title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: "Up in the Air" was the centerpiece for the 18th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival, which was held from November 12 to November 22, 2009. The film was shown November 14, 2009 at the Tivoli Theater in University City, Missouri with Jason Reitman and Michael Beugg in attendance. Kevin Renick, the St. Louis musician who wrote the song "Up in the Air", performed half an hour prior to the screening. Yukon Jake, who performed in the wedding scene in "Up in the Air", provided entertainment during the party prior to the screening. The party took place at the St. Louis Ballpark Hilton and the Airport Hilton. Both are featured in the film.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: On November 14, 2009, Paramount flew 50 members of the press to New York with Anna Kendrick, Sad Brad Smith and representatives of American Airlines to promote "Up in the Air". The film was shown on the aircraft's video monitors during the flight from New York to Los Angeles. American Airlines provided the Boeing 767 gratis. Smith performed a few songs including "Help Yourself" in the aisle of the aircraft. On November 18, 2009, "Backstage" and Paramount Pictures had a special screening of "Up in the Air" for Screen Actors Guild and "Backstage" members at The Paramount Theatre (on the Paramount Lot), Los Angeles, California. The screening of the film was followed by a conversation with cast members Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. The Starz Denver Film Festival closed on November 22, 2009 with a screening of "Up in the Air", with an introduction by J.K. Simmons, who was in town to accept the festival's Cassavetes Award earlier that afternoon. The 20th Stockholm International Film Festival, which ran from November 18 to November 29, 2009, closed with a screening of "Up in the Air" on November 29, 2009.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: The film was released in both DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats on March 9, 2010, and sold 536,441 units in its first week of release, worth $9,114,133 of consumer spending. To date the film has sold 1,162,509 home copies, equivalent to $18,517,122 of sales.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: "Up in the Air" was released in 15 theaters in the U.S. on December 4, 2009 and ranked number 13 with $1.2 million, an average of $78,763 per theater. After three days it expanded to 72 theaters and made $2.4 million ($33,255 per theater) during the second weekend. In its third weekend, it broke into the top 10 as it widened to 175 theaters and came in at number 8 with $3.2 million. The film expanded to 1,895 theaters on December 23. It completed its domestic run on April 8, 2010, with a total domestic gross of $83.8 million and a foreign total of $83 million for a worldwide gross of $166.8 million.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: "Up in the Air" received critical acclaim, with Clooney's and Kendrick's performances receiving widespread praise, as well as the screenplay and editing. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 90% based on 288 reviews, with a rating average of 8.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Led by charismatic performances by its three leads, director Jason Reitman delivers a smart blend of humor and emotion with just enough edge for mainstream audiences." On Metacritic, the film has a rating score of 83 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: The sneak preview of "Up in the Air" was the highest profile hit during the Telluride film festival. The film also tied for third place in the Toronto International Film Festival Indiewire poll.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, ""Up in the Air" makes it look easy. Not just in its casual and apparently effortless excellence, but in its ability to blend entertainment and insight, comedy and poignancy, even drama and reality, things that are difficult by themselves but a whole lot harder in combination. This film does all that and never seems to break a sweat." "Entertainment Weekly" Owen Gleiberman agreed, rating the film an A as a "rare and sparkling gem of a movie, directed by Jason Reitman with the polish of a master."


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: Claudia Puig of "USA Today" praised the film's sense of timeliness, writing, "It's tough to capture an era while it's still happening, yet "Up in the Air" does so brilliantly, with wit and humanity ... Reitman emerges as a modern-day Frank Capra, capturing the nation's anxieties and culture of resilience." Stephen Saito of "IFC.com" wrote, "It touches on larger themes of mass unemployment, cultural alienation and technology as a crutch. But ultimately, it's really an expertly done character study that's a dramatic change of pace from director Jason Reitman's previous two films." Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" wrote, "Its cynical wit almost places it in the Billy Wilder bracket: "Up In The Air" is as eloquent about today's executive culture as "The Apartment" was about that of 1960. It is a brutal, desolate film – but also a superb existential rom-com, and the most entertaining lesson in contemporary socio-economics that you could hope for." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and wrote, "This isn't a comedy. If it were, it would be hard to laugh in these last days of 2009. Nor is it a tragedy. It's an observant look at how a man does a job."


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: Calling the film "a slickly engaging piece of lightweight existentialism," Todd McCarthy wrote in "Variety" that "Clooney owns his role in the way first-rate film stars can, so infusing the character with his own persona that everything he does seems natural and right. The timing in the Clooney-Farmiga scenes is like splendid tennis." "The New York Times" Manohla Dargis especially appreciated the film's strong female roles, noting that "the ferocious Ms. Kendrick, her ponytail swinging like an ax, grabs every scene she's in," but wrote that the film "is an assertively, and unapologetically, tidy package, from its use of romance to instill some drama ... and the mope rock tunes that Mr. Reitman needlessly overuses."


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: The "Chicago Tribune" Michael Phillips wrote, ""Up in the Air" is a slickly crafted disappointment. [It] feels tailor-made for George Clooney, who is very good. But the stakes remain frustratingly low and it's one of those contemporary middlebrow projects that asks us to root for a genial, shallow individual as he learns to be a little less the man he was." Julian Sancton of "Vanity Fair" wrote, "There are two movies in "Up in the Air": one about a guy who's flying around the country firing people, and one about a commitment-phobe who's flying away from responsibility and a shot at true love, as embodied by Farmiga. There is no attempt to braid these two threads together, and that's where the movie feels unsatisfying." J. Hoberman of "The Village Voice" wrote, "Like "Juno", "Up in the Air" conjures a troubling reality and then wishes it away. The filmmakers have peeked into the abyss and averted their eyes ... [the film] warns that you can't go home again – and then, full of false cheer and false consciousness, pretends you can."


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: "Shave Magazine" Jake Tomlinson gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "There is a very strong sense of humor as well as emotional depth, yet the scope of the film sometimes limits these sentiments. As a moviegoer, this film provides a satisfying experience where one can take a step back to ponder some of the finer points in our daily lives, but don't expect to find all the answers here."


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: "Up in the Air" earned various awards and nominations, in categories ranging from recognition of the film itself to its screenplay, direction and editing, to the performance of the three primary actors – George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick. The film received six Academy Award nominations and Farmiga and Kendrick both received nominations for Best Supporting Actress, although the two may have "split the vote" as the film failed to win any of the awards. At the 63rd British Academy Film Awards, "Up in the Air" won one award – Best Adapted Screenplay, awarded to Reitman and Turner – out of the five for which it was nominated. The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association named "Up in the Air" Best Picture and awarded Reitman Best Director and Best Screenplay with Turner, and Clooney was given the award for Best Actor. The film also received five nominations at the 67th Golden Globe Awards, with Reitman and Turner taking the award for Best Screenplay. Reitman and Turner also received recognition for the film's screenplay from the Writers Guild of America, where they won the Best Adapted Screenplay award.


title: Up in the Air (2009 film)

text: The film garnered five nominations from the Satellite Awards, with Rolfe Kent, the film's score composer, winning the Best Original Score award. Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick were each nominated for an award at the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards, but ultimately lost out. Kendrick earned an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and the Rising Star Award from Palm Springs International Film Festival for her role in the film. "Up in the Air" won Best Film from eleven awards ceremonies, including the Florida Film Critics Circle, Iowa Film Critics, Southeastern Film Critics, and Vancouver Film Critics Circle. The film earned four nominations for the Best Cast from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Central Ohio Film Critics, Denver Film Critics Society, and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. At the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review, "Up in the Air" won each of the awards for which it was nominated. Costume Designer Danny Glicker was nominated for his work by the Costume Designers Guild in the Contemporary Film category. In addition, the film was included on lists of the ten best films of 2009 by Roger Ebert, the American Film Institute, and "The New York Times".


title: Jerry Brown

text: Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of State of California in 1970; Brown later served as Mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007 and Attorney General of California from 2007 to 2011. He was both the oldest and sixth-youngest governor of California due to the 28-year gap between his second and third terms. Upon completing his fourth term in office, Brown became the fourth longest-serving governor in U.S. history, serving 16 years and 5 days in office.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Born in San Francisco, he is the son of Bernice Layne Brown and Pat Brown, who was the 32nd Governor of California (1959–1967). After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley and Yale University, he practiced law and began his political career as a member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees (1969–1971). He was elected to serve as the 23rd Secretary of State of California from 1971 to 1975. At 36, Brown was elected to his first term as governor in 1974, making him the youngest California Governor in 111 years. In 1978, he won his second term. During his governorship, Brown ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 and 1980. He declined to pursue a third term as governor in 1982, instead making an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate that same year.


