Eliza Warren

Eliza Warren née Jervis (1810–1900) was an English writer on needlework and household management, and editor of the "Ladies' Treasury" magazine. She was best-known professionally by the pen-name Mrs. Warren, but after a second marriage was also known as Eliza Francis and Eliza Warren Francis.
Writing and editing.
Her first books, in the later 1840s, were collections of crochet patterns for clothing and decorative items for the home. She created over 50 illustrated fancy needlework designs for the short-lived "Drawing-room Magazine", with associated lessons offered in a London showroom, and contributed patterns to "Family Friend". The "Drawing-room Magazine", which she probably edited herself, contained fiction, poetry and informative articles, as did her later magazine "Timethrift", which survived for just six issues.
Books like "Cookery for Maids of All Work" and "Comfort for Small Incomes" offered advice on the management of modest middle-class homes. Warren began to write on these household subjects in the 1850s. Sometimes her work was presented as the "autobiographical" story of a fictional character, even when clearly labelled on the title page as "by Mrs. Warren": for instance, "How I Managed my Children from Infancy to Marriage". Like "How I Managed on £200 a Year", this book used the character of an experienced housekeeper to give advice to a novice: a dialogue format used in evangelical literature of the period.
In 1857 Warren became editor of the "Ladies’ Treasury", a new magazine which described itself as an "illustrated magazine of entertaining literature, education, fine art, domestic economy, needlework, and fashion". The publication was "handsomely printed on good paper" and ran successfully for nearly 40 years. Mrs. Warren's name helped promote the needlework articles, and it was also on a column called "Cookery for All Incomes". She is presumed to have also written other pieces signed with various combinations of her names and initials. Warren Francis was a "masculine" byline for articles about history, geography and other non-domestic subjects.
The "Ladies’ Treasury" was popular and well received at the time. The "Civil Service Gazette" even called it "the best of all the magazines designed for the use of ladies". Its main competitor was the Beetons' "Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine", and one of Mrs. Beeton's recent biographers has suggested the "Ladies’ Treasury" was an inferior "copycat". Others disagree and have called Eliza Warren "remarkably prolific and enterprising".
The two writers may have been aiming at somewhat different markets. Eliza Warren's advice was suitable for households with just one servant. In her books especially, she encouraged frugality and was concerned with "moral management of the home". Some journals, like the "Churchman's Shilling Magazine", ran stories about young adults who learned domestic budget management from reading Mrs. Warren's books. Meanwhile, Mrs. Beeton and other Victorian writers on household management implied that their middle-class readers had a variety of servants and leisure to entertain and socialise.
Life.
Eliza Jervis was born on 23 December 1810 in Wells, Somerset, and was the eldest of the six children of a draper. After marrying a commercial traveller called Walter Warren in 1836 she moved to London. Within a couple of years of being widowed unexpectedly in 1844 she started publishing needlework manuals. Her next marriage in 1851, to Frederic Francis, a customs officer, lasted less than five years before Eliza found herself a widow again. If she had any children they did not survive infancy.
While she kept up a steady stream of book and magazine work for 20 years and more after Frederic's death, she also moved out of London to Surrey and started a boarding house. She lived there with about half a dozen lodgers and one or two servants until the 1890s. As well as handling these responsibilities, over the years she had provided a home for a niece and nephew, and, as the eldest daughter of a sick mother, had learnt to manage household duties from a young age. Her experience fitted her for writing on household management, but she had to give the impression of being the well-established mother of a family, like her competitors in the domestic advice business, and so she kept the facts of her own life vague enough to support her writing career and professional persona.


Pubcast

A pubcast is an online presentation that includes the combination of video with a published research article. This is accomplished by using an in-browser application software that enables the ability to select particular portions of the published article to be displayed at particular points in a video timeline. The result is a synchronized presentation posted online.
Variation.
The term pubcast is used as a colloquialism to describe a video conference session in an unlikely place, such as a pub. The session is intended to include a remote participant in a social event.
The term Pubcast is used to describe a Podcast that is primarily or entirely recorded in a pub.
History.
The term pubcast was coined by Phil Bourne, co-founder of SciVee, a web 2.0 a science video sharing website in early 2007.
Christophe Delire is conceiver of the PostModemArt WebOpera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-303q0ttFE (postmodemart) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5bwete0i8 (webopera)
Christophe uses pubcast.be since 2007 to make realtime exhibitions where information is played "live" and dynamically on a vertical time line (like a blog).


Kim Naver

Karen-Margrethe (Kim) Naver (born 1940) is a Danish designer and textile artist, specializing in weaving and tapestry. Inspired by both coarse Polish techniques and patterns and materials from the Orient, she has been successful in creating textiles for industrial furniture manufacturers (Cotil, Paustian), as well as for domestic use (Royal Copenhagen). She is recognized as one of Denmark's leading figures in Danish modern textile art. Her silver jewellery designs have been marketed by Georg Jensen A/S.
Biography.
Born in the Frederiksberg district of Copenhagen on 24 June 1940, Karen-Margrethe Naver is the daughter of the book dealer Rasmus Peder Pedersen Naver (1894–1976) and Christine Paula Claudia Oehlerich Petersen (1900–53). After matriculating from Øster Borgerdyd Gymnasium, in 1959 she moved to Paris where she studied history of art at the École du Louvre. On returning to Denmark, she attended "Skolen for Boligindretning" (Interior Design School) where she decided she wanted to make a career in textiles. In 1962, she became an apprentice with Lis Ahlmann, one of the most distinguished weavers of the day. A talented student, Naver mastered the various sewing and embroidery techniques so quickly that she was able to exhibit work at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1963.
The same year, she married the actor Peter Steen, giving birth to her first child Morten in 1964. She continued her education with Vibeke Klint, progressing to the stage where she was able to open her own workshop in 1966. The designs she had created as an apprentice were brought by the textile company Cotil for commercial production. Naver went on to win the Cotil Prize in 1969 and the Lunning Prize in 1970.
Around that time, Naver began experimenting with the coarser Polish weaving styles which had gained popularity, adopting new colours and widening her freedom of expression. In 1973, she met her second husband, the architect Mogens Breyen. Together they travelled to the Far East where she was inspired to adopt the intricate patterns and fine materials she discovered there. Her subsequent work, exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Danish Design Museum, initiated a new trend in decorative Danish textile art.
In the late 1970s and the 1980s, Naver served on several influential boards, including the Danish Arts Foundation, the School of Applied Arts and the Danish Handcraft Council. She was also a consultant to Haandarbejdets Fremme which played an important role in promoting Danish textile design. She also contributed textile designs to Royal Copenhagen and created silverware for Georg Jensen.
Among Naver's most important works are her five large tapestries in Danmarks Nationalbank, complementing Arne Jacobsen's architecture (1979), and the circular flat-woven rug she designed for A.P. Møller's headquarters (1980).
Awards.
Among Naver's many scholarships and awards are the Thorvald Bindesbøll Medal and the Order of the Dannebrog.


Joanna Ampil

Joanna Ampil is a musical theatre and film actress from the Philippines and United Kingdom.
Career.
Joanna is a leading actress in the West End and on the international stage; as Kim in Miss Saigon (London, original Australian production, original United Kingdom and Ireland Tour and The 10th Anniversary Performance), Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables (London, Belfast and Windsor performed for HM Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family), Mary Magdalene in the West End revival of Jesus Christ Superstar (London), Mimi in Rent (European Tour), Christmas Eve in Avenue Q (London), Sheila Franklin in Hair (London), Thanh in the world premiere of The Real Love (Los Angeles), Heidi in I Sing! (London), The ingénue June in The Musical of Musicals (London), Francesca in the international premiere of The Bridges of Madison County (Manila), Inang Bayan in Rebel EDSA 30 (Manila), Maria in West Side Story (Manila), Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (Manila), Nellie Forbush in South Pacific in Concert (Manila), Blue Fairy in Pinocchio: A New Musical (Singapore), West End Women (UK Tour), The Magic of Disney in Concert (Hyde Park, London), Defying Gravity: The Songs of Stephen Schwartz (Sydney), Grizabella in Cats (UK & European Tour 2013-14, World Tour 2017-2018, Asian Tour 2019-2020, 40th Anniversary Production 2020-2021), Mary Magdalene in the Tokyu Theatre Orb's production of Jesus Christ Superstar (Tokyo) and Jenna in the international premiere of Waitress (Manila).
She can be heard on the cast recordings of Miss Saigon: Complete Symphonic Recording as Kim, Jesus Christ Superstar: 1996 London Cast as Mary Magdalene, The Postman and the Poet as Beatriz Gonzalez and the soundtrack of the feature film Ang Larawan as Candida. Her debut album Joanna Ampil was recorded in Abbey Road Studios in 2007 by JAY Records, followed by Try Love in 2010 by Sony Music and Joanna Ampil in 2014 with VIVA Records. Her latest singles are Always Better and Memory.
She portrayed Candida in the feature film Ang Larawan (The Portrait) where she won the Metro Manila Film Festival MMFF 2017, PMPC Star Awards, Gawad Pasado, Luna, Gawad Tangi, Guillermo Award, Urduja Best Heritage Film Awards and the prestigious Gawad Urian Best Actress Awards.
She can be seen in the digital and television series "Babae Sa Septic Tank 3" (iWant TFC), "Call Me Tita" (ABS CBN, iWant TFC) and "Broken News" (BBC). She portrayed Corazon in Maalaala Mo Kaya's "Kadena" (ABS-CBN, iWant TFC) wherein she won the GEMS Award for Best Actress for Television.


