The Puppetmaster (film)

The Puppetmaster is a 1993 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. Based on the memoirs of Li Tian-lu, Taiwan's most celebrated puppeteer, this story covers the years from Li's birth in 1909 to the end of Japan's fifty-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945.
Many consider "The Puppetmaster" a masterpiece of world cinema. In the British Film Institute's 2012 "Sight & Sound" poll, seven critics and three directors named it one of the greatest films ever made.
Plot.
The film tells the story of Li Tian-lu (1910-1998), who becomes a master puppeteer but is faced with demands to turn his skills to propaganda during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in World War II. Scenes from his childhood and early adulthood are intercut with puppet performances and newly-filmed interviews of Li recounting his life as he's swept up in Taiwan's tumultuous history.
The film is the second in Hou's trilogy of historical films about Taiwan in the 20th century. "A City of Sadness" (1989) covered the four years between the end of World War II and the retreat of the Kuomintang to Taiwan in 1949, when Taipei was declared the “temporary” capital of the Republic of China. "Good Men, Good Women" (1995) later covered forty additional years of Taiwanese history, from the 50s to the present.
Production.
"The Puppetmaster" was photographed in Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern China's Fujian province, and in Taiwan. The film is structured around a series of ellipsis, which Hou has compared to traditional Chinese opera: "It simply gives you a scene without much of a clear narrative, unlike Western drama where all the elements must be put in place. Ellipsis and other indirect narrative methods are, ironically, more clear-cut and to the point. It all depends on how you master these methods."
For the shots showing Li himself, he usually appears at a particular location right after it’s been introduced dramatically. The shifts between narrative and interview footage and between past and present are frequently accompanied by some narrative clarification that facilitates a change in the audience's perspective. Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum observed that "the only rough parallel I can think of in Hollywood filmmaking is the use of real-life 'witnesses' in Warren Beatty’s "Reds", but here it’s as if John Reed himself, not people remembering him, suddenly appeared on-screen."
Hou has stated that through this film he was “exploring the values of traditional culture which [Taiwan has] lost...We have distanced ourselves from nature and man has become like a puppet – he has lost his power to be his own master. "The Puppetmaster" represents the lament which I feel for the loss of our culture."
"The Puppetmaster" premiered in the U.S. at the New York Film Festival in 1993, but like most of Hou’s films, it has never been commercially released in America. It was rarely screened until it anchored a comprehensive Hou Hsiao-Hsien retrospective that toured North American cinematheques and museums in the fall and winter of 2014.
Reception.
Jim Hoberman of "The Village Voice" hailed it as the best film of 1993 and one of the ten best of the 1990s, writing later that "it was for "The Puppetmaster" that Taiwanese master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien first developed a startlingly advanced form of montage that has been compared to the movement of clouds drifting across the sky."
Jonathan Rosenbaum of "The Chicago Reader" also selected "The Puppetmaster" as one of the ten best films of the decade, adding that ""The Puppermaster" is only one of four masterpieces made by Hou in the 90s" and that Hou was "one of the two greatest working filmmakers in the world right now, along with [Abbas] Kiarostami."
Critic and director Kent Jones also praised "The Puppetmaster" alongside Hou's 1990s work, writing that "the density of Hou’s concentration within any given shot is apparently infinite, and there’s no such thing as an 'insert' or a 'cutaway' in his work. Which is why a jump in time or a sudden juxtaposition can feel immense. Starting with "The Puppetmaster", the logic of each film is built around the effects of these breaks and juxtapositions." Jones also discussed the lack of distribution for Hou's films, observing that "in America [Hou] seems to have become a marked man before making the transition from cult phenomenon to arthouse favorite...Prompting an artist of this magnitude to make his work more accessible is like asking [Karlheinz] Stockhausen to write catchier tunes, or asking John Ashbery to appeal to readers of "USA Today". It doesn’t make any sense. Because right now, it doesn’t get much better than Hou Hsiao-hsien."
Awards.
"The Puppetmaster" was the first Taiwanese film to enter competition at Cannes where it won the Jury Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Istanbul International Film Festival.


Me and My Dick (soundtrack)

Me and My Dick (A New Musical) contains the songs from the musical "Me and My Dick", produced by StarKid Productions with music and lyrics by A.J. Holmes, Carlos Valdes, and Darren Criss, and book by Eric Kahn Gale, Brian Holden, Matt Lang, and Nick Lang. It was recorded by the musical's cast and was released digitally on January 6, 2010, through iTunes. The soundtrack became the first-ever student-produced college musical to reach "Billboard", debuting at No. 11 on the Top Cast Albums chart.


Prudence Punderson Rossiter

Prudence Punderson Rossiter (July 28, 1758 – September 16, 1784) was an American artist known for her needlework pictures.
Birth and family.
Originally from Preston, Connecticut, Rossiter was the first of eight children of Ebenezer Punderson and Prudence Geer Punderson; her father was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, and as a result the family's goods were confiscated in 1778. The Pundersons fled to Long Island, where they lived in reduced circumstances for the duration of the war.
Work and illness.
Prudence turned to domestic work to earn money. In 1780 she overcame a severe illness that threatened her artistic ability; a letter to her sister from this time survives, speaking of a "gathering" on her breast that required lancing.
Marriage and death.
On October 20, 1783, she married Timothy Wells Rossiter; their daughter Sophia was born on July 18, 1784, and Prudence died on September 16 of the same year. She was interred in the Maple Cemetery in Berlin, Connecticut.
Art.
Rossiter produced a number of needlework pictures, including twelve depictions of the twelve apostles inspired by print sources. She is best known, however, for the self-portrait "The First, Second, and Last Scene of Morality", completed around 1775. This work portrays a young woman, the artist herself, seated at a table in a finely-furnished parlor. To one side is a baby in a cradle, being cared for by a black servant. To the other is a coffin, marked "PP", sitting on a table.
The piece is owned by the Connecticut Historical Society. The same organization owns her other needlework pieces as well as her letters, poetry, drawings, and diary. They provide a rare glimpse into the life of a young woman of the period. Rossiter's embroidery is the most-reproduced piece in the Society's collection.
Elements of Rossiter's art have been incorporated into the work of artist Kiki Smith. Her needlework has been discussed by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.


Lucinda Toomer

Lucinda Toomer (February 5, 1888 – September 1, 1983) was an American artist who worked in the African-American tradition of quiltmaking. Her quilts are known for their bold compositions, visual rhythm, and improvisational style. They were at the forefront of a surge of national recognition for the art form during the 1990s.
Early life.
Lucinda Toomer was born Lucinda Hodrick in Stewart County, Georgia. She was the oldest of seven children born to Orange and Sophie Stokes Hodrick, who made their living as cotton and peanut farmers. She married Jim Toomer in 1908, and moved with him to a farm near Dawson, Georgia.
Quiltmaking.
Toomer began quilting at the age of 12, under her mother's tutelage. The craft was practiced out of necessity, in a spirit of economy and reuse, but Toomer also found lifelong artistic expression in quilting. She worked on her quilts almost every day, completing around 20 each year, and had a routine of sorting and cutting pieces in the morning and quilting them together at night. To piece together quilt tops, she used scraps from her own sewing as well as fabric purchased in bulk from nearby textile factories.
Toomer's designs were often inspired by traditional quilt patterns, like the ones handed down from her mother, as well as patterns she found in books and magazines. Using an improvisational approach to piecing, she adapted these familiar patterns into boldly expressive and individual creations. Characteristic formal elements in her quilts include the use of multiple patterning, asymmetrical compositions, and pattern repetition featuring variations on a theme.
Long strips of fabric play a major aesthetic role in her quilts, serving as an organizing and unifying element within the overall composition. This use of strips to create a geometric pattern has a long lineage traceable to West African textile patterns and narrow strip weaving.
Toomer also used contrasting colors to create vivid and highly visible patterns. Red was one of her favorite colors to use in this way. She often designed unusual, mismatched quilt borders, and her piecing exhibits a freedom of shape unrestricted by straight lines or right angles. The combination of these design gestures works to create a lively and high varied textile surface that still maintains compositional wholeness.
Legacy.
Toomer's quiltmaking came to national attention when she was featured alongside other quilters, including Martha Jane Pettway and Sarah Mary Taylor, in the 1983 traveling exhibition "Ten Afro-American Quiltmakers," curated by Dr. Maude Southwell Wahlman.
Her quilts are held in multiple museum collections, including the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two of her quilts are in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York. One of these, "Diamond Strip Quilt" (purchased in 1990) was the first piece acquired for the museum's quilt collection.
Lucinda Toomer received a 1983 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.


