy, Saxony, Sweden and Spain. Due to its simplicity, torchon lace is generally the first lace a lacemaker learns to make, and has been since at least the 19th century. It only requires a few bobbins and uses thicker thread than other laces, which makes it easier to learn on. It is also the simplest of all the grounded laces. Beggar's lace is an alternative term for torchon lace.
Though it is one of the oldest laces, torchon lace was not made in England until the late 19th century, at which point it was made in the East Midlands, thus it is not considered an English lace. By the early 20th century, machine-made copies were being made that were almost indistinguishable from the hand-made lace.


Isocolon

Isocolon is a rhetorical scheme in which parallel elements possess the same number of words or syllables. As in any form of parallelism, the pairs or series must enumerate like things to achieve symmetry. The scheme is called bicolon, tricolon, or tetracolon depending on whether they are two, three, or four parallel elements.
A well-known example of tricolon is Julius Caesar's "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered").
Etymology.
The term, a compound of "ísos" 'equal' and "kôlon" 'member, clause' was used in the classical Greek rhetorical literature:
The Greek plural is 'isocola', but 'isocolons' is also used in English.
Bicolon.
An example of bicolon is the advertising slogan "buy one, get one free" (you pay for one item but you get another free).
In Biblical poetry it is standard to see a pair of adjacent lines of poetry in which the second echoes the meaning of the first. This can be considered a bicolon. For example:
Tricolon.
A tricolon that comprises parts in increasing size, magnitude or intensity is called a "tricolon crescens", or an ascending tricolon. Tricolon can sometimes be a hendiatris.
Similarly, tricolon that comprises parts that decrease in size, magnitude, intensity, or word length is called a "tricolon diminuens", or a descending tricolon.
Abraham Lincoln used tricola in many of his speeches. His Gettysburg Address has the following phrase: "We cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow..." Lincoln wrote in his second inaugural address, "with malice toward none, with charity toward all, with firmness in the right...", which became the most famous expression in the speech. Winston Churchill also used the device frequently, perhaps most famously in August 1940 when referring to the Battle of Britain with the line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." In this instance, a frequent literary device of making the third colon stand apart in meaning from the other two for emphasis is employed (much/many/few).
Repeating the same thing multiple times is a special case of an isocolon, as a way of saying that only one thing is important, and it is very important. In about 1500, when Louis XII asked Giangiacopo Trivulzio what was necessary to win the war against Ludovico Sforza, Trivulzio answered: "Three things, Sire, Money, money, money!" In the 20th century, the cliché "Location, location, location" was said to enumerate the three most important attributes of real property. This phrase appears in print in Chicago as early as 1926, but is nonetheless frequently credited, incorrectly, to the British real estate magnate Lord Harold Samuel. British Prime Minister Tony Blair set out his priorities for office in 1997 with "Education, education, education".
Tetracolon.
Tetracola are sometimes called "quatrains" ("cf." the usual meaning of quatrain).
Example of Tetracolon may be cited from a poem of is Gabriele D'Annunzio:
Translation: It was raw mortar, and then it was terra cotta, and then it looked like bronze, and now it is a living thing
Another example can be cited from "Richard II", by Shakespeare
Special cases.
A special type of collocation known as an irreversible binomial is a bicolon that is both short and so well known that it becomes a fixed expression. Not all irreversible binomials are bicolons or tricolons, however. Irreversible binomials generally consist of only a few words at most.
Examples of irreversible binomials that are bicolons or tricolons:
Examples of irreversible binomials that are "not" bicolons or tricolons:


International Association of Culinary Professionals

The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) is a United States-based not-for-profit professional association whose members work in culinary education, communication, or the preparation of food and beverage.
The organization's self-stated mission: “IACP serves as a resource and support system for food professionals worldwide. Its mission is to "empower, educate, and engage culinary professionals around the globe."
History.
The organization was formed in 1978, as "Association of Cooking Schools" (ACS), and incorporated in 1979. The name changed to "International Association of Cooking Schools" (IACS) in 1981. By 1987 the association had expanded its reach to include international members and renamed itself the “International Association of Cooking Professionals." In 1990, the association merged with the “Food Marketing Communicators” organization and again changed its name, to the “International Association of Culinary Professionals.”
Since 1990, the association sponsored conferences in New Orleans, Philadelphia, Chicago, Portland, Providence, Baltimore, Dallas, and Seattle.
In 2018, Tanya Steel, a food journalist, healthy foods advocate, and creator of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge & Kids' State Dinner with former First Lady Michelle Obama, a five year-initiative at the White House was named chief executive officer.
IACP Awards.
The IACP Cookbook Awards are presented annually to honor excellence in cookbook writing and publishing. They were previously called "Tastemaker's" awards. These include awards named for Julia Child, for a writer's first cookbook, and a Jane Grigson Award for distinguished scholarship.
The IACP also presents the Bert Greene Awards for food journalism, in magazine, internet, and newspaper categories.
The IACP also gives out awards for food photography and digital media.