Comedy film

A comedy film is a category of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement and most often work by exaggerating characteristics for humorous effect. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). One of the oldest genres in film—and derived from the classical comedy in theatre—some of the earliest silent films were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue.
Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as "The King of Comedy" and "Wag the Dog").
The Screenwriters Taxonomy contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character and story, and therefore the labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre.  Instead, the taxonomy contends that comedy films are a "Type" of film; listing at least a dozen different sub-types of comedy films.
History.
Silent film era.
The first comedy film was "L'Arroseur Arrosé" (1895), directed and produced by Louis Lumière. The most noted comedy actors of the era were Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton.
Sub-types.
Anarchic comedy.
The anarchic comedy film, as its name suggests, is a random or stream-of-consciousness type of humour which often lampoons a form of authority. The genre dates from the silent era, and the most famous examples of this type of film would be those produced by Monty Python. Others include "Duck Soup" (1933) and "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978).
Bathroom comedy (or gross out comedy).
Gross out films are a relatively recent development and rely heavily on vulgar, sexual or "toilet" humor. They often contain a healthy dose of profanity. Examples include "Porky's" (1982), "Dumb and Dumber" (1994), "There's Something About Mary" (1998), and "American Pie" (1999).
Comedy of ideas.
This sub-type uses comedy to explore serious ideas such as religion, sex or politics.  Often the characters represent particular divergent world views and are forced to interact for comedic effect and social commentary.  Some examples include: "Bob Roberts" (1992) and "MASH" (1970).
Comedy of manners.
A comedy of manners satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. Also, satirical comedy-drama & the plot is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal. However, the plot is generally less important for its comedic effect than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as "Much Ado about Nothing" created by William Shakespeare. Examples for comedy of manners films include "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961) and "Under the Tuscan Sun" (2003).
Black comedy.
The black comedy film deals with normally taboo subjects, including death, murder, crime, suicide, and war, in a satirical manner. Examples include "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944), "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947), "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949), "The Ladykillers" (1955), ' (1964), "The Loved One" (1965), "MASH" (1970), "S.O.B." (1981), "The King of Comedy" (1983), "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" (1983), "Brazil" (1985), "After Hours" (1985), "The War of the Roses" (1989), "Heathers" (1989), "Wag the Dog" (1997), "Your Friends & Neighbors" (1998), "Keeping Mum" (2005), "Thank You for Smoking" (2005), "Burn After Reading" (2008), 'The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013), "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri" (2017) and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (2019).
Farce.
Farcical films exaggerate situations beyond the realm of possibility – thereby making them entertaining.  Film examples include: "In the Loop" (2009) and "Some Like it Hot" (1959).
Observational humor.
These films find humor in the common practices of everyday life.  Some film examples of observational humor include: "Carnage" (2011) and "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" (2002).
Parody (or spoof).
A parody or spoof film satirizes other film genres or classic films. Such films mock-u-mentary, employ sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from other films, and the obviousness of meaning in a character's actions. Examples of this form include "Mud and Sand" (1922), "Blazing Saddles" (1974), "Airplane!" (1980), "Young Frankenstein" (1974), "Spaceballs" (1987), and "Scary Movie" (2000).
Sex comedy.
Humor that is primarily derived from sexual situations and desire, such as "Choke" (2008) and "Knocked Up" (2007).
Situational comedy.
Humor that comes from knowing a stock group of characters (or character types) and then exposing them to different situations to create humorous and ironic juxtaposition; case in point: "Galaxy Quest" (1999) and "Madea's Big Happy Family" (2011).
Straight comedy.
This broad sub-type applies to films that do not attempt a specific approach to comedy but, rather, used comedy for comedic sake.  "Clueless" (1995) and "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993) are examples of straight comedy films.
Slapstick.
Slapstick films involve exaggerated, boisterous action to create impossible and humorous situations. Because it relies predominately on visual depictions of events, it does not require sound. Accordingly, the subgenre was ideal for silent movies and was prevalent during that era. Popular silent stars of the slapstick genre include Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Harold Lloyd. Some of these stars, as well as acts such as Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges, also found success incorporating slapstick comedy into sound films. Modern examples of slapstick comedy include "Mr. Bean's Holiday" (2007) and "The Three Stooges" (2012).
Surreal comedy.
Storytelling that includes behavior and storytelling techniques that are illogical; includes bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations and unpredictable reactions to normal situation; for instance:  "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) and "Swiss Army Man" (2016).
Hybrid subgenres.
According to the Screenwriters Taxonomy, all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) of the eleven super-genres. This combination does not create a separate genre, but rather, provides a better understanding of the film.
Action comedy.
Films in this genre/type blend comic antics and action where the stars combine one-liners with a thrilling plot and daring stunts. The genre became a specific draw in North America in the eighties when comedians such as Eddie Murphy started taking more action-oriented roles such as in "48 Hrs." (1982) and "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984).
Sub-genres of the action comedy (known as macro-genres in the Screenwriters Taxonomy) include:
Superhero films.
Another category of the action comedy (considered a Pathway in the Screenwriters Taxonomy) include:
Comedy thriller.
Comedy thriller is a genre/type that combines elements of humor and suspense. Films such as "Silver Streak", "Charade", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "In Bruges", "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", "Grosse Point Blank", "The Thin Man", "The Big Fix", and "The Lady Vanishes".
Comedy mystery.
Comedy-mystery is a film genre combining elements of comedy and mystery fiction. Though the genre arguably peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, comedy-mystery films have been continually produced since. Examples include the "Pink Panther" and "Scooby-Doo" films.
Crime comedy.
A hybrid and mix of crime and comedy films. Examples of crime comedies include: "Inspector Palmu's Mistake" (1960), "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000), "Take the Money and Run" (1969) and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988).
Fantasy comedy.
Fantasy comedy films use magic, supernatural or mythological figures for comic purposes. Some fantasy comedy includes an element of parody, or satire, turning fantasy conventions on their head, such as the hero becoming a cowardly fool or the princess being a klutz. Examples of these films include "The Chipmunk Adventure", "Big", "Being John Malkovich", "Ernest Saves Christmas", "Ernest Scared Stupid", "Night at the Museum", "Groundhog Day", "Click", and "Shrek".
Comedy horror.
Comedy horror is a genre/type in which the usual dark themes and "scare tactics" attributed to horror films are treated with a humorous approach. These films either use goofy horror cliches, such as in "Scream", "Young Frankenstein", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "Little Shop of Horrors", "Haunted Mansion", and "Scary Movie" where campy styles are favored. Some are much more subtle and don't parody horror, such as "An American Werewolf in London". Another style of comedy horror can also rely on over-the-top violence and gore such as in "The Evil Dead" (1981), "Braindead" (1992), and "Club Dread" (2004) – such films are sometimes known as "splatstick", a portmanteau of the words "splatter" and "slapstick". It would be reasonable to put "Ghostbusters" in this category.
Life (or: day-in-the-life) comedy.
Day-in-the-life films takes small events in a person's life and raises their level of importance.  The "small things in life" feel as important to the protagonist (and the audience) as the climactic battle in an action film, or the final shootout in a western.  Often, the protagonists deal with multiple, overlapping issues in the course of the film – just as we do in life.  The day-in-the-life comedy often finds humor in commenting upon the absurdity or irony of daily life; for example "The Terminal" (2004) or "Waitress" (2007).  Character humor is also used extensively in day-in-the-life comedies, as can be seen in "American Splendor" (2003).
Romantic comedy.
Romantic comedies are humorous films with central themes that reinforce our beliefs about love (e.g.: themes such as "love at first sight", "love conquers all", or "there is someone out there for everyone"); the story typically revolves around characters falling into (and out of, and back into) love. "Amélie" (2001), "Annie Hall" (1977), "Charade" (1963), "City Lights" (1931), "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994), "It" (1927), "The Lobster" (2015), "My Favorite Wife" (1940), "Pretty Woman" (1990), "Some Like It Hot" (1959), "There's Something About Mary" (1998) and "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989) are examples of romantic comedies.
Screwball comedy.
A subgenre of the romantic comedy, screwball comedies appear to focus on the story of a central male character until a strong female character takes center stage; at this point, the man's story becomes secondary to a new issue typically introduced by the woman; this story grows in significance and, as it does, the man's masculinity is challenged by the sharp-witted woman, who is often his love interest.  Typically it can include a romantic element, an interplay between people of different economic strata, quick and witty repartee, some form of role reversal, and a happy ending. Some examples of the screwball comedy are: "It Happened One Night" (1934), "Bringing Up Baby" (1938), "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1941), and more recently, "What's Up, Doc?" (1972).
Science fiction comedy.
Science fiction comedy films often exaggerate the elements of traditional science fiction films to comic effect. Examples include "Back to the Future", "Spaceballs", "Ghostbusters", "Evolution", "Galaxy Quest", "Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass", "Innerspace", "Iron Sky", "Mars Attacks!", "Men in Black", and "The World's End".
Sports comedy.
Sports comedy combines the genre of comedy with that of sports. Thematically, the story is often one of "Our Team" versus "Their Team"; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption; the story does not always have to involve a team.  The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team.  The comedic aspect of this super-genre often comes from physical humor ("Happy Gilmore -" 1996), character humor ("Caddyshack -" 1980), or the juxtaposition of bad athletes succeeding against the odds ("The Bad News Bears" - 1976).
War comedy.
War films typically tells the story of a small group of isolated individuals who – one by one – get killed (literally or metaphorically) by an outside force until there is a final fight to the death; the idea of the protagonists facing death is a central expectation in a war film. War comedies infuse this idea of confronting death with a morbid sense of humor.  In a war film even though the enemy may out-number, or out-power, the hero, we assume that the enemy "can" be defeated if only the hero can figure out how.  Often, this strategic sensibility provides humorous opportunities in a war comedy. Examples include "Good Morning, Vietnam"; "M*A*S*H"; the Francis the Talking Mule series; and others.
Western comedy.
Films in the western super-genre often take place in the American Southwest or in Mexico, with a large number of scenes occurring outside so we can soak in nature's rugged beauty. Visceral expectations for the audience include fistfights, gunplay, and chase scenes. There is also the expectation of spectacular panoramic images of the countryside including sunsets, wide open landscape and endless deserts and sky.  Western comedies often find their humor in specific characters ("Three Amigos", 1986), in interpersonal relationships ("Lone Ranger", 2013) or in creating a parody of the western ("Rango", 2011).