Olek (artist)

Agata Oleksiak (born 5 April 1978), known as Olek, is a Polish artist who is based in New York City. Their works include sculptures, installations such as crocheted bicycles, inflatables, performance pieces, and fiber art. They have covered buildings, sculptures, people, and an apartment with crochet and have exhibited in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, France, Italy, Poland, and Costa Rica.
Early life and career.
Olek graduated with a degree in Cultural Studies from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, in 2000. They then attended LaGuardia College, where they won the National Arts Club's award for sculpture. Their early work included sculptures, costumes, and inflatables.
Olek first used crocheting as part of their art in 2003 after moving to the United States. They "wowed critics" at the Williamsburg Arts and Historical Society Surrealist Fashion Show that year. In 2004, Olek created "a large tentlike piece made of crocheted strips of cloth, hair, cassette tape and stuffed animals" work for a four-person show. "The New York Times" said this work gave the show at 5BE Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan, "a tour-de-force center to work around." Their crocheted sculpture "Spill" (2005), featured in the "Washington Post", included 1,300 skinny white balloons cascading in an "intestinal shape". They participated in The Waterways, a "socially conscious" art project on a "vaporetto" water bus during the 2005 Venice Biennale; their work, called "Camouflage", "exploring the androgyny of fixed identity, sexuality, and culture". In September and October of that year, Olek crocheted the windows of a burned-out, abandoned building near their artist residency in Utica, New York. During this period, their costumes for theatre and dance performances drew critical praise, although a dance performance relating to one of their sculptures was criticized.
Philosophy.
Olek's creative philosophy is that "Life and art are inseparable." In 2009, they stated:
As an active supporter of women's rights, sexual equality, and freedom of expression, Olek has used the broad appeal of their work to display their solidarity with those stifled by oppressive laws worldwide. Through their body of work, Olek has always sought to bring color and life, energy, and surprise to the living space.
Selected works.
Olek has exhibited in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Poland, and Costa Rica. In 2009 and 2016, they were a resident artist at Brazil's Instituto Sacatar.
Olek's crocheted full body clothing, dubbed "wearable sculptures", has been used in various projects where Olek took their participants onto the New York City Subway. Olek's DUMBO Arts Festival piece was "Painting to Shake Hands" on an "event score" in Yoko Ono's "Grapefruit". Participants wore their sculptures and placed a hand through a stretched canvas to shake the hands of passers-by. A second performance was dubbed "Crocheted Grapefruit". Performance piece "Thank You for Your Visit, Have a Nice Day", performed on Manhattan's 14th Street during the 2009 event, Art in Odd Places:SIGN, was inspired "by a uniformed attendant holding a "Hold the Handrail" sign in a Taipei metro station". Performers held placards based on signs noticed by Olek that were "emphatic, ironic or amused dialogue with their location."
Their first solo exhibition, "Knitting is for Pus****", was held at Christopher Henry Gallery. In 2010 they exhibited a false apartment in which the contents, including the residents, were covered in crocheting. The installation took years to prepare using yarn skeins. It was originally scheduled to run from 9 September to 17 October 2010, but closed in May 2011 after a series of extensions. During that period, the gallery exhibited their work at the SCOPE Art Show in Miami. In this and other works, members of the public or the media were included, crocheted directly into suits without traditional fasteners. According to the gallery, after the exhibition closed the work was priced at $90,000.
In late December 2010, Olek installed a crocheted suit over "Charging Bull" (1989), a statue on Wall Street, as a tribute to Arturo Di Modica, who installed the sculpture without permission. A park caretaker tore the suit from the statue two hours later. Olek was the 2010-2011 Workspace artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, during which they created and performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In May 2011, they won the "Sculpture In Situ" category at the second Urban Arts Awards (Artaq).
In August 2011, Olek held a solo exhibition at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. They collaborated with director Gina Vecchione and producer Michelle Price to create a short silent film called "YARNANA", through Kickstarter-based fundraising. "Inspired by the silent film genre, it relies solely on powerful music, sound design and physical expression. The characters speak through modern dance, physical comedy, capoeira, martial arts, poi, belly dancing, breakdance, acrobatics, gymnastics and the instincts of soul searchers." The project's funding was ultimately canceled on Kickstarter, but the film was still created, and it won a film festival award. Their first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom, called "I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone", was influenced by their experiences while they lived there.
Olek changed materials for a joint exhibition with David E. Peterson in New York City; they used thousands of semi-inflated balloons, crocheted like yarn to create a cave-like structure inside the gallery. The artist noted their love of the ephemeral nature of the medium; the balloons often popped during the creation of the installation, and required immediate repair to prevent it unraveling entirely. The installation will gradually wither. They said that balloons represent "the happiest moments in life — which are often just as impermanent". Some visitors noted a pungent scent of latex. Olek was inspired by their time as a traveling clown for Health Plus, when they would visit poor New York neighborhoods. They had previously used balloons during their residency in Brazil.
They were included in the Renwick Gallery's 2012–2013 "40 under 40: Craft Futures".
In 2014, as one of a number of underwater crocheted works produced in collaboration with PangeaSeed to draw attention to threats to the oceanic ecosystem, Olek covered a bomb-shaped sculpture at the Cancún Underwater Museum in Mexico with a crocheted "cosy"; the museum complained that this had harmed aquatic life. In 2015, as part of St+Art Delhi 2015, they covered a women's shelter in Delhi with crochet to raise awareness of its existence among those who need it.
In April 2016, they draped the facade of Virginia MOCA with a giant crocheted "New York Times" front page, dated 2020 and featuring ecologically themed good news stories. Also in 2016, they created an installation at Verket, a museum in Avesta, Sweden, and was aided by Syrian and Ukrainian women refugees; after hearing their stories, they were inspired to cover a house in Avesta and another in Kerava, Finland, entirely with pink crochet to illustrate the power of women. While working in Avesta, the refugee women described their stories of how they'd lost everything during the war. This motivated Olek to create a short film, "In the Blink of an Eye," where they exploded a crocheted house inside the Verket Museum. On 3 November 2016, a pink blanket crocheted by Olek and thirty-eight volunteers, featuring Hillary Clinton's face and the hashtag #ImWithHer in black and white, was nailed to a billboard in New Jersey. In December 2016, Olek exhibited the piece entitled, "You Can't Fool All The People," at MANA Wynwood in Miami.
2011 arrest.
On 6 October 2011, Olek and a man were involved in an incident in a bar in London. Charged with unlawful wounding, unlawful wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and two counts of possessing a bladed article in a public place, Olek was tagged with an ankle monitor, was under house arrest for over a month, but was allowed to attend a show in Poland. In September 2012 at Southwark Crown Court, they were found not guilty of unlawful wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, but guilty of unlawful wounding; the following November they were sentenced to home curfew. After serving their sentence, they installed a crochet piece with the message "kiss the future" on "5 block[s] of Hell in Vancouver" and then a 65-foot crochet banner with the same message in Polish in a prison in Katowice.


9507 Gottfried


Castle Hedingham Pottery

 Castle Hedingham Pottery was an art pottery studio run by Edward Bingham at Castle Hedingham in Essex, England.
History.
Bingham produced his Castle Hedingham Ware from about 1864 until 1901. It was made in a style reminiscent of medieval and Tudor wares. Bingham produced some large items, with 'Essex' jugs up to three feet high being typical. .
Edward Bingham (1829–1914) was the son of a Lambeth potter who had set up in Gestingthorpe, Essex making mostly functional ware. The family moved to Castle Hedingham in 1837. Bingham assisted his father in his business, while experimenting with more artistic wares. He received commissions from some influential people, including Sir A.W. Franks, but the initiative was not commercially successful, and in 1859 he opened a school. After five or six years he returned to potting full-time, and by 1864 had five or six boys as assistants. In 1894, he showed his work at the Art and Industries Exhibition at the Albert Hall.
Bingham passed the business on to his son in 1899. It was sold two years later to Hexter, Humpherson & Co., of Newton Abbot, and operated under the name of the " Essex Art Pottery" until its closure in 1905. Bingham continued to make pots there for a while, and then in a temporary workshop for a few months, before joining the rest of his family in the United States in 1906.
Products.
The pottery is somewhat similar to Elton Ware pottery made by Sir Edmund Elton of Clevedon Court in Somerset at about the same time. However, Elton was more adventurous with his materials and experimented with slip as well as specialist glazes including a striking development of the crackle glaze. Castle Hedingham pottery was less refined in its finish.


