title: Higher Learning

text: The character Malik, played by the same actor, Omar Epps, appears in "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", a comedy movie who parodied some known black movies of 1990s - a year later, after his mates graduation, Malik had returned to the university where he was shot and killed by a new Skinheads member, who also dealt with few others black activists, including fictional character Radio Raheem.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Push is a 2009 American superhero thriller film directed by Paul McGuigan and written by David Bourla. Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, and Djimon Hounsou, the film centers on people with superhuman abilities who band together to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in the hope of creating an army of super soldiers.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: The film was released on February 6, 2009, by Summit Entertainment and Icon Productions. It was a moderate box office success, though critical reception was mostly negative.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: In 1945, the United States government sets up The Division, an agency that tracks and experiments on people with psychic abilities. Each psychic is categorized into a group based on what powers they have. Two Movers, teenager Nick Gant and his father Jonah, are hiding from Division agent Henry Carver. Jonah tells Nick about a vision he received from a Watcher about a young girl Nick must help in the future to bring down Division. Nick watches Carver murder Jonah before he escapes.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Years later, The Division has developed a drug that can boost psychic abilities. All of the test subjects died until an unknown female Pusher successfully adapted to it. The woman escapes from The Division and steals a syringe of the drug before fleeing to Hong Kong, a common hiding place for psychics. Nick now lives in Hong Kong as an expatriate, but is in trouble due to the debts he incurred while attempting to use his power as a Mover, which has become blunt due to lack of training, to cheat in gambling. Nick is first visited by two Division agents, who are looking for leads on the escaped female patient, but they find none. Nick is visited immediately after by Cassie Holmes, a moody teenage Watcher, who wants Nick to help her in tracking down the woman who is supposed to have a case with six million dollars inside. While pleading her case to Nick, they are attacked by the Triads at a market, and Nick is severely wounded by a Bleeder before the pair can escape. After being separated, Cassie finds an unconscious Nick in the care of a Stitch named Teresa Stowe who owes a favor to Cassie's mother and was told to be in the market at the exact day and time they were attacked. She heals Nick's wounds to repay her debt to Cassie's mother, while also taunting Cassie about her mother's current captivity. Her mother, Sarah, is considered the strongest Watcher ever born and was detained by The Division to ensure their control over her abilities. Unbeknownst to them, her mother was the patient who directly helped the female Pusher escape. After talking to Cassie about her past and her most recent drawings, Nick realizes she is the girl his father saw in his vision and decides to help her find the woman as well as the briefcase containing the stolen goods.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Nick and Cassie use her Watcher abilities to track down the woman, who is actually Nick's ex-girlfriend, Kira Hudson. Kira hid the case and then had a Wiper erase her memory of its location, protecting it from Division agents. Nick recruits a Shadow, named Pinky Stein, to hide Kira from Carver and other Division agents. Cassie attempts to foresee the case's location, competing with the Triad Watcher, Pop Girl. As Kira begins to get sick from withdrawal, Nick learns that Kira will get sicker and eventually die without more of the drug, which only Carver has, and realizes he must meet with Carver to save her life. Victor, a talented Mover and Carver's assistant, battles Nick and nearly kills him before Cassie convinces Carver to spare him. Cassie then finds a key in Kira's shoe which unlocks a locker atop a construction site where the case is hidden.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Knowing that Division Watchers and especially Pop Girl, who tracks intents of her targets rather than possible outcomes like Cassie, can see their every move, Nick proposes an elaborate plan to obtain the drug and eliminate their enemies. He creates several envelopes containing instructions for each of his friends, including the Shifter called Hook Waters and the Sniff called Emily Wu. Nick seals each envelope and gives them to his friends before hiring the Wiper who erased Kira's memory to do the same to him. With his memory wiped, the Watchers are unable to see his future, enabling the group to execute Nick's plan. Hook locates the case and creates a duplicate of it and the syringe, while Pinky delivers Kira to Carver as part of the plan. Carver then pushes her into believing she is actually a Division agent and her relationship with Nick was a lie.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Cassie is confronted by Pop Girl, only for the Wiper to appear and erase Pop Girl's memory per Nick's instructions. Nick visits Carver and discovers Kira's brainwashing. They travel to the construction site where Carver unknowingly retrieves the fake case, but the Triads arrive and attempt to steal the case. A battle erupts between all three groups which leads to the Triad Bleeders being killed. Nick uses his newly discovered Mover power to battle Victor. The Triad leader uses his Bleeder powers and kills Victor when the young Bleeder dies. After using the opportunity to kill the Triad leader, Nick seizes the fake syringe and Carver allows him to inject himself with it, apparently dying. After Kira and Carver leave, Cassie appears and reveals Nick is alive. They retrieve the real case and syringe from a dumpster and discuss using it to free Cassie's mother from Division, who might have planned the whole thing years before Cassie was born.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Kira discovers her unopened envelope, which contains photographs proving her relationship with Nick was real. She then pushes Carver and a gunshot is heard.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: On its opening weekend, the film opened No. 6 grossing $10,079,109 in 2,313 theaters with a $4,358 average. The film grossed $48,858,618 worldwide, and $16,285,488 in DVD sales in the US alone making $65,157,106 (not including worldwide DVD sales) surpassing its budget cost of $38 million by over $27 million.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported approval rating based on reviews and a rating average of . The site's critical consensus reads, "The sci-fi thriller Push is visually flashy but hyperkinetic and convoluted." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average to critic reviews, gave the film an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 21 critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars out of four stating: ""Push" has vibrant cinematography and decent acting, but I'm blasted if I know what it's about." Robert Koehler of Variety called the film “a confused jumble of parts in search of a whole", and said it "plays like a mix-tape sample of scenes from "Heroes", "Fringe", "Alias" and "The X-Files"." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" said “While the concept of corralling assorted [Movers, Watchers, and Pushers] and placing them against a stylish Asian backdrop is intriguing, the picture seldom rises to the occasion.”


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club was more positive, giving it a B+: "Superhero fans will likely be into Push just for the cool-factor of watching embattled heroes and villains in a tense war of wits, wills, and skills. That broader audience is less likely to come along for the ride, but this particular gateway drug at least has ambition and brains going for it, as well as the usual spastic style."


title: Push (2009 film)

text: Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics, published a comic book mini-series that acts as a prequel to the film. It was written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman (who wrote "The Highwaymen" for Wildstorm) and Bruno Redondo supplied the art. Issues were published between January 2009 and February 2009, and a softcover collection () was published in September 2009.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: "Push" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 7, 2009. The DVD included deleted scenes, a commentary, and a 'making of' featurette. Wal-Mart released the film as a double-feature DVD with "Knowing". Push was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray on April 10, 2018.