Tamil radio on internet

Tamil radio on internet has become very popular after the Sri Lankan Tamil national radio started broadcasting their services on the Internet. This new trend has attracted millions of Tamil listeners from all over the world, specially listeners from south India and a commercial service called "Varthaga Sevai" was started. This became a very popular Sri Lankan Tamil radio service and since then other private Tamil radio stations have also started broadcasting.
Early days.
The first private Tamil radio station was "Sooryan fm" who also started to stream over the Internet and captured all the Tamil listeners that the Tamil commercial service had built up. Sooryan fm quickly become very popular because of their simple Tamil. Competition for Tamil radio increased when several private Tamil radios started (Shakthi, Thalam, etc.). After Shakthi entered into Tamil TV the trend slightly changed away from radio and into television with the generation change.
Internet radio.
With the introduction of Internet radio, there were no Tamil-language stations with live announcers and programmes but there were and still are many Tamil stations broadcasting only Tamil songs. The first Internet station which was very famous for broadcasting only songs was "Superstarzfm". This ceased broadcasting after a while due to financial problems. Later, some young people with SObrothers joined and created the radio station "TamilsFlashFm", which is also known as TFFm. This is the first Tamil Youth Internet radio and within three years it had become very popular and reached monthly 60,000 Tamil Listeners worldwide. This station not only broadcast songs round the clock but also hosted live on air shows with young Rj's giving the listeners the chance to request songs through Skype and MSN. The current Program Manager of TamilFlash.Fm is Sabesan Kanagaratnam.
Other radio stations followed TamilsFlashFm's lead and produced live shows on air.
Now there are other Internet radio stations which use the SHOUTcast technique to broadcast over the Internet. Also, radio and podcasting apps focused on India, such as JawaRadio, bring regional languages into their platform.


Peter Sarsgaard

John Peter Sarsgaard (; born March 7, 1971) is an American actor. His first feature role was in "Dead Man Walking" in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films "Another Day in Paradise" and "Desert Blue". That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998), playing Raoul, the ill-fated son of Athos. Sarsgaard later achieved critical recognition when he was cast in "Boys Don't Cry" (1999) as John Lotter. He landed his first leading role in the 2001 film "The Center of the World". The following year, he played supporting roles in "Empire", "The Salton Sea", and "".
For his portrayal of Charles Lane in "Shattered Glass", Sarsgaard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sarsgaard has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy-drama "Garden State", the biographical film "Kinsey" (2004), the drama "The Dying Gaul" (2005), and big-budget films such as "Flightplan" (2005), "Jarhead" (2005), "The Skeleton Key" (2005), "Orphan" (2009), "An Education" (2009), "Knight and Day" (2010), "Green Lantern" (2011), "Lovelace" (2013), Kelly Reichardt's "Night Moves" (2013), "Blue Jasmine" (2013), "Black Mass" (2015), and "The Magnificent Seven" (2016). Sarsgaard also appeared in the American TV series "The Killing" (2013) as a man on death row perhaps wrongfully convicted for the brutal murder of his wife—a performance which he says included "some of the best acting I have ever done in my life."
Sarsgaard has appeared in Off-Broadway productions including "Kingdom of Earth", "Laura Dennis", "Burn This", and "Uncle Vanya". In September 2008, he made his Broadway debut as Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin in "The Seagull". He is married to actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Early life.
John Peter Sarsgaard was born at Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois, on March 7, 1971, the son of Judy Lea ("née" Reinhardt) and John Dale Sarsgaard. His father was an Air Force engineer and later worked for Monsanto and IBM. His surname originates in Denmark, where his paternal great-great-grandparents were born; it is pronounced in Danish. Sarsgaard was raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy. His family moved more than 12 times during his childhood, following his father's job. At the age of 7, Sarsgaard originally wanted to become a soccer player and took up ballet to help improve his coordination. After suffering several concussions while playing soccer, he gave up the sport and became interested in writing and theater.
Sarsgaard attended Fairfield College Preparatory School, a private Jesuit boys' school in Connecticut, where he became interested in film. Following his graduation from Fairfield Prep in 1989, he attended Bard College in New York for two years before transferring to Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) in 1991, where he co-founded an improvisational comedy troupe "Mama's Pot Roast." While at WUSTL, Sarsgaard began performing in plays in an offshoot of New York's Actors Studio; His first role was as the servant Laurent in Molière's "Tartuffe". In 1993, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in history and moved to New York.
Career.
1995–1998: Early work.
Sarsgaard branched out with guest roles in television productions filmed in New York City, with "Law & Order" in 1995, and "New York Undercover" (1997) as well as an appearance in the 1997 HBO special "Subway Stories". He appeared in his first film role in "Dead Man Walking" (1995), where he was cast as a murdered teenager, killed by Sean Penn's character.
His next film roles were in a series of independent features: "Another Day in Paradise" (1997), part of an ensemble cast that included James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, and Natasha Gregson Wagner, and In "Desert Blue" (1998), where he had a supporting role in the film. He received a substantial role in the 1998 film "The Man in the Iron Mask", where he played Raoul, the ill-fated son of John Malkovich's dueling Musketeer, Athos. The film uses characters from Alexandre Dumas' d'Artagnan Romances, and is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne". The film received ambivalent reviews, but was a success at the box office, earning $182 million worldwide.
1999–2002: Worldwide recognition.
In 1999, Sarsgaard earned critical recognition in Kimberly Peirce's "Boys Don't Cry", where he was cast as notorious killer John Lotter. The film is based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, who was raped and murdered in 1993 by Lotter and Tom Nissen after they found out that he was a trans man. "Boys Don't Cry" received overwhelmingly positive acclaim from critics, and his performance was critically well received. According to "The Boston Globe", "Peter Sarsgaard ... makes the killer's terrible trajectory not only believable, but grounded in the most mundane clodhopper behavior. He isn't a drooling monster, he's a guy you wouldn't look twice at a bar or a convenience store." A contributor from the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" wrote "It's a marvelous performance supported ably by ... Sarsgaard as the unpredictable, sociopathic Lotter." The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. In regards to his character, as how Sarsgaard made him "likeable, sympathetic even" was because he wanted the audience "to understand why they would hang out with me. If my character wasn't necessarily likable, I wanted him to be charismatic enough that you weren't going to have a dull time if you were with him." In another interview, Sarsgaard said he felt "empowered" by playing Lotter.
His first leading role was in the 2001 feature "The Center of the World", where he plays Richard Longman, a lonely young entrepreneur who skips out on his company's big initial public offering and pays a stripper (Molly Parker) $10,000 to fly to Las Vegas with him. The film received average reviews, however, A.O. Scott of the "New York Times", reported that the performances by both Sarsgaard and Parker "provide a rough grain of authenticity, capturing the blunted affect and aimless neediness of people in their 20s struggling to navigate a world of material abundance and impoverished emotional possibility." Scott concluded in his recap that Sarsgaard made his character "seem like a genuinely nice guy, too innocent to grasp the sleaziness of his bargain with Florence."
In 2002, Sarsgaard starred in three films, "", "Empire" and "The Salton Sea". In "K-19: The Widowmaker", he portrayed a young Russian navy lieutenant. The film's budget cost was $100 million to make, but upon release, it grossed $35 million in the United States and $30 million internationally, qualifying it as a box office failure. His next role was in "Empire", a crime thriller, where he was cast in a supporting role. Sarsgaard played a meth addict in D. J. Caruso's "The Salton Sea".
2003–present: Continued success.
2003 marked a significant turning point in Sarsgaard's career, when he starred in the feature film "Shattered Glass". He depicted journalist Charles Lane, the lead editor of "The New Republic". "Shattered Glass" is based on the real events of journalist Stephen Glass' career at "The New Republic" during the mid-1990s and his fall when his widespread journalistic fraud is exposed. During promotion of the film, Sarsgaard noted of his portrayal of Lane: "I just wanted to get his perspective on the actual events. [...] I think that I tried to have some respect for myself and that way you're respecting the real person you're playing. I've done it a number of times. And it's always a little bit confusing. The best thing to do is just to ignore the fact, I think, that you're playing somebody who is a real life character." According to the "San Diego Union-Tribune", "Peter Sarsgaard is appealingly level, a stolid straight-shooter as Lane". A reviewer from the "Chicago Tribune" noted that Sarsgaard plays Lane with "great subtlety and grace". The newspaper concluded with, "The character doesn't seethe with personal resentment; when he does a slow burn, he conveys a much deeper sense of a man's value system being violated past the breaking point." Sarsgaard's performance in the film earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination and an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Following the success of "Shattered Glass", Sarsgaard starred in several roles. In 2004, he starred in the comedy-drama "Garden State", where he played Mark, the sarcastic best friend to Zach Braff's character. In the same year, Sarsgaard portrayed Clyde Martin, in the biographical film "Kinsey", a movie about the life of Alfred Kinsey, played by Liam Neeson. "Kinsey" was Sarsgaard's first film role which featured full frontal nudity. Paul Clinton of CNN reported that Sarsgaard's Clyde Martin "stands out" and "confirms that he's without doubt one of the best character actors of his generation." When asked about his kissing scenes with Neeson in "Kinsey", Sarsgaard said:
It wasn't as hard as, say, running around with all my gear on in "Jarhead". I'd rather go for an awkward moment than physical exertion any day. The only thing that I think [male actors] get freaked out about when they have to do something like kiss a guy in a movie—when to their knowledge they're straight—is that they're afraid they're going to be turned on. And if you're not afraid that you're going to be turned on—meaning that you know what you like—then really it's not that hard.
In 2005, Sarsgaard starred in the drama "The Dying Gaul", where he plays Robert Sandrich, a struggling screenwriter who has written a serious love story about a man and his terminally ill partner. The film received favourable reviews. In an interview, Sarsgaard said, he felt like he was playing a character based on Craig Lucas, the director, whom he describes as "elitist in a fun way". Because his character, a screenwriter, is also "elitist," when he sells his soul by compromising his artistic vision, "...the conflict seems bigger. Anyone can sell their soul. Even people with integrity. There's always that temptation to guard against. Which is why it's best to keep as much as possible hidden."
Also in 2005, he had supporting roles in the suspense thriller films "The Skeleton Key" and Robert Schwentke's "Flightplan". In the latter film, Sarsgaard played an air marshall, who is ordered to keep guard of Jodie Foster's character. "Flightplan" was screened at a special presentation at the 30th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. Despite the mixed reviews, the film was a financial success, earning $223 million worldwide, making it his highest-grossing film to the end of 2008. Sarsgaard's next feature was "Jarhead" (2005), opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie is based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War memoir of the same name.
Sarsgaard hosted "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") on January 21, 2006. In his introductory monologue, he tried to point out that he was a nice guy despite his sometimes macabre roles. Video clips were then played of Sarsgaard scaring the "SNL" cast. One sketch featured the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) global scare, which was still fresh in many minds, and one of the skits included a promotion for the Peter Sarsgaard "SARS-Guard", a reference to the mania of facemasks worn in public by those fearing infection.
In 2007, he starred in supporting roles in "Year of the Dog" and "Rendition". "Year of the Dog" is a dark comedy about a lonely middle-aged woman, played by Molly Shannon, who finds that animals are the only beings she can truly rely on. Sarsgaard plays Newt, an androgynous dog trainer, and love interest for Shannon's character. He starred alongside Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Reese Witherspoon, and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Rendition", a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the US policy of extraordinary rendition. Viewed as a sex symbol, Sarsgaard was named one of Salon.com's Sexiest Man Living in 2007. 2008 saw Sarsgaard star in the drama "Elegy", based on a Phillip Roth novel, "The Dying Animal". The film received favorable good reception amongst critics.
In 2009, Sarsgaard starred alongside Jon Foster and Sienna Miller in the drama "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh". It is an adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel of the same name. In the movie, Sarsgaard plays Cleveland, the rebellious bisexual boyfriend of Miller's character. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. His next film appearance was in the thriller "Orphan", where he and Vera Farmiga play a married couple who lose a baby and adopt a nine-year-old girl, who is not as innocent as she claims to be. Furthermore, in the same year, Sarsgaard starred as David in Lone Scherfig's coming of age film "An Education". The role required Sarsgaard to speak in a British accent. "An Education" drew favorable reviews from critics. According to "Variety", "Sarsgaard ... marvelously expresses the savoir faire that has such an impact on Jenny [Carey Mulligan]." Sarsgaard played a federal agent in the action comedy film "Knight and Day", released in June 2010, in which he appeared alongside Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. In February 2010, it was announced that Sarsgaard had been cast as villain Hector Hammond in the superhero film "Green Lantern". The film was released in 2011.
Stage career.
In 1995, Sarsgaard made his theatrical debut in the Off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's "Laura Dennis", which was directed by James Houghton. Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" wrote: "Mr. Sarsgaard ... emerges as an actor to watch with a performance of breathtaking emotional conviction." The following year he starred in "Kingdom of Earth" opposite Cynthia Nixon and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. His performance in the play received favorable reviews amongst critics. In October 2002, Sarsgaard returned to theater in a New York production of Lanford Wilson's "Burn This", where he replaced Edward Norton.
In 2008, Sarsgaard made his Broadway debut at the Royal Court Theatre of Anton Chekhov's adaptation "The Seagull" alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Mackenzie Crook and Carey Mulligan. In the production, he plays, Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin, a tortured writer who drives a rival to suicide and a young lover to ruin. For the role, Sarsgaard had been required to speak in a British accent, in which he wanted it to be "less liked by an American audience".
Sarsgaard played Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a country doctor and philosopher, in the Classic Stage Company's 2009 off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" in New York City. The cast also included Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mamie Gummer, Denis O'Hare, and George Morfogen. The production, directed by Austin Pendleton, began previews on January 17 and ended its limited run on March 1. Joe Dziemianowicz of the "New York Daily News" gave the production one out of four stars, but complimented his performance, writing that Sarsgaard does a "credible job as the doctor". In the Bloomberg review of "Uncle Vanya", John Simon, wrote: "Sarsgaard can't find the right tempi or emphases: shuttling between colorless rattle and silence-studded rallentandos, he fails at both infectious enthusiasm and self- effacing charm."
In May 2010, it was reported that Sarsgaard would star in Chekhov's play "Three Sisters". The production was scheduled to begin in 2011, and Sarsgaard would be reunited with "Uncle Vanya" director Austin Pendleton.
Personal life.
In an interview with "The New York Times", Sarsgaard stated that he followed Catholicism, saying: "I like the death-cult aspect of Catholicism. Every religion is interested in death, but Catholicism takes it to a particularly high level. [...] Seriously, in Catholicism, you're supposed to love your enemy. That really impressed me as a kid, and it has helped me as an actor. [...] The way that I view the characters I play is part of my religious upbringing. To abandon curiosity in all personalities, good or bad, is to give up hope in humanity."
Among his most notable romantic relationships, Sarsgaard dated burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese and model and actress Shalom Harlow. Early in his film career, he dated photographer Malerie Marder, a close friend from his days attending Bard College, who had featured Sarsgaard in some of her early work.
Sarsgaard began a romantic relationship with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, the sister of his close friend Jake Gyllenhaal, in 2002. In April 2006, they announced their engagement, and on May 2, 2009, they married in a small ceremony in Brindisi, Italy. They have two daughters: Ramona (born October 3, 2006) and Gloria Ray (born April 19, 2012).
Sarsgaard is vegan, but he says he cooks meat for his children.
In June 2013, Sarsgaard and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for Chelsea Manning.