Rigoletto discography

This is a list of recordings of "Rigoletto", an 1851 opera by Giuseppe Verdi with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play "Le roi s'amuse" by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.
References.
Notes
Sources


Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space

Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space (original title: Dolcezza Extrema) is a 2015 Italian science fiction-horror film directed by Alberto Genovese. Its one live-action actor is Marco Antonio Andolfi; the remaining characters are represented by sock puppets. It was acquired for distribution in the United States by Troma Entertainment.
Plot.
In a galactic empire dedicated to a cult of fitness and beauty, the monarch Grigorio orders tanning showers delivered to all places of assembly on every planet in memory of the personal trainer Elfisio Masciago, who was electrocuted by a tanning lamp ten years before and has been elevated to the status of a martyr. "Dolcezza Extrema", a pirate ship captained by the washed-up rock star and ex-convict Pixws and with a crew of recovering drug addicts, is assigned the mission. After their arrival on the planet Nemesis, Pixws comes to question his orders and a mutiny takes place.
Production and distribution history.
Genovese and his production company, Loboarts Production, produced "Dolcezza Extrema" in 2015 as their second full-length film after "L'invasione degli AstroNazi". It was a "no-budget" production combining animation (including anime), horror and science fiction, using sock puppets made of recycled materials, but also using digital techniques. Marco Antonio Andolfi (Eddy Endolf) as the king is the only live-action protagonist; the cast also includes in voice parts Alessandro Bianchi (Bakterio Piloro), Giovanni De Giorgi (Pixws) and Paola Masciardi (Yomo). The film features violence and sexual debauchery and a fragmented plot.
In 2016 the film was acquired by Troma Entertainment for U.S. distribution on its streaming service under the title "Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space". It was released on Blu-ray in May 2018.
Reception.
The London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film described "Dolcezza Extrema" as "quite simply insane". A reviewer for "Cinema Italiano" called it "an anarchic cinematic experiment, able to reach the viewer with the power of a virtual punch in the stomach". A reviewer on the "Quinlan" film website emphasised its "daring juxtapositions" and diversity of references (including "Alien", "Star Wars", "Captain Harlock" and "The Muppet Show", and musically, science-fiction film scores and electronic music as well as grindcore and death metal) and found it "out of the box" even in the context of recent Italian independent film and "pleasantly amusing" despite the frustration of its "inevitably" loose plotting.


List of highest-grossing puppet films

This is a list of the highest gross puppet films. Puppet films feature puppets as lead characters. Stop motion films are not included.