Circular Quay

Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the Sydney central business district on Sydney Cove, between Bennelong Point and The Rocks. It is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney.
The Circular Quay area is a popular neighbourhood for tourism and consists of walkways, pedestrian malls, parks and restaurants. It hosts a number of ferry quays, bus stops, and a railway station. Often referred to as the "gateway to Sydney", the precinct has views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House and is a common location for viewing Sydney New Year's Eve fireworks.
History.
Indigenous history.
The native name for Circular Quay was "Warrung" meaning 'Little Child".
The first people to occupy the area now known as Sydney were Australian Aborigines. Radiocarbon dating suggests that they lived in and around Sydney for at least 30,000 years. In an archaeological dig in Parramatta, Western Sydney, it was found that the Aboriginals used charcoal, stone tools and possible ancient campfires. Near Penrith, a far western suburb of Sydney, numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in Cranebrook Terraces gravel sediments having dates of 45,000 to 50,000 years BP. This would mean that there was human settlement in Sydney earlier than thought.
Prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in the Sydney area from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan. The principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the indigenous people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells, and cooking fish. The "Eora people" are the coastal Aborigines of the Sydney district. The name "Eora" simply means "here" or "from this place", and was used by Local Aboriginal people to describe to the British where they came from. The Cadigal band are the traditional owners of the Sydney CBD area, and their territory south of Port Jackson stretches from South Head to Petersham.
Colonial settlement.
Sydney Cove, on which Circular Quay is located, was the site of the initial landing of the First Fleet in Port Jackson on 26 January 1788.
The governor's temporary canvas house was erected on the east side of the cove, while the western shore became the centre of the early settlement. It was the focal point from which the city of Sydney grew. The first wharf on the shore of Sydney Cove probably dated from around 1792. In 1802 it was replaced with a timber framed wharf called "Hospital Wharf", the first public wharf of the colony (later renamed King's Wharf and Queen's Wharf).
Late 18th-century Scottish constitutional reformer Thomas Muir was sentenced to transportation to Sydney for sedition, and had a cottage on what is now Circular Quay. Thomas Muir escaped from the colony in 1796 aboard an American brig, the "Otter".
The eastern side of the cove remained largely uninhabited in the early years of the colony; one notable inhabitant was Bennelong, after whom the adjacent Bennelong Point and Bennelong Apartments are named. In the early 19th century, the entire eastern shore of Circular Quay was part of the Governor's Domain, though some commercial activity developed along the shoreline. The western shore, being adjacent to the original settlement now known as The Rocks, was busier. Cadman's Cottage is a building which survives from that era, built in 1816 for the use of the governmental coxswains and their crews, it marks approximately the location of Circular Quay's natural western shore, prior to reconstruction. The Commissariat Stores (built in 1809) and Australia's first naval dock were also located on the western shore. The naval dockyard was expanded in 1818-1822 under Governor Macquarie, with four repairing docks.
Working port.
Circular Quay was constructed in 1837-1844 by reconstructing the southern section of Sydney Cove with an artificial shoreline. The mouth of the Tank Stream, which flowed into Sydney Cove at the western end of Circular Quay, was in-filled. The harbour was originally known as "Semi-Circular Quay", this being the actual shape of the quay. The name was shortened for convenience. Wharves were built on the southern shore. Reflecting Circular Quay's status as the central harbour for Sydney, the Customs House was built on the southern shore in 1844-5. During the construction of Circular Quay, the eastern side of the cove was used as a quarry and housed construction works. After the governor's residence was moved up the hill to the present Government House in the 1840s and 1850s, Macquarie Street was extended north through the Governor's Domain to Fort Macquarie. This led to the development of the area between the street and the shore into a commercial working wharf dominated by the wool trade, while the eastern side of the street remained part of the Domain. This part of Macquarie Street became known as the "wool store" end. Wool and bond stores and warehouses appeared on the site. The historic "Moore Steps" was built in 1868 as a passage between two wool stores, leading from the shore to Macquarie Street. By the 1860s, all three sides of Circular Quay were dominated by wharves and warehouses.
However, by the 1870s, much of the commercial shipping activities was moving away from Circular Quay. The harbour was becoming too small to accommodate the increasing number of large ships accessing Sydney. Instead, shipping activities moved further westwards to Darling Harbour, which also had the advantage of a railway line.
With the absence of commercial shipping, the harbour became increasingly used for passenger transport. The first ferry wharf was built on the southern shore in 1879. From the 1890s, ferry terminals came to dominate the harbour, and Circular Quay became the hub of the Sydney ferry network. The Sydney Harbour Trust was formed in 1900.
Transport developments.
Circular Quay was also a tram hub. It was the focal terminal point of most electric tram services to the Eastern Suburbs. The first tram to operate through Circular Quay was horse-drawn, running from the old Sydney Railway station to Circular Quay along Pitt Street in 1861 allowing easy transfer to ferries. Trams operated from Central station down Castlereagh Street to Circular Quay and back up Pitt Street in a large anti-clockwise loop. For many years, 27 regular services operated from Circular Quay.
From 1936, the appearance of Circular Quay was dramatically changed with the construction of a railway viaduct, and later the elevated Cahill Expressway above the viaduct, across the southern shore of the cove. Circular Quay railway station was opened on 20 January 1956 and the elevated Cahill Expressway was officially opened on 24 March 1958.
Building developments.
The construction of the viaduct led to the demolition of the old Maritime Services Board building on the south-western shore. A replacement was constructed further north in 1940, and is today the Museum of Contemporary Art. Further north, the Sydney Cove Passenger Terminal was built in 1958-1960 to accommodate the increasing number of passengers arriving by ship. The building was renovated in 1988, 2000 and 2014. Large liners and cruise ships often dock here, their size dominating the cove. East Circular Quay was redeveloped from the 1950s with the replacement of wool stores with modernist commercial buildings. The Sydney height limit was increased from in 1959, and a number of Sydney's first skyscrapers were built around Circular Quay. The AMP Building on the southern shore was Sydney's tallest building when completed in 1962. In 1973 the Sydney Opera House was completed at the northeastern end of Sydney Cove.
Between 1971 and 1989, Colonial Mutual Life acquired land along Circular Quay for a large scale development. The initial design caused significant controversy around the country, including intervention by the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and internationally. A revised 1992 design had the developer reducing building height and providing a colonnade for public access, in exchange for the development extending further towards the foreshore. The resulting development of Bennelong Apartments (nicknamed by critics as "The Toaster"), and is criticised for it positioning and for obscuring views of the Sydney Opera House, from the main pedestrian approach.
In 2019, several property developments underway by the private sector in the area, including: Quay Quarter Sydney by AMP Capital, Opera Residences, One Circular Quay by Yuhu Group, Circular Quay Tower by Lendlease, and the Sandstone Hotels precinct by Pontiac Group. In addition, the Sydney Opera House is undergoing its largest renewal project since its opening.
Transport.
Circular Quay is a major Sydney transport hub, with a large ferry, rail and bus interchange. The Cahill Expressway is a prominent feature of the quay, running from the east, over the elevated railway station to join the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the west. International ships have docked and moored at Circular Quay since the earliest years of the colony. The Overseas Passenger Terminal is a major piece of Sydney transport infrastructure serving cruise ships and ocean liners and their passengers.
Circular Quay railway station is the only station on the City Circle that is above ground. The platform looks out over the ferry terminus, providing views of Sydney Harbour, including the bridge and Opera House.
The wharf complex hosts five commuter ferry wharves and is the terminus for all public ferry routes in Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River other than the Mortlake Ferry between Mortlake and Putney.
Circular Quay was formerly a large tram terminus and interchange. As many Sydney bus routes follow the previous tram lines, the tram terminus in Alfred Street became a major bus terminus for many bus routes. In March 1995, the road on the eastern side of Circular Quay which served as a bus layover was closed and converted into a pedestrian zone. A redesign of CBD bus services in October 2015 reduced the number of bus routes serving Circular Quay. In 2019, the CBD and South East Light Rail to Kingsford and Randwick opened with a terminus in Alfred Street.
Culture.
Circular Quay is a focal point for community celebrations, due to its central Sydney location between the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is one of the main congregation points for Sydney New Year's Eve.
Circular Quay is also the home of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Sydney Library in the heritage-listed Customs House. Sydney Writers Walk a series of plaques commemorating writers with some connection to Sydney was installed in the footpath along Circular Quay in 1991. In autumn 2006, the largest open-air art exhibition ever in Australia took place on Circular Quay: Over 7 weeks the Berlin Buddy Bears visited Sydney. Each bear represented a member-country of the United Nations, symbolizing the universal principles of peace, freedom and friendship.
The Quay is mentioned in the classic song "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" (1971) by Eric Bogle. "Circular Quay" is the title of a song from Dr. Robert of The Blow Monkeys which appeared on his 1994 debut solo album, "Realms Of Gold". The song was also issued as a single in the same year.
Water Polo by the Sea is held there every year by Australian Water Polo with the Australia men's national water polo team take on the International All Stars.


Genoese lace

Genoese lace is bobbin lace from Genoa. It is a guipure style of lace.
Bobbin lacemaking in Italy dates back to the 16th century when the main centres were Genoa and Milan, although Venice also made bobbin lace.
The Genoese laces were characterized by wheatears, small tightly woven leaf-shaped tallies which formed part of the usually geometric design.
Maltese lace was derived from Genoese lace.


Otello discography

This is a discography of Giuseppe Verdi's penultimate opera, "Otello". It was first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.
"Otello" has been recorded complete on disc and film a number of times since World War II, but most music-guide reviewers contend that a recording made of a 1947 NBC radio broadcast of the opera conducted by Arturo Toscanini and featuring singers Herva Nelli, Ramón Vinay and Giuseppe Valdengo, is musically the best of these versions. RCA Victor has issued the Toscanini recording several times on commercial LPs and on CD in digitally remastered form. In addition, performances of "Otello" were captured live as early as the 1920s (at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London) and the 1930s (at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, the latter via the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts). They, too, are available on CD reissues. A wide variety of stage performances dating from the 1950s to the present day are also to be had on CD or on DVD.
Extracts.
Individual arias, duets and scenes from "Otello" have been committed to disc by many celebrated tenors, baritones and sopranos since acceptable audio technology was first developed in the early 20th century. The best of these recorded extracts have been reissued on CD and make for fascinating comparative listening. Recordings made in the early 1900s by the creators of the roles of Otello and Iago, namely Francesco Tamagno and Victor Maurel, are among those now available in digital formats.


Edward R. Taylor

Edward Richard Taylor RBSA (14 June 1838 – 11 January 1911) was an English artist and educator. He painted in both oils and watercolours. He became a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1879.
Biography.
Taylor taught at the Lincoln School of Art, where amongst his pupils were William Logsdail and Frank Bramley, and became influential in the Arts and Crafts movement as the first headmaster at the Birmingham Municipal School of Arts and Crafts from 1877-1903.
In December 1898, he founded Ruskin Pottery at Smethwick, Staffordshire. His son William Howson Taylor (1876–1935) took over Ruskin Pottery after the death of his father.


Mockado

Mockado (also moquette, moucade) is a woollen pile fabric made in imitation of silk velvet from the mid-sixteenth century. Mockado was usually constructed with a woollen pile on a linen or worsted wool warp and woollen weft, although the ground fabric could be any combination of wool, linen, and silk. Mockado was used for furnishings and carpeting, and also for clothing such as doublets, farthingales, and kirtles.
Mockado was introduced to England from Flanders in the mid-sixteenth century. Dutch and Walloon weavers fleeing Spanish rule in the Low Countries were creating mockadoes and other fabrics combining silk and linen with combed woollens in the weaving center of Norwich by 1571. Varieties included plain, with an even pile, and "tuft" or voided mockado. Mockadoes were woven in solid or changeable colours, and were sometimes stamped with patterns in imitation of more expensive Utrecht velvets
Mockado was always a rough fabric, and by the 1580s, the term "mockado" was synonymous with "inferior" or "tawdry". In discussing the old English tradition of new clothes at Easter, folklorist Peter Opie cites Thomas Lodge's 1596 pamphlet "Wits Miserie" :
"The farmer that was contented in times past with his Russet Frocke & Mockado sleeues, now sels a Cow against Easter to buy him silken geere for his Credit".
In the seventeenth century, the term mockado ends was used for a wool yarn, probably a worsted yarn similar to crewel yarn of that period, likely used for embroidery and making braids and fringes.
Mockadoes continued in use for furnishings such as wall hangings, chair covers, and stools, as well as carpeting. A patent was issued in England in 1741 for a "new invention of making carpeting commonly called French carpeting or Moccadoes and in France "moucades" or "moquets"."


Eva (opera)

Eva is a Czech-language opera by Josef Bohuslav Foerster first performed in Prague in 1899. It is one of the "new realism" operas of the turn of the century with strong Moravian Slovak elements.