Lower Rhenish Music Festival

The Lower Rhenish Music Festival (German: Das Niederrheinische Musikfest) was one of the most important festivals of classical music, which happened every year between 1818 and 1958, with few exceptions, at Pentecost for 112 times.
History.
In the year 1817 Johann Schornstein, the musical director at Elberfeld, organized a music festival in his town, in which he was assisted by the musicians from Düsseldorf under their conductor Friedrich August Burgmüller. During this festival the idea was born by Schornstein and Burgmüller to repeat this event every year alternately between their cities. In the year 1821 the musicians from Cologne and 1825 from Aachen participated, but with the performance 1827 the responsible persons of Elberfeld decided to stop their commitment, because the town was not up to manage the rush of musicians and guests. This festival continued up to 1958 and took place 112 times. Only during the period of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states and the First and Second World War the meeting was interrupted. After the last war in the year 1948 Cologne resigned out of this cycle of the music festival, whereas the cities Wuppertal, a fusion of Elberfeld and Barmen, and Duisburg acceded to this meeting. But in the year 1958 the festival was closed definitely, because in the meantime some other regional music festivals were founded.
At the beginning the Lower Rhenish Music Festival continued two days and from the year 1826 one day more, every year during Whitsuntide. Temporary in 1834 the king Frederick William III of Prussia interdicted this performance on Whitsun for religious reasons, but by the intercession of his nephew prince Frederick of Prussia, an art enthusiast and protector of the art societies of Düsseldorf, the festival regained permission with some restrictions.
Characteristics.
From the beginning the Lower Rhenish Music Festival apprehended as a societal and cultural culmination on a highly artistically level. To the home and foreign guests, politicians, business people and members of the high nobility there were presented all the compositions, which played a significant role at that time. In addition to the local music directors many important conductors, composers and soloists were engaged as director of the festivals. Again and again the stage was used for the performance of world and national premieres and also for the presentation of new versions by known or unknown artists. The focus comprised the music of the last epochs of the Baroque music, the Viennese classical as well as the Romantic Music and later of the 20th-century classical music. There were performed the great symphonic poems, mass, oratorios, chorale, cantatas and here and there chamber music.
This implicated that sometimes the participation of more than 500 musicians. On one side the high number of musicians and the foreign guests connoted a lucrative revenue stream but on the other side also a logistical challenge and risk for the organization.
Chronology.
In the following you will find a chronology of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in detail, which was compiled from a selection of reliable sources and provides an overview.