title: Push (2009 film)

text: No official soundtrack has been released, although the full score is available to stream online on the official Neil Davidge website.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), also known simply as Scary Monsters, is the 14th studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 12 September 1980 through RCA Records. Over the previous three years, Bowie had garnered massive artistic success with the "Berlin Trilogy", which consisted of "Low", ""Heroes"" and "Lodger" (1977–1979). However, the trilogy had proven less successful commercially. By 1980, numerous artists Bowie had inspired with the trilogy were out-performing him commercially, leading him to desire a more commercial sound for his next record.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Co-produced by Tony Visconti, the album was recorded between February and April 1980. Sessions primarily took place at the Power Station in New York City, with additional recording undergone at Good Earth Studios in London. Much of the same personnel from prior releases returned for the sessions, with additional guitar work done by Chuck Hammer and Robert Fripp, and a guest appearance by guitarist Pete Townshend. The music incorporates elements of art rock, new wave and post-punk. Unlike the improvisational nature of prior releases, Bowie spent time writing the music and lyrics; several were recorded under working titles throughout the sessions while some of the tracks contained reworked elements of earlier, unreleased songs. The album cover is a large-scale collage that features Bowie donning a Pierrot costume, along with references to his prior releases on the rear sleeve.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The album's lead single, "Ashes to Ashes", revisited the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity" and was promoted with an inventive music video. Upon release, "Scary Monsters" garnered critical and commercial acclaim; it peaked at No. 1 in the UK while restoring Bowie's commercial standing in the US, peaking at No. 12. "Scary Monsters" would later be referred to by commentators as Bowie's "last great album" and a benchmark for subsequent releases. It was Bowie's final studio album for RCA and marked the final collaboration between Bowie and Visconti for over 20 years. Several publications have considered it one of the greatest albums of all time. The album has been reissued multiple times, and was remastered in 2017 as part of the "A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982)" box set.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: From 1976 to 1979, David Bowie recorded what became known as the "Berlin Trilogy", which consisted of "Low", ""Heroes"" (both 1977) and "Lodger" (1979). Made in collaboration with musician Brian Eno and producer Tony Visconti, the trilogy was highly influential. "Low" was seen as a precursor to post-rock and post-punk, influencing artists such as Joy Division and the Human League, while "Lodger"s use of world music is credited for inspiring artists such as Talking Heads and Paul Simon.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy had proven less successful commercially. "Lodger"s commercial performance was hindered by artists who were influenced by the earlier Berlin releases, such as Gary Numan. Numan, a huge fan of Bowie's, was antagonised by Bowie's fanbase as a mere copycat. Bowie himself criticised Numan, which led to a long-running feud between the two artists. According to biographer David Buckley, Numan's fame indirectly led to Bowie taking a more commercial direction for his next record.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: In February 1980, Bowie travelled to the Power Station in New York City to begin recording his next album. Returning from the "Berlin Trilogy" was Visconti, who was immediately told by Bowie that this was going to be a more commercial record than his previous releases. Eno did not return, having ended his collaboration with Bowie after "Lodger", stating he felt the "Berlin Trilogy" had "petered out" by that record. The core lineup of Dennis Davis, Carlos Alomar and George Murray returned for the sessions; this would be the fifth and final Bowie album to feature this lineup, who had been together since "Station to Station" (1976). Only Alomar would continue working with Bowie hereafter. Adrian Belew, who played on "Lodger", told Buckley he received advanced payment to play on the sessions and was surprised to find the record made without him. In lieu of Belew, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, who played on ""Heroes"", was brought back, along with newcomer Chuck Hammer, whom Bowie hired after hearing him play with Lou Reed in London the year before. According to "NME" editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, Hammer added multiple textural layers deploying guitar synth and Fripp brought back the same distinctive sound he lent ""Heroes"". Returning from the "Station to Station" sessions was pianist Roy Bittan, who was recording Bruce Springsteen's "The River" (1980) concurrently in the same studio.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Initial sessions at the Power Station took place over two and a half weeks, with an additional week used for overdubs. During this time, only "It's No Game (No. 2)" was completed in its entirety. The remaining tracks were solely instrumental. During the sessions, Alomar suggested recording a cover of Tom Verlaine's "Kingdom Come". Bowie felt the track was the standout on Verlaine's 1979 eponymous solo album, stating "It just happens to fit into the scattered scheme of things". Bowie asked Verlaine to play lead guitar on the track. Verlaine accepted, but upon his arrival at the studio, he tried out numerous guitar amps in order to "get the right sound" while Bowie and Visconti left him alone. Visconti recalled, "I don't think we ever used a note of his playing, if we even recorded him." Instead, Fripp ended up playing lead guitar. Recorded during these sessions was an instrumental titled "Crystal Japan"; it was originally intended to be the album's closing track, but was dropped in favour of a reprise of "It's No Game". It was instead released as a single in Japan, making its first appearance in a 1980 Japanese television commercial for the "Shōchū" drink Crystal Jun Rock.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Instead of improvising lyrics and music as he had with prior releases, Bowie informed Visconti he wanted to take time composing and developing the lyrics and melodies; Visconti recalled, "Instead of immediately writing finished melodies and lyrics, David begged to take a long break to think it all out, so we adjourned until two months later in London." Buckley writes that what Bowie presented Visconti were "some of the most innovative melodies of his career." According to biographer Nicholas Pegg, some of the handwritten lyrics were included in the 2013 "David Bowie Is" exhibition. Many of the tracks had working titles early on. In a cassette dated March 1980 in Visconti's archive, some of the tracks included "People Are Turning to Gold" (later "Ashes to Ashes"), "It Happens Everyday" (later "Teenage Wildlife") and "Jamaica" (became "Fashion" late in the album's development). At this point in the album's development, "Up the Hill Backwards" was known as "Cameras in Brooklyn" and "Scream Like a Baby" as "I Am a Laser", originally written in 1973 and recorded by the Astronettes (made up of Bowie collaborators Ava Cherry and Geoff MacCormack) at Olympic Studios the same year. Pegg writes that there was a track called "Is There Life After Marriage?" that was recorded and left unfinished during the sessions. An instrumental cover of "I Feel Free" by Cream was also recorded and left unfinished, although it was brought back for 1993's "Black Tie White Noise". According to Pegg, the lyrics for the title track were written in response to a promotional campaign for Kellogg's Corn flakes cereal, which offered novelty toys of "Scary Monsters and Super Heroes".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The sessions resumed in April 1980 at Good Earth Studios in London, Visconti's own studio at the time. Here, all vocals were recorded, including the Japanese narration provided by actress Michi Hirota for "It's No Game (No. 1)". Additional instrumental overdubs were provided by Fripp and keyboardist Andy Clark, along with a guest appearance by the Who guitarist Pete Townshend on "Because You're Young". Townshend, who was dealing with numerous personal issues at the time, arrived at the studio in a bad mood; when Townshend requested what Bowie and Visconti wanted from him, they replied "Pete Townshend chords". His contributions were ultimately placed low in the mix.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Commentators have classified "Scary Monsters" as art rock, new wave, and post-punk. Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine considers "Scary Monsters" to be a culmination of Bowie's 1970s works. He also considers the record's sound to be not "far removed from the post-punk of the early '80s". Pegg agrees, describing the record as "the triumphant culmination of Bowie's steely art-rock phase and a crucial doorway into early 1980s British pop." In a career retrospective, "Consequence of Sound" described "Scary Monsters" as "a high watermark of art pop by which Bowie's future releases are still compared." Bowie himself considered the record's sound to be "the epitome of the new wave sound at the time." Carr and Murray describe the album's sound as being harsher – and his worldview more desperate – than anything he had released since "Diamond Dogs" (1974). Biographer Christopher Sandford writes that lyrically, "Scary Monsters" reaffirms themes that Bowie had explored throughout his career up to that point, including madness, alienation and the "redeeming power of love"; in this case however, Bowie is able to bring the listener in instead of "freezing [them] out".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The album opens with "It's No Game (No. 1)", which features sinister guitar loops and Bowie's screaming vocal performance, which Chris O'Leary cites as reminiscent of John Lennon's performance on "Plastic Ono Band" (1970). Partly taken from an older tune titled "Tired of My Life", it features lyrics read by Japanese actress Michi Hirota, which were translated by Hisahi Miura. Hirota delivers her performance in what is described by Buckley as a "macho, samurai voice", which was done at Bowie's insistence as a way to "break down a particular type of sexist attitude about women". James Perone writes that the track establishes the album's theme of "scary events". The lyrics of "Up the Hill Backwards" deal with the struggle of facing a crisis. Bowie misquotes Thomas Anthony Harris's 1967 self-help book "I'm OK – You're OK", a guide on how to save marriage relationships; Carr and Murray see this as a reference to Bowie's divorce from Angie Bowie. Musically, it features unusual time signatures and a Bo Diddley-inspired beat. The title track dated back to a 1975 song titled "Running Scared", which David Bowie originally played to Iggy Pop. The rhythm section took inspiration from Joy Division; Davis's drum performance has been compared to Stephen Morris's on "She's Lost Control" (1979). Described by Perone as punk rock, the music is heavily distorted, featuring Fripp's ferocious guitar-playing, Davis's pounding drums, and Bowie's treated Cockney accent. Lyrically, it follows a claustrophobic relationship between a woman (dating back to Bowie's Berlin days) and a man (the demons inside Bowie).