Branded to Kill

 is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara and Annu Mari. It was a low budget, production line number for the Nikkatsu Company, originally released in a double bill with Shōgorō Nishimura's "Burning Nature". The story follows Goro Hanada in his life as a contract killer. He falls in love with a woman named Misako, who recruits him for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he becomes hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his sanity as much as his life.
The studio was unhappy with the original script and called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct it at the last minute. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas the night before or on the set while filming, and welcomed ideas from his collaborators. He gave the film a satirical, anarchic and visually eclectic bent which the studio had previously warned him away from. It was a commercial and critical disappointment and Suzuki was ostensibly fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki successfully sued Nikkatsu with support from student groups, like-minded filmmakers and the general public and caused a major controversy through the Japanese film industry. Suzuki was blacklisted and did not make another feature film for 10 years but became a counterculture hero.
The film grew a strong following, which expanded overseas in the 1980s, and has established itself as a cult classic. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an absurdist masterpiece. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, John Woo, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino, and composer John Zorn. Thirty-four years after "Branded to Kill", Suzuki filmed "Pistol Opera" (2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former. The company has also hosted two major retrospectives spotlighting his career.
Plot.
Goro Hanada, the Japanese underworld's third-ranked hitman, and his wife, Mami, fly into Tokyo and are met by Kasuga, a formerly ranked hitman turned taxi driver. Kasuga petitions Hanada to assist him in breaking back into the profession. Hanada agrees and the three go to a club owned by the yakuza boss Michihiko Yabuhara. The two men are hired to escort a client from Sagami Beach to Nagano. After the meeting, Yabuhara covertly seduces Hanada's wife.
Hanada and Kasuga pick up a car designated for the job which unexpectedly has a corpse in the back seat. They dispose of the body, then meet the client and proceed towards their destination. En route Hanada spots an ambush. He dispatches a number of gunmen while Kasuga panics and flails about in hysterics. Foaming at the mouth, Kasuga charges an ambusher, Koh, the fourth-ranked hitman, and they kill each other. Hanada leaves the client to secure Koh's car but hears three gunshots and rushes back to find the client is safe and three additional ambushers have been shot cleanly through the forehead. At a second ambush, Hanada kills more gunmen and sets Sakura, the second-ranked hitman, on fire. Sakura madly rushes towards the client but is shot dead by him. On his way home Hanada's car breaks down. Misako, a mysterious woman with a deathwish, stops and gives him a ride. At home, he has rough sex with his wife, fueled by his obsession with sniffing boiling rice.
Yabuhara hires Hanada to kill four men, the first three being a customs officer, an ocularist and a jewellery dealer. Hanada snipes the first from behind a billboard's animatronic cigarette lighter, shoots the second from a basement up through a pipe drain when the latter leans over the sink and, ordered to finish quickly, blasts his way into the third's office and escapes on an advertising balloon. Misako then appears at his door and offers him a nearly impossible contract to kill a foreigner, which he cannot refuse having just been told the plan.
During the job a butterfly lands on the barrel of his rifle causing him to miss his target and kill an innocent bystander. Misako tells him that he will now lose his rank and be killed. Hanada makes plans to leave the country but is shot by his wife, who then sets fire to their apartment and flees. His belt buckle, however, stopped the bullet and he escapes the building.
He finds Misako and they go to her apartment. After alternating failed attempts by him to seduce her and them to kill each other, she succumbs to his advances when he promises to kill her. Afterwards, he finds he cannot as he has fallen in love with her. In a state of confusion he wanders the streets and passes out on the side of the road. The next day he finds his wife at Yabuhara's club. She tries to seduce him, then fakes hysteria and tells him Yabuhara paid her to kill him and that the three men he had killed had stolen from Yabuhara's diamond smuggling operation, and the foreigner was an investigator sent by the supplier. Unmoved, Hanada kills her, gets drunk and waits for Yabuhara to return. Yabuhara arrives already dead with a bullet hole through the centre of his forehead.
Hanada returns to Misako's apartment where a film projector has been set up. It depicts Misako bound and tortured and directs him to a breakwater, where the following day he is to be killed. Hanada submits to the demand but kills the killers instead. The former client arrives and announces himself as the legendary Number One Killer. He says he will kill Hanada but, in thanks for the work he has done, is only giving a warning at present.
Hanada holes up in Misako's apartment and Number One begins an extended siege, taunting Hanada with threatening phone calls and forbidding him to leave the apartment. Eventually, Number One moves in with the now exhausted and inebriated Hanada under the pretext that he is deciding how to kill him. They agree to a temporary truce and set times to eat, sleep and, later, to link arms everywhere they go. Number One suggests they eat out one day and then disappears during the meal.
At the apartment, Hanada finds a note and another film from Number One stating he will be waiting at a gymnasium with Misako. Hanada waits at the gymnasium but Number One does not show. As a bedraggled Hanada rises to leave, a tape recorder switches on explaining, "This is the way Number One works", he exhausts you and then kills you. Hanada puts a headband across his forehead and climbs into a boxing ring. Number One appears and shoots him. The headband stops the bullet and Hanada returns fire. Number One slumps to the ground but manages to shoot him a few times before dying. Hanada leaps and staggers around the ring declaring himself the new Number One. Misako enters the gym, and Hanada instinctively shoots her dead, again declares himself Number One, then falls out of the ring.
Production.
The Nikkatsu Company conceived "Branded to Kill" as a low-budget hitman film, a subgenre of the studio's yakuza-oriented movies. Their standard B movie shooting schedule was applied, one week for pre-production, 25 days to shoot and three days for post-production. The budget was set at approximately yen. Shortly before filming began, with the release date already set, the script was deemed "inappropriate" by the head office and contract director Seijun Suzuki was brought in to do a rewrite. Studio head Kyūsaku Hori told Suzuki he had had to read it twice before he understood it. Suzuki suggested they drop the script but was ordered to proceed. The rewrite was done with his frequent collaborator Takeo Kimura and six assistant directors, including Atsushi Yamatoya (who also played Killer Number Four). The eight men had worked under the joint pen name Hachiro Guryu ("Group of Eight") since the mid-1960s. Nikkatsu was building leading man Joe Shishido into a star and assigned him to the film. They specified that the script was to be written with this aim. The film also marks Shishido's first nude scene. Suzuki originally wanted Kiwako Taichi, a new talent from the famous theatre troupe Bungakuza, for the female lead but she took a part in another film. Instead, Suzuki selected Annu Mari, another new actress who had been working in Nikkatsu's music halls. In casting the role of Hanada's wife, Suzuki selected Mariko Ogawa from outside of the studio as none of the contract actresses would do nude scenes.