The Flaming Idiots

The Flaming Idiots were a comedy juggling troupe of three performers: Jon O'Connor, Rob Williams and Kevin Hunt. Their stage names were Pyro, Gyro, and Walter. They began their act as a busking routine in the early 1980s in Dallas and they performed their last show at the New Victory Theater on Broadway in New York City in 2004. The Flaming Idiots created and produced their show as well as performing it.
They gained early popularity by street performing and developing an act that traveled the Renaissance Faire circuit. Beginning in 2000 and ending in 2004, they performed the show at Zachary Scott Theatre in Austin, Texas, replacing the renaissance-related theme of their show with a vaudeville theme. They used the vaudeville theme in their traveling show on Broadway as well.
The Flaming Idiots performed on "Comic Strip Live", "Sunday Comics", "The Today Show", "The Tonight Show" and others, but Hunt says, "We always preferred to perform onstage with a live audience."
In 2009, they reunited for the holiday-themed production "Chestnuts Roasting on the Flaming Idiots" at the New Victory Theater in New York City, New York.
Performance.
Rob Williams introduced himself as "Gyro" and acted as emcee of the troupe as well as a performer. Kevin Hunt's stage character of "Walter" was taciturn and deadpan, while O'Connor's character of "Pyro" was a zany and unhinged character.
They performed a wide variety of tricks, but their act was based primarily on juggling and object manipulation and was heavily accented with comedy. Signature routines included the three men juggling five beanbag chairs, Williams' whip-cracking tricks, a sword-swallowing act from Hunt that was modified using a animal balloon, a triple escape from intertwined straitjackets, and a three-man acrobatic trick they called "Chicken Fight". They also juggled flaming torches and knives and were expert at pin passing. They used some audience participation in shows. Williams performed a routine involving making a bologna sandwich entirely with his feet and handing it to an audience member to eat. He performed this sketch on The Tonight Show, and for it he is in The Guinness Book of World Records. Williams holds the world record for this activity.
The act routinely received high praise from arts critics in numerous newspapers. They claim to have performed in five countries: "The United States, Canada, Mexico, England, and Texas."
When The Flaming Idiots disbanded the show, the mayor of Austin attended their last show at Zach Scott Theater and read a mayoral proclamation naming that day "Flaming Idiots Day" in Austin, TX.
The troupe published a DVD titled "The Flaming Idiots: Their Very, Very, Very, Very Last Show Ever!" The DVD was Directed by Steven Annenberg and distributed through Madam Mogul Productions. The DVD is currently available through Amazon.com or visit their website at theflamingidiotsdvd.com. It was recorded live at the New Victory Theater in NYC during their "farewell" performance.
Since the act disbanded, Rob Williams has started a two-person variety comedy show called Kamikaze Fireflies ( www.kamikazefireflies.com ). Along with his partner Casey Martin they travel all over the world performing traditional skills such as juggling and hula hooping mixed with absurd moments such as a hot dog being chased by a dinosaur. You can find them at www.Facebook.com/kamikazefireflies. Before joining forces with Casey Martin, and immediately following the end of the Idiots, Rob continued to perform worldwide as a solo variety artist, television writer, stand up comic, and made theatrical forays, including the role of the elf in David Sedaris' "The Santaland Diaries", performed in 2004 at Zachary Scott theater in Austin, Texas.
The Flaming Idiots have finished a reunion tour. Their first stop was The Moisture Festival in Seattle, next was the Edmonton Street Performers Festival, then it was back to Broadway at The New Victory, and then it finished with a run in Austin, TX at Zach Scott, and a one weekend appearance at the Scarborough Renaissance Festival in Waxahachie, TX.


The Hegemon-King Bids His Lady Farewell

The Hegemon-King Bids His Lady Farewell (), also known as Farewell My Concubine, is a traditional Chinese opera. It was initially performed by Yang Xiaolou and Shang Xiaoyun in 1918 in Beijing. Though usually associated with Peking opera, it is also performed in other genres such as Cantonese opera.
The opera tells the story of Xiang Yu, the self-styled "Hegemon-King of Western Chu" who battled for the unification of China with Liu Bang, the eventual founder of the Han dynasty. In the play, Xiang Yu is surrounded by Liu Bang's forces and on the verge of total defeat, so he calls forth his horse and begs it to run away for the sake of its own safety. The horse refuses, against his wishes. He then calls for the company of his wife Consort Yu. Realizing the dire situation that has befallen them, she begs to die alongside her master, but he strongly refuses this wish. Afterwards, as he is distracted, Yu commits suicide with Xiang Yu's sword.
The novel "Farewell My Concubine" by Lilian Lee and its film adaptation of the same name use the play as part of their stories.


Toshi Seeger

Toshi Seeger (born Toshi Aline Ohta; July 1, 1922 – July 9, 2013) was an American filmmaker, producer and environmental activist. A filmmaker who specialized in the subject of folk music, Toshi's credits include the 1966 film "Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison" and the Emmy Award-winning documentary "", released through PBS in 2007. In 1966, Seeger and her husband, folk-singer Pete Seeger, co-founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands. Additionally, they co-founded the Clearwater Festival (officially known as The Great Hudson River Revival), a major music festival held annually at Croton Point Park in Westchester County, New York.
Personal life.
Toshi Seeger was born Toshi Aline Ohta on July 1, 1922, in Munich. Her mother, Virginia Harper Berry, was an American originally from Washington, D.C., while her father, Takashi Ohta, was a Japanese exile from Shikoku. Her grandfather, who had translated Marxist writings into Japanese, had been ordered to leave Japan. However, Takashi Ohta took his father's place, as permitted under Japanese law at the time, and went into exile. He met Virginia Berry while traveling, and they married and lived in Munich. Toshi and her parents moved to the United States when she was six months old and she was raised in Greenwich Village and Woodstock, New York. She attended the Little Red School House in Manhattan and graduated from The High School of Music & Art in 1940.
She met her future husband, Pete Seeger, at a square dance in 1939. The couple married in 1943 with an engagement ring bought with money borrowed from Pete's grandmother. In 1949 they moved to a log cabin without running water or electricity, with a view of the Hudson River. She has been credited as the foundation of Seeger's personal and professional success. Toshi, along with their children, went with Pete to his hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington during the 1950s. Pete Seeger was cited for contempt of Congress in 1961, but his conviction was later overturned.
Career.
Toshi Seeger helped to set up the Newport Folk Festival during the early 1960s. She has also been credited with helping to discover Mississippi John Hurt, a country blues musician, during the same era. In 1965, she took part in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. She developed a career as a filmmaker and producer, often focusing on folk music and musicians. Many of her films are preserved at the Library of Congress. In 1966, she released "Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison", which focused on the traditional songs sung by Texas prison inmates as they chopped down trees. Pete Seeger's ban from television appearances for his political views was lifted in 1965. From 1965 to 1966, Toshi produced and directed a public television series, "Rainbow Quest", hosted by her husband. Her official credited title for the show was "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer."
Toshi and Pete Seeger co-founded both the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and its related musical offshoot, The Great Hudson River Revival, also known as the "Clearwater Festival". She used the festival to rally public support for cleaning up the Hudson River. Under her direction, the festival also instituted a number of ideas which were not utilized at other music festivals during the 1970s and 1980s, providing sign language interpreters, handicapped accessible wheelchair access, and recycling programs. She recruited up-and-coming musical artists to perform at the festival through its planning committee, including Tracy Chapman, before they achieved popularity elsewhere. The Clearwater Festival now attracts more than 15,000 attendees to Croton Point Park each summer.
Toshi Seeger executive produced the 2007 PBS documentary, "", which won an Emmy Award. She was 85 years old at the time of the documentary's production. She served on numerous civic, environmental and artistic organizations, including the New York State Council on the Arts.
Death.
Toshi Seeger died at her home in Beacon, New York, on July 9, 2013, at the age of 91, nine days before what would have been her 70th wedding anniversary. She was surrounded by her husband; their children Daniel, Mika and Tinya; six grandchildren, including singer Tao Rodríguez-Seeger; and one great-grandson. Pete Seeger died six months later, on January 27, 2014, at age 94.


Foundation piecing

In patchwork, foundation piecing was originally a method used to stabilize pieces of fabric that were stitched together. It first became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries in England, although a 15th-century Italian piece, the Impruneta cushion owned by Antonio degli Agli, may have used foundation piecing. A similar process popular in Britain is English paper piecing.
Originally pieces of scrap fabric or muslin were used as the foundation. Recently, the use of paper, whether tracing paper, freezer paper or some other heavyweight paper, has become very popular for use as a pattern, in creating quilt blocks that are all the same size, each with precise, sharp points and perfectly matched intersections. In addition, information such as color and fabric choices can be written on the paper foundation in order to facilitate the construction of the piece and reducing room for error while sewing.
With paper piecing, a shorter stitch length (e.g. 12 stitches per inch) is used when sewing the components together. This perforates the foundation, making it easier to tear away after the block is completed. Several methods can be used to prepare the design for use on the foundation: tracing, photocopying, computer printing, needle punching, and pre-set designs.
There are three primary techniques used when foundation piecing: top pressed, under pressed and single template piecing. The technique used is dependent upon your preference and the pattern of the design being sewn. However, under pressed piecing allows for greater accuracy because the sewing is done right on the foundation with the fabric underneath, which allows the stitcher to view the marked seam line and sew directly on it.
References.
Hall, Jane, "The Experts Guide to Foundation Piecing", C & T Publishing, Layfayette, CA, 2006.
Anderson, Alex, "Paper Piecing With Alex Anderson: 7 Quilt Projects, Tips, Techniques", C & T Publishing, Layfayette, CA, 2011.


Blair on Broadway

Blair on Broadway is a satirical musical based on the political career (from 1997 to 2007) of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The words and lyrics were written by journalist and novelist Iain Hollingshead, with music by journalist Timothy Muller.
Original production.
Blair on Broadway opened at Highbury's Hen and Chickens Theatre on 25 October 2007. The show's critical reception, which included reviews in The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Stage, was mixed, with descriptions ranging from "a show that packs some punch" (The Telegraph) to "toothless spoof" (The Guardian). The show proved popular with audiences, with the initial run selling out.
On 2007-11-18, a charity gala performance of the show was staged at the Arts Theatre, off Leicester Square in the West End. The evening was hosted by Derek Jacobi in aid of the charity Children of Peace, and featured a brief cameo appearance from journalist Matthew Parris.
Arts Theatre production.
The show returns to the Arts Theatre for three weeks in January 2008, in a reduced one-hour format with no interval. The run will see more cameos from well-known politicians and journalists, including MPs Bob Marshall-Andrews and Lembit Opik, former reporter and independent MP Martin Bell, author and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, human rights activist Peter Tatchell, and journalists Rod Liddle, Polly Toynbee and Andrew Rawnsley.