Alexander Fernando

Joseph Manuel Alexander Fernando ( "Æleksænḍar Pranāndu"; 25 August 194029 April 2020) was a Sri Lankan actor and stunt director in Sinhala cinema. Considered as one of the best villains in Sinhala cinema, Fernando acted in over 120 Sinhala films, six Tamil films, and one English film.
Personal life.
Fernando was born on 25 August 1940 in Kochchikade, Kotahena, Colombo. He was educated at St. Benedict's College, Colombo, and St. Anthony's Boys College Colombo 13. He was an excellent athlete in wrestling, boxing and swimming during his school years. At the age of 15, he became a member of the Armstrong Wrestling Club, Kotahena. He contested for the Western Province Schools wrestling championship and finished as the runner-up. In addition, he trained in karate, judo and physical fitness. In 1959, after his senior level examination, he joined the harbour authority as a tele-clerk. He gained fame as the undefeated national wrestling champion in 1961 and represented Sri Lanka at the 1962 Commonwealth Games. Fernando qualified for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo and also participated in the 1966 Bangkok Nippon Asian Games. He later lost the opportunity to participate in several global sports tournaments due to a knee injury. He is the only actor in Sri Lanka to have represented his country in sports.
During his acting career, Fernando served as a sports adviser for the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC). He won an award from the Ministry of Sports in 2009 for his contribution to sport.
Fernando was married to Anoma Lumbini from 1978. The couple had two daughters – Anushka and Asha – and one son – Anojan Sudharshana. He resided with his wife at No. 103, Nathuduwa, Kelaniya.
Fernando died on 29 April 2020, aged 79.
Cinema career.
Fernando started in drama by acting in Tamil stage plays. He acted in the plays "Shalomi" and "Julius Caesar".
Fernando's maiden cinema acting came through 1963 film "Wena Swargayak Kumatada?" directed by T. Somasekaran. He served in a stunt role for Henry Jayasena in that film, even though his fight scene was eventually removed from the film. Then he continued to act in several commercial films in lead roles, including "Haara Lakshaya", "Sri Madara", "Rajagedara Paraviyo", "Saradielge Putha" and "Pasa Mithuro". Fernando was a close friend of popular singer H. R. Jothipala, cinematographer Lenin Moraeus and the dancer Ronald Fernando.
In 1963, fellow stuntman and actor Robin Fernando invited him to act in the film "Ruhunu Kumari" directed by W. M. S. Tampoe. In the meantime, he acted in films "Ataweni Pudumaya" (1968) and "Kohomada Wade" (1969). He was brought to Hendala Vijaya Studios by film actor Senadheera Rupasinghe to act in the film "Ataweni Pudumaya". His film "Ruhunu Kumari" also came out at that time. After the film became very popular, actor Joe Abeywickrama introduced him to veteran filmmaker Titus Thotawatte to act in the film "Haara Lakshaya". In addition to its fighting scenes, his character included many lines of dialogue, the first time that Fernando provided dialogue in a film.
In 1972, Fernando acted in seven Sinhala films. In 1973, Sathischandra Edirisinghe handed over the stunt direction to his film "Matara Achchi". Fernando joined with Edirisinghe for the film "Sri Madara" in 1977, as the lead actor. He also had the opportunity to act in a major role in the 1974 film "Sahayata Danny" directed by Yasapalitha Nanayakkara. During many villainous roles in the films, he acted opposite Gamini Fonseka in fight scenes. In one instance, he was injured by Gamini and could not open his eyes for three days.
In 1976, Fernando acted as the titular character in the film "Saradielge Putha" directed by Neil Rupasinghe. During this time, he had the opportunity to play several stage plays under the guidance of Anthony C. Perera and Jayamuni Nimal Silva. In 1983, he acted in the film "Pasa Mithuro" alongside Mervyn Jayathunga directed by Ananda Hewage. This film was a turning point in his film career, where he performed a realistic role as a Tamil prisoner. In 1984, Fernando won the Presidential Award for this role.
In many films, Sonia Disa played the lover of Fernando's characters. They acted together in many films including "Sahayata Danny", "Sri Madara", "Aege Adara Kathawa", "Kawuda Raja" and "Harima Badu Thunak".
Fernando also acted in Tamil films "Yar Aval", "Engleil Oruvan", "Nangu Lechchami", "Rattathi Thirtemme", and the English film "Reincarnation".


Taking a Chance on Love

"Taking a Chance on Love" is a popular song from the 1940 Broadway musical "Cabin in the Sky". It was introduced by Ethel Waters playing the role of Petunia Jackson both on Broadway and later in the 1943 MGM musical Cabin in the Sky (film). The song was written by Vernon Duke with lyrics by John La Touche and Ted Fetter (see 1940 in music). It has become a standard.
Cover versions.
Since the original recording, "Taking A Chance On Love" has become part of the American Songbook and has been sung and recorded by many prominent performers, including:


Canal Days

Canal Days is a marine heritage festival held in Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada. The festival has been held annually since it was started in 1979 by the Port Colborne Historical & Marine Museum.
Port Colborne is located on the north-east shore of Lake Erie, on the southern portion of the Niagara Peninsula, and is about 30 minutes drive from the US border at Buffalo, New York. The city is also the southern terminus of the Welland Canal, where ocean vessels pass through the downtown area on their way into the inner Great Lakes, or out to sea.
Canal Days began in 1979 as part of a larger regional celebration of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the First Welland Canal. That first celebration attracted 400 visitors to the Museum grounds where the festival was held, paying tribute to the Canal's impact on the community. In 1980 the Museum decided to continue with the festival, and it has grown larger each year since.
During "Canal Days" the downtown streets and lift-bridge are closed to traffic, giving way to vendors, buskers, food merchants, and many attractions. The festival provides a fully supervised "Children's area" featuring live entertainment, a carnival midway, and a live bird of prey and reptile exhibit. Tall Ships moored along the canal wall are open for exploration, and special cruises are available on these historic ships as well, including a day-long journey from Lake Ontario, through the canal locks.
At the Lock 8 viewing complex, the "Hidden Treasures" vending area features local crafters and artists, and the Port Colborne Historical and Marine Museum offers a glimpse into the city's rich past. "West Street", which features many historic buildings dating back to the 19th century, plays host to the largest open-air vending area and outdoor food court, while Ontario's largest outdoor vintage car show and kite display can be observed throughout the festival at H.H. Knoll park.
Fans of big band music can enjoy "Jazz on the Lawn" at the Roselawn Centre for the Living Arts. Nightly concerts in the fully licensed "Market Square" are also a big part of the festival: Classic rock headliners, tribute bands, and local favorites provide something for every musical taste in this great outdoor venue.
The festival culminates with a boat parade along the Port Colborne canal corridor and a massive fireworks display over the water.


Shakespeare-Festival Neuss

Shakespeare Festival Neuss is an annual theatre festival in Neuss, Germany. It has taken place in a replica of the Globe Theater on the grounds of the Neuss racecourse since 1991.
Globe Neuss.
In 1988, a replica of the original London Globe Theater was built for the Landesgartenschau ("horticultural show of the state NRW") in Rheda-Wiedenbrück. Reinhard Schiele, a theater-maker who, at the time, worked with the Schlosstheater Overhagen, had the initial idea and supervised the entire project. Schiele wanted it to be as true as possible to the original, so he planned a mobile travelling theatre built entirely out of wood. This dream had to be abandoned due to fire prevention regulations. The result was a dodecagonal theatre building made of a wood-and-steel construction that was no longer mobile. After the horticultural show ended, the theatre was not used for two years.
The city of Neuss and the ″Neusser Gemeinnützige Bauverein AG″ then acquired the building and rebuilt it on the grounds of the Neusser Galopprennbahn (racecourse) in 1991.
The multi-storey building, whose small windows are closed with black and white shutters, can accommodate about 500 spectators sitting on several levels. Not one seat is further than 10 meters apart from the stage. In the historical Globe Theatre there was virtually no seating at all but this would be unthinkable for today's audiences.
Festival.
The festival has been held annually since 1991. In 2016 it lasted for about a month during June and July joining theatres around the world in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. It is supervised by the cultural minister of the city of Neuss, as artistic director and production manager. The event is sponsored by a group called "Friends of the Globe".
The festival features an annually changing program of up to 30 performances attracting approximately 15,000 visitors. A space utilization of 90 percent is achieved. The mixture of national and international ensembles, the works of Shakespeare, partly in Original language, perform on the simple stage without elaborate backdrops, offers both faithful productions as well as contemporary arrangements and unconventional interpretations. The regular participants include the Bremer Shakespeare Company and the Rheinische Landestheater Neuss.


Shell stitch

A shell stitch (or "fan stitch") is a crochet motif often used as a border around other patterns or in staggered rows to create a distinctive fabric pattern. Shell stitches take the shape of arcs and semicircles, hence the name. Shell stitches are often used as edging for crocheted items such as Afghan blankets and sweaters.
Construction.
The basic method of producing shell stitches is to anchor several long stitches into the same base, anchoring both ends with short stitches in a manner that spreads out the cluster like a fan. Although many variations are possible, a basic shell stitch in United States terminology would be single crochet, skip two, five double crochets into previous single crochet, skip two, then single crochet into middle double crochet. In abbreviated terminology, it would read "5 dcs into previous sc, sk 2 dcs, sc into middle dc". Variant patterns may use longer stitches such as triple crochet, may vary the number of stitches, or alter the anchoring method.
Shell stitch borders can be worked around any regular pattern. The visual effect of a shell stitch border may be enhanced by working a single or half double crochet in a contrasting color into the base row and over the shells. When the entire fabric consists of shell stitches the visual effect may be enhanced by alternating two or three different colors; one for each row.
Fan stitch.
"Fan stitch" is closely related to shell stitch. We may define a "shell" as five crochet stitches (usually double crochets) done into a single stitch, whereas a "fan" is two such stitches, followed by a chain and two more such stitches. Fan stitch crochet also differs in that the fans are generally stacked on top of one another, with each fan being done into the middle chain of the fan in the previous row, which splits the previous fan into two symmetrical parts. For comparison, shells are not split and, in solid shell stitch, are half-staggered; each shell is done into the single crochet between the shells of the previous row.