Suzuki did not use storyboards and disliked pre-planning. He preferred to come up with ideas either the night before or on the set as he felt that the only person who should know what is going to happen is the director. He also felt that it was sudden inspiration that made the picture. An example is the addition of the Number Three Killer's rice-sniffing habit. Suzuki explained that he wanted to present a quintessentially "Japanese" killer, "If he were Italian, he'd get turned on by macaroni, right?" Suzuki has commended Shishido on his similar drive to make the action scenes as physical and interesting as possible. In directing his actors, Suzuki let them play their roles as they saw fit and only intervened when they went "off track". For nude scenes the actors wore "maebari", or adhesive strips, over their genitals in accordance with censorship practices. The film was edited in one day, a task made easy by Suzuki's method of shooting only the necessary footage. He had picked up the habit during his years working as an assistant director for Shochiku when film stock remained sparse after the war. Post-production was completed on June 14, 1967, the day before the film was released.
Style.
Like many of its yakuza film contemporaries, "Branded to Kill" shows the influence of the James Bond films and film noir, though the film's conventional genre basis was combined with satire, kabuki stylistics and a pop art aesthetic. It was further set apart from its peers, and Seijun Suzuki's previous films, through its gothic sensibilities, unusual atonal score and what artist and academic Philip Brophy called a "heightened otherness". The result has been alternately ascribed as a work of surrealism, absurdism, the avant garde and included in the Japanese New Wave movement, though not through any stated intention of its director. Suzuki employed a wide variety of techniques and claimed his singular focus was to make the film as entertaining as possible.
Genre conventions are satirized and mocked throughout the film. In American noirs, heroes, or anti-heroes, typically strive to be the best in their field. Here the process was formalized into a rankings system obsessed over by its players. The femme fatale—a noir staple—Misako, does not simply entice the protagonist and bring the threat of death but obsesses him and is obsessed with all things death herself. She tries to kill him, wants to kill herself and surrounds herself with dead things. Hanada's libido is as present as that of the protagonists of similar films of the period, such as James Bond, though perversely exaggerated. Reviewer Rumsey Taylor likened Hanada's boiled rice sniffing fetish to Bond's "shaken, not stirred" martini order. The film also deviates from the opening killer-for-hire scenario to touch on such varied subgenres as psychosexual romance, American Gothic thriller and "Odd Couple" slapstick.
The film industry is a subject of satire as well. For example, Japanese censorship often involved masking prohibited sections of the screen. Here Suzuki preemptively masked his own compositions but animated them and incorporated them into the film's design. In the story, after Hanada finds he is unable to kill Misako he wanders the streets in a state of confusion. The screen is obscured by animated images with accompanying sounds associated to her. The effects contributed to the eclectic visual and sound design while signifying his obsessive love. Author Stephen Teo proposed that the antagonistic relationship between Hanada and Number One may have been analogous of Suzuki's relationship with studio president Kyūsaku Hori. He compared Hanada's antagonizers to those who had been pressuring Suzuki to rein in his style over the previous two years. Teo cited Number One's sleeping with his eyes open and urinating where he sits, which the character explains as techniques one must master to become a "top professional."
The film was shot in black and white Nikkatsuscope (synonymous with CinemaScope at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio). Due to the wide frame, moving a character forward did not produce the dynamic effect Suzuki desired. Instead, he relied on spotlighting and chiaroscuro imagery to create excitement and suspense. Conventional framing and film grammar were disregarded in favour of spontaneous inspiration. In editing, Suzuki frequently abandoned continuity, favouring abstract jumps in time and space as he found it made the film more interesting. Critic David Chute suggested that Suzuki's stylistics had intensified—in seeming congruence with the studio's demands that he conform:
Reception.
"Branded to Kill" was released to Japanese theatres on June 15, 1967, in a double bill with Shōgorō Nishimura's "Burning Nature". The films were financially unsuccessful and the former fared likewise among critics. "Kinema Junpo" magazine reported that the films "resulted in less than viewers at Asakusa and Shinjuku and about 500 at Yurakucho on the second day." Both Joe Shishido and Yamatoya Atsushi later recounted having seen "Branded to Kill" in practically empty theatres, the latter on its opening night. Iijima Kōichi, a critic for the film journal "Eiga Geijutsu", wrote that "the woman buys a mink coat and thinks only about having sex. The man wants to kill and feels nostalgic about the smell of boiling rice. We cannot help being confused. We do not go to theaters to be puzzled." Nikkatsu Studios had been criticized for catering to rebellious youth audiences, a specialty of contract director Seijun Suzuki, whose films had grown increasingly anarchic through the 1960s. This had earned him a large following but it had also drawn the ire of studio head Kyūsaku Hori. On April 25, 1968, Suzuki received a telephone call from a company secretary informing him that he would not be receiving his salary that month. Two of Suzuki's friends met with Hori the next day and were told, "Suzuki's films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies."
A student film society run by Kazuko Kawakita, the Cineclub Study Group, was planning to include "Branded to Kill" in a retrospective honouring Suzuki's works but Hori refused them and withdrew all of his films from circulation. With support from the Cineclub, similar student groups, fellow filmmakers and the general public—which included the picketing of the company's Hibiya offices and the formation of the Seijun Suzuki Joint Struggle Committee—Suzuki sued Nikkatsu for wrongful dismissal. During the three-and-a-half year trial the circumstances under which the film was made and Suzuki was fired came to light. He had been made into a scapegoat for the company's dire financial straits and was meant to serve as an example on the outset of an attempted company-wide restructuring. A settlement was reached on December 24, 1971, in the amount of one million yen, a fraction of his original claim, as well as a public apology from Hori. In a separate agreement "Branded to Kill" and his previous film, "Fighting Elegy", were donated to the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art's Film Centre. The events turned Suzuki into a legend and shook the film world. "Branded to Kill", along with other of his films, played to "packed audiences who wildly applauded" at all-night revivals in and around Tokyo. However, Suzuki was blacklisted by the major studios and did not make another feature film until "A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness" (1977) ten years after "Branded to Kill". In the meantime, he subsisted on commercial and television work and writing books of essays.