title: Jerry Brown

text: After traveling abroad, he returned to California and served as the sixth Chairman of the California Democratic Party (1989–1991), attempting to run for U.S. president once more in 1992 but losing the Democratic primary to Bill Clinton. He then moved to Oakland, where he hosted a talk radio show; Brown soon returned to public life, serving as Mayor of Oakland (1999–2007) and Attorney General of California (2007–2011). He ran for his third and fourth terms as governor in 2010 and 2014, his eligibility to do so having stemmed from California's constitutional grandfather clause. On October 7, 2013, he became the longest-serving governor in the history of California, surpassing Earl Warren.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown was born in San Francisco, California, the only son of four children born to District Attorney of San Francisco and later Governor of California, Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr., and his wife, Bernice Layne. Brown's father was of half Irish and half German descent. His great-grandfather August Schuckman, a German immigrant, settled in California in 1852 during the California Gold Rush.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown was a member of the California Cadet Corps at St. Ignatius High School, where he graduated in 1955. In 1955, Brown entered Santa Clara University for a year and left to attend Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit novice house in Los Gatos, intent on becoming a Catholic priest. Brown resided at the novitiate from August 1956 to January 1960 before enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics in 1961. With his tuition paid for by the Louis Lurie Foundation, including a $675 scholarship in 1963, Brown went on to Yale Law School and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1964. After law school, Brown worked as a law clerk for California Supreme Court Justice Mathew Tobriner.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Returning to California, Brown took the state bar exam and passed on his second attempt. He then settled in Los Angeles and joined the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor. In 1969, Brown ran for the newly created Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, which oversaw community colleges in the city; he placed first in a field of 124 and served until 1971.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1970, Brown was elected California Secretary of State. Brown argued before the California Supreme Court and won cases against Standard Oil of California, International Telephone and Telegraph, Gulf Oil, and Mobil for election law violations. In addition, he forced legislators to comply with campaign disclosure laws. Brown also drafted and helped to pass the California Political Reform Act of 1974, Proposition 9, passed by 70% of California's voters in June 1974. Among other provisions, it established the California Fair Political Practices Commission.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1974, Brown ran in a highly contested Democratic primary for Governor of California against Speaker of the California Assembly Bob Moretti, San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, Representative Jerome R. Waldie, and others. Brown won the primary with the name recognition of his father, Pat Brown, whom many people admired for his progressive administration. In the General Election on November 5, 1974, Brown was elected Governor of California over California State Controller Houston I. Flournoy; Republicans ascribed the loss to anti-Republican feelings from Watergate, the election being held only ninety days after President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Brown succeeded Republican Governor Ronald Reagan, who retired after two terms.


title: Jerry Brown

text: After taking office, Brown gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative. "The American Conservative" later noted he was "much more of a fiscal conservative than Governor Reagan". His fiscal restraint resulted in one of the biggest budget surpluses in state history, roughly $5 billion. For his personal life, Brown refused many of the privileges and perks of the office, forgoing the newly constructed 20,000 square-foot governor's residence in the suburb of Carmichael and instead renting a $275-per-month apartment at 1228 N Street, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento. Rather than riding as a passenger in a chauffeured limousine as previous governors had done, Brown walked to work and drove in a Plymouth Satellite sedan. When Gray Davis, who was chief of staff to Governor Brown, suggested that a hole in the rug in the governor's office be fixed, Brown responded: “That hole will save the state at least $500 million, because legislators cannot come down and pound on my desk demanding lots of money for their pet programs while looking at a hole in my rug!”


title: Jerry Brown

text: As governor, Brown held a strong interest in environmental issues. He appointed J. Baldwin to work in the newly created California Office of Appropriate Technology, Sim Van der Ryn as State Architect, Stewart Brand as Special Advisor, John Bryson as chairman of the California State Water Board. Brown also reorganized the California Arts Council, boosting its funding by 1300 percent and appointing artists to the council, and appointed more women and minorities to office than any other previous California governor. In 1977, he sponsored the "first-ever tax incentive for rooftop solar", among many environmental initiatives. In 1975, Brown obtained the repeal of the "depletion allowance", a tax break for the state's oil industry, despite the efforts of lobbyist Joe Shell, a former intraparty rival to Richard M. Nixon.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1975, Brown opposed Vietnamese immigration to California, saying that the state had enough poor people. He added, “There is something a little strange about saying ‘Let's bring in 500,000 more people’ when we can't take care of the 1 million (Californians) out of work.”


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown strongly opposed the death penalty and vetoed it as governor, which the legislature overrode in 1977. He also appointed judges who opposed capital punishment. One of these appointments, Rose Bird as the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, was voted out in 1987 after a strong campaign financed by business interests upset by her "pro-labor" and "pro-free speech" rulings. The death penalty was only "a trumped-up excuse" to use against her, even though the Bird Court consistently upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty. In 1960, he lobbied his father, then governor, to spare the life of Caryl Chessman and reportedly won a 60-day stay for him.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown was both in favor of a Balanced Budget Amendment and opposed to Proposition 13, the latter of which would decrease property taxes and greatly reduce revenue to cities and counties. When Proposition 13 passed in June 1978, he heavily cut state spending, and along with the Legislature, spent much of the $5 billion surplus to meet the proposition's requirements and help offset the revenue losses which made cities, counties, and schools more dependent on the state. His actions in response to the proposition earned him praise from Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis who went as far as to make a television commercial for Brown just before his successful re-election bid in 1978. The controversial proposition immediately cut tax revenues and required a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes. Max Neiman, a professor at the Institute of Governmental Studies at University of California, Berkeley, credited Brown for "bailing out local government and school districts", but felt it was harmful "because it made it easier for people to believe that Proposition 13 wasn't harmful". In an interview in 2014, Brown indicated that a "war chest" would have helped his campaign for an alternative to Proposition 13.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown began his first campaign for the Democratic nomination for president on March 16, 1976, late in the primary season and over a year after some candidates had started campaigning. Brown declared: "The country is rich, but not so rich as we have been led to believe. The choice to do one thing may preclude another. In short, we are entering an era of limits."


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown's name began appearing on primary ballots in May and he won in Maryland, Nevada, and his home state of California. He missed the deadline in Oregon, but he ran as a write-in candidate and finished in third behind Jimmy Carter and Senator Frank Church of Idaho. Brown is often credited with winning the New Jersey and Rhode Island primaries, but in reality, uncommitted slates of delegates that Brown advocated in those states finished first. With support from Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, Brown won a majority of delegates at the Louisiana delegate selection convention; thus, Louisiana was the only southern state to not support Southerners Carter or Alabama Governor George Wallace. Despite this success, he was unable to stall Carter's momentum, and his rival was nominated on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Brown finished third with roughly 300 delegate votes, narrowly behind Congressman Morris Udall and Carter.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown won re-election in 1978 against Republican state Attorney General Evelle J. Younger. Brown appointed the first openly gay judge in the United States when he named Stephen Lachs to serve on the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979. In 1981, he also appointed the first openly lesbian judge in the United States, Mary C. Morgan, to the San Francisco Municipal Court. Brown completed his second term having appointed a total of five gay judges, including Rand Schrader and Jerold Krieger. Through his first term as governor, Brown had not appointed any openly gay people to any position, but he cited the failed 1978 Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban homosexuals from working in California's public schools, for his increased support of gay rights. The Governor also signed AB 489, The Consenting Adult Sex Act, which decriminalized homosexual behavior between adults, adding to this reputation. He also signed AB 607, which banned homosexuals from receiving civil marriage licenses, in 1977.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown championed the Peripheral Canal project to transport water from near Sacramento around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the Central Valley Project and export it to southern California. It was submitted to the voters for approval as a ballot proposition in 1982, but was turned down.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1981, Brown, who had established a reputation as a strong environmentalist, was confronted with a serious medfly infestation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The state's agricultural industry advised him, and the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), to authorize airborne spraying of the region. Initially, in accordance with his environmental protection stance, he chose to authorize ground-level spraying only. Unfortunately, the infestation spread as the medfly reproductive cycle out-paced the spraying. After more than a month, millions of dollars of crops had been destroyed, and billions of dollars more were threatened. Governor Brown then authorized a massive response to the infestation. Fleets of helicopters sprayed malathion at night, and the California National Guard set up highway checkpoints and collected many tons of local fruit; in the final stage of the campaign, entomologists released millions of sterile male medflies in an attempt to disrupt the insects' reproductive cycle.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Ultimately, the infestation was eradicated, but both the Governor's delay and the scale of the action have remained controversial ever since. Some people claimed that malathion was toxic to humans, as well as insects. In response to such concerns, Brown's chief of staff, B. T. Collins, staged a news conference during which he publicly drank a glass of malathion. Many people complained that, while the malathion may not have been very toxic to humans, the aerosol spray containing it was corrosive to car paint.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown proposed the establishment of a state space academy and the purchasing of a satellite that would be launched into orbit to provide emergency communications for the state—a proposal similar to one that was indeed eventually adopted. In 1979, an out-of-state columnist, Mike Royko, at the "Chicago Sun-Times", picked up on the nickname from Brown's girlfriend at the time, Linda Ronstadt, who was quoted in a 1978 "Rolling Stone" magazine interview humorously calling him "Moonbeam". A year later, Royko expressed his regret for publicizing the nickname, and in 1991 Royko disavowed it entirely, proclaiming Brown to be just as serious as any other politician.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Some notable figures were given priority correspondence access to him in either advisory or personal roles. These included United Farm Workers of America founder Cesar Chavez, Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard, labor leader Jack Henning, and Charles Manatt, then-Chairman of the California State Democratic Party. Mail was routed as VIP to be delivered directly to the governor. However, it is unclear as to exactly how long this may have occurred.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1978, San Francisco punk band the Dead Kennedys' first single, "California über alles", from the album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released; it was performed from the perspective of then-governor Brown painting a picture of a hippie-fascist state, satirizing what they considered his mandating of liberal ideas in a fascist manner, commenting on what lyricist Jello Biafra saw as the corrosive nature of power. The imaginary Brown had become President Brown presiding over secret police and gas chambers. Biafra later said in an interview with "Nardwuar" that he now feels differently about Brown; as it turned out, Brown was not as bad as Biafra thought he would be, and subsequent songs have been written about other politicians deemed worse.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown chose not to run for a third term in 1982, and instead ran for the United States Senate, but lost to San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson. He was succeeded as governor by George Deukmejian, then state attorney general, on January 3, 1983.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1980, Brown challenged Carter for renomination. The press had anticipated his candidacy ever since he won re-election as governor in 1978 over the Republican Evelle Younger by 1.3 million votes, the largest margin in California history. But Brown had trouble gaining traction in both fundraising and polling for the presidential nomination. This was widely believed to be because of the more prominent candidate Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Brown's 1980 platform, which he declared to be the natural result of combining Buckminster Fuller's visions of the future and E. F. Schumacher's theory of "Buddhist economics", was much expanded from 1976. His "era of limits" slogan was replaced by a promise to, in his words, "Protect the Earth, serve the people, and explore the universe".