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: "Ashes to Ashes" revisits the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity" (1969). Over ten years later, Major Tom is described as a "junkie", which has been interpreted as parallel to Bowie's own struggles with drug addiction throughout the 1970s. In 1990, Bowie acknowledged "Ashes to Ashes" as a confrontation of his past: "You have to accommodate your pasts within your persona. You have to understand why you went through them... You cannot just ignore them to put them out of your mind or pretend they didn't happen, or just say, 'Oh, I was different then. Musically, "Ashes to Ashes" is built around a guitar synthesiser theme by Hammer, augmented by Clark's synthesiser. Like "Space Oddity" before it, the song was built in stages, and features layers of instruments in its mix. "Fashion" is reminiscent of Bowie's former single "Golden Years", with its mix of funk and reggae. It evolved out of a reggae "spoof" started by Clark on his synthesiser and features guitar "squeals" from Fripp. Apart from being a dance track, the song provokes elements of fascism, with lyrics such as "we are the goon squad" and "turn to the left, turn to the right". The "beep beep" lines were taken from an earlier unreleased song titled "Rupert the Riley".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: "Teenage Wildlife", the longest track on the album, is structurally similar to "Heroes" but does not feature a refrain; its verses only end with the title being sung over Fripp's guitar breaks. Its backing vocals are reminiscent of the Ronettes, while piano is provided by Roy Bittan. The song's lyrics have been widely interpreted. One interpretation is they are an attack on Bowie imitators who emerged in the late 1970s, such as Gary Numan, who personally believed himself a target. Carr and Murray state that the song is Bowie reflecting on his younger self, while Pegg considers it a confrontation to critics who tried to prevent Bowie from evolving throughout the 1970s. Bowie himself wrote in 2008 that the lyrics are about "taking a short view of life, not looking too far ahead and not predicting the oncoming hard knocks". Although it descends from the early-mid 1970s "I Am a Laser", "Scream Like a Baby" features a contemporary new wave sound with lyrics of instability and political imprisonment, comparable with themes present on "The Man Who Sold the World" (1970). Bowie recorded his vocal using varispeed, a technique that displays a "split personality" effect.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: His first cover on a studio album since "Station to Station", "Kingdom Come" is in the same key as Verlaine's original, but is more grand in style. Doggett describes the arrangement as "an unhappy cross between Motown sound and the sterility of American AOR". Lyrically, the song features similar themes to other album tracks, including frustration, boredom and repetition. On release, Bowie dedicated "Because You're Young" to his then nine-year-old son Duncan. Lyrically, the song is similar to other "Scary Monsters" tracks, featuring Bowie reflecting and advising a younger generation. Townshend's contributions are placed low in the mix. The album ends with "It's No Game (No. 2)", which provides a stark contrast to "No. 1"; it features new lyrics and is more mellow and meditative throughout. Doggett writes that whereas "No. 1" "climaxed with the signals of insanity", "No. 2" "just end[s], draining color from everything around it". Similar to how the album begins, it ends with the sound of a tape rewinding and playing out, although this time, it slows to a halt.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The cover artwork of "Scary Monsters" is a large-scale collage by artist Edward Bell featuring Bowie in the Pierrot costume worn in the "Ashes to Ashes" music video, along with photographs taken by photographer Brian Duffy. Duffy was reportedly upset by the final artwork, as he felt the cartoon demeaned his photographs. The original LP's rear sleeve referred to four earlier albums, namely the immediately preceding "Berlin Trilogy" and 1973's "Aladdin Sane", the latter also having been designed and photographed by Duffy. The cover images from "Low", ""Heroes"" and "Lodger"—the last showing Bowie's torso superimposed on the figure from "Aladdin Sane"s inside gatefold picture—were portrayed in small whitewashed frames to the left of the tracklisting. The lettering used was a reworking of Gerald Scarfe's lettering for Pink Floyd's "The Wall", which would be replicated on many album covers in the ensuing years. These images were not reproduced on the Rykodisc reissue in 1992, but were restored for EMI/Virgin's 1999 remastered edition. The original framed album artwork was featured in the "David Bowie Is" touring museum exhibit.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The lead single, "Ashes to Ashes", was released in edited form by RCA Records on 1 August 1980, with the "Lodger" track "Move On" as the B-side. It was issued in three different sleeves, the first 100,000 copies including one of four sets of stamps, all featuring Bowie in the Pierrot outfit he wore in the music video for the song. The song was promoted with a music video, which at £250,000 () was the most expensive music video ever made up to that point. Directed by David Mallet, who directed all of "Lodger"s music videos, the video depicts Bowie in a Pierot costume designed by his former collaborator Natasha Korniloff. The single and video are both regarded by biographers as one of Bowie's finest, with Pegg stating that it kickstarted the New Romantic movement. The single debuted at No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart; after premiering the music video on the BBC television programme "Top of the Pops", the single shot to No. 1, becoming Bowie's fastest-selling single and dethroning ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". It was Bowie's second No. 1 single in the UK, after a reissue of "Space Oddity". However, the US release, featuring "It's No Game (No. 1)" as the B-side, fared worse, peaking at No. 79 on the "Cash Box" Top 100 chart and No. 101 on the "Billboard" Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: RCA issued "Scary Monsters" on 12 September 1980, with the catalogue number RCA BOW LP 2. It was promoted by RCA with the promo line "Often Copied, Never Equalled", seen as a direct reference to the new wave acts Bowie had inspired over the years. The album was a major commercial success, peaking at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, his first since "Diamond Dogs" (1974), and remained on the chart for 32 weeks, his longest since "Aladdin Sane" (1973). The album restored Bowie's commercial standing in the US, peaking at No. 12 on the "Billboard" Top LPs & Tape chart and remained on the chart for 27 weeks. Buckley writes that with "Scary Monsters", Bowie achieved "the perfect balance" of creativity and mainstream success.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The second single, "Fashion", was released in edited form on 24 October 1980, with "Scream Like a Baby" as the B-side. The single was another commercial success, peaking at No. 5 in the UK and No. 70 in the US. Like the first single, it was promoted by a music video again directed by Mallet. The video depicts Bowie and his backing musicians as "gum-chewing tough guys", interspersed with shots of dancers rehearsing and New Romantic followers. Like "Ashes to Ashes", the video was highly praised, with "Record Mirror" voting both as the best music videos of 1980. The title track was released as the third single, again in edited form, on 2 January 1981, backed by "Because You're Young". The single continued Bowie's commercial success in the UK, peaking at No. 20. The fourth and final single, "Up the Hill Backwards", was released in March 1981, with the non-album Japanese single "Crystal Japan" as the B-side. It peaked at No. 32 in the UK, performing the worst out of all the singles.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: "Scary Monsters" received universal praise from music critics. "Record Mirror" awarded it a rating of seven stars out of five; the same publication voted Bowie the best male singer of 1980, as did the "Daily Mirror". "Melody Maker" called it "an eerily impressive stride into the '80s", while "Billboard" correctly predicted that it "should be the most accessible and commercially successful Bowie LP in years". "The Guardian" Robin Denselow agreed, describing "Scary Monsters" as being "full of accessible, highly original melodies that are increasingly inaccessible".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Debra Rae Cohen of "Rolling Stone" found the record to be a "clarification" of Bowie's collaborations with Eno and similar in vein to "Aladdin Sane", further finding Bowie "settling old scores" throughout "Scary Monsters". Fellow critic Dave Marsh considered it one of Bowie's best, saying "if this is the new art-rock, I'm for it." The New York "Daily News"s Clint Roswell likewise hailed the record as Bowie's best in years, naming "Ashes to Ashes", "Fashion", "Because You're Young" and the title track as songs that recognise the artist as "the preminent figure in pop". Adding further praise was James Johnson of the "Evening Standard", who described the "remarkable" LP as one of the year's best and "proves that Bowie can still maintain his mastery of the rock mainstream whenever he feels like it".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: "The Boston Globe"s Jim Sullivan found side two weaker than the first, but concluded "Bowie continues to present a complex, invigorating challenge". Tom Sowa was more mild in "The Spokesman-Review". He hailed "Scary Monsters" as Bowie's finest in four years, highlighting Fripp's contributions and signalled out "Ashes to Ashes" and "Because You're Young", but panned "Teenage Wildlife" as "an overheated, confused and totally embarrassing four minutes of plastic". Murray gave the album a more mixed assessment in "NME", stating: ""Scary Monsters" is shorn of all hope, yet it represents a call to arms. It is an album which presupposes defeat, yet it is unashamedly and unequivocally confrontational." He further called it the "realist's" Bowie record. In "The New York Times", John Rockwell felt the album lacked appeal for all rock listeners due to it being "too misshapenly ugly. grindingly abrasive and proudly self-withholding. Nevertheless, he deemed it a "fine record of its particular type". "Record Mirror" named it the year's second best album, behind "Sound Affects" by the Jam, while "NME" ranked it the ninth best album of the year.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: In February 1980, during the sessions for "Scary Monsters", Bowie was approached by Jack Hofsiss, the director of the Broadway play "The Elephant Man", to star in the lead role of Joseph "John" Merrick, a severely deformed English man who was rescued from a freak show by the surgeon Frederick Treves in 1880s Victorian England. Hofsiss saw Bowie in "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976) and believed his presence would fit the role. Bowie accepted the role in June 1980 and researched Merrick extensively in preparation. He portrayed Merrick through miming rather than the use of make-up. The play premiered in Denver, Colorado and ran from July 1980 to January 1981, with Bowie receiving immense praise for his performance. Bowie pursued other projects throughout the play's run, including filming an appearance in the Uli Edel film "Christiane F." (1981) and film the music video for "Fashion" in October.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: On 8 December 1980, Bowie's old friend John Lennon, with whom he worked with on "Young Americans" (1975), was murdered outside his apartment building in New York. It was later discovered that his murderer, Mark David Chapman, had attended an earlier performance of "The Elephant Man", and even considered Bowie a target. Lennon's death had a major impact on Bowie, who declined to renew his contract for the play past early January and cancelled plans to promote "Scary Monsters" on a concert tour in 1981. Afterwards, Bowie withdrew to his home in Switzerland and became a recluse. Nevertheless, Bowie continued working; in July 1981, he collaborated with Giorgio Moroder for the title song of the Paul Schrader film "Cat People" (1982). In the same session, he recorded "Under Pressure" with the rock band Queen. He later began rehearsals to perform the title role in a BBC adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Baal", directed by Alan Clarke. The play was recorded in August 1981 and transmitted in March 1982. Bowie also recorded a soundtrack EP for the play, which was released by RCA in February 1982 to coincide with the transmission. Upon its premiere, "Baal" was well-received, with Bowie's performance being singled out. During 1982, Bowie also filmed appearances in "The Hunger" and "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", both released in 1983.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Bowie would not release another studio album until 1983's "Let's Dance". "Scary Monsters" was also Bowie's final studio album for RCA Records, who had been his label since "Hunky Dory" (1971). Bowie had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the label, who he felt was "milking" his back catalogue. Bowie was also eager for the expiration of his 1975 severance settlement with his old manager Tony Defries, which was due to expire in September 1982. Although RCA was willing to re-sign, Bowie signed a new contract with EMI America Records, and with "Let's Dance", began an era of major commercial success.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Retrospectively, "Scary Monsters" continues to receive acclaim. Jon Dolan of "Spin" wrote that although the 1980s were a less-than-stellar decade for the artist creatively, he began the decade strong with "Scary Monsters", praising Bowie's vocal performance and describing "Ashes to Ashes" in particular as "gorgeous". Erlewine praised the album for its culmination of Bowie's 1970s works: "While the music isn't far removed from the post-punk of the early '80s, it does sound fresh, hip, and contemporary, which is something Bowie lost over the course of the '80s." Eduardo Rivadavia praised the record's "risk-taking creativity" in "Ultimate Classic Rock", writing that the artist's decision to take time writing lyrics resulted in some of the best lyrics and vocal performances of his career. He ultimately called the album one of Bowie's "very best career efforts." Author Peter Doggett describes "Scary Monsters" as one of Bowie's "most valuable statements", writing that it "annull[ed] audience expectations" and launched a "warning for those who might dare to follow in his footsteps."