Complete Works (RSC festival)

The Complete Works was a festival set up by the Royal Shakespeare Company, running between April 2006 and March 2007 at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The festival aimed to perform "all" of Shakespeare's works, including his sonnets, poems and all 37 plays. The RSC claims that this was their largest project in its history.
The performances had several famous actors and actresses, including Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, and Tamsin Greig. It also contained performances from other parts of the world, including performances in different languages.
Performances.
All of the works are listed in chronological order of their first night of their performance.
Awards.
During the season, some people won awards for their performances. Most notably, Tamsin Greig won two awards for her role as Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing". She won both a Laurence Olivier Awards for best actress and Critics' Circle Award for best Shakespearean performance, the first woman ever to win the award.


List of performance artists

Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation.
This article lists notable performance artists.


James Robertson (conductor)

James Robertson CBE (17 June 1912 – 18 May 1991) was an English conductor, best known as musical director of Sadler's Wells Opera.
Robertson was born in Liverpool and was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge, before studying music at the Leipzig Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in London. He joined the music staff of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1937 and became chorus master and repetiteur of the Carl Rosa Opera in 1938. After the Second World War, in which he served in the Royal Air Force, he was appointed musical director of the Sadler's Wells Opera in 1946, serving in the post until 1954. Together with the conductor Michael Mudie and the administrator Norman Tucker, he formed a triumvirate that ran the company.
In 1954 Robertson left to become conductor of the New Zealand National Orchestra (now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra), succeeding Michael Bowles. He returned to Britain in 1958, conducting the Carl Rosa company and as a regular guest conductor at Sadler's Wells.
Robertson was opera adviser to the Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1960, followed by a further spell in New Zealand, where he was artistic director of the National Opera (1962–3). In 1964 he became director of the London Opera Centre, where he encouraged many young singers who later achieved success on the operatic stage. He retired as director in 1977, though remaining a consultant. He returned once more to New Zealand, conducting there from 1978 to 1981.
Robertson died in Ruabon, North Wales, aged 79.


Shakespeare by the Sea, Los Angeles

Shakespeare by the Sea is a nonprofit organization that was launched in 1998 by Producing Artistic Director Lisa Coffi. Shakespeare by the Sea offers a free repertory season that runs for ten weeks throughout Los Angeles and Orange County. All performances are admission free. Each summer, the company tours about 20 cities for as many as 40 performances.
Over the years, Shakespeare by the Sea has developed into a mid-sized arts organization with two core programs: the free summer repertory presented in San Pedro and then throughout the South Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County; and the Little Fish Theatre, a 60-seat black box theatre producing new, classic and contemporary works year-round in the downtown San Pedro Arts District.
Shakespeare by the Sea is supported by a combination of individual donations, government and arts program grants and corporate sponsorship.
Founding members of Shakespeare by the Sea are Lisa Coffi, Stephanie Courtney and Keith Gotowicki. The organization is currently run by Lisa Coffi as Producing Artistic Director and Suzanne Dean as Development Director.
Shakespeare by the Sea, Los Angeles is listed as a Major Festival in the book "Shakespeare Festivals Around the World" by Marcus D. Gregio (Editor), 2004.


Fidelio discography

This is a partial discography of "Fidelio", a Singspiel in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven had originally written a three-act version of the opera called "Leonore", first performed in 1805 and then re-staged with revisions in 1806. Despite the name change, the heroine is the title character in both cases. Leonore disguises herself as a boy, Fidelio, in order to find out what has happened to her husband, Florestan, who is being illegally held by Pizarro, a prison governor. The other major characters are the gaoler Rocco and his daughter Marzelline.
Audio (1805 version).
This is a partial discography of "Leonore", the 1805 original three-act version of the two-act opera "Fidelio".
Audio (1806 version).
This is a discography of "Leonore", the 1806 version of the two-act opera "Fidelio".


Scally the Dog

Scally the Dog was a puppet mongrel dog character, who co-presented the Children's ITV afternoon service from January 1989 - March 1991 in the United Kingdom.
Children's ITV.
Children's ITV's bosses had noticed how successful puppet characters (such as Gordon the Gopher and Edd the Duck) had been on its rival, Children's BBC, so they decided to create their own version, which was Scally the Dog. He was operated and voiced alternately by three different puppeteers, who were Richard Coombs, John Eccleston and Michael J. Bassett. Coombs was the original operator of Scally and also built the puppet of him too. However, due to him working on other TV projects at the time, he had to share the duties of doing Scally with both Eccleston & Bassett too. During his time at Children's ITV, there was also a short-lived "Scally" cartoon strip in the children's TV magazine, "Look-In" as well.
Scally first appeared on Children's ITV in January 1989, alongside his first human co-presenter, Mark Granger. When the independent production company, Stonewall Productions took over producing Children's ITV in April '89, Scally was kept on and appeared alongside the new presenter, former TV-am co-host Nick Owen, in the afternoons for the rest of '89. In Summer 1989, when Stonewall's Children's ITV summer mornings service launched, he appeared with new recruits, Clive Warren and Jeanne Downs. Scally had several catchphrases that he often used on Children's ITV, one of which was: "Yes, indeedy!", which he usually said when he was happy about something. Another one was: "We're still here!", which was often said by both Owen & Scally during their links, referring to them still being on-air at the time.
Owen left Children's ITV on 22 December 1989, so Downs took over presenting in the afternoons on 2 January 1990, along with Scally. This continued until 29 March 1991, when Stonewall lost the contract to produce Children's ITV back to Central Television (who had also done it previously from 1983 - 1989). They were both replaced by a solo Tommy Boyd on 1 April 1991. However, both Downs and Scally (operated & voiced by Coombs) made a return to CITV 12 years later on 3 January 2003, when they appeared on a special one-off programme called "CITV's 20th Birthday Bash", shown as part of the ITV programming block's landmark 20th birthday celebrations.
After Children's ITV.
According to a post by Downs on the "TV Forum" website in 1998, the puppet of Scally now resides at the Museum of the Moving Image in Birmingham, and is owned by someone who used to work on the BBC Saturday morning kids' show, Live & Kicking.


Baptism of Fire (novel)

Baptism of Fire (Polish original title: "Chrzest ognia") is the third novel in the "Witcher Saga" written by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski, first published in 1996 in Polish and in English in 2014. It is a sequel to the second Witcher novel "Time of Contempt" ("Czas pogardy") and is followed by "The Tower of the Swallow" ("Wieża Jaskółki").
Plot.
In the aftermath of the Thanedd incident, war is still raging between Nilfgaard and the Northern Kingdoms. The elf sorceress Francesca Findabair has been installed by Nilfgaardian Emperor Emhyr as client queen of Dol Blathanna. In exchange for her throne, however, she is obliged to withhold aid from the elven "Scoia'tael" commandos, who supported Nilfgaard's initial advance into the North, but now find themselves alone and unsupported as the Northern Kingdoms retaliate.
Geralt.
Geralt of Rivia recovers in Brokilon Forest under the care of the dryads, but he is intent on leaving as quickly as possible and searching for Ciri. The Dryads' queen introduces him to Milva, an expert archer who ranges outside the forest, guiding scattered bands of "Scoia'tael" to refuge in Brokilon. Despite not particularly liking the convalescing witcher, she agrees to accompany him and his friend Dandelion, on his way towards Nilfgaard and hopefully, Ciri. The journey is not easy, the war is encroaching seemingly from all directions and nearly every city is ablaze.
Along their journey they meet a group of dwarves led by Zoltan Chivay. As it seems they are all going in the same direction, Geralt's party joins the group who are also shepherding some refugee women and children. They are also shadowed by Cahir, the "Black Rider" who featured prominently in Ciri's nightmares. Initially, the knight is being transported as a prisoner by some hawkers, when Geralt spares his life for the second time. However, the witcher wants nothing to do with the young Nilfgaardian and leaves him to his own devices, Cahir is ever persistent and continues to shadow the witcher and his entourage. Eventually, through Milva's intervention, the young knight comes to join the group. Finally, the troupe is joined by Regis, a vampire with invaluable medical skills. Despite his avocation as a monster hunter, Geralt concedes a liking for the vampire. Cahir also reveals that both he and Geralt have been having the same prophetic dreams about Ciri, which evidence that she is not in Nilfgaard at all, and the young woman produced by Emhyr bearing that name is an imposter.
As the group travels east, Milva admits that she is pregnant, the result of a brief liaison with a group of elves she was escorting back to Brokilon. At first she asks Regis for a potion to help her abort the child, but then converses with Geralt, who reveals how he never expected to feel love for a child until he became responsible for Ciri, and she decides to keep her baby. Unfortunately, they are inevitably caught between the warring factions which leads them into the thick of the Battle for the Bridge on the Yaruga where the group is pivotal in Queen Meve avoiding capture by Nilfgaardian forces, but Cahir is badly wounded and Milva miscarries. Geralt had previously named himself "Geralt of Rivia" despite not actually being from there, however, after the battle Geralt is knighted by the queen and his title "of Rivia" becomes official.
Ciri.
Ciri, under the alias "Falka" has settled into life with a party of young outlaws, "the Rats". Experiencing killing on a regular basis, she ultimately becomes obsessed with it.
Yennefer.
With the collapse of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers after the Thanedd incident, Francesca Findabair gathers a group of sorceresses - including Yennefer, whom Francesca transformed into a jade statuette during the chaos on Thanedd and has kept sequestered in the three months since then - and proposes the founding of a new organization, the Lodge of Sorceresses. Francesca and Phillipa Eilhart explain their belief that, rather than act as advisors to the monarchs of the various kingdoms, their magical abilities make them best qualified to rule themselves. But the only way the nobility of the Northern Kingdoms would accept such rule is if they were all unified under a single monarch, who possesses both royal blood and magical ability - i.e., Ciri. Yennefer's knowledge is essential to finding Ciri, but a Nilfgaardian sorceress, Fringilla Vigo, helps Yennefer escape so she can find Ciri on her own. Unlike Geralt, Yennefer decides to track down the rogue mage Vilgefortz, who she believes has kidnapped Ciri and who is owed retribution for his treacherous actions on Thanedd Island.
Translations.
It was published in Croatian (EGMONT, 2020), Czech (Leonardo, 1997), Russian (AST, 1997), Spanish (Bibliopolis, 2005), Lithuanian (Eridanas, 2006), German (DTV, 2009), French (Bragelonne, 2010), Serbian (Čarobna Knjiga, 2011), Finnish (WSOY, 2014), Hungarian (PlayOn, 2015) and Portuguese (WMF Martins Fontes, 2015) Ukrainian (KSD, 2016). The English edition was released by Gollancz on March 6, 2014.
Adaptations.
In 2018 a Polish audiobook has been released. It is a high-end audiobook, with dozens of actors, music and special effects.