title: Jerry Brown

text: Three main planks of his platform were a call for a constitutional convention to ratify the Balanced Budget Amendment; a promise to increase funds for the space program as a "first step in bringing us toward a solar-powered space satellite to provide solar energy for this planet"; and, in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, opposition to nuclear power. On the subject of the 1979 energy crisis, Brown decried the "Faustian bargain" that he claimed Carter had entered into with the oil industry, and declared that he would greatly increase federal funding of research into solar power. He endorsed the idea of mandatory non-military national service for the nation's youth. He suggested that the Defense Department cut back on support troops while beefing up the number of combat troops.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown opposed Kennedy's call for universal national health insurance and opposed Carter's call for an employer mandate to provide catastrophic private health insurance labeling it socialist. As an alternative, he suggested a program of tax credits for those who do not smoke or otherwise damage their health, saying: "Those who abuse their bodies should not abuse the rest of us by taking our tax dollars." Brown also called for expanding the use of acupuncture and midwifery.


title: Jerry Brown

text: As Brown's campaign began to attract more members of what some more conservative commentators described as "the fringe", including activists like Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and Jesse Jackson, his polling numbers began to suffer. Brown received only 10 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and he was soon forced to announce that his decision to remain in the race would depend on a good showing in the Wisconsin primary. Although he had polled well there throughout the primary season, an attempt to film a live speech in Madison, the state's capital, into a special effects-filled, 30-minute commercial (produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola) was disastrous.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1982, Brown chose not to seek a third term as governor; instead, he ran for the United States Senate for the seat being vacated by Republican S.I. Hayakawa. He was defeated by Republican San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson by a margin of 52% to 47%. After his Senate defeat, Brown was left with few political options. Republican George Deukmejian, a Brown critic, narrowly won the governorship in 1982, succeeding Brown, and was re-elected overwhelmingly in 1986. After his Senate defeat in 1982, many considered Brown's political career to be over.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown traveled to Japan to study Buddhism, studying with Christian/Zen practitioner Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle under Yamada Koun-roshi. In an interview, he explained, "Since politics is based on illusions, zazen definitely provides new insights for a politician. I then come back into the world of California and politics, with critical distance from some of my more comfortable assumptions." He also visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, where he ministered to the sick in one of her hospices. He explained, "Politics is a power struggle to get to the top of the heap. Calcutta and Mother Teresa are about working with those who are at the bottom of the heap. And to see them as no different than yourself, and their needs as important as your needs. And you're there to serve them, and doing that you are attaining as great a state of being as you can."


title: Jerry Brown

text: Upon his return from abroad in 1988, Brown announced that he would stand as a candidate to become chairman of the California Democratic Party, and won against investment banker Steve Westly. Although Brown greatly expanded the party's donor base and enlarged its coffers, with a focus on grassroots organizing and get out the vote drives, he was criticized for not spending enough money on TV ads, which was felt to have contributed to Democratic losses in several close races in 1990, such as Dianne Feinstein's attempt to become the first female governor of California. In early 1991, Brown abruptly resigned his post and announced that he would run for the Senate seat held by the retiring Alan Cranston. Although Brown consistently led in the polls for both the nomination and the general election, he abandoned the campaign, deciding instead to run for the presidency for the third time.


title: Jerry Brown

text: When Brown announced his intention to run for president against President George H. W. Bush, many in the media and his own party dismissed his campaign as having little chance of gaining significant support. Ignoring them, Brown embarked on a grassroots campaign to, in his own words, "take back America from the confederacy of corruption, careerism, and campaign consulting in Washington". In his stump speech, first used while officially announcing his candidacy on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Brown told listeners that he would be accepting campaign contributions from individuals only and that he would not accept over $100. Continuing with his populist reform theme, he assailed what he dubbed "the bipartisan Incumbent Party in Washington" and called for term limits for members of Congress. Citing various recent scandals on Capitol Hill, particularly the recent House banking scandal and the large congressional pay-raises from 1990, he promised to put an end to Congress being a "Stop-and-Shop for the moneyed special interests".


title: Jerry Brown

text: As Brown campaigned in various primary states, he would eventually expand his platform beyond a policy of strict campaign finance reform. Although he focused on a variety of issues throughout the campaign, he highlighted his endorsement of living wage laws and opposition to free trade agreements such as NAFTA; he mostly concentrated on his tax policy, which had been created specifically for him by Arthur Laffer, the famous supporter of supply-side economics who created the Laffer curve. This plan, which called for the replacement of the progressive income tax with a flat tax and a value added tax, both at a fixed 13-percent rate, was decried by his opponents as regressive. Nevertheless, it was endorsed by "The New York Times", "The New Republic", and "Forbes", and its raising of taxes on corporations and elimination of various loopholes which tended to favor the very wealthy proved to be popular with voters. Various opinion polls taken at the time found that as many as three-quarters of all Americans believed the current tax code to be unfairly biased toward the wealthy. Jesse Walker wrote in "The American Conservative" that he "seemed to be the most left-wing and right-wing man in the field ... [calling] for term limits, a flat tax, reforming social security, and the abolition of the Department of Education". Brown scored surprising wins in Connecticut and Colorado and seemed poised to overtake Clinton.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Due to his limited budget, Brown began to use a mixture of alternative media and unusual fundraising techniques. Unable to pay for actual commercials, he frequently used cable television and talk radio interviews as a form of free media to get his message to voters. In order to raise funds, he purchased a toll-free telephone number, which adorned all of his campaign stances. During the campaign, Brown's repetition of this number combined with the moralistic language used, led some to describe him as a "political televangelist" with an "anti-politics gospel".


title: Jerry Brown

text: Despite poor showings in the Iowa caucus (1.6%) and the New Hampshire primary (8%), Brown soon managed to win narrow victories in Maine, Colorado, Nevada, and Vermont, but he continued to be considered a small threat for much of the campaign. It was not until shortly after Super Tuesday, when the field had been narrowed to Brown, former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, and front-runner then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, that Brown began to emerge as a major contender in the eyes of the press. On March 17, Brown forced Tsongas from the race when he received a strong third-place showing in the Illinois primary and then defeated the senator for second place in the Michigan primary by a wide margin. Exactly one week later, he cemented his position as a major threat to Clinton when he eked out a narrow win in the bitterly fought Connecticut primary. As the press focused on the primaries in New York and Wisconsin, which were both to be held on the same day, Brown, who had taken the lead in polls in both states, made a gaffe: He announced to an audience of various leaders of New York City's Jewish community that, if nominated, he would consider the Reverend Jesse Jackson as a vice-presidential candidate. Jackson, who had made a pair of anti-semitic comments about Jews in general, and New York City's Jews in particular, while running for president in 1984, was still mistrusted within the Jewish community. Jackson also had ties to Louis Farrakhan, infamous for his own anti-semitic statements, and with Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Brown's polling numbers suffered. On April 7, he lost narrowly to Bill Clinton in Wisconsin (37%–34%), and dramatically in New York (41%–26%).


title: Jerry Brown

text: Although Brown continued to campaign in a number of states, he won no further primaries. Despite being overwhelmingly outspent, Brown won upset victories in seven states and his "votes won to the money raised ratio" was by far the best of any candidate in the race. He still had a sizable number of delegates, and a big win in his home state of California would deprive Clinton of sufficient support to win the Democratic nomination, possibly bringing about a brokered convention. After nearly a month of intense campaigning and multiple debates between the two candidates, Clinton managed to defeat Brown in this final primary by a margin of 48% to 41%. Although Brown did not win the nomination, he was able to boast of one accomplishment: at the following month's Democratic National Convention, he received the votes of 596 delegates on the first ballot, more than any other candidate but Clinton. He spoke at the convention, and to the national viewing audience, yet without endorsing Clinton, through the device of seconding his own nomination. There was animosity between the Brown and Clinton campaigns, and Brown was the first political figure to criticize Bill Clinton over what became known as the Whitewater controversy.


title: Jerry Brown

text: After his 1992 presidential bid, Brown had moved from the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco to the Jack London District neighborhood of Oakland, California, an "overwhelmingly minority city of 400,000". He constructed a multi-million dollar work-live complex, serving both as his residence and as a workspace. Among other features, it included a broadcast studio and a 400-seat auditorium.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown launched a national talk radio show from his Oakland complex, which he would continue to produce until October 1997.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 1995, with Brown's political career at a low point, in the motion picture "Jade", the fictional Governor of California tells an assistant district attorney to drop a case, "unless you want as much of a future in this state as Jerry Brown". The assistant DA responds, "Who's Jerry Brown?"