Reality film

Reality film or reality movie describes a genre of films that have resulted from reality television, such as "The Real Cancun", MTV's film version of "The Real World", which was originally titled "Spring Break: The Reality Movie". In an article in "Time Magazine", Joel Stein wrote, "Like reality TV, a reality film is supercheap, and as "Jackass" proved, there's an audience willing to pay $9 for what it gets free on television." Typically, a pre-determined situation is staged or created, often with the use of non-professional actors, and then the "reality" of what happens is filmed. In an article on reality movies, "Variety" pointed out the low budget of reality films in an era of skyrocketing marketing and production costs for traditional films has made them an attractive option for studios, with the selling point being "Tits and ass. Teenage tits and ass, that is."
History of reality film.
"The thinking behind these pics is not new," wrote Gabriel Snyder in "Variety" about the techniques employed by recent reality movies. In the 1950s, Samuel Arkoff tapped into teen auds with quickies like "Rock All Night" and "Reform School Girl" and beach films such as "Bikini Beach" ("It's where every torso is more so, and bare-as-you-dare is the rule!"). London's "Evening Standard" called Andy Warhol's 1966 film "Chelsea Girls" a reality film and noted that the "Radio Times Guide to Film 2007" stated it was "to blame for reality television." The film consists of drugged-out conversations between Warhol Superstars Nico, Ondine, Brigid Berlin, Mary Woronov, and Gerard Malanga. "I was the only one who memorised my lines," said Woronov, "and no one even noticed." In 1970, "Candid Camera" creator Allen Funt made the film "What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?", where he secretly filmed people's reactions to unexpected encounters with nudity in unusual situations. However, it was with the advent of reality television, which presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people instead of professional actors, combined with the smash box-office success of "Jackass The Movie" in 2002, that made reality film a genre studios began to consider seriously. "The Real Cancun" billed itself as "the first reality feature film", causing Scott Foundas to remark in his review in "Variety" that such a claim is "apparently ignoring last year's "Jackass The Movie"". In 2003, Comedy Central aired its feature length reality movie "Windy City Heat", starring Tony Barbieri and Bobcat Goldthwaite (who also directed). In the movie, friends of real life aspiring actor Perry Caravello convince him he is playing the lead (as a "sports memorabilia private eye") of an action movie titled "Windy City Heat," itself faux-directed by Bobcat Goldthwait; everyone is in on the elaborate joke except Caravello.
Reality films as documentaries.
Some reality films, such as those based upon the "Jackass" television series, have been called documentaries. Jan Krawitz, director of Stanford University's prestigious master of arts program in documentary film and video, teaches not to make a reality film if you want your documentary to be real. In his article in "Time", Stein raises the point that "If the movie is shot like a documentary, we're willing to pretend it's a documentary no matter how staged it is... And unlike documentarians, the ["Real Cancun"] producers, who have to work with MTV in their day jobs, felt it prudent to edit out the more controversial scenes, such as the one in which the twins have an angry, cursing fight with rapper Snoop Dogg in his post-concert trailer after, they say, he tried to get amorous with them." Correy Herrick raises a similar point about "Cancun" in "Hybrid Magazine":This is by no means a documentary. Everything that happens is real, but you are only seeing what the producers want you to see, in the order they want you to see it, with the music they want you to hear. And they go even further here by splicing in non-reality cuts from time to time to accentuate the plot a little further. They need to turn these normal people into characters in order to achieve an entertaining experience and they are very crafty in the ways they do this. James Ronald Whitney, whose films have won multiple "Best Documentary" awards, distinguishes between documentary and reality film. In an interview about his reality film "Games People Play: New York", he said the difference was filming a staged scenario versus filming actual events that would have happened regardless of the camera's presence:"A documentary is reality, but is its own animal. It's when you go back in time and you do a film about an election, an Olympics, a war, or something in the future that would organically happen anyway. Even "Real Cancun", spring break was going to happen. "Spellbound's" spelling bee was still going to happen. Those are not events that were created by a writer who then decided, "I'm going to make a movie about this event that I have created." That's how this is different to me than a documentary.
Issues facing reality film.
The viability of reality films has been called into question. "The Real Cancun" was considered a flop at the box office, taking in $5,345,083 worldwide on a budget of $7.5 million. A reality movie based upon the "Girls Gone Wild" video series that MGM bought the rights to was never put into production and the Universal Pictures effort "Drunken Jackasses: The Quest" was delayed after the flop of "Cancun" and went straight to video. In an interview with the "Christian Science Monitor", Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, acknowledged the potential "for an entirely new form of filmmaking." However, noted Thompson, "people aren't watching "Survivor" just to see people in bikinis," and added that standard reality television techniques such as serialized suspense, "voting off" segments, and general goofiness should not be included in the films. One of the criticisms was that reality television allows viewers to get to know new people over time. With a reality film such as "Cancun", "They transposed the format from television but none of the original characters," writes Sean Macauly in "The Times". "With a film, viewers have 90 minutes to get up to speed with a cast of 16 partygoers. Rather than structuring their exploits like a soap opera and following them for a summer, "The Real Cancun" follows them for eight days." Paramount Pictures President Gail Berman stated that "Jackass" is "a great centerpiece for reality going to film" when asked about reality movies, but stated the question going forward is, "How do you get the exhibition experience of a movie to feel immediate and interactive with the audience?"
Other uses of the phrase 'reality film'.
The phrase "reality film" has been used in the titles of articles that discuss the popularity of documentaries after the advent of "reality TV." It is often used as a phrase to describe traditional documentaries.


Missoni

Missoni is an Italian luxury fashion house based in Varese, and known for its colorful knitwear designs. The company was founded by Ottavio ("Tai") and Rosita Missoni in 1953.
History.
The business was founded in 1953, when Ottavio and Rosita Missoni set up a small knitwear workshop in Gallarate, Italy. They presented their first collection under the Missoni label in Milan in 1958. The business prospered, with the support of fashion editor Anna Piaggi, then at "Arianna" magazine. Rosita met the French stylist Emmanuelle Khanh in New York in 1965, which led to a collaboration and a new collection the following year. In April 1967, they were invited to show at the Pitti Palace in Florence. Rosita told the models to remove their bras, supposedly because they were the wrong color, and showed through the thin lamé blouses. The material became transparent under the lights and caused a sensation. The Missonis were not invited back the following year, but the business grew; a new factory in Sumirago was built in 1969. Missoni designs were championed in the US by Diana Vreeland, editor of American "Vogue", and a Missoni boutique was opened in Bloomingdales.
Missoni reached the peak of its influence in the fashion world in the early 1970s (though has since been the subject of revivals in interest as new generations of fashion writers discovered the appeal of its core knitwear). Tai Missoni then became more interested in other projects, designing costumes for La Scala, carpets and tapestries. Rosita Missoni lost interest in fashion in the 1990s and was succeeded by her daughter Angela in 1998 while Rosita took over Missoni Home.
On 13 September 2011, Missoni made headlines briefly when Target Stores offered low-cost variants of Missoni products in their stores and on their website. Most items sold out within 24 hours, there were long queues outside stores and the Target website was overloaded. Some items appeared at higher prices on eBay within hours and Target did not restock.
In February 2014, Angela Missoni hired Rossella Jardini, former creative director of Moschino, as a consultant.
In 2017, Jennifer Lopez teamed up with Missoni along with Women's Cancer Research Fund and Saks Fifth Avenue to set a fund raise for cancer research. Lopez will help promote the $35 limited-edition Missoni tees, and the profits will go to 12 different cancer charities.
Brands.
Missoni brands include Missoni Sport, which was initially licensed out, brought in-house in January 2002, and is now discontinued; and M Missoni, a less expensive line introduced in 1998, manufactured and distributed by Marzotto. Margherita Maccapani Missoni, granddaughter of Rosita Missoni, is the creative director of M Missoni.
Missoni Home has its roots in furnishing fabrics produced in 1981 in collaboration with Rosita's family firm. They launched their first perfume in 1982, although the license is now held by Estée Lauder.
In November 2005, Missoni and the Rezidor Hotel Group signed an agreement to create Hotel Missoni, with plans to have 30 hotels open or in development by 2012. Their Edinburgh hotel has been rebranded as Radisson Collection Edinburgh. The hotel agreement ceased in 2014.
In 2017, Missoni Baia, Missoni's first venture into residential real estate development, broke ground in Miami, Florida. The 249 unit complex will be completed by the end of 2020.
Family.
In 1996 the Missonis transferred control of the business to their three children: Vittorio Missoni became marketing director; Luca (born 1956) was menswear designer until 2008; Angela (born 1958) was womenswear designer, and took over menswear in 2008 when Luca became responsible for the Archive and Events.
Margherita Missoni used to both design accessories and model for Missoni as well. Today she runs her own line of children's clothing, which is not associated with Missoni SpA.
Death of Vittorio Missoni.
On 4 January 2013 a plane carrying Vittorio Missoni, then CEO of Missoni, went missing off the coast of Venezuela. On 27 June 2013, the Venezuelan government announced that remains of the aircraft had been found north of Los Roques archipelago. Vittorio's body was recovered along with those of the other passengers.