"Branded to Kill" first reached international audiences in the 1980s, featuring in various film festivals and retrospectives dedicated wholly or partially to Suzuki, which was followed by home video releases in the late 1990s. It garnered a reputation as one of his most unconventional, revered Nikkatsu films and an international cult classic. It has been declared a masterpiece by the likes of film critic Chuck Stephens, writer and musician Chris D., composer John Zorn and film director Quentin Tarantino. Writer and critic Tony Rayns noted, "Suzuki mocks everything from the clichés of yakuza fiction to the conventions of Japanese censorship in this extraordinary thriller, which rivals Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" in its harsh eroticism, not to mention its visual fireworks." Modified comparisons to the films of a "gonzo Sam Fuller", or Jean-Luc Godard, assuming one "factor[s] out Godard's politics and self-consciousness", are not uncommon. In a 1992 "Rolling Stone" magazine article, film director Jim Jarmusch affectionately recommended it as, "Probably the strangest and most perverse 'hit man' story in cinema." Jasper Sharp of the Midnight Eye wrote, "[It] is a bloody marvellous looking film and arguably the pinnacle of the director's strikingly eclectic style."
However, the workings of the plot remain elusive to most. Sharp digressed, "[T]o be honest it isn't the most accessible of films and for those unfamiliar with Suzuki's unorthodox and seemingly disjointed style it will probably take a couple of viewings before the bare bones of the plot begin to emerge." As Zorn has put it, "plot and narrative devices take a back seat to mood, music, and the sensuality of visual images." Japanese film historian Donald Richie thus encapsulated the film, "An inventive and ultimately anarchic take on gangster thrillers. [The] script flounders midway and Suzuki tries on the bizarre for its own sake." David Chute conceded that in labeling the film incomprehensible, "If you consider the movie soberly, it's hard to deny the bosses had a point". On a conciliatory note, Rayns commented, "Maybe the break with Nikkatsu was inevitable; it's hard to see how Suzuki could have gone further in the genre than this."
After another unrelated 10-year hiatus, Suzuki and Nikkatsu reunited for the "Style to Kill" retrospective, held in April, 2001, at Theatre Shinjuku in Tokyo. It featured 28 films by Suzuki, including "Branded to Kill". Suzuki appeared at the gala opening with star Annu Mari. Joe Shishido appeared for a talk session at an all-night, four-film screening. An accompanying "Branded to Kill" visual directory was published. The following year, the Tanomi Company produced a limited edition 1/6 scale "Joe the Ace" action figure based on Shishido's character in the film, complete with a miniature rice cooker. In 2006, Nikkatsu celebrated the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut by hosting the "Seijun Suzuki 48 Film Challenge" retrospective at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival. It showcased all of his films. He and Mari were again in attendance.
Legacy.
As one of Seijun Suzuki's most influential films, "Branded to Kill" has been acknowledged as a source of inspiration by such internationally renowned directors as Hong Kong's John Woo, South Korea's Chan-wook Park and America's Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino. Jarmusch listed it as his favourite hitman film, alongside "Le Samouraï" (also 1967), and thanked Suzuki in the screen credits of his own hitman film "" (1999). Most notably, Jarmusch mirrored a scene in which the protagonist kills a target by shooting up from a basement through a sink drain. He went so far as to screen the film for Suzuki when the two met in Tokyo. Critics have noted "Branded to Kill's" influence on the films of Wong Kar-wai, such as his hitman film "Fallen Angels" (1995), as well as Johnnie To's "Fulltime Killer" (2001). However, "Branded to Kill" was most influential in its native Japan. The film's premise, in which hitmen try to kill each other in competition for the Number One rank, is spoofed in films such as Takeshi Kitano's "Getting Any?" (1995) and Sabu's "Postman Blues" (1997), which features a character named Hitman Joe. "Branded to Kill" played a role in the development of the long-running Lupin III franchise. It also had a profound impact, through Suzuki's firing and the resulting student uprising, in the beginnings of the movement film, usually underground or anti-establishment films which focused on issues of import to audiences, as opposed to production line genre pictures.
Thirty-four years after "Branded to Kill", Suzuki directed "Pistol Opera" (2001), a loose sequel co-produced by Shochiku and filmed at Nikkatsu. The character Goro Hanada returns as a mentor figure to the new Number Three, played by Makiko Esumi. However, Joe Shishido was replaced by Mikijiro Hira in the role of Hanada. Suzuki has said that the original intention was for Shishido to play the character again but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira for the role. Reviews were of a favourable nature on par with its predecessor. Jonathan Rosenbaum supposed, "Can I call a film a masterpiece without being sure that I understand it? I think so ..." Although some, such as Elvis Mitchell for The Village Voice, felt its zeal fell slightly short of the original.
Home video.
"Branded to Kill" was initially made available in Japan by Nikkatsu in VHS format, first on February 10, 1987, then a second version on June 10, 1994. Both versions were censored for nudity with a black bar obscuring half of the frame during the relevant scenes. The first uncensored release since the film's theatrical debut was an October 26, 2001, DVD from Nikkatsu. It included an interview with Seijun Suzuki, two with Joe Shishido, an Annu Mari photo gallery and the original film trailers for it and several other Suzuki films. The release was one of three linked to the "Style to Kill" theatrical retrospective. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut, the film was included in the first of two six-film DVD box sets which was released October 1, 2006. All six titles included audio commentary tracks featuring Suzuki with various collaborators, those being Annu Mari and assistant director Masami Kuzū for "Branded to Kill".
The first North American copy surfaced in the early 1990s at Kim's Video in New York in a video series titled "Dark of the Sun" devoted to obscure Asian cinema, assembled by John Zorn, albeit without English subtitles. The Criterion Collection released the film in the United States and Canada on laserdisc in 1998, followed by a DVD on February 23, 1999, both containing a 15-minute interview with Suzuki, poster gallery of Shishido films and liner notes by Zorn. Home Vision Cinema release a VHS version on June 16, 2000. Both companies conjunctively released "Tokyo Drifter" in all three formats in addition to a VHS collection packaging the two films together. In the United Kingdom, Second Sight Films released a DVD on February 25, 2002, and a VHS on March 11, 2002. Yume Pictures released a new DVD on February 26, 2007, as a part of their Suzuki collection, featuring a 36-minute interview with the director, trailers and liner notes by Tony Rayns. Madman Entertainment's Eastern Eye label released the film on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on May 2, 2007. It also contained the original trailer, a photo gallery and liner notes.
Criterion released "Branded to Kill" on Blu-ray on December 13, 2011.
Soundtrack.
Forty years after the film's original release, on February 23, 2007, the Japanese record label Think issued the soundtrack on Compact Disc through its "Cine Jazz" series, which focused on 1960s Nikkatsu action films. The music was culled from Naozumi Yamamoto's score. Atsushi Yamatoya wrote the lyrics for the "Killing Blues" themes. Listings 27 through 29 are bonus karaoke tracks.