title: Jerry Brown

text: In Oakland, Brown became involved as an activist in local political matters, including bay-front development and campaign finance reform. In 1996, Brown unsuccessfully urged Oakland mayor Elihu Harris to appoint him to a seat on the Oakland Port Commission.


title: Jerry Brown

text: After Oakland mayor Elihu Harris decided against seeking reelection, Brown ran in the city's 1998 mayoral election as an independent "having left the Democratic Party, blasting what he called the 'deeply corrupted' two-party system". He won with 59% of the vote in a field of ten candidates.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Prior to taking office, Brown campaigned to get the approval of the electorate to convert Oakland's "weak mayor" political structure, which structured the mayor as chairman of the city council and official greeter, to a "strong mayor" structure, where the mayor would act as chief executive over the nonpolitical and thus the various city departments, and break tie votes on the Oakland City Council. In November 1998, Oakland's electorate voted by a landslide margin of 3 to 1 in support of Measure X, which would shift the city government to the strong mayor model for a period of 6 years. A referendum permanently extending Measure X later passed in 2004, after failing to pass in 2002, thus making permanent the city's shift to the strong mayor model of governance.


title: Jerry Brown

text: The political left had hoped for some of the more progressive politics from Brown's earlier governorship, but found Brown, as mayor, to be "more pragmatic than progressive, more interested in downtown redevelopment and economic growth than political ideology". As mayor, he invited the U.S. Marine Corps to use Oakland harbor lands for mock military exercises as part of Operation Urban Warrior.


title: Jerry Brown

text: The city was rapidly losing residents and businesses, and Brown is credited with starting the revitalization of the city using his connections and experience to lessen the economic downturn while attracting $1 billion of investments, including refurbishing the Fox Theatre, the Port of Oakland, and Jack London Square. The downtown district was losing retailers, restaurateurs and residential developers, and Brown sought to attract thousands of new residents with disposable income to revitalize the area. Brown continued his predecessor Elihu Harris's public policy of supporting downtown housing development in the area defined as the Central Business District in Oakland's 1998 General Plan. Since Brown worked toward the stated goal of bringing an additional 10,000 residents to Downtown Oakland, his plan was known as the "10k Plan". It has resulted in redevelopment projects in the Jack London District, where Brown himself had earlier purchased and later sold an industrial warehouse which he used as a personal residence, and in the Lakeside Apartments District near Lake Merritt. The 10K plan has touched the historic Old Oakland district, the Chinatown district, the Uptown district, and Downtown. Brown surpassed the stated goal of attracting 10,000 residents according to city records, and built more affordable housing than previous mayoral administrations.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown had campaigned on fixing Oakland's schools, but "bureaucratic battles" dampened his efforts. He concedes he never had control of the schools, and his reform efforts were "largely a bust". He focused instead on the creation of two charter schools, the Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute. Defending his support of a military charter school in Oakland, Brown once told KQED reporter Stephen Talbot, "I believe that had I been sent to the military academy, as my mother and father threatened, I would have been president a long time ago."


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown sponsored nearly two dozen crime initiatives to reduce the crime rate, although crime decreased by 13 percent overall, the city still suffered a "57 percent spike in homicides his final year in office, to 148 overall".


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown's largely successful first term as mayor of Oakland was documented in a one-hour KQED documentary, "The Celebrity and the City" (2001) that evaluated his record in dealing with his four stated goals: reducing crime, improving education, attracting 10,000 new residents to a resurgent downtown, and encouraging the arts.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 2004, Brown expressed interest to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General of California in the 2006 election, and in May 2004, he formally filed to run. He defeated his Democratic primary opponent, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, 63% to 37%. In the general election, Brown defeated Republican State Senator Charles Poochigian 56.3% to 38.2%, one of the largest margins of victory in any statewide California race. In the final weeks leading up to Election Day, Brown's eligibility to run for attorney general was challenged in what Brown called a "political stunt by a Republican office seeker" (Contra Costa County Republican Central Committee chairman and state GOP vice-chair candidate Tom Del Beccaro). Plaintiffs claimed Brown did not meet eligibility according to California Government Code §12503, "No person shall be eligible to the office of Attorney General unless he shall have been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the state for a period of at least five years immediately preceding his election or appointment to such office." Legal analysts called the lawsuit frivolous because Brown was admitted to practice law in the State of California on June 14, 1965, and had been so admitted to practice ever since. Although ineligible to practice law because of his voluntary inactive status in the State Bar of California from January 1, 1997, to May 1, 2003, he was nevertheless still admitted to practice. Because of this distinction the case was eventually thrown out.


title: Jerry Brown

text: As attorney general, Brown represented the state in fighting death-penalty appeals and stated that he would follow the law, regardless of his personal beliefs against capital punishment. Capital punishment by lethal injection was halted in California by federal judge Jeremy D. Fogel until new facilities and procedures were put into place. Brown moved to resume capital punishment in 2010 with the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown after the lifting of a statewide moratorium by a California court. Brown's Democratic campaign, which pledged to "enforce the laws" of California, denied any connection between the case and the gubernatorial election. Prosecutor Rod Pacheco, who supported Republican opponent Meg Whitman, said that it would be unfair to accuse Jerry Brown of using the execution for political gain as they never discussed the case.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In June 2008, Brown filed a fraud lawsuit claiming mortgage lender Countrywide Financial engaged in "unfair and deceptive" practices to get homeowners to apply for risky mortgages far beyond their means. Brown accused the lender of breaking the state's laws against false advertising and unfair business practices. The lawsuit also claimed the defendant misled many consumers by misinforming them about the workings of certain mortgages such as adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, low-documentation loans and home-equity loans while telling borrowers they would be able to refinance before the interest rate on their loans adjusted. The suit was settled in October 2008 after Bank of America acquired Countrywide. The settlement involved the modifying of troubled 'predatory loans' up to $8.4 billion.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Proposition 8, a contentious voter-approved amendment to the state constitution that banned same-sex marriage was upheld in May 2009 by the California Supreme Court. In August 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Proposition 8 violated the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Brown and then Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger both declined to appeal the ruling. The state appeals court declined to order the governor or Attorney-General Brown to defend the proposition.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown announced his candidacy for governor on March 2, 2010. First indicating his interest in early 2008, Brown formed an exploratory committee in order to seek a third term as governor in 2010, following the expiration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's term.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown's Republican opponent in the election was former eBay president Meg Whitman. Brown was endorsed by the "Los Angeles Times," "The Sacramento Bee," the "San Francisco Chronicle," the "San Jose Mercury News," and the Service Employees International Union.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Both Whitman and Brown were criticized for negative campaigning during the election. During their final debate at the 2010 Women's Conference a week before the election, moderator Matt Lauer asked both candidates to pull attack ads for the rest of the election, which elicited loud cheers from the audience. Brown agreed and picked one ad each of his and Whitman's that he thought, if Whitman would agree, should be the only ones run, but Whitman, who had been loudly cheered earlier as the prospective first woman governor of the state, was booed when she stated that she would keep "the ads that talk about where Gov. Brown stands on the issues".


title: Jerry Brown

text: The "Los Angeles Times" reported that nearly $250 million was spent on the Governor's race. At least two spending records were broken during the campaign. Whitman broke personal spending records by spending $140 million of her own money on the campaign, and independent expenditures exceeded $31.7 million, with almost $25 million of that spent in support of Brown. Despite being significantly outspent by Whitman, Brown won the gubernatorial race 53.8% to Whitman's 40.9%.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown was sworn in for his third term as governor on January 3, 2011, succeeding Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger who had been term-limited. Brown was working on a budget that would shift many government programs from the state to the local level, a reversal of trends from his first tenure as governor.


title: Jerry Brown

text: On June 28, 2012, Brown signed a budget that made deep cuts to social services with the assumption that voters would pass $8 billion in tax increases in November 2012 to close California's $15.7-billion budget deficit. Brown stated: "We need budget cuts. We need the continued growth of the economy for a long period of time. We're suffering from the mortgage meltdown that killed 600,000 jobs in the construction industry. ... We're recovering from a national recession slowly—over 300,000 jobs [gained] since the recession. We've got a million to go. That needs to continue, but that depends not only on Barack Obama and the Congress and the Federal Reserve, but also on [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, China, the European Union, and the self-organizing quality of the world economy."


title: Jerry Brown

text: In September 2012, Brown signed legislation sponsored by California State Senator Ted Lieu that prohibits protesters at funerals within 300 feet, with convicted violators punishable with fines and jail time; the legislation was in response to protests conducted by the Westboro Baptist Church.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In the November 2012 general elections, voters approved Brown's proposed tax increases in the form of Proposition 30. Prop 30 raised the state personal income tax increase over seven years for California residents with an annual income over US$250,000 and increased in the state sales tax by 0.25 percent over four years. It allowed the state to avoid nearly $6 billion in cuts to public education.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 2013, Brown proposed a large, $25 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan (later renamed the California Water Fix and Eco Restore project) to build two large, four-story tall, long tunnels to carry fresh water from the Sacramento River under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta toward the intake stations for the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. Unlike his earlier Peripheral Canal project, the two tunnels are to be funded by the agencies and users receiving benefit from the project and do not require voter approval.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In July 2014, Brown traveled to Mexico to hold meetings with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and other Central American leaders about the ongoing children's immigration crisis.