Defenders of Oasis

Defenders of Oasis is a role-playing video game developed and published by Sega for the Game Gear in 1992. The game's setting is based on "One Thousand and One Nights", and the plot centers on a heroic prince and his companions, who set out to confront an empire attempting to revive the dark god Ahriman. The game was one of the few original RPGs made for the Game Gear, and features an overhead gameplay perspective, a command-based combat system, and an autosave feature. "Defenders of Oasis" was commercially successful and positively received by reviewers, who praised the game's visuals and level of detail.
Gameplay.
"Defenders of Oasis" is a role-playing game in which the player controls the Prince of Shadam, who must defeat the empire that has attacked his kingdom. The Prince is initially solitary, but forms a party including three other characters over the course of the game. The game is played from an overhead perspective, and the setting includes several villages and castles, in which the Prince is capable of conversing with pedestrians and collecting objects. Each village includes at least one shop where the player can purchase and sell items that can aid the Prince and his party, such as weapons, armor, and accessories. Villages also include a certain place where the party can rest and recover their hit points and spell points.
At random intervals in areas outside of a village and at specific moments in the story, the game will enter the combat screen. This screen displays the names of the party's current members and their amounts of remaining hit points at the top of the screen, the enemies currently attacking the player (with a maximum of three enemies appearing at a time) in the center of the screen, and a textual interface through which the player inputs commands for the characters at the bottom of the screen. During these encounters, the player characters and the enemies exchange moves until one side is defeated. As the player characters take damage from enemy attacks, their amount of hit points decreases. If a character's hit points are fully depleted, the character will be knocked out and unable to fight unless another character uses an item or spell to revive them; characters who are knocked out will also revive with a small amount of hit points if the battle is won. When all enemies on the screen have been defeated, the player characters are rewarded with an amount of experience points, money, and in some cases, items.
The player can access a status screen, where the characters' status can be checked, and items and spells can be used and equipped. Ongoing game progress is stored via the autosave function.
Plot.
In ancient times, the hero Jamshid sealed away the dark god Ahriman and established the kingdom of Shadam. Although Shadam was once conquered by Ahriman's servant, the serpent king Zahhak, it was reclaimed one thousand years later by the hero Fereydun, and Shadam finds peace and prosperity under successive kings. However, Ahriman begins to plot his return; he manipulates the Yufurat Empire, led by a descendant of Zahhak, into searching for the three holy rings that Jamshid had used to seal him away. In the present day, King Shadam VII tasks his son, the Prince, with escorting Mariam, the Princess of the neighboring kingdom Mahamoud and keeper of one of the rings. When the Yufurat Empire attacks the Shadam Kingdom, the King gives the Prince the second ring and instructs him and Mariam to escape to Mahamoud and seek aid from its king. The Prince is attacked by the traitorous General Gaddafi and awakens in the lair of a resistance group. The resistance leader informs the Prince of a magic lamp said to be hidden within the Shadam Kingdom treasury, and suggests that the power of the lamp can nullify the magic of Gaddafi's sword. The Prince obtains the treasury key from his dying tutor and discovers the lamp within the treasury. The lamp houses a powerful Jinn who declares the Prince to be his new master. Aided by the Jinn's magic, the Prince successfully defeats Gaddafi and avenges his tutor. The Prince and Mariam disembark on a ship helmed by a captain and his son Sindbad.
While replenishing supplies at an island village, the group is ambushed by Al Karria, an elite Yufurat royal guard. Al murders Sindbad's father, kidnaps Mariam, steals the ship and abandons the Prince and Sindbad on the island. Within the island's temple, the Jinn is taught a spell that allows the group to teleport to Mahamoud. The Prince informs King Mahamoud of Mariam's capture and meets the magician Kala Han, who suspects that Mariam is being held in Gylan, the capital of the Yufurat Empire. The Prince obtains a Gylan passport from a Yufurat deserter and infiltrates Al Karria's castle, but falls into a trap and is imprisoned in Al's dungeon. The Prince meets and befriends a fellow prisoner, Sit Dileni, who assumes that the Prince has also come to steal a piece of armor that was worn by Fereydun. Gaddafi is sent to execute the Prince, but the Prince defeats him and uses his key to escape the dungeon. The Prince then releases Mariam, who tells the Prince of the Emperor's goal to obtain the holy rings, and that her ring has been taken. The group escapes from the castle and returns to Mahamoud, where Kala Han reveals that the third ring is hidden within the Tomb of the Wise near the village of Uruk. Mariam, in gratitude for her rescue, gives the Prince an amulet capable of putting the dead to rest. At Uruk, the group retrieves a hammer that can open the Tomb of the Wise from the hideout of Ali Baba and his bandits, who have been terrorizing the village. Upon retrieving the third ring, the Prince is contacted by the spirit of Jamshid, who warns the Prince of Ahriman's plot to escape his imprisonment by destroying the rings. Outside of the Tomb, the Prince is tricked by Al, disguised as Mariam, into relinquishing the lamp. The resistance group finds the Prince in Uruk and recruits him into an operation to liberate Shadam. The Prince infiltrates the castle and confronts Al, who appears to hold King Shadam hostage for the other two rings. After taking the rings from the Prince, Al reveals the King to be a zombie reanimated to serve Yufurat. After being forced into battle with the King and the Jinn, the Prince uses Mariam's amulet to put his father's spirit to rest.
The group returns to Gylan and defeats Al before witnessing the Emperor destroying the rings in a ceremony. As Ahriman returns to the mortal realm and kills the Emperor, the group flees to Mahamoud, where the Queen recalls a prophecy by Jamshid that foretells the appearance of a "Tower of Ziggurat" that would tie the physical and spiritual realms together upon Ahriman's return. Kala Han also informs the group that inserting the ashes of the rings into the lamp will restore their original power. At the top of the Tower, the group encounters the Roc, who can fly between worlds. The group ventures to the spiritual world and defeats Ahriman's subordinate daeva: Zairik, Saurva, Taromaiti, Druj, and Aka Manah. The group faces Ahriman in a final battle and weakens him into a state where he can be locked away once more with the rings, which have been restored by the group's hope and resolve. After returning to the mortal world, the Prince ascends to the throne and weds Mariam, Sindbad becomes the captain of his father's ship, and Sit returns to the life of a thief.
Development and release.
"Defenders of Oasis" was released for the Game Gear in Japan on September 18, 1992. The Western box art was illustrated by Julie Bell. The game was re-released on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console on July 18, 2012.
Reception.
"Defenders of Oasis" was met with a positive critical reception upon release. Paul Wooding and Adrian Pitt of "Sega Force" applauded the game: Wooding commended the variety of items and characters and the "highly original and entertaining" plot; Pitt proclaimed the game to be "instantly playable" and "the most user-friendly RPG I've ever played", and praised the visuals as "well defined and colourful" and the dynamic Oriental soundtrack as "some of the best I've heard spout outta the Game Gear". Joe Hutsko of "GamePro" was surprised by the game's amount of detail in relation to its four-megabyte size, and praised the graphics as "finely detailed, superbly drawn, and practically as good as those found on the Genesis", but noted that the combat eventually became tedious due to the static visuals, and dismissed the music as a "repetitive fantasy flute, common to FRPGs".
In its debut month, "Defenders of Oasis" was the seventh highest-selling Game Gear title at Babbage's, and stayed within the top-ten chart on four subsequent months.


No Music Day

No Music Day (November 21) is an event introduced by Bill Drummond to draw attention to the cheapening of music as an art form due to its mindless and ubiquitous use in contemporary society. Drummond explained "I decided I needed a day I could set aside to listen to no music whatsoever, [...] Instead, I would be thinking about what I wanted and what I didn't want from music. Not to blindly – or should that be deafly – consume what was on offer. A day where I could develop ideas."
The date of November 21 was chosen as it is the day before the feast of Saint Cecilia, who is the patron saint of music. This follows the traditional observance of antithetical events on the day before religious occasions, such as celebrating Mardi Gras before the start of Lent.
No Music Day 2005–09.
While No Music Day is on November 21 every year
it was most actively called attention to by Bill Drummond and various organisations from 2005 to 2009 (Drummond called it a five-year plan).
It was launched in 2005 with a billboard poster at the entrance to the Mersey Tunnel, Liverpool. In 2006, the arts based radio station Resonance 104fm broadcast no music, as did BBC Radio Scotland in 2007. No Music Day was promoted in São Paulo, Brazil in 2008, although Drummond has stated that despite graffiti announcing the day, his efforts to apprehend buskers and to encourage music shops to close, he doubted that "there was even a fraction less music consumed in Brazil on the 21 November 2008 compared to any other day."
In turn, in 2009 the City of Linz, Austria quite comprehensively observed No Music Day with the backing of the mayor and the "Hörstadt" ("Acoustic City") initiative. Shops, restaurants, schools and radio stations in Linz played no music, the cinemas showed only films without music soundtracks and theatres and concert halls held only non-musical performances.


Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith

Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith, born Hester Maria Thrale (17 September 1764 – 31 March 1857), was a British literary correspondent and intellectual. She was the eldest child of Hester Thrale, diarist, author and confidante of Samuel Johnson, and Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and patron of the arts. She became the second wife of George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith.
Childhood and education.
Johnson gave Hester Maria her lifelong nickname "Queeney" (after Queen Esther) early in her childhood, and was a regular correspondent of the little girl as well as of her mother. Queeney Thrale was born in Southwark, where her father's brewery was situated, and grew up mainly at the family home, Streatham Park in South London, which was the focus of an important coterie of political, artistic and literary figures known as the Streatham Worthies. She showed early signs of a good memory and sharp intellect, and by age six she was regarded as a greater prodigy than her intelligent and accomplished mother. She studied Latin with Dr Johnson, working alongside the novelist Frances Burney, another family protégée, and also Italian, with Joseph Baretti, and Hebrew. She was painted by Zoffany at 20 months, and she and her mother were the joint subjects of a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1781, as were other members of the Streatham park circle.
Queeney's early life and accomplishments were recorded in "The Family Book" and "Thraliana," which Hester Thrale began on her eldest daughter's second birthday. "The Family Book" records Queeney's childhood and education, her grasp of languages, astronomy, geography and other subjects. "Thraliana" details her liking for the notorious Mad Jack Fuller, whose proposal of marriage was later rejected by her sister Susannah. Queeney's father died in 1781, and in 1784 her mother married the children's Italian music teacher, Gabriele Mario Piozzi, a Roman Catholic, causing public scandal and leading to a rift with them. The newlyweds went abroad for more than two years and between July 1787 and March 1793 there was no communication between her and her daughter Queeney who went on to make an independent London life for herself, with a respectable widowed friend as chaperone.
Marriage and children.
On 10 January 1808, aged 44, Queeney Thrale married the widowed Admiral Lord Keith, a distinguished and celebrated senior naval officer 19 years her senior who had amassed a considerable fortune from prize-money during the Napoleonic wars. They had met in 1791, four years after the death of Lord Keith's first wife, and corresponded for 16 years before their marriage. Lord and Lady Keith were a prominent and well-connected society couple: they had one daughter, the Hon Georgina Augusta, born in December 1809, and the baby's sponsors were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, both future kings of the United Kingdom.
After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Lord Keith retired from the Royal Navy and the family lived mainly on their large estate at Tulliallan, where they had a magnificent castle constructed which is now the Scottish Police College. Left a wealthy widow when their daughter was 13, Lady Keith lived another 34 years, dying in Piccadilly, London on 31 March 1857, aged 92. She is buried in the Keith family mausoleum with her husband and daughter.
The "Queeney letters", a large collection of letters addressed to Queeney by Johnson, Fanny Burney and her mother Hester was published in 1934.