Furniture music

Furniture music, or in French musique d’ameublement (sometimes more literally translated as "furnishing" music), is background music originally played by live performers. The term was coined by Erik Satie in 1917.
Satie's compositions.
The music.
Although other selections of Erik Satie's music can be experienced (and are sometimes indicated) as furniture music, Satie himself applied the name only to five short pieces, composed in three separate sets:
The first set was apparently never performed (nor the score published) during Satie's lifetime.
The second set contained reminiscences of popular tunes by, amongst others, Camille Saint-Saëns and Ambroise Thomas. It was premiered in Paris the year it was composed, as intermission music to a lost comedy by Max Jacob. During these intermissions the audience was invited to visit an exposition of children's drawings in the Galerie Barbazanges that was hosting the premiere.
Indications of the intentions of the artists giving the first performance are found in the manuscript of the score:
Furnishing divertissement organised by the group of musicians known as the "Nouveaux Jeunes"
Furnishing music replaces "waltzes" and "operatic fantasias" etc. Don't be confused! "It's something else!!!" No more "false music"
Furnishing music completes one's property;
it's new; it doesn't upset customs; it isn't tiring; it's French; it won't wear out; it "isn't boring"
"--quoted in Gillmor, 1988, p 325-326"
See also the Entr'acte article for more details regarding the circumstances of this first, and only documented, public performance of furniture music during Satie's lifetime, assisted by the composer himself.
The separate commissioned piece was sent to America. There are no known public performances or publications of this music prior to leaving the European continent. This piece is sometimes presented as "furniture music No. 3".
As Satie's pieces of furniture music were very short pieces, with an indefinite number of repeats, this kind of furniture music later became associated with repetitive music (sometimes used as a synonym of minimal music), but this kind of terminology did not yet exist in Satie's time.
Publication.
For a quarter of a century after the composer's death, all of the furniture music pieces remained hidden from the general public, apart from being mentioned in early Satie biographies. By the end of the 1960s parts of the furniture music started to appear as facsimile illustrations to press articles and new Satie biographies. The first full publication of sets 1 and 3 followed in the early 1970s. There was no full publication of the second set before the last years of the 20th century.
Revival.
Several decades after Satie's death, furniture music was revived, largely due to the American composer John Cage, as the composer's theory of minimalist background music. Furniture music appeared as the launchpad for minimalist/experimental/avant-garde music since it was the first instance of music being played or produced out of context: not as a centerpiece but as a cerebral backdrop.
These and other related ideas were picked up by several composers of the neoclassical/20th-century school of music, accentuating atmosphere and texture over traditional form and movement. The minimalist references and anachronisms were not solidified until composer John Cage performed Satie's "hidden" piece "Vexations" 840 times as requested by Satie's own scribbled notes on the original sheet music.


Bronzeware


Pearl McGown

Pearl Kinnear McGown (February 27, 1891 – 1983) was an American designer of hooked rugs and a teacher and innovator in the field who is credited with helping to bring the craft out of obscurity in the 20th century and gain it recognition as a form of folk art.
Career.
Pearl McGown learned rug-hooking as a child. Hooked rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or thin strips of fabric through a base material with an open weave, typically burlap or linen. In North America, rug-hooking has been a widespread handicraft since the early 19th century, possibly brought over by English textile workers. Like patchwork quilts, hooked rugs have historically been primarily made by women as functional decorative objects that use up remnants from other sewing, knitting, or weaving projects. Although a few professional designers took an interest in hooked rugs during the late 19th century Arts and Crafts era, they remained associated with poverty and did not enjoy the same degree of aesthetic development as other handicrafts in that period.
In the late 1920s, McGown began designing and selling her own patterns to students of a Massachusetts hooked rug teacher, Caroline Saunders. Her business flourished and became national in scope, and she eventually hired several helpers. All told, she created over 1000 original designs during her career. She began making rugs herself (now sought by collectors) and became known for floral designs that employ many subtle shades of color to create rich detail and striking pictorial effects.
In the 1930s, McGown began writing books on the techniques of rug-hooking as well as on patterns and color schemes. She also began offering workshops in wool dying to obtain the shades needed for specific projects. Through her books and dye workshops, she championed rug-hooking's evolution from a plain craft to a folk art, insisting on high standards of fabrication and steering her students away from commercial patterns towards more personalized designs.
In 1940, McGown organized an exhibition of hooked rugs that became an annual event. During World War II, she began a newsletter," Letter Service", that offered instruction in special techniques, and she also taught rug-hooking to servicemen recuperating in military hospitals.
In 1951, McGown organized the first in what became an annual series of hooked rug workshops to train new teachers, exchange knowledge, and develop the formal study of hooked rugs and their history. The McGown Teacher Workshops, as they became known, centered on McGown's own patterns, which consequently became widely known.
In 1970, McGown sold her business to Old Sturbridge Village, and it was later sold again to the dye manufacturer W. Cushing & Co. Today, there is still a Pearl K. McGown Teacher Certification and Workshop Program under different owners.
McGown also created the first known correspondence course for those who wanted to teach rug-hooking to others.
Some of McGown's work is in the Hooked Rug Museum of North America in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Personal life.
Born Pearl Kinnear, she married Maurice McGown, with whom she had a son, Winthrop (b. 1915). Her granddaughter Jane McGown Flynn also became a noted rug-hooking designer and instructor.


Princesa Yamal

Isabel Camila Masiero (born in Mendoza, Argentina), better known by her stage name Princesa Yamal, is a Mexican vedette, actress and dancer of Argentine origin. She was one of the most popular Mexican vedettes during the 1970s and 1980s.
Career.
She arrived to Mexico in 1977 contracted by Ramón Bugarini, famous businessman of the time. At that time she worked in Panama, where she starred as main star in the famous "Playboy" nightclub. Before settling in Mexico, she had offers to work in Japan, Milan and Miami. She refused to work in Italy, since one of her uncles was a priest in that country.
She debuted in Mexico City in the famous nightclub "El 77", sharing credits with the also vedette Amira Cruzat. The show of PrincesaYamal was different from those presented in Mexico at that time. Her specialty was the Arab dances. "Yamal" is an Arabic word meaning "beauty".
She also participated in some films of the called Mexican sex comedy, as well in the popular magazines of that time.
In 1985, the vedette was involved in the robbery of the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico and purged a two-year prison sentence.
Currently, Princesa Yamal is located in Acapulco, where she perform beauty treatments.
In 2016, Princesa Yamal, along with other vedettes like Olga Breeskin, Rossy Mendoza, Lyn May and Wanda Seux stars in the documentary film "Beauties of the Night", by the filmmaker María José Cuevas. In fact, Cuevas revealed that it was a meeting that she had with Princesa Yamal in 2006, which motivated her to realize the film project.


Dandelion (The Witcher)


Joseon white porcelain

Joseon white porcelain or Joseon baekja refers to the white porcelains produced during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910).
History.
White porcelains were preferred and praised over other porcelains during the time to represent Korean Confucian ethics such as frugality and pragmatism.
Baekja first made its first appearance in Korea during the Unified Silla period. Initially, baekja did not show any significant development until the end of the 14th century, when new potter's clay and glazes were introduced. After gaining significant attention towards the end of the Goryeo dynasty, production of white porcelain was promulgated by a nation-wide drive starting at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty. The wares were often used by the king, and were of such high quality that the Ming Dynasty requested the wares as a form of tribute. Baekja made during this time was slightly bluish, and was considered to be serene and dignified, portraying the national ideals envisioned at the founding of the dynasty.
Overall, Joseon ceramics underwent numerous transformations during the five hundred-year period and is generally divided into three major periods; the early, the middle, and the late period.
Although the chronology of Joseon ceramics differs between scholars, three major events affected kiln production; the outcome of the Imjin wars, the establishment of "Bunwon" (hangul: 분원; hanja: 分院), government-subsidized kilns at Bunwon-ri, Gwangju near Seoul in 1751, and the privatization of Bunwon in 1884.
A number of Joseon porcelain has been registered by the government as National Treasures.
Characteristics.
Unlike Goryeo ware, which are glazed with the rich vibrant color of celadon and often featured characteristics of nature, Joseon white porcelains (baekja) are characterized by the beauty of modest forms, and minimal use of color, which conveyed the ideals of Korean Confucian state, that was preeminent at the time. The inimitably unique beauty of Korean culture came to be mirrored in baekja and gradually diversification in color and design became shared by both the court and the common people.
Color was not entirely devoid in Joseon white ware. As early as the 15th century, baekja was painted with cobalt blue was highly prized, more so than white ware because of its rarity and difficulty to make. From the 17th century onward, iron brown became popular and was used to decorate baekja, especially when the cost of cobalt rose too high. Iron-brown is often used to paint in unique styles, and some of the best examples reflect carefree and humorous, such as dragons circling the rotund jars. Even more uncharacteristic for baekja, and especially difficult is painting them with copper-red decorations. The pieces with the copper-red that have been successfully produced originated from the 18th century.
Production.
Baekja is shaped from well-refined white clay (kaolin or petuntse), glazed with feldspar, and then fired. Although the name is derived from its basic color, minute color differences often appear according to the properties of the clay and the glaze, as well as the firing method and temperature: some porcelains are pure white, while others may have slight tints of light blue or light yellow. White porcelain wares are made at more than 1300 degrees Celsius inside a kiln while the blue green celadon was made under 1200 degrees Celsius. When comparing Joseon White porcelain to Goryeo, the wares prove to be both stronger and more durable another reason they were favored during the Joseon dynasty.
Uses.
Baekja was manufactured throughout the Joseon Dynasty and was widely used by people in their daily lives. During the 15th and 16th centuries, dishes, bowls, bottles, and jars of simple yet elegant forms and shapes were preferred. Departing from everyday practical use, Baekja also had ceremonial uses, such as burial vessels. Historically baekja had been used as placenta jars, usually made in sets of two, one inside the other, for holding and burying the placenta of a prince or princess. In the 18th century, large bulbous vessels known as moon jars became fashionable.