James Hadley (potter)

James Hadley (August 1837 – 23 December 1903) was an English potter and artist associated with the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company. Until 1895 his work was produced almost exclusively by Royal Worcester; he later set up his own factory.
Life.
In the 1850s Hadley was apprenticed to Kerr and Binns of Worcester, proprietors of the Royal Worcester porcelain factory, where he worked in the modelling department. By 1870 he had become principal modeller there. In 1875, he left the company and set up his own modelling studio in Worcester High Street. Although no longer directly employed by Royal Worcester he sold almost his complete output of models for ornamental vases and figures to them.
He has been described by John Sandon as "probably the finest English modeller of all time" Able to work in any form or style required, he is best known for his decorative figures, made in the 1870s and 1880s, when taste was shifting towards coloured models from the previous fashion for plain white Parian Ware.
One of his most famous works was the "Aesthetic Teapot", modelled for Worcester after a design by R.W. Binns. Satirising Oscar Wilde and the aesthetic movement, it is formed as a soulful young man wearing a sunflower on one side, and lovelorn maiden with lily on the other; despite its sculptural form, it still functioned as a teapot.
Hadley's contract to supply models to Royal Worcester was ended in November 1895 due to a decline in the luxury end of the market. For a while he rented some factory space at Shrub Hill, Worcester from Edward Locke, with whom he had worked at Royal Worcester . Then, in 1897, with the support of business partner Frank Littledale, Hadley set up a factory at Diglis Road in the city on land owned by his family. In 1900 Hadley & Sons became a limited company with the shares owned by Hadley and his four sons, and by Frank Littledale.
Hadley died in 1903. In June 1905 Royal Worcester purchased his factory. Production of his wares was transferred to main site in Severn Street, Worcester, the next year.