title: Jerry Brown

text: On September 16, 2014, Gov. Brown signed a historic package of groundwater legislation. The plan will regulate local agencies and also implement management plans to achieve water sustainability within 20 years.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown announced his bid for re-election on February 27, 2014. On June 3, he came first in the primary election by over 1.5 million votes. He received 54.3% of the vote and advanced to the general election with Republican Neel Kashkari, who took 19.38% of the vote.


title: Jerry Brown

text: There was only one gubernatorial debate. When asked to schedule another, Brown declined. During the debate in Sacramento on September 4, 2014, Kashkari accused Brown of failing to improve California's business climate. His leading example was the Tesla Motors factory investment, creating 6,500 manufacturing jobs, going to Nevada rather than California. Brown responded that the cash payment upfront required by the investment would have been unfair to California taxpayers. A range of issues were debated, including recent legislation for a ban on plastic bags at grocery stores that Brown promised to sign and Kashkari thought unimportant.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown said that if he were elected to a fourth and final term, he would continue transferring power to local authorities, particularly over education and criminal justice policy, and would resist fellow Democrats' "gold rush for new programs and spending".


title: Jerry Brown

text: In the general election, Brown was re-elected by 3,645,835 votes (59.2%) to Kashkari's 2,511,722 (40.8%). His stated goals for his unprecedented fourth term in office were to construct the California High-Speed Rail, to create tunnels to shore up the state's water system and to curb carbon dioxide emissions. He still had $20 million in campaign funds to advance his ballot measures in case the legislature didn't support his plans.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In October 2015, Brown signed off the California End of Life Option Act allowing residents of California who fulfilled strict criteria to exercise the right to die by accessing medical aid in dying. During the sign off he took the unusual step of adding a personal message indicating his dilemma regarding the consideration of the ethical issues involved and stating that he felt unable to deny the right of choice to others.


title: Jerry Brown

text: On December 18, 2015, Brown moved into the Historic Governor's Mansion, now part of Governor's Mansion State Historic Park.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 2016, Brown vetoed a bill to exempt feminine hygiene products from state sales taxes, at the same time that he vetoed other bills which would also have exempted diapers, saying that collectively, these exemptions would have reduced state revenues by $300 million annually, and stated “As I said last year, tax breaks are the same as new spending – they both cost the general fund money.”


title: Jerry Brown

text: In the 2018–19 budget plan that Brown released on January 10, 2018, the Governor proposed spending $120 million to establish California's first fully online community college by fall 2019.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Legislative accomplishments in Brown's final term include passing California Sanctuary Law SB 54, which prevents police from complying with most requests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold illegal immigrants for deportation; California Senate Bill 32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, extending the state's cap and trade system (which had originally been outlined by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) to achieve this goal; and passing the Road Repair and Accountability Act. Brown has opposed the Proposition 6 ballot measure to repeal the Road Repair and Accountability Act, and endorsed Gavin Newsom to succeed him.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown has been criticized for his links to the oil and gas industry, notably for contributions from, and his family ties to, Sempra Energy.


title: Jerry Brown

text: By September 2018, Brown had granted more than 1,100 pardons since returning to office in 2011; more pardons than any California governor in recent history. Brown commuted more than 82 sentences, the highest number since at least the 1940s.


title: Jerry Brown

text: A bachelor as governor and mayor, Brown attracted attention for dating famous women, the most notable of whom was singer Linda Ronstadt. In March 2005, Brown announced his engagement to his girlfriend since 1990, Anne Gust, former chief administrative officer for The Gap. They were married on June 18, 2005, in a ceremony officiated by Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Rotunda Building in downtown Oakland. They had a second, religious ceremony later in the day in the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco where Brown's parents had been married. Brown and Gust lived in the Oakland Hills in a home purchased for $1.8 million. , they live on a ranch in Colusa County.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Beginning in 1995, Brown hosted a daily call-in talk show on the local Pacifica Radio station, KPFA-FM, in Berkeley broadcast to major U.S. markets. Both the radio program and Brown's political action organization, based in Oakland, were called "We the People". His programs, usually featuring invited guests, generally explored alternative views on a wide range of social and political issues, from education and health care to spirituality and the death penalty.


title: Jerry Brown

text: The official gubernatorial portrait of Jerry Brown, commemorating his first period as Governor of California, was painted by Don Bachardy and unveiled in 1984. The painting has long been controversial due to its departure from the traditional norms of portraiture.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown has a long-term friendship with his aide Jacques Barzaghi, whom he met in the early 1970s and put on his payroll. Author Roger Rapaport wrote in his 1982 Brown biography "California Dreaming: The Political Odyssey of Pat & Jerry Brown", "This combination clerk, chauffeur, fashion consultant, decorator, and trusted friend had no discernible powers. Yet, late at night, after everyone had gone home to their families and TV consoles, it was Jacques who lingered in the Secretary (of state's) office." Barzaghi and his sixth spouse Aisha lived with Brown in the warehouse in Jack London Square; Barzaghi was brought into Oakland city government upon Brown's election as mayor, where Barzaghi first acted as the mayor's armed bodyguard. Barzaghi left Brown's staff in July 2004, six days after police had responded to his residence over a complaint of domestic violence, and later moved to Morocco and then Normandy. Barzaghi died in 2021.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In April 2011, Brown had surgery to remove a basal-cell carcinoma from the right side of his nose. In December 2012, media outlets reported that Brown was being treated for early stage (the precise stage and grade was not stated) localized prostate cancer with a very good prognosis.


title: Jerry Brown

text: In 2011, Jerry and Anne Gust Brown acquired a Pembroke Welsh corgi, Sutter Brown, dubbed the "first dog" of California. Sutter was frequently seen in the company of the governor, accompanying him to political events and softening the governor's cerebral image. In 2015, the couple obtained a second dog, Colusa "Lucy" Brown, a Pembroke Welsh corgi/border collie mix. Sutter died in December 2016 from cancer.


title: Jerry Brown

text: Brown's accent has been described as reminiscent of the "Mission Brogue," particularly with his non-rhoticity.


title: Tones and I

text: Toni Watson, known professionally as Tones and I, is an Australian singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her breakout single, "Dance Monkey" (May 2019), reached number one in over 30 countries, including Australia. In November 2019, it broke the ARIA record for the most weeks at number one on their singles chart (which commenced in mid-1983) by any artist with 16 weeks. By mid-January 2020, "Dance Monkey" had spent its 24th and final week at number one, beating Bing Crosby's all-time Australian record for his version of "White Christmas", which spent an equivalent of 22 weeks at the top in 1943. "Dance Monkey" was certified 17×  platinum by ARIA for shipments of over 1,190,000 units by mid-2022.


title: Tones and I

text: Tones was the most awarded artist at the ARIA Music Awards of 2019, winning four of eight nominations. She released her debut extended play, "The Kids Are Coming", on 30 August 2019, which peaked at number three in Australia, and top 10 in several countries. Her debut album, "Welcome to the Madhouse", was released via Bad Batch on 16 July 2021. It debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart. The album's lead single "Fly Away" peaked at number four in Australia, number 11 in the UK and Denmark, and number 10 in Ireland.


title: Tones and I

text: Toni Watson grew up in Mount Martha on the Mornington Peninsula to the south of Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria. Conflicting reports state she was born in either 1993 or 2000. The artist prefers not to disclose her birth details, explaining, "I never denied my age. I never lied about it. I just don't say anything now... Everything is wrong online."


title: Tones and I

text: She explained choosing a music career: "One day I was at the park with my family, all my cousins and stuff, in Frankston... We were all just singing a song and my aunty was like 'oh guys, she can actually hold a note.' I think that's the earliest memory of someone actually pointing me out as someone that has an ability to sing. I was probably like 7 years old." The singer-songwriter had learned to play keyboards and drum pads while at secondary school. She started busking in Melbourne, while working in fashion retail at the Universal Store.


title: Tones and I

text: In 2009, as Toni Watson, she created a YouTube page and posted a cappella cover versions of songs. She performed local gigs and festivals, including the Let Go festival. Tones was the vocalist for a duo in 2014, and remembered: "I started out singing in small pubs and bars in Mornington, I was singing along to a guitarist until I ended up branching out on my own." She explained her shift to a solo career: "I actually got made redundant from my retail job and with that money I bought an RC300 (loop station) and just started to try to figure it all out." She busked "up and down the east coast with her synthesizers and loop pedal, she has been building a loyal fanbase and captivating crowds with her genre-diverse style."


title: Tones and I

text: In September 2017, the singer-songwriter travelled to Byron Bay, New South Wales to try busking there. At an early performance, she met Jackson Walkden-Brown who became her manager about a month later. Her busking success led to a greater commitment to a music career. The artist spent 2018 living between Walkden-Brown's home in the Gold Coast hinterland and in her van in Byron Bay, writing music and busking full-time. Later that year she won the Battle of the Buskers at Buskers by the Creek.