The Sydney Fringe

The Sydney Fringe is an alternative arts and culture festival held for the first time in September 2010 in the inner west of Sydney, Australia.
The Fringe is an initiative of the Newtown Entertainment Precinct Association. It is the largest alternative visual and performing arts event in NSW. It encompasses genres such as stand-up comedy, music, theatre, cabaret, visual arts, and burlesque, though shows and events that are not easily labelled in that manner are highly encouraged; evidence of this in past years has included podcast recordings and indie video game events. It is billed as "a time for risk, discovery and adventure [...] a three week celebration of the strange and the beautiful."
The Sydney Fringe, began as a curated festival (like the New York International Fringe Festival) as opposed to an open access "unjuried" festival (the model used by the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). In 2012, festival director Richard Hull implemented the open access festival model, whereby the visual arts is now the only curated element.
The Sydney Fringe typically operates in a festival precinct encompassing a number of venues in the Newtown/Marrickville/Enmore area, with a few other venues in the wider Sydney area, including Leichhardt, Parramatta, Oxford Street and the City. In a departure from previous years, where venues registered with the Fringe in the same manner as artists, the Fringe 2013 team have selected a list of over 60 Sydney venues, for artists to then communicate and draw up contracts with.
This fringe went on hiatus in 2020.
Previous Sydney Fringe Festivals.
The Sydney Fringe Festival ran from 1994 to 2002 in Bondi, founded by producer Victoria Harbutt and Megan Donnelly who were assisted fantastically by Cathy Carlsson, Sylvia DeAngelis, Gil Summons and Lucia Mastrantone” for four years and Katrina Sedgwick for one year. The Live Bait Festival, a successor to the Sydney Fringe Festival, also operated out of Bondi from 2003–2004 and was co-produced by Michael Cohen and Glenn Wright.


Pioneer Courthouse Square

Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland's living room, is a public space occupying a full city block in the center of downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1984, the square is bounded by Southwest Morrison Street on the north, Southwest 6th Avenue on the east, Southwest Yamhill Street on the south, and Southwest Broadway on the west.
History.
The square is named after the Pioneer Courthouse, an 1875 federal building occupying the block directly east of the square.
The block itself dates to 1856, when the city purchased land that included the site as the location for Central School. The school was moved in 1883 when plans were made for a major hotel on the site in response to the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway. After delays due to a recession, the eight-story Portland Hotel was completed on the site in 1890.
The hotel was the center of the city's social activity for the first half of the 20th century. In 1951, the hotel was torn down and a two-story parking lot was built. An original archway and gatework from the hotel were made part of the square's design and are found today on the east side of the square.
An 800-car parking garage was proposed to the Portland Planning Commission in January 1969, but the commission rejected the idea, instead calling for a public plaza. In the early 1970s, a comprehensive downtown plan proposed that the site become dedicated public space. In 1975, then mayor of Portland Neil Goldschmidt began negotiating with local department store Meier & Frank to obtain the property for the city and eventually convinced the store to sell the land to the city after its parking concerns were alleviated. By early 1980, a design competition was announced, seeking proposals for what was to become Pioneer Courthouse Square. Out of 162 submissions, five finalists emerged, from firms based in New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco/Los Angeles, Boston, and Portland. The Portland team, "a group of rabble-raising architects, writers, and an artist" led by chief designer Willard Martin, competed against a group composed of Frank Ivancie and Bill Roberts, who wanted to charge admission to a full-block atrium at the site. Willard Martin's group literally painted their design on the parking lot occupying the block, and their plan was accepted. Their design received an "Architectural Design Citation" from "Progressive Architecture" magazine in 1981.
Funding problems surfaced after the design was completed. Portland mayor Frank Ivancie led some downtown business owners and other influential citizens in opposing the concept of an open (instead of enclosed) public square, based on concerns that an open design would attract transients to the area. Former Governor Tom McCall, who by then was a television commentator, was indignant: "It would be a shock ... to learn that a few power brokers have decreed that the result of the nationwide design rivalry is meaningless..."
The square's construction required $3 million for land acquisition and $4.3 million for the structures and amenities, a large enough amount that the opposition nearly doomed the project. Martin, together with other architects and volunteers, drew attention to the delays from the opposition by painting a stylized blueprint of the proposal on the site itself. But it took the formation of "Friends of Pioneer Square", a citizens' group led by city commissioners Charles Jordan and Mike Lindberg, and $750,000 raised by the sale of 50,000 inscribed bricks, to rescue the project.
The square opened on April 6, 1984, with an inaugural celebration that attracted more than 10,000 people. The square is owned by the city of Portland and is a city park.
By October 1988, when the square's fountain was turned over to the Portland Water Bureau, it already needed repairs. "The Oregonian" called it "a leaker with corroding drain lines". Repair work was undertaken in 1995, during which the purple tiles that had originally surfaced the fountain were replaced with granite veneer. The fountain received another overhaul in 2006, but without any change to its appearance.
In 1989, a Starbucks coffeehouse opened at the northwest corner of the square, replacing a series of failed restaurants at the same location. Still in existence, this was the company's first Oregon outlet and its 40th overall.
In 2001, the completion of Fox Tower, a skyscraper on the block immediately southwest of the square, caused controversy among citizens because it blocks sunlight from reaching the majority of the square during the afternoon and evening hours.
In 2002, the organization controlling the square had plans to add a large ice skating rink for four months of the year, at a cost of $12 million. The Pioneer Square group and Project for Public Spaces thought the rink would make the square more active in the winter months, and had funding pledged by "The Oregonian" and Wells Fargo Bank. There was a strong negative reaction, as admission would be charged, violating the free-speech ethos of the square and its design. As Park Block 5 was being designed, many felt the ice rink should be placed there instead.
On November 26, 2010, the Square was the site of an attempted car bombing. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American student, was arrested after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. It turned out the bomb was inert and was part of an FBI sting operation. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. In October 2014, Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison along with credit for time served since his arrest, as well as lifetime supervision upon his scheduled release in 2037.
Features and use.
On Morrison and Yamhill streets (the north and south boundaries of the square) are sheltered MAX Light Rail stops. On the north side is an artistic feature, consisting of towering classical columns which progressively topple over like those of an ancient ruin. There are outdoor chess tables on some of the toppled columns; chess players frequently congregate there during the day. A fountain, taking the form of a cascading waterfall, on the west side of the square frames the entrance to a public information center and TriMet ticket office. The center of the square is arranged like an amphitheater, with a semicircle of approximately two dozen steps serving as seats when the square is used for musical performances or other events. Pioneer Courthouse Square was a designated non-smoking area as of January 1, 2007.
The bricks used to pave the square were sold to raise funds for the square's construction, and are inscribed with donors' names. However, the bricks were not laid in any discernible order, so people looking for a particular brick must spend time walking around the park, head down. This leads to collisions with others looking for their bricks, and gave the park its nickname, "Bang Heads Park". Eric Ladd, an "early pioneer of…sustainable living," built the wrought-iron gateway on the eastern edge of the Square in the 1970s, out of scrap salvaged from the Portland Hotel.
For almost 20 years, commercial space at the square's south end was occupied by a branch of Powell's Books. Opened in September 1985, it was called Powell's Travel Store and was focused exclusively on travel-related literature and supplies. The store closed at the end of January 2005, and the space was then vacant for an extended period, until KGW-TV, Portland's NBC affiliate, began leasing it in early 2008, with plans to construct a studio there.
In March 2009, KGW opened a high-definition news studio at the square, which it uses to broadcast its morning, noon and 7 p.m. newscasts. Regular broadcasts from the location began on March 17, 2009, with the 4:30 a.m. newscast. The space occupied by KGW is approximately in area and underground, with a small window area near the square's 6th and Yamhill corner.
The square costs the city an estimated $1.2 million per year, mostly for security, cleanup, and events.
Art.
One of the more recognized pieces of public art in Portland is Seward Johnson's "Allow Me", commonly referred to as "Umbrella Man". It is on the south side of the square, just above the amphitheater. "Allow Me" is a bronze statue of a man in a business suit holding an umbrella.
"Weather Machine", a metal column topped with a large silver-colored orb, was installed in August 1988. At noon each day, the following day's weather is announced with a fanfare of trumpets, flashing lights, and a spray of mist. The orb opens to reveal one of the following:
Light bulbs on the side of the machine are reminiscent of a mercury thermometer and light up progressively as the temperature increases.
Events.
Dozens of events are held at the square each year, including free shows during spring and summer, sponsored by local businesses. Events held in the square are usually all-ages. In 2006, the square was the site of an all-city pillow fight, and later an all-city slumber party. Pioneer Courthouse Square is a venue for speeches, political demonstrations, rallies and vigils. By Thanksgiving, a tall Christmas tree occupies the center of the square, with a tree-lighting ceremony held each year on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving. Another Christmas event in the square is Tuba Christmas. This is a celebration featuring 200–300 tuba and euphonium players who perform a medley of holiday songs, and was first held in 1991. An annual New Year's Eve celebration is also held there.
On January 12, 1991, Pioneer Courthouse Square held one of the largest gatherings in its history, when a crowd estimated at more than 12,000 attended an anti-war rally protesting the country's involvement in the Gulf War, packing the square and overflowing onto the surrounding streets, which police temporarily closed to traffic.
Reception.
In 2006, architect Laurie Olin described Pioneer Courthouse Square, stating "you really can't sit in the shade in Pioneer Square. It's not quiet. The fountain looks like a Postmodern pit. It is intended to be a citywide park. It needs big, empty spaces. If it's empty, then [Director Park] should be full."
In 2004, the square was ranked as the world's fourth-best public park by Project for Public Spaces, bested only by two squares in Venice and one in Siena, Italy.
Project for Public Spaces ranked it the third best public square in North America in 2005 after New York City's Rockefeller Plaza and New Orlean's Jackson Square.
The American Planning Association designated Pioneer Courthouse Square as one of 10 Great Public Spaces in 2008.