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Reviewing the album's remaster for the 2017 box set "A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982)", Chris Gerard of "PopMatters" highlighted Bowie's vocal performance on the record as among his best, further complimenting the songs' arrangements and harmonies as "jaw-droppingly brilliant as anything you'll find in the realm of rock 'n' roll." Analysing the album for its 40th anniversary in 2020, "Stereogum"s Ryan Leas described "Scary Monsters" as "the less-heralded classic of Bowie's career", complimenting the way Bowie was able to mesh the different eras of his career up to that point into a creative whole. Leas concluded: "["Scary Monsters"] was the album that best-captured everything Bowie was about — and it will always be the conduit through which everything travelled, all of his old selves folded in and carried forward through the rest of his life. In a 2013 readers' poll for "Rolling Stone", "Scary Monsters" was voted Bowie's seventh greatest album. The magazine argued that it would be his final "satisfying from start to finish" album.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Reflecting on the critical and commercial success of "Scary Monsters", Visconti stated, "We kind of felt that we'd finally achieved our "Sgt. Pepper", a goal we had in mind since "The Man Who Sold the World"." Visconti further said: "It is one of my favourite Bowie albums ever." Despite his glowing assessment of the album, "Scary Monsters" proved to be the final collaboration between Bowie and Visconti for over 20 years, after Bowie chose Nile Rodgers to produce "Let's Dance". Although Bowie would achieve worldwide mega-stardom and commercial success in the following years, in particular with "Let's Dance", many commentators consider "Scary Monsters" to be "his last great album" and the "benchmark" for each new release. Well-regarded later efforts such as "Outside" (1995), "Earthling" (1997), "Heathen" (2002) and "Reality" (2003) were cited as "the best album since "Scary Monsters"." Buckley suggested that "Bowie should pre-emptively sticker up his next album 'Best Since "Scary Monsters" and have done with it". Biographer Marc Spitz considers it more accurate to call the album Bowie's "last 'young' record", in that it was his final "perfectly confident statement" and the final time that Bowie's "search for the 'new' in our world of sound [felt] pure, as opposed to betraying itself".