Oversinging

Oversinging is a term, sometimes derogatory, aimed at vocal styles that dominate the music they are performed in, including melisma and belting, and over-usage of embellishments on one sound.
Definition.
Professor and voice instructor Melinda Imthurn writes:
"Since oversinging is not a technical term, it's hard to define. To one person it might mean pushing the voice beyond healthy singing technique, while to another it might mean embellishing a song too much, sometimes to the point where the melody is no longer recognizable."
Oversinging is not a word found in common dictionaries, but it is a well-known phenomenon. Some forms of oversinging, especially in the United States, can be traced and attributed to renowned soloists in the 1980s like Whitney Houston.
There are different opinions on what oversinging implies, though it is commonly recognized as one or both of the following:
Oversinging can be technically understood as pushing too much breath pressure through the larynx, which is known as overblowing of the vocal folds. The result is the over-production of sound. Oversinging may also be termed "vocal gymnastics" when referring to usage of melisma. Hollywood vocal coach Roger Burnley describes this type of oversinging as "using too many riffs, runs, and embellishments".
Singers who try to impress or show off their vocal abilities may turn to this kind of singing.
Critique.
Many complain that contestants in shows such as Idol tend to oversing, and blame some of the most prominent American female singers for inspiring them. Some say it has been a rising trend following the many singing contests that started appearing in the early 2000s, especially in the United States. Essentially, oversinging can be considered a style, as trained vocalists might also use this technique.
Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, and Céline Dion are well known for their heavy use of melisma and belting, and the term "oversinging" is most often applied to well loved singers such as the aforementioned by people who feel negatively towards the singers of the style. This criticism is mainly focused on too much "vocal gymnastics" which some feel degrades the artistic merits of the song, and not necessarily that they strain their voices too much.
While [Roger] Burnley believes all of those divas to be oversingers in their own right, [Hollywood vocal coach, Chrys] Page argues the opposite. "They don't oversing, but some young hopefuls, trying to sound exactly like those artists, consistently do it because they haven't yet found their own voice and style," he said.
When amateurs on shows such as American Idol are criticized for oversinging, it can be both because they use far too great "vocal gymnastics" and strain their voice beyond their vocal capability when trying to mimic famous singers with far greater vocal ranges and training.
Professional opera singer Sarah-Jane Dale on Whitney Houston's use of melisma:
"You can't do it without proper breath control, and that's the one thing that Whitney Houston had bags of. Let's face it, singers like that do not come along every week."
Vocal damage.
Straining the singing voice, for instance by using belting without proper coordination, can lead to forcing, which in turn can cause vocal deterioration, known as fatigue of the vocal cords,also known as vocal fatigue. Straining the voice can lead the development of vocal nodules, a form of scarring on the vocal cords caused by strenuous or abusive voice practices. Professional singers on extended tours with tight schedules run a substantial risk of damaging their voices unless they make sure to rest the vocal cords and get enough sleep and proper diet.
Some famous singers known to have developed vocal nodules are Luciano Pavarotti, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Freddie Mercury, and Joss Stone.
Singers known to have their vocal nodules surgically treated are Justin Timberlake, Sam Smith, Tove Lo, Adele, Björk, Shirley Manson, Keith Urban, John Mayer and Rod Stewart. Julie Andrews is well known for her singing voice being permanently damaged by the surgery. Elton John is notable for having vocal surgery, as it caused his voice to significantly deepen.
Research by Massachusetts General Hospital which analysed a group of elite singers who suffered vocal cord damage, with a total of 240 Grammy award nominations among them, showed that 90% of those injuries was the result of vocal trauma and overuse.


Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, also known as BPAL, is an online retailer of perfumes. BPAL is owned by Elizabeth Moriarty Barrial and Brian Constantine, and is based in Los Angeles.
Ethics.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab does not test their products on animals. Their perfume oils are blended by hand, using sustainably sourced essential oils and absolutes, with synthetics to replace substances such as civet and ambergris. With the exception of blends containing honey and beeswax and CO2 Butter Extract, the oils are vegan-friendly.
Influences and inspirations.
The blends are inspired by works of art, mythology, folk superstitions, voodoo, classical literature, historical figures, pirates, and carnivals. Themes include aromatherapy, locations both real and fictional, devilish garden plantings, role playing games, fairy tales, vampire lore, gothic and pagan themes, Lovecraftian mythos, Japanese "Shunga" artwork and deities and concepts from a variety of pantheons.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has also worked with and licensed the rights to create products based on popular and cult favorites such as Guillermo del Toro's film, "Crimson Peak"., "Pretty Deadly", "Only Lovers Left Alive", "Sherlock Holmes", "Fraggle Rock", "Labyrinth", "Paranorman", "The Last Unicorn", "Hellboy", "Witchblade", David Mack's Kabuki, and numerous other lines inspired by classic literature and comics.
In April 2017, BPAL revisited its collaboration with Neil Gaiman (see Social Causes below) in celebration of the premiere of the "American Gods (TV series)" on Starz Channel, ten years after they first released fragrances based on his novel of the same name. The newly launched products include perfume oils, atmosphere sprays, and nail polishes. Proceeds once again will go to the CBLDF.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab maintains a gothic aesthetic of its website, framing product descriptions with snippets of poetry and category art (monochrome drawings or etchings) by Aubrey Beardsley, Beresford Egan, Félicien Rops, Harry Clarke, Albrecht Dürer, John Tenniel, Andreas Vesalius, Jennifer Williamson, Julie Dillon, Sarah Coleman, Alicia Dabney], Madame Talbot, and others.
Social causes and compassionate consumerism.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab also participates in the 4 Green Power For A Green L.A. program.
In 2007, Black Phoenix announced a series of perfumes based on the works of Neil Gaiman inspired by, among others, the novels "American Gods", "Stardust", "The Graveyard Book", "Coraline" and "Anansi Boys". All profits from the Neil Gaiman-inspired scents go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Black Phoenix also released a collection of perfumes based on "Good Omens" (co-authored by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett) and sales went to benefit the CBLDF and the Orangutan Foundation UK. By the end of the first week of July 2007, Neil Gaiman announced on his blog that they had raised $1,500 for the Orangutan Foundation UK and the year-to-date fundraising for the CBLDF had raised over $15,000. By 2010, the CBLDF reported that BPAL's Neil Gaiman line of fragrances had raised over $50,000 for the organization.
In 2012, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab became a corporate member of the CBLDF and they continue to sponsor the CBLDF's Welcome Party each year at the San Diego Comic Con.
In July 2015, a line called The Collected Poetic Works of "Antonin Scalia" debuted, based on the Supreme Court Justice's "colorfully vitriolic superlatives." A portion from the sale of every bottle is donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Trevor Project and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
In November 2015, BPAL released a scent called "Palmyra". All proceeds after the cost of manufacture went to benefit the "UNHCR"’s efforts to aid refugees and meet humanitarian needs.
In October 2016, BPAL released a scent based on Donald Trump's unprecedented remark directed at Hillary Clinton during the third Presidential debate, "Nasty Woman". Proceeds from this fragrance were split between Planned Parenthood and Emily's list.
Collaborations.
In 2013, BPAL created a perfume called The Gatekeeper which was inspired by "The Maze of Games", an interactive puzzle novel written by Mike Selinker and illustrated by Pete Venters. The scent was offered as a Kickstarter perk and then became part of the catalog.
Erin Morgenstern, author of "The Night Circus", named "the olfactory geniuses of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab" in the book's acknowledgments.
In April 2007, "Weird Tales" published a piece of original fiction entitled "Six Scents" by Lisa Mantchev, which drew its inspiration from six BPAL fragrances.
In 2005, the Lab was named as "The Village Voice"'s Best of New York: Best Scent Indulgence for Your Inner Goth.


Parfums Givenchy

Parfums Givenchy () is a French brand of perfumes and cosmetics, known for fragrances L'Interdit, Amarige, Organza, Pi, and Givenchy III. As part of Givenchy, it has been a subsidiary of LVMH since 1988.
History.
Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de Givenchy, who retired in 1995. Known first for his haute couture work, Givenchy founded Les Parfums Givenchy in 1957.
In 1958, Hubert de Givenchy asked his friend Audrey Hepburn to be the face of his parfume, L'Interdit, which only she was allowed to wear for a full year. He created a revolution in using, for the first time, a movie star on an advertising campaign.
Monsieur Givenchy and l'Eau de Vetiver were launched in 1957 and 1959, respectively, followed in 1970 by the launch of the female fragrance Givenchy III with the slogan "Who knows why one is reminded of a particular woman and not another one? Givenchy III gives memories to men." The success of Parfums Givenchy led to the construction of a factory in Beauvais.
Famous patrons include the Guinness, Grimaldi and Kennedy families, who famously wore Givenchy clothes to the funeral of John F. Kennedy.
Hubert de Givenchy created the "4G" logo for the brand and a cosmetic line launched in the United States.
In May 2019, a first-ever pop-up Givenchy beauty suite opened its doors to the visitors of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where the guests of the Cannes Film Festival could get their Givenchy makeover ahead of the red carpet premiere.