One Day More

"One Day More"("", "Tomorrow", in the original French version) is a song from the 1980 musical "Les Misérables". The music was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg, original French lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer.
"Les Misérables" was originally released as a French-language concept album, as French songwriter Alain Boublil had had the idea to adapt Victor Hugo's novel into a musical while at a performance of the musical "Oliver!" in London.
The show – and the song – has been translated into twenty-one languages, including Japanese, Hebrew, Icelandic, Norwegian, Czech, Polish, Spanish, and Estonian, and there have been 31 cast recordings featuring the song. The London cast version is Triple Platinum in the UK, for sales of more than 900,000, and Platinum in the U.S., for sales of more than one million. The Broadway cast version is Quadruple Platinum in the U.S. (more than four million sold), where four other versions have also gone Gold.
In popular culture.
In 2012, musical theater performer and composer Michael Bihovsky composed a parody of this song about gluein-free and hypoallergenic food called "One Grain More".
"One Day More" was parodied by the Marsh family, a British family, in a video that went viral and covered by NPR. The parody describes the social and economic implications on normal life due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"One Day More" was also parodied by James Corden and an ensemble of Broadway cast members on January 19th, 2021, the last day of the presidency of Donald Trump and one day before the inauguration of Joe Biden. The parody's lyrics frequently reference both the COVID pandemic and the events during and after supporters of Trump stormed of the United States Capitol.


Saorsa

Saorsa is a collection of short stories in Scottish Gaelic edited by Joan NicDhòmhnaill and John Storey and published by Ùr-sgeul in 2011. While varied, the stories explore the shared themes of moral ambiguity, subversion and law breaking. Crime, drugs, plastic surgery, poverty, abuse, neoliberalism, tourism, cultural identity, migration, murder, love, betrayal, politics, social and economic history are some of the topics explored in the collection.
The stories.
In all, "Saorsa" includes 13 new short stories from 13 writers:
Reception.
The collection was generally praised. Aonghas MacNeacail wrote in a review in the "West Highland Free Press" that the "Saorsa" was "a reason for hope and excitement", and Moray Watson wrote in his review in "Northwords Now" that the collection advanced the development of Gaelic prose in general.


We Will Rock You (The Original London Cast Recording)

The We Will Rock You Original London Cast Recording is a live album released in promotion of the award-winning West End Musical "We Will Rock You (musical)" in 2002. The album was recorded over two nights of the original West End production at the Dominion Theatre and was the first audio release of the musical. Both instrumental pieces ("Ogre Battle" and "One Vision") are the original recordings made by Queen in 1973 and 1985 respectively. The recording misses several tracks that were present in the original production. These are: "Bicycle Race", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to...)", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Headlong (Reprise)".
In 2012, a special 2-CD "10th Anniversary" edition was produced, consisting of the original album along with a CD of bonus material.
Personnel.
Mixed at Allerton Hill Studio and Cosford Mill Studio. Mastered at Metropolis Mastering.


Miami New Drama

Miami New Drama is a nonprofit professional theater company located in Miami Beach, Florida, founded in 2014. Since October 2016 it has been the resident theater company and operator of the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. Since its first production in January 2016, the company has produced work by American, Latin American, and international theater artists.
Miami New Drama focuses primarily on the development of new plays and musicals, serving as an incubator for new theatrical works. It produces work that is diverse, multicultural, and multilingual with theater artists such as Moisés Kaufman, Gregory Mosher, Christopher Renshaw, and Aurin Squire.
History.
Miami New Drama was co-founded in 2014 by Venezuelan-born playwrights and directors Michel Hausmann and Moisés Kaufman. They moved from New York City to Miami to start Miami New Drama, with the intent of creating a regional theater that reflected its community, representing cross-cultural themes, and building cultural and political understanding. Hausmann serves as the company's artistic director.
The company's debut production, "The Golem of Havana", directed and with a book written by Hausmann, and music and lyrics by Salomon Lerner and Len Schiff, opened at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach in January 2016. Hausmann, Lerner, and Shiff, along with their friends and families and the group’s board, produced the play with their own money, at a substantial risk. Following the successful production, Miami New Drama took over operations of the Colony Theatre on October 1, 2016.
As of May 2016, 20% of the non-profit company's funding came from Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, and 80% came from individual donors. By December 2017, Miami New Drama had received two Knights Arts Challenge grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. One of the grants was in support of the company's multilingual production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", and it is the first theater company to be authorized by the Thornton Wilder Estate to make changes to Wilder's script. Miami New Drama was also a Knight New Work Miami 2018 winner.
On January 23, 2019, PBS broadcast the company's production of Kemp Powers' fact-based 2013 play, "One Night in Miami". In June 2019, the company co-hosted the Theatre Communications Group's 29th National Conference, attended by theater professionals from across the nation.
Since its debut production, as of 2020 the company has produced over a dozen plays at the Colony Theatre, nine of them new works. In the span of its first three active years, Miami New Drama went from being a startup company to a theater company with a budget of nearly $3 million per year.
Selected productions.
"The Golem of Havana" (2016).
"The Golem of Havana" is a musical with music by Salomon Lerner, lyrics by Len Schiff, and a book by Miami New Drama's artistic director, Michel Hausmann, who also directed the company's production. The musical is centered around a Jewish-Hungarian family and their plight in the midst of the Cuban revolution. The play ran at the Colony Theatre from January 14, 2016 to February 14, 2016 after productions at La MaMa in 2013 and Barrington Stage Company in 2014.
"Terror" (2017).
The American premiere of Ferdinand Von Schirach's "Terror" was directed by Gregory Mosher. The play puts a military pilot on trial for shooting down a hijacked plane headed towards a large group of people, and asks the audience to act as the jurors on the case.
"Our Town" (2017).
The company's multilingual adaptation of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" was directed by Hausmann. In this re-imagination of the play, still set in New England, the characters speak English, Spanish, and Creole. Translations were written by Nilo Cruz and Jeff Augustin.
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" (2018).
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity", written by Kristoffer Diaz, was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama. It was produced by Miami New Drama in collaboration with Asolo Repertory Theatre. Set in the pro-wrestling world, the play tackles issues of race, politics, and the American Dream.
"Queen of Basel" (2018).
"Queen of Basel" is a new play commissioned by the company and written by Hilary Bettis; it was first directed by Hausmann. It is a feminist and bi-lingual re-imagining of August Strindberg's "Miss Julie" set during Miami's Art Basel in a luxurious South Beach hotel. Hausmann seated 100 audience members on stage to provide an immersive feel for theatergoers.
The new drama sparked interest from a variety of venues, and it was subsequently produced at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. The leading actress in the Miami New Drama production, Betsy Graver, won the 2018 Carbonell Award for Best Actress in a Play.
"The Album" (2018).
"The Album", presented by Tectonic Theater Project, was written and first directed by Moisés Kaufman. The play focuses on an album that was delivered to the Holocaust Museum in 2008, with pictures of different Nazi officers, secretaries, and their families on vacation during World War II. The play is a documentary theater piece that uses the album itself, interviews, and personal accounts as source material.
"Puras cosas maravillosas" (2018).
"Puras cosas maravillosas", a Spanish adaptation of Duncan Macmillan's "Every Brilliant Thing", was directed by Hausmann and starred Erika de la Vega. This immersive one-woman show followed a young girl's journey into adulthood, marked by her mother's depression and suicide attempts.
"One Night in Miami" (2018).
"One Night in Miami", written by Kemp Powers, was directed for Miami New Drama by Carl Cofield. The play takes place on the night that Cassius Clay won the World Heavyweight Championship, and since he could not celebrate on Miami Beach due to the segregation laws of the time, he heads to Overtown, Miami, with his colleagues: Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown. The play imagines what that night in the Hampton House Motel in Overtown might have looked like. On January 23, 2019, PBS broadcast the production.
The play won the 2018 Carbonell Award for Best Scenic Design (Play or Musical).
"Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy" (2019).
"Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy" is a new play based on the documentaries "Cocaine Cowboys" and "Cocaine Cowboys 2" by Billy Corben. This play is a documentary theater piece co-written by Billy Corben and Aurin Squire, using text from depositions, newspaper articles, and other documents from the time. It was directed by Hausmann. The play focuses on the way the city of Miami was shaped by the 1980s illegal drug trade.
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey" (2019).
Based on Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" was adapted for the stage and directed for Miami New Drama by David Greenspan, who also appeared in the play. It follows five travelers who lose their life on a bridge in colonial Peru.
"A Wonderful World" (2020).
"A Wonderful World" is a new musical with a book by Aurin Squire and music by Louis Armstrong, arranged by Annastasia Victory and Michael O. Mitchell. It was directed for Miami New Drama by Christopher Renshaw. The story follows Armstrong through his life, from his beginnings in New Orleans to his rise to international stardom and eventual role during the Civil Rights era. it is told from the perspective of Armstrong's four wives.