Arabs Got Talent

Arabs Got Talent is an Arab reality television talent show broadcast by MBC 1 in the Arab world; it is produced by the MBC and was first broadcast on 14 January 2011. The show features contestants with a variety of talents, such as singing, break-dancing, comedians, magicians, and rapping. The show features three celebrity judges, popular in the Middle East. They currently are Lebanese singer Najwa Karam; the dean of the journalism school at the American University in Dubai Ali Jaber; and Ahmed Helmy, an Egyptian actor. The show's venue is in Lebanon.
Though entry into the semi-finals is based on the judges' vote, the voting in the semi-finals and final is an audience vote, akin to other "Got Talent" shows. The grand prize is 500,000 Saudi Riyals and a brand new Chrysler 300 as well as a contract with MBC.
The show finished its second season on June 29, 2012. The third season started airing September 14 moving its timeslot from Fridays to Saturdays. The fourth season began airing on December 20. The fifth season ended May 20, 2017, with eight-year-old opera singer Emanne Beasha winning.
The show is hosted by Saudi rapper and musician Qusai and Lebanese TV presenter Raya Abirached.
Selection process.
Producers' auditions.
Contestants are initially chosen at non-televised auditions in the capitals of participating Arab country, such as Doha in Qatar.
Judges' auditions.
Chosen contestants proceed to perform in front of the celebrity judges. It is by the judges' votes that they enter the next round. Judges may terminate a contestant's performance by buzzing in, signifying an X. However, buzzes from all judges are required to stop the performance. These auditions are televised weekly on Saturdays on MBC4.
Live shows.
The semi-finals and final are broadcast live. They feature performances by the contestants, usually on a grander scale. Judges can still stop a performance if all three buzz in, three times. In the semi-final, the winners are chosen by the viewers' voting (by means of texting), though only the most-voted-for contestant proceeds to the final, the second and third placed proceed via a vote by the judges.
In the final, fourteen contestants remain and, after each contestant finishes their performance, the winner is chosen by the viewers' voting.