title: Tones and I

text: In February 2019, Tones and I signed to Bad Batch Records/Sony Music Australia alongside a co-management deal with Artists Only (owned by Walkden-Brown, ex-Aerials) and Lemon Tree Music (co-owned by Regan Lethbridge and David Morgan, both ex-Bonjah). In that month she uploaded her debut single, "Johnny Run Away", to Australian national youth radio station Triple J's website, "Unearthed", which publishes the music of unsigned artists. The track was recorded with Australian producer, Konstantin Kersting. AllMusic's Fred Thomas observed, "[it] became a viral sensation, racking up streams."


title: Tones and I

text: "Johnny Run Away" was added to full rotation on Triple J the following week and received high ratings from staff: Richard Kingsmill (four-and-a-half out of five stars), Tommy Faith (five stars) and Declan Byrne (four-and-a-half stars). Natalie O'Driscoll of "Blank Gold Coast" described the track, "a melodic slice of Nordic-inspired electro-pop that tells a very important story." Two weeks later, Tones and I officially released "Johnny Run Away". It peaked at number 12 on the ARIA Singles Chart and achieved triple platinum status for shipments of over 210,000 units.


title: Tones and I

text: On 10 May 2019, Tones and I released her second single, "Dance Monkey". She recalled the track was "Written alone in a dark closet in not much more than 30 minutes." Craig Mathieson of "The Age" felt, "It's pop writ large – catchy yet familiar, slightly ludicrous yet genuinely affecting." It reached number one on the official music charts of over 30 countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.


title: Tones and I

text: "Dance Monkey"s music video was directed by Liam Kelly and Nick Kozakis. In Australia, in November of that year, she broke the record for the most weeks atop the ARIA Singles Chart (which commenced in mid-1989) by any artist, with 16 weeks. This was previously held by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" (15 weeks in 2017). By mid-January 2020, "Dance Monkey" had spent 24 weeks at number one. This surpasses the achievement of Bing Crosby's number-one hit "White Christmas", which spent 5 months (equivalent to 22 weeks) at the top during 1943. It was the first Australian song to reach number one on Spotify's global daily top 200 streaming chart. On 8 February 2020, it equalled Post Malone's "Rockstar" for the most days at number one on the same chart. As of 18 February 2020, "Dance Monkey" returned to the Spotify top spot and had spent 120 days at number one.


title: Tones and I

text: In May 2019, Tones performed at the Big Pineapple Music Festival, as well as opening Splendour in the Grass 2019 as the Triple J "Unearthed" Splendour in the Grass competition winner, where she broke the record for the biggest crowd of an opening set. In July, she released a third single, "Never Seen the Rain", and followed with her six-track debut extended play, "The Kids Are Coming" on 30 August 2019. In September 2019, Tones and I performed "Dance Monkey" and "The Kids Are Coming" at the AFL Grand Final with an audience of 100,000. In January 2020, three of the EP's tracks were listed on the Triple J Hottest 100, 2019: "Dance Monkey" (No. 4), "Never Seen the Rain" (No. 15) and "Johnny Run Away" (No. 26).


title: Tones and I

text: On 1 February 2020, she started her Kids Are Coming World Tour with five Laneway Festival dates in Australia and seven dates in North America. "Riff Magazine"s Rachel Goodman caught her performance in San Francisco in mid-month, "[she] brought a palpable energy to the stage, which concertgoers enthusiastically reciprocated... [and] spoke about busking every day on the streets of Byron Bay in Australia and how she learned to communicate with audiences—and quickly capture people's attention."


title: Tones and I

text: A total of 52 dates were announced for the tour through to July. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic local tour dates were rescheduled from April 2021. Likewise, the artist curtailed her European performances, "I must cut short the rest of my first tour over here, as the majority of the remaining shows have already been cancelled due to government policy and I do not want to subject anyone to making a choice between coming to see me and their health."


title: Tones and I

text: On 7 May 2020 Triple J premiered a new song, "We Can’t Wait to Go Back to a Festival When This Is Over", as part of a COVID-19 self-isolation musical challenge, Quarantune. On 20 May, "Dance Monkey" reached 1 billion views on YouTube. It won the Grand Prize of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition, which was announced in May 2020. Also in that month the artist appeared on the cover of "Rolling Stone" (Australia) and was interviewed by its managing editor, Poppy Reid. Reid had seen her at the Laneway Festival in February, "there's a manic energy and excitement surrounding her at all times... [she] offers a new blueprint for future generations... the possibility of a global career built out of regional Australia, sans a major label... and without a stack of co-writers."


title: Tones and I

text: During August 2020 the singer, and her management, sponsored an Instagram-based competition, That One Song, which featured a different developing artist each day, "to share original content" on her account. After 2 September the finalists were voted for by the public, from the 20 artists previously show-cased. The competition was won by pop rock duo, Monatomic's entry, "They're Playing My Song". Tones and I co-headlined a virtual concert, with Gary Clark Jr., on 5 and 6 September 2020. The performances were fundraisers for the Equal Justice Initiative and were streamed live on various media channels.


title: Tones and I

text: The artist also announced in September that her debut album is expected in 2 or 3 months, "I've taken the time to just really make sure it's what I want. And I want to add more music to the album. It will be my first ever album, so I really want to make sure I'm proud of it." The singer's next single, "Fly Away", appeared in mid-November, and its first live performance occurred on 24 November at the Newcastle Civic Theatre. The single achieved moderate global success, peaking at 4 in Australia, 10 in Ireland, 11 in the UK and Denmark, and top 40 in several European countries.


title: Tones and I

text: For the 2020 ARIA Music Awards she received three further nominations and joined an all-female ensemble for a tribute performance of "I Am Woman" in honour of Helen Reddy (1941–2020). In April 2021 she restarted her Australian national tour in Melbourne, which visited east coast capitals as well as Cairns into May. Her single, "Won't Sleep", was released on 14 May.


title: Tones and I

text: Tones and I released her debut album "Welcome to the Madhouse", on 16 July 2021 via Bad Batch/Sony Music Australia. It includes the singles, "Fly Away", "Won't Sleep" and "Cloudy Day" (June 2021). "Guardian Australia"s Shaad D'Souza rated the album at two-out-of-five stars, and described it as "unadventurous and occasionally exhausting". D'Souza expanded, "the vast majority of the record deals with Watson’s struggle with mental health issues as well as the cruelty of her haters, both online and in real life. But beyond the logline, there's little to connect with here." Martin Boulton of "The Sydney Morning Herald" gave it four stars, stating, "Behind her clever, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and strong, occasionally soaring, vocals is a self-confessed outsider attempting to open herself up through music. No easy task." The album debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart and spent 4 weeks within the top 50.


title: Tones and I

text: In January 2022, Tones and I told Triple J's Sose Fuamoli, "I've already started this next album that's coming out in August; it's very different." The album's lead single, "Eyes Don't Lie", was issued in March. In May she appeared at the APRA Music Awards of 2022 to perform Amyl and the Sniffers' "Guided by Angels", which was a nominee for Song of the Year. Al Newstead of Triple J was surprised by Tones' "heavenly rendition", she was backed by a choir and delivered a "full-flight vocal performance."


title: Tones and I

text: Her collaboration with Macklemore, "Chant", appeared in July and was followed in the next month with "Charlie". The latter is an ode to her pet dogs. Daniel Hartmann of "Range" declared that her forthcoming album is expected to be, "cheerful and groovy music made for performing live." At the 2022 ARIA Music Awards ceremony Tones was appointed musical director for a tribute performance honouring Olivia Newton-John (1948–2022). She performed alongside Natalie Imbruglia, Kye and Peking Duk covering Newton-John's "Hopelessly Devoted to You", "Xanadu" and "You're the One That I Want". The artist also won Song of the Year for "Cloudy Day".


title: Tones and I

text: The Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector. The inaugural ceremony occurred in 2006.


title: Tones and I

text: The APRA Music Awards are held in Australia and New Zealand by the Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually. The Australian ceremonies began in 1982. Tones and I has won four awards from eight nominations.


title: Tones and I

text: The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. The first ceremony occurred in 1987. For the 2019 awards, Tones and I was nominated for eight awards and won four.


title: Tones and I

text: The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is an annual song contest for both aspiring and established songwriters. The judging panel is made up of musicians, songwriters and industry experts, and songs are judged on creativity, originality, lyrics, melody, arrangement and overall likeability.


title: Tones and I

text: The J Awards are an annual series of Australian music awards that were established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J. They commenced in 2005.


title: Tones and I

text: The MTV Europe Music Awards is an award presented by Viacom International Media Networks to honour artists and music in pop culture.


title: Tones and I

text: The Music Victoria Awards are an annual awards night celebrating Victorian music. They commenced in 2005.


title: Tones and I

text: The National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.


title: Tones and I

text: The Rolling Stone Australia Awards are awarded annually in January or February by the Australian edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine for outstanding contributions to popular culture in the previous year.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Konark Sun Temple is a (year 1250) Sun temple at Konark about northeast from Puri city on the coastline in Puri district, Odisha, India. The temple is attributed to king Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty about .