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: Bowie's biographers continue to praise "Scary Monsters". Pegg writes that retrospectively, "Scary Monsters" sounds "as fresh and dynamic as ever", and ended "Bowie's golden run of cutting-edge albums." O'Leary described it in 2019 as Bowie's most "modern"-sounding album. Spitz finds the record to have an energy that his later "good" albums don't (naming "Outside" and "Heathen"). Doggett considers it as one of Bowie's "most valuable statements", exceeding his listeners' expectations while at the same time sending a warning out to anyone who dared to follow in his footsteps. Sandford states that with "Scary Monsters", Bowie "found his voice again" after years of experimentation. Perone praises the album as "a near-perfect balance of [Bowie's] pop and experimental sides" and that it remains one of the artist's "most important and consistent albums". In 2011, Paul Trynka wrote: ""Scary Monsters" still sparkles today. Its intense, churning grooves sound remarkably contemporary... but despite the complexity of its arrangements there are many moments of unaffected simplicity." He considers the album's "dense, tough, rock-meets-funk backup" as influential on later bands such as Blur and the Strokes.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: "Scary Monsters" has appeared on several lists of the greatest albums of all time by multiple publications. In 2000, "Q" ranked "Scary Monsters" at number 30 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2002, "Pitchfork" placed it at number 93 on its list of the top 100 albums of the 1980s. In 2012, "Slant Magazine" listed the album at number 27 on its list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s, saying "Bowie bridles the experimentation of his Berlin trilogy and channels those synth flourishes and off-kilter guitar licks into one of the decade's quirkiest pop albums." In 2013, "NME" ranked the album at number 381 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2018, "Pitchfork" placed it at number 53 on its revised list of the 200 best albums of the 1980s. In 2020, "Rolling Stone" placed it at number 443 on its revision of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Based on "Scary Monsters" appearances in professional rankings and listings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists it as the 11th most acclaimed album of 1980, the 70th most acclaimed album of the 1980s, and the 501st most acclaimed album in history.


title: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

text: The album has been rereleased five times to date on compact disc. It was first released on CD by RCA Records in the mid-1980s. A second CD release, in 1992 by Rykodisc and EMI, contained four bonus tracks. A 1999 CD release by EMI/Virgin, with no bonus tracks, featured 24-bit digitally-remastered sound. The album was re-released in 2003 by EMI as a Super Audio CD, again with no bonus tracks. In 2017, the album was remastered for the "A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982)" box set released by Parlophone. It was released in CD, vinyl, and digital formats, both as part of this compilation and then separately the following year.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Linear or point-projection perspective (from 'to see through') is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: The most characteristic features of linear perspective are that objects appear smaller as their distance from the observer increases, and that they are subject to "foreshortening", meaning that an object's dimensions along the line of sight appear shorter than its dimensions across the line of sight. All objects will recede to points in the distance, usually along the horizon line, but also above and below the horizon line depending on the view used.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Italian Renaissance painters and architects including Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca and Luca Pacioli studied linear perspective, wrote treatises on it, and incorporated it into their artworks.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Perspective works by representing the light that passes from a scene through an imaginary rectangle (the picture plane), to the viewer's eye, as if a viewer were looking through a window and painting what is seen directly onto the windowpane. If viewed from the same spot as the windowpane was painted, the painted image would be identical to what was seen through the unpainted window. Each painted object in the scene is thus a flat, scaled down version of the object on the other side of the window.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Additionally, a central vanishing point can be used (just as with one-point perspective) to indicate frontal (foreshortened) depth.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: The earliest art paintings and drawings typically sized many objects and characters hierarchically according to their spiritual or thematic importance, not their distance from the viewer, and did not use foreshortening. The most important figures are often shown as the highest in a composition, also from hieratic motives, leading to the so-called "vertical perspective", common in the art of Ancient Egypt, where a group of "nearer" figures are shown below the larger figure or figures; simple overlapping was also employed to relate distance. Additionally, oblique foreshortening of round elements like shields and wheels is evident in Ancient Greek red-figure pottery.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Systematic attempts to evolve a system of perspective are usually considered to have begun around the fifth century BC in the art of ancient Greece, as part of a developing interest in illusionism allied to theatrical scenery. This was detailed within Aristotle's "Poetics" as "skenographia": using flat panels on a stage to give the illusion of depth. The philosophers Anaxagoras and Democritus worked out geometric theories of perspective for use with "skenographia". Alcibiades had paintings in his house designed using "skenographia", so this art was not confined merely to the stage. Euclid in his "Optics" () argues correctly that the perceived size of an object is not related to its distance from the eye by a simple proportion. In the first-century BC frescoes of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor, multiple vanishing points are used in a systematic but not fully consistent manner.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Chinese artists made use of oblique projection from the first or second century until the 18th century. It is not certain how they came to use the technique; Dubery and Willats (1983) speculate that the Chinese acquired the technique from India, which acquired it from Ancient Rome, while others credit it as an indigenous invention of Ancient China. Oblique projection is also seen in Japanese art, such as in the Ukiyo-e paintings of Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815).