Brighton Fringe

Brighton Fringe is an open-access arts festival held annually in Brighton, England. It is the largest annual arts festival in England and one of the largest fringe festivals in the world. The programme of 2018 included 1008 events at over 166 venues across 4 weeks, in May and June.
Introduction.
Brighton Fringe runs at a similar time to Brighton Festival, and in 2013 extended its run to four weeks.
One of the event's main objectives is to promote local talent and the arts. It also offers performers an opportunity for their event to be reviewed or picked up by promoters, as well as going on to Edinburgh. This is why anyone can put on a Brighton Fringe event. In 2011 Brighton Fringe launched the Professional Development Programme, aimed at offering workshops to aspiring performers wanting to progress in the business. In 2012, Brighton Fringe opened its own on-street box office, which provided a physical base for the arts event, selling tickets as well as being a hub for promoters and performers. They also launched "Brighton in the Square", a showcase of Brighton Fringe performers at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.
As part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Brighton Fringe introduced the Dip Your Toe project in 2012, which featured performances in six custom-built Victorian bathing machines, which were located throughout Brighton and Hove during the month of May. In 2014, the organisation launched an Arts Council England supported scheme called "Window" which showcases productions suitable for touring.
Brighton Fringe is a registered charity but does not rely on public funding, in fact, less than 3% of its income is generated from public sources. The other sources of revenue include participants’ registration fees, advertising, sponsorship and Friends memberships.
History.
Fringe activity has run alongside Brighton Festival since its creation in 1967. In 1972 Sussex University student Titus Alexander set up a society to stage fringe events, including a centenary play The Legend and True History of Aubrey Beardsley, with Christopher Pope as Beardsley, which went to the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Fringe established itself as a limited company and registered charity in October 2006, with its own board of directors and complete financial independence from the Festival. In 2012 it rebranded itself as Brighton Fringe. In this period of time the organisation more than doubled in size, increasing from 323 shows in 2007 to 719 in 2012, bringing visitors into the city and boosting tourism and local businesses.
The programme of 2018 included two new seasons. The Freedom Season – a programme of events that are accessible to a range of audiences with access needs, including those with physical and invisible disabilities, and the Finnish Season. Furthermore, 2018 also saw the return of the Dutch Season and the return of late-night Fringe City.
The current CEO is Julian Caddy.
In 2020, Brighton Fringe was scheduled to run from 1 May until the 31 May; however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was rescheduled for an unconfirmed date in September or October 2020.
Open access.
Brighton Fringe is an open-access mixed arts event, which means it does not book performers, but is approached by people wishing to put events on and be part of the Fringe. Participants can vary from the complete beginner to the hardened professional show, and everything in between. Therefore, anyone can put an event on as part of Brighton Fringe.
Venues.
A venue for Brighton Fringe can be anything; from a large concert hall or theatre to a private house, a park, or on one occasion, a bath.
With the increase of large high-profile venues, some commentators have suggested that Brighton Fringe may be reaching a similar profile as the Edinburgh Fringe.
Fringe City.
In a similar vein to the use of the Royal Mile at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, "Fringe City", a free event taking place in the New Road, Pavilion Gardens and Jubilee Street area of Brighton, was first introduced in 2007. By 2008, it was taking place every Saturday of May, and provides a showcase for any of the performers from the Fringe. In 2015, Fringe City saw audiences of 75,000, and in 2016, Fringe City saw audiences of 100.000, and takes place every weekend throughout the festival, alongside Family Picnic events on some weekends.
Fringe Academy.
Fringe Academy is a year-round programme of more than fifty free workshops providing skills-basked training, advice and support for individuals looking to expand their knowledge and understanding of the arts. Brighton Fringe brings thereby a host of experts from Brighton University and Arts Council England for instance, which secures a high level of learning.
Awards and Bursaries.
Every year Brighton Fringe hand out awards in the various categories to the best events and companies participating in the Fringe. Furthermore, Brighton Fringe works closely together with local and national organisations and companies to put together a number of bursaries and funding opportunities for Brighton Fringe participants.