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Dedicated to the Hindu Sun God Surya, what remains of the temple complex has the appearance of a high chariot with immense wheels and horses, all carved from stone. Once over high, much of the temple is now in ruins, in particular the large shikara tower over the sanctuary; at one time this rose much higher than the mandapa that remains. The structures and elements that have survived are famed for their intricate artwork, iconography, and themes, including erotic kama and mithuna scenes. Also called the "Surya Devalaya", it is a classic illustration of the Odisha style of Architecture or Kalinga architecture.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The cause of the destruction of the Konark temple is unclear and still remains a source of controversy. Theories range from natural damage to deliberate destruction of the temple in the course of being sacked several times by Muslim armies between the 15th and 17th centuries. This temple was called the "Black Pagoda" in European sailor accounts as early as 1676 because it looked like a great tiered tower which appeared black. Similarly, the Jagannath Temple in Puri was called the "White Pagoda". Both temples served as important landmarks for sailors in the Bay of Bengal. The temple that exists today was partially restored by the conservation efforts of British India-era archaeological teams. Declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1984, it remains a major pilgrimage site for Hindus, who gather here every year for the Chandrabhaga Mela around the month of February.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Konark Sun Temple is depicted on the reverse side of the Indian currency note of 10 rupees to signify its importance to Indian cultural heritage.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The name "Konark" ("Koṇarka)" derives from the combination of the Sanskrit words "Koṇa" (corner or angle) and "Arka" (the sun). The context of the term "Kona" is unclear, but probably refers to the southeast location of this temple either within a larger temple complex or in relation to other sun temples on the subcontinent. The "Arka" refers to the Hindu sun god Surya.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Sun temple of Konark, the Puri Jagannth temple and the Lingaraj temple of Bhubaneswar form a bilateral triangle. Konark temple forms one Koṇa (angular point of the triangle).


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Temple is located in an eponymous village (now NAC Area) about northeast of Puri and southeast of Bhubaneswar on the Bay of Bengal coastline in the Indian state of Odisha. The nearest airport is Biju Patnaik Airport in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Both Puri and Bhubaneswar are major railway hubs connected by Indian Railways.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Konark Sun Temple was built in 1250 CE during the reign of the Eastern Ganga King Narsimhadeva-1 from stone in the form of a giant ornamented chariot dedicated to the Sun god, Surya. In Hindu Vedic iconography Surya is represented as rising in the east and traveling rapidly across the sky in a chariot drawn by seven horses. He is described typically as a resplendent standing person holding a lotus flower in both his hands, riding the chariot marshaled by the charioteer Aruna. The seven horses are named after the seven meters of Sanskrit prosody: Gayatri, Brihati, Ushnih, Jagati, Trishtubha, Anushtubha, and Pankti. Typically seen flanking Surya are two females who represent the dawn goddesses, Usha and Pratyusha. The goddesses are shown to be shooting arrows, a symbol of their initiative in challenging the darkness. The architecture is also symbolic, with the chariot's twelve pairs of wheels corresponding to the 12months of the Hindu calendar, each month paired into two cycles (Shukla and Krishna).


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Konark temple presents this iconography on a grand scale. It has 24 elaborately carved stone wheels which are nearly in diameter and are pulled by a set of seven horses. When viewed from inland during the dawn and sunrise, the chariot-shaped temple appears to emerge from the depths of the blue sea carrying the sun.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The temple plan includes all the traditional elements of a Hindu temple set on a square plan. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the ground plan, as well the layout of sculptures and reliefs, follow the square and circle geometry, forms found in Odisha temple design texts such as the "Silpasarini". This mandala structure informs the plans of other Hindu temples in Odisha and elsewhere.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The main temple at Konark, locally called the "deul", no longer exists. It was surrounded by subsidiary shrines containing niches depicting Hindu deities, particularly Surya in many of his aspects. The "deul" was built on a high terrace. The temple was originally a complex consisting of the main sanctuary, called the "rekha deul", or "bada deul" (lit. big sanctum). In front of it was the "bhadra deul" (lit. small sanctum), or "jagamohana" (lit. assembly hall of the people) (called a "mandapa" in other parts of India.). The attached platform was called the "pida deul", which consisted of a square "mandapa" with a pyramidal roof. All of these structures were square at their core, and each was overlain with the "pancharatha" plan containing a variegated exterior. The central projection, called the "raha", is more pronounced than the side projections, called "kanika-paga", a style that aims for an interplay of sunlight and shade and adds to the visual appeal of the structure throughout the day. The design manual for this style is found in the "Silpa Sastra" of ancient Odisha.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Twice as wide as they were high, the walls of the "jagamohana" are tall. The surviving structure has three tiers of six "pidas" each. These diminish incrementally and repeat the lower patterns. The "pidas" are divided into terraces. On each of these terraces stand statues of musician figures. The main temple and the "jagamohana" porch consist of four main zones: the platform, the wall, the trunk, and the crowning head called a "mastaka". The first three are square while the "mastaka" is circular. The main temple and the "jagamohana" differed in size, decorative themes, and design. It was the main temple's trunk, called the "gandhi" in medieval Hindu architecture texts, that was ruined long ago. The sanctum of the main temple is now without a roof and most of the original parts.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: On the east side of the main temple is the "Nata mandira" (lit. dance temple). It stands on a high, intricately carved platform. The relief on the platform is similar in style to that found on the surviving walls of the temple. According to historical texts, there was an "Aruna stambha" (lit. Aruna's pillar) between the main temple and the Nata mandira, but it is no longer there because it was moved to the Jagannatha at Puri sometime during the troubled history of this temple. According to Harle, the texts suggest that originally the complex was enclosed within a wall by , with gateways on three sides.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The sun temple was made from three types of stone. Chlorite was used for the door lintel and frames as well as some sculptures. Laterite was used for the core of the platform and staircases near the foundation. Khondalite was used for other parts of the temple. According to Mitra, the Khondalite stone weathers faster over time, and this may have contributed to erosion and accelerated the damage when parts of the temples were destroyed. None of these stones occur naturally nearby, and the architects and artisans must have procured and moved the stones from distant sources, probably using the rivers and water channels near the site. The masons then created ashlar, wherein the stones were polished and finished so as to make joints hardly visible.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The original temple had a main sanctum sanctorum ("vimana"), which is estimated to have been tall. The main "vimana" fell in 1837. The main "mandapa" audience hall ("jagamohana"), which is about tall, still stands and is the principal structure in the surviving ruins. Among the structures that have survived to the current day are the dance hall ("Nata mandira") and the dining hall ("Bhoga mandapa").


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The walls of the temple from the temple's base through the crowning elements are ornamented with reliefs, many finished to jewelry-quality miniature details. The terraces contain stone statues of male and female musicians holding various musical instruments including the vina, mardala, gini, Other major works of art include sculptures of Hindu deities, "apsaras" and images from the daily life and culture of the people ("artha" and "dharma" scenes), various animals, aquatic creatures, birds, legendary creatures, and friezes narrating the Hindu texts. The carvings include purely decorative geometric patterns and plant motifs. Some panels show images from the life of the king such as one showing him receiving counsel from a guru, where the artists symbolically portrayed the king as much smaller than the guru, with the king's sword resting on the ground next to him.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The "upana" (moulding) layer at the bottom of the platform contains friezes of elephants, marching soldiers, musicians, and images depicting the secular life of the people, including hunting scenes, a caravan of domesticated animals, people carrying supplies on their head or with the help of a bullock cart, travelers preparing a meal along the roadside, and festive processions. On other walls are found images depicting the daily life of the elite as well as the common people. For example, girls are shown wringing their wet hair, standing by a tree, looking from a window, playing with pets, putting on makeup while looking into a mirror, playing musical instruments such as the "vina", chasing away a monkey who is trying to snatch items, a family taking leave of their elderly grandmother who seems dressed for a pilgrimage, a mother blessing her son, a teacher with students, a yogi during a standing "asana", a warrior being greeted with a namaste, a mother with her child, an old woman with a walking stick and a bowl in her hands, comical characters, among others.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Konark temple is also known for its erotic sculptures of "maithunas". These show couples in various stages of courtship and intimacy, and in some cases coital themes. Notorious in the colonial era for their uninhibited celebration of sexuality, these images are included with other aspects of human life as well as deities that are typically associated with tantra. This led some to propose that the erotic sculptures are linked to the "vama marga" (left hand tantra) tradition. However, this is not supported by local literary sources, and these images may be the same "kama" and "mithuna" scenes found integrated into the art of many Hindu temples. The erotic sculptures are found on the temple's Shikhara, and these illustrate all the "bandhas" ("mudra" forms) described in the "Kamasutra".