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: By the later periods of antiquity, artists, especially those in less popular traditions, were well aware that distant objects could be shown smaller than those close at hand for increased realism, but whether this convention was actually used in a work depended on many factors. Some of the paintings found in the ruins of Pompeii show a remarkable realism and perspective for their time. It has been claimed that comprehensive systems of perspective were evolved in antiquity, but most scholars do not accept this. Hardly any of the many works where such a system would have been used have survived. A passage in Philostratus suggests that classical artists and theorists thought in terms of "circles" at equal distance from the viewer, like a classical semi-circular theatre seen from the stage. The roof beams in rooms in the Vatican Virgil, from about 400 AD, are shown converging, more or less, on a common vanishing point, but this is not systematically related to the rest of the composition.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Medieval artists in Europe, like those in the Islamic world and China, were aware of the general principle of varying the relative size of elements according to distance, but even more than classical art were perfectly ready to override it for other reasons. Buildings were often shown obliquely according to a particular convention. The use and sophistication of attempts to convey distance increased steadily during the period, but without a basis in a systematic theory. Byzantine art was also aware of these principles, but also used the reverse perspective convention for the setting of principal figures. Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted a floor with convergent lines in his "Presentation at the Temple" (1342), though the rest of the painting lacks perspective elements.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: It is generally accepted that Filippo Brunelleschi conducted a series of experiments between 1415 and 1420, which included making drawings of various Florentine buildings in correct perspective. According to Vasari and Antonio Manetti, in about 1420, Brunelleschi demonstrated his discovery by having people look through a hole in the back of a painting he had made. Through it, they would see a building such as the Florence Baptistery. When Brunelleschi lifted a mirror in front of the viewer, it reflected his painting of the buildings which had been seen previously, so that the vanishing point was centered from the perspective of the participant. Brunelleschi applied the new system of perspective to his paintings around 1425.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: First of all, nothing can be said for certain about the perspective of the baptistery of San Giovanni, because Brunelleschi's panel is lost.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Third, in the account written by Antonio di Tuccio Manetti at the end of the 15th century on Brunelleschi's panel, there is not a single occurrence of the word experiment.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Fourth, the conditions listed by Antonio di Tuccio Manetti are contradictory with each other. For example, the description of the eyepiece sets a visual field of 15° much narrower than the visual field resulting from the urban landscape described.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: This scenario is still debated, however, because Brunelleschi's tavoletta is lost, which does not allow a direct assessment of the correctness of his perspective construction, and because the conditions listed by Antonio di Tuccio Manetti in his "Vita di Ser Brunellesco" are inconsistent.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Soon after Brunelleschi's demonstrations, nearly every artist in Florence and in Italy used geometrical perspective in their paintings and sculpture, notably Donatello, Masaccio, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Masolino da Panicale, Paolo Uccello, and Filippo Lippi. Not only was perspective a way of showing depth, it was also a new method of creating a composition. Visual art could now depict a single, unified scene, rather than a combination of several. Early examples include Masolino's "St. Peter Healing a Cripple and the Raising of Tabitha" (), Donatello's "The Feast of Herod" (), as well as Ghiberti's "" and other panels from the east doors of the Florence Baptistery. Masaccio (d. 1428) achieved an illusionistic effect by placing the vanishing point at the viewer's eye level in his "Holy Trinity" (), and in "The Tribute Money", it is placed behind the face of Jesus. In the late 15th century, Melozzo da Forlì first applied the technique of foreshortening (in Rome, Loreto, Forlì and others).


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: This overall story is based on qualitative judgments, and would need to be faced against the material evaluations that have been conducted on Renaissance perspective paintings.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Apart from the paintings of Piero della Francesca, which are a model of the genre, the majority of 15th century works show serious errors in their geometric construction. This is true of Masaccio's "Trinity" fresco and of many works, including those by renowned artists like Leonardo da Vinci.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: As shown by the quick proliferation of accurate perspective paintings in Florence, Brunelleschi likely understood (with help from his friend the mathematician Toscanelli), but did not publish, the mathematics behind perspective. Decades later, his friend Leon Battista Alberti wrote "" (), a treatise on proper methods of showing distance in painting. Alberti's primary breakthrough was not to show the mathematics in terms of conical projections, as it actually appears to the eye. Instead, he formulated the theory based on planar projections, or how the rays of light, passing from the viewer's eye to the landscape, would strike the picture plane (the painting). He was then able to calculate the apparent height of a distant object using two similar triangles. The mathematics behind similar triangles is relatively simple, having been long ago formulated by Euclid. Alberti was also trained in the science of optics through the school of Padua and under the influence of Biagio Pelacani da Parma who studied Alhazen's "Book of Optics". This book, translated around 1200 into Latin, had laid the mathematical foundation for perspective in Europe.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Piero della Francesca elaborated on "De pictura" in his "De Prospectiva pingendi" in the 1470s, making many references to Euclid. Alberti had limited himself to figures on the ground plane and giving an overall basis for perspective. Della Francesca fleshed it out, explicitly covering solids in any area of the picture plane. Della Francesca also started the now common practice of using illustrated figures to explain the mathematical concepts, making his treatise easier to understand than Alberti's. Della Francesca was also the first to accurately draw the Platonic solids as they would appear in perspective. Luca Pacioli's 1509 "Divina proportione" ("Divine Proportion"), illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, summarizes the use of perspective in painting, including much of Della Francesca's treatise. Leonardo applied one-point perspective as well as shallow focus to some of his works.


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Two-point perspective was demonstrated as early as 1525 by Albrecht Dürer, who studied perspective by reading Piero and Pacioli's works, in his "Unterweisung der messung" ("Instruction of the measurement").


title: Perspective (graphical)

text: Perspective images are calculated assuming a particular vanishing point. In order for the resulting image to appear identical to the original scene, a viewer of the perspective must view the image from the exact vantage point used in the calculations relative to the image. This cancels out what would appear to be distortions in the image when viewed from a different point. These apparent distortions are more pronounced away from the center of the image as the angle between a projected ray (from the scene to the eye) becomes more acute relative to the picture plane. In practice, unless the viewer chooses an extreme angle, like looking at it from the bottom corner of the window, the perspective normally looks more or less correct. This is referred to as "Zeeman's Paradox". It has been suggested that a drawing in perspective still seems to be in perspective at other spots because we still perceive it as a drawing, because it lacks depth of field cues.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: The Great Fire of Rome () occurred in July AD 64. The fire began in the merchant shops around Rome's chariot stadium, Circus Maximus, on the night of 19 July. After six days, the fire was brought under control, but before the damage could be assessed, the fire reignited and burned for another three days. In the aftermath of the fire, two thirds of Rome had been destroyed.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: According to Tacitus and later Christian tradition, Emperor Nero blamed the devastation on the Christian community in the city, initiating the empire's first persecution against the Christians.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: Fires in Rome were common, especially in houses, and fires that had occurred previously in Rome and destroyed parts of major buildings include:


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: Nero was proclaimed Roman emperor in AD 54 at the age of 17. His rule has commonly been associated with impulsiveness and tyranny. Early in his reign, he was heavily advised, but he slowly became more independent. In 59 AD, encouraged by his mistress Poppaea, Nero murdered his mother Agrippina. His leading adviser, Seneca, was discharged and forced to commit suicide. After the Great Fire of Rome occurred in July 64, it was rumored that Nero had ordered the fire to clear space for a new palace, the Domus Aurea. At the time of the fire Nero may not have been in the city but 35 miles away at his villa in Antium, and possibly returned to the city before the fire was out.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. His exact birth date is unknown, but most sources place it in either AD 56 or 57. His two main works, the "Annals" and the "Histories", covered the history of the empire between AD 14 and AD 96. However, much of the work has been lost, including the books covering events after AD 70. Tacitus was only eight years old at the time of the fire, but he was able to use public records and reports to write an accurate account.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: After the fire in AD 6, the "Vigiles" ("cohorts of the watchmen") were introduced by Augustus. The "cohortes vigilum", run by freedmen, were tasked with guarding Rome at night while the "cohortes urbanae" were tasked with guarding Rome during the day. By the time of the Great Fire of Rome, there were thousands of "Vigiles" in the city, and they went to work trying to stop the flames by pouring buckets of water into buildings, trying to move flammable material from the fire's path, and even demolishing buildings to attempt to make a fire break. In 22 BC, Augustus funded a fire brigade.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: Before the fire, Rome's water was brought in by nine aqueducts, which were not set up with equipment to fight fires. Carrying out repairs to the aqueducts was an ongoing task for the Water Commissioner of Rome. The Water Commissioner was also in charge of investigations into those who were illegally piping water away without paying a license fee to the state. Firefighters relied on blankets, buckets of water, vinegar, and demolition of buildings to put fires out.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: According to Tacitus, the fire began in shops where flammable goods were stored, in the region of the Circus neighboring the Caelian and Palatine Hills of Rome. The night was a windy one and the flames rapidly spread along the full length of the Circus. The fire expanded through an area of narrow, twisting streets and closely located apartment blocks. In this lower area of ancient Rome, there were no large buildings such as temples, or open areas of ground, to impede the conflagration. It then spread along the Palatine and Caelian slopes. The population fled first to areas unaffected by the fire and then to the open fields and rural roads outside the city. Looters and arsonists were reported to have spread the flames by throwing torches or, acting in groups, hindering measures being made to halt or slow the progress of the flames. Some groups responsible for throwing torches and stopping those from fighting the fire were reported to have claimed they were under orders to do so. The fire stopped after six days of continuous burning. However, it soon reignited and burned for another three days.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: Tests into how fires spread have shown that large fires are able to create their own wind and this, combined with embers being blown to new buildings, could have caused the fire to spread further and could account for witnesses claiming that random fires started in houses that were away from the flames. As well as wind playing a factor in fire spread, those who had claimed to be under orders to stop people from fighting the fires never named the one who ordered them and they were also reported to have looted buildings.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: According to Tacitus, Nero was away from Rome, in Antium, when the fire broke out. Nero returned to the city and took measures to bring in food supplies and to open gardens and public buildings to accommodate refugees. Of Rome's fourteen districts, three were completely devastated, seven more were reduced to a few scorched and mangled ruins and only four completely escaped damage. The Temple of Jupiter Stator, the House of the Vestals, and Nero's palace, the Domus Transitoria were damaged or destroyed. Also destroyed in the fire was the portion of the Forum where the Roman senators lived and worked. However, the open space in the middle of the Forum remained a shopping/meeting centre. The accusations of Nero having started the fire were further exacerbated by his quickness to rebuild burned neighbourhoods in the Greek style and to launch construction of his new palace.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: For the city's reconstruction, Nero dictated new and far-sighted building rules, intended to curb the excesses of speculation and trace a new urban plan, which still can be discerned from the city layout today. He rebuilt much of the destroyed area, and had the ostentatious building complex known as Domus Aurea (Golden House) built, his personal residence (replacing the Domus Transitoria and including an extension of about 2.5 km), which came to include the Palatine, the slopes of the Esquiline (Opium) and part of the Celio. This may not have been a possible motive for the fire, as he could have requisitioned the necessary land anyway, and most was already in his possession.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: To find the necessary funds for the reconstruction, Nero's government increased taxation. In particular heavy tributes were imposed on the provinces of the empire. To meet at least a proportion of the costs, Nero devalued the Roman currency, increasing inflationary pressure for the first time in the Empire's history.


title: Great Fire of Rome

text: The varying historical accounts of the event come from three secondary sources—Cassius Dio, Suetonius, and Tacitus. The primary accounts, which possibly included histories written by Fabius Rusticus, Marcus Cluvius Rufus, and Pliny the Elder, do not survive. At least six separate stories circulate regarding Nero and the fire:


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, such as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!". Meyer often named "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970) as his definitive work.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Lydia Lucinda (Hauck) and William Arthur Meyer, an Oakland police officer. His parents were both of German descent. Meyer's parents divorced soon after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was 14 years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8 mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company, ultimately attaining the rank of staff sergeant.


title: Russ Meyer

text: In the Army, Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film "Patton" (1970).


title: Russ Meyer

text: On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a lack of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (including "Giant"), and became a well known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's "Playboy" magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three "Playboy" centerfolds during the magazine's early years, including one of his then-wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer was the cinematographer for the 1950 Pete DeCenzie film "French Peep Show", and the 1954 Samuel Newman production, "The Desperate Women", among the few Hollywood films to depict a woman dying from an illegal abortion in pre–"Roe v. Wade" America, the original version of which is believed lost.


title: Russ Meyer

text: His first feature, the naughty comedy "The Immoral Mr. Teas" (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1 million on the independent/exploitation circuit, enthroning Meyer as "King of the Nudies." It is considered one of the first nudie cuties.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russ Meyer was an auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer followed "Teas" with some shorts, "This Is My Body" (1960) and "The Naked Camera", then made a second nudie cutie, "Eve and the Handyman" (1960). This starred Meyer's wife Eve and Anthony-James Ryan, both of whom would be crucial to the production of Meyer's films.


title: Russ Meyer

text: His next features were "Erotica" (1961) and "Wild Gals of the Naked West" (1962). Audience reception of "Wild Gals" was lukewarm, and Meyer decided to change genres.


title: Russ Meyer

text: He followed this with three other similar films, and would call this his "Gothic" period: "Mudhoney" (1965), "Motorpsycho" (1965) and "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965).


title: Russ Meyer

text: "Lorna" was very successful commercially, making almost a million dollars. "Mudhoney" was more ambitious, based on a novel, and did not perform as well. "Motorpsycho", about three men terrorising the countryside, was a big hit—so much so Meyer decided to make a film about three bad girls, "Faster Pussycat". "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" was commercially underwhelming but would eventually be acclaimed as a cult classic. It has a following all over the world and has inspired countless imitations, music videos and tributes.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer made the popular mockumentary "Mondo Topless" (1966) with the remnants of his production company's assets and made two mildly successful color melodramas: "Common Law Cabin" (1967) and "Good Morning... and Goodbye!" (1967).