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Other large sculptures were a part of the gateways of the temple complex. These include life-size lions subduing elephants, elephants subduing demons, and horses. A major pillar dedicated to Aruna, called the "Aruna Stambha", used to stand in front of the eastern stairs of the porch. This, too, was intricately carved with horizontal friezes and motifs. It now stands in front of the Jagannatha temple at Puri.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The upper levels and terrace of the Konark Sun temple contain larger and more significant works of art than the lower level. These include images of musicians and mythological narratives as well as sculptures of Hindu deities, including Durga in her Mahishasuramardini aspect killing the shape-shifting buffalo demon (Shaktism), Vishnu in his Jagannatha form (Vaishnavism), and Shiva as a (largely damaged) linga (Shaivism). Some of the better-preserved friezes and sculptures were removed and relocated to museums in Europe and major cities of India before 1940.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Hindu deities are also depicted in other parts of the temple. For example, the medallions of the chariot wheels of the Surya temple, as well as the "anuratha" artwork of the "jagamohana", show Vishnu, Shiva, Gajalakshmi, Parvati, Krishna, Narasimha, and other divinities. Also found on the "jagamohana" are sculptures of Vedic deities such as Indra, Agni, Kubera, Varuna, and Âdityas.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The temple follows the traditional style of Kalinga architecture. It is oriented towards the east so that the first rays of the sunrise strike the main entrance. The temple, built from Khondalite rocks, was originally constructed at the mouth of the river Chandrabhaga, but the waterline has receded since then. The wheels of the temple are sundials, which can be used to calculate time accurately to a minute.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Konark Sun Temple complex has ruins of many subsidiary shrines and monuments around the main temple. Some of these include:


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: A collection of fallen sculptures can be viewed at the "Konark Archaeological Museum", which is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. The fallen upper portion of the temple is believed to have been studded with many inscriptions.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Konark, also referred to in Indian texts by the name "Kainapara", was a significant trading port by the early centuries of the common era. The current Konark temple dates to the 13thcentury, though evidence suggests that a sun temple was built in the Konark area by at least the 9thcentury. Several Puranas mention Surya worship centers in Mundira, which may have been the earlier name for Konark, Kalapriya (Mathura), and Multan (now in Pakistan). The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim and traveler Hiuen-tsang (also referred to as Xuanzang) mentions a port city in Odisha named "Charitra". He describes the city as prosperous, with five convents and "storeyed towers that are very high and carved with saintly figures exquisitely done". Since he visited India in the 7thcentury, he could not have been referring to the 13th-century temple, but his description suggests either Konark or another Odisha port city already featuring towering structures with sculptures.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: According to the Madala Panji, there was at one time another temple in the region built by Pundara Kesari. He may have been Puranjaya, the 7th-century ruler of the Somavamshi dynasty.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The current temple is attributed to Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, . It is one of the few Hindu temples whose planning and construction records written in Sanskrit in the Odia script have been preserved in the form of palm leaf manuscripts that were discovered in a village in the 1960s and subsequently translated. The temple was sponsored by the king, and its construction was overseen by Shiva Samantaraya Mahapatra. It was built near an old Surya temple. The sculpture in the older temple's sanctum was re-consecrated and incorporated into the newer larger temple. This chronology of temple site's evolution is supported by many copper plate inscriptions of the era in which the Konark temple is referred to as the "great cottage".


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: According to James Harle, the temple as built in the 13thcentury consisted of two main structures, the dance "mandapa" and the great temple ("deul"). The smaller "mandapa" is the structure that survives; the great "deul" collapsed sometime in the late 16thcentury or after. According to Harle, the original temple "must originally have stood to a height of some ", but only parts of its walls and decorative mouldings remain.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The temple was in ruins before its restoration. Speculation continues as to the cause of the destruction of the temple. Early theories stated that the temple was never completed and collapsed during construction. This is contradicted by textual evidence and evidence from inscriptions. The Kenduli copper plate inscription of 1384CE from the reign of NarasimhaIV seems to indicate that the temple was not only completed but an active site of worship. Another inscription states that various deities in the temple were consecrated, also suggesting that construction of the temple had been completed. A non-Hindu textual source, the Akbar-era text Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl dated to the 16thcentury, mentions the Konark temple, describing it as a prosperous site with a temple that made visitors "astonished at its sight", with no mention of ruins. 200 years later, during the reign of the Marathas in Odisha in the 18th century, a Maratha holy man found the temple abandoned and covered in overgrowth. The Marathas relocated the temple's Aruna stambha (pillar with Aruna the charioteer seated atop it) to the Lion's Gate entrance of the Jagannath Temple in Puri.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Texts from the 19th century do mention ruins, which means the temple was damaged either intentionally or through natural causes sometime between 1556 and 1800CE. After the Sun Temple ceased to attract faithful, Konark became deserted, left to disappear in dense forests for years.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: According to Thomas Donaldson, evidence suggests that the damage and the temple's ruined condition can be dated to between the late 16thcentury and the early 17thcentury from the records of various surveys and repairs found in early 17th-century texts. These also record that the temple remained a site of worship in the early 17thcentury. These records do not state whether the ruins were being used by devotees to gather and worship, or part of the damaged temple was still in use for some other purpose.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: In the last quarter of the 18th century, the Aruna stambha ("Aruna pillar") was removed from the entrance of Konark temple and placed at the "Singha-dwara" (Lion's Gate) of the Jagannath temple in Puri by a Maratha "Brahmachari" named Goswain (or Goswami). The pillar, made of monolithic chlorite, is tall and is dedicated to Aruna, the charioteer of the Sun god.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: In 1803 the East India Marine Board requested the Governor General of Bengal that conservation efforts be undertaken. However, the only conservation measure put in place at the time was to prohibit further removal of stones from the site. Lacking structural support, the last part of the main temple still standing, a small broken curved section, collapsed in 1848. The main temple is completely lost now.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The then-Raja of Khurda, who had jurisdiction over this region in the early 19thcentury, removed some stones and sculptures to use in a temple he was building in Puri. A few gateways and some sculptures were destroyed in the process. In 1838 the Asiatic Society of Bengal requested that conservation efforts be undertaken, but the requests were denied, and only measures to prevent vandalism were put in place.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: In 1859 the Asiatic Society of Bengal proposed, and in 1867 attempted to relocate an architrave of the Konark temple depicting the "navagraha" to the Indian Museum in Calcutta. This attempt was abandoned as funds had run out. In 1894 thirteen sculptures were moved to the Indian Museum. Local Hindu population objected to further damage and removal of temple ruins. The government issued orders to respect the local sentiments. In 1903, when a major excavation was attempted nearby, the then-Lieutenant governor of Bengal, J.A. Bourdillon, ordered the temple to be sealed and filled with sand to prevent the collapse of the "Jagamohana". The Mukhasala and Nata Mandir were repaired by 1905.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: In 1906 casuarina and punnang trees were planted facing the sea to provide a buffer against sand-laden winds. In 1909 the Mayadevi temple was discovered while removing sand and debris.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: On 8 September 2022, the ASI started removing the sand from "Jagamohana" which will be completed in three years. The necessary support of stainless steel beams will be installed inside the temple and repairs will be carried out.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The colonial-era reception of the temple ranged from praise to derision. Andrew Sterling, the early colonial-era administrator and Commissioner of Cuttack questioned the skill of the 13th-century architects, but also wrote that the temple had "an air of elegance, combined with massiveness in the whole structure, which entitles it to no small share of admiration", adding that the sculpture had "a degree of taste, propriety, and freedom which would stand a comparison with some of our best specimens of Gothic architectural ornament". The Victorian mindset saw pornography in the artwork of Konark and wondered why there was no "shame and guilt in this pleasure in filth", while Alan Watts stated that there was no comprehensible reason to separate spirituality from love, sex, and religious arts. According to Ernest Binfield Havell, the Konark temple is "one of the grandest examples of Indian sculpture extant", adding that they express "as much fire and passion as the greatest European art" such as that found in Venice.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Religion is frequently at the centre of the Odia (previously Orissan) cultural expression, and Konark occupies an important space in it as part of The Golden Triangle (Jagannath Temple, Puri, and the Lingaraja Temple of Bhubaneswar completing it) which represents the pinnacle of Odia (previously Orissan) masonry and temple architecture.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Numerous poems, stories, and novels have been written about Konark, most of which explore or expand or reinterpret the tragedies inherent in the legends and stories about the temple. Most recently, Mohanjit's book of poems, Kone Da Suraj, which revolves around Konark, won the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award (one of the top awards for literature in India) for Punjabi language.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: Additionally, the Sun Temple is the setting of "Interpreter of Maladies","" a short story in Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning collection of the same name.


title: Konark Sun Temple

text: The Warrior and Horse statue found in the temple grounds forms the basis of the state emblem of Odisha.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2022, only one design, an inertial confinement laser-driven fusion machine at the US National Ignition Facility, has conclusively produced a positive fusion energy gain factor, i.e. more power output than input.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion processes require fuel and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time to create a plasma in which fusion can occur. The combination of these figures that results in a power-producing system is known as the Lawson criterion. In stars, the most common fuel is hydrogen, and gravity provides extremely long confinement times that reach the conditions needed for fusion energy production. Proposed fusion reactors generally use heavy hydrogen isotopes such as deuterium and tritium (and especially a mixture of the two), which react more easily than protium (the most common hydrogen isotope), to allow them to reach the Lawson criterion requirements with less extreme conditions. Most designs aim to heat their fuel to around 100 million degrees, which presents a major challenge in producing a successful design.


title: Fusion power

text: As a source of power, nuclear fusion is expected to have many advantages over fission. These include reduced radioactivity in operation and little high-level nuclear waste, ample fuel supplies, and increased safety. However, the necessary combination of temperature, pressure, and duration has proven to be difficult to produce in a practical and economical manner. A second issue that affects common reactions is managing neutrons that are released during the reaction, which over time degrade many common materials used within the reaction chamber.


title: Fusion power

text: Fusion researchers have investigated various confinement concepts. The early emphasis was on three main systems: z-pinch, stellarator, and magnetic mirror. The current leading designs are the tokamak and inertial confinement (ICF) by laser. Both designs are under research at very large scales, most notably the ITER tokamak in France, and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser in the United States. Researchers are also studying other designs that may offer cheaper approaches. Among these alternatives, there is increasing interest in magnetized target fusion and inertial electrostatic confinement, and new variations of the stellarator.