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial "Vixen!". Although its lesbian overtones are tame by today's standards, the film—envisaged by Meyer and longtime producer Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films—grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as "The Immoral Mr. Teas" had a decade earlier.


title: Russ Meyer

text: He followed it with "Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!" (1969), and "Cherry, Harry & Raquel!" (1970), which utilized long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, forcing Meyer to compensate for 20 minutes of unshot footage.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Amid the unexpected success of Columbia Pictures' low-budget "Easy Rider", and impressed by Meyer's frugality and profitability, Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown of 20th Century Fox signed Meyer to produce and direct a proposed sequel to "Valley of the Dolls" in 1969, fulfilling his longstanding ambition to direct for a major Hollywood studio. What eventually appeared was "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), scripted by "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic and longtime Meyer devotee Roger Ebert. Ebert, who became the first film critic to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975, would remain a close friend and key artistic collaborator for the remainder of Meyer's life.


title: Russ Meyer

text: The film bears no relation to the novel or film adaptation's continuity, a development necessitated when Jacqueline Susann sued the studio after several drafts of her script were rejected. Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism, with Meyer going so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews. Others, such as "Variety", saw it "as funny as a burning orphanage and a treat for the emotionally retarded." Contractually stipulated to produce an R-rated film, the brutally violent climax (depicting a decapitation) ensured an X rating (eventually reclassified to NC-17 in 1990). Despite gripes from the director after he attempted to recut the film to include more titillating scenes after the ratings debacle, it still earned $9 million domestically in the United States on a budget of $2.09 million.


title: Russ Meyer

text: The executives at Fox were delighted with the box office success of "Dolls" and signed a contract with Meyer to make three more films: "The Seven Minutes", from a potboiler by Irving Wallace; "Everything in the Garden", from a play by Edward Albee; and "The Final Steal", from a 1966 novel by Peter George. "We've discovered that he's very talented and cost conscious", said Zanuck. "He can put his finger on the commercial ingredients of a film and do it exceedingly well. We feel he can do more than undress people."


title: Russ Meyer

text: Per his new contract, Meyer then made a faithful adaptation of "The Seven Minutes" (1971). Featuring loquacious courtroom scenes alongside little nudity, the comparatively subdued film was commercially unsuccessful, and his oeuvre would be disowned by the studio for decades after Zanuck and Brown departed to form an independent production company in 1972.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Richard Zanuck, who brought Meyer to Fox, had moved to Warner Bros and there was some talk Meyer would make a film at that studio. However, Meyer would never make a studio film again. He returned to grindhouse-style independent cinema in 1973 with the blaxploitation period piece "Black Snake", which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent.


title: Russ Meyer

text: "Foxy", a proposed vehicle for Edy Williams, was cancelled in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's "Miller v. California" decision in June 1973, which modified its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". His marriage to Williams subsequently disintegrated.


title: Russ Meyer

text: "Those years were very confusing to me", said Meyer. "But instead of rushing off and throwing myself out the window, I was able to psychoanalyze myself and discern what was best for me. I looked myself square in the face and realized I couldn't do everything."


title: Russ Meyer

text: In 1975, he released "Supervixens", a return to the world of big bosoms, square jaws, and the Sonoran Desert that earned $17 million in the United States on a shoestring budget.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer's theatrical career ended with the release of the surreal "Up!" (1976) and 1979's "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens", his most sexually graphic films. Film historians and fans have called these last three films "Bustoons" because his use of color and mise en scène recalled larger-than-life pop art settings and cartoonish characters.


title: Russ Meyer

text: In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled ""Who Killed Bambi?"" According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren was unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project was scrapped at the behest of the main financier and Meyer's erstwhile employer, 20th Century Fox, whose board of directors considered the prospect of a Meyer production to be untenable and incompatible with the insurgent family values ethos in popular culture.) The project ultimately evolved into "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle".


title: Russ Meyer

text: Despite hardcore pornographic films overtaking Meyer's softcore market share, he retired from filmmaking in the late 1970s a very wealthy man. He made a one-off return to filmmaking in 2001 to direct "Russ Meyer's Pandora Peaks", featuring the nude glamour model of the same name. Around the same time, he also participated in "Voluptuous Vixens II", a made-for-video softcore production by "Playboy".


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russ Meyer was also adept at mocking moral stereotypes and flagrantly lampooning conservative American values. Many of his films feature a narrator who attempts to give the audience a "moral roadmap" of what they are watching. Like his contemporary Terry Southern, Meyer realized that sex—as one of the few common interests among most humans—was a natural vehicle for satirizing values and conventions held by the Greatest Generation. According to Roger Ebert in a commentary recorded in 2003 for the DVD release of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", Meyer continually reiterated that this irreverence was the true secret to his artistic success.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer was also known for his quick wit. While participating with Ebert in a panel discussion at Yale University, he was confronted by an angry woman who accused him of being "nothing but a breast man." His immediate reply: "That's only the half of it."


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russ Meyer's lifelong unabashed fixation on large breasts featured prominently in all his films and is his best-known character trait both as an artist and as a person. His discoveries include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large-breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy as it enhanced their breast size even further.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Rarely were there cosmetically enhanced breasts in any of his films until "Up!" (1976) and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens" (1979). However, by the early 1980s, when surgical advancements had made the gargantuan breasts of Meyer's fantasies a reality, many felt he had started viewing the female body as simply a "tit transportation device" and that his aesthetic vision was no longer attractive or vibrant. Darlene Gray, a natural 36H-22-33 from Great Britain who appeared in "Mondo Topless" (1966), is said to be Russ Meyer's most busty discovery.


title: Russ Meyer

text: The Russ Meyer female physical archetype is fairly complex to decipher. Firstly, it's not to be confused with today's surgically enhanced Hollywood porn starlets or even slim, naturally endowed actresses. Russ Meyer was almost as much about a shapely 1950s hip-to-waist ratio or "wasp waist" as he was about very large breasts. The six-pack abdominal muscles and built-up squarish appearance of modern Hollywood figures do not mesh with his pin-up aesthetic. Secondly, he required that even his most busty actresses looked good braless; "gravity-defying" and "cantilevered" became two of his favorite expressions.


title: Russ Meyer

text: In his films such as "Vixen!" and "Cherry, Harry & Raquel!", some of the actresses do not have large (by Russ Meyer standards) breasts yet their chests are always accentuated by use of camera angles and well-constructed bras. Reportedly, Erica Gavin was cast as the lead in "Vixen!" because her "smaller" bust would make the character "more relatable to women."


title: Russ Meyer

text: He went on record numerous times to say that Anita Ekberg was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 39DD breasts were the biggest in A-list Hollywood history, dwarfing both Jayne Mansfield and Sabrina.Dolly Parton was the only modern Hollywood actress Meyer ever expressed interest in working with.


title: Russ Meyer

text: While he often referred to his actresses as "Junoesque" and "Amazonian", this was probably more in their spirit than their actual physiques" as Meyer rarely cast very tall or symmetrically built actresses with strong legs and large posteriors.


title: Russ Meyer

text: So while the general public could easily perceive Jane Russell or Sophia Loren as "Russ Meyer material", their balanced bodies did not mesh with Meyer's precise aesthetic preferences." And indeed, Meyer said many times that it was Gina Lollobrigida's smaller-breasted figure that he preferred visually over her larger-breasted, taller and bigger-hipped rival, Sophia Loren. Thus, Meyer's oeuvre shows the viewer that while his actresses could easily be described as voluptuous, buxom and curvaceous, it's debatable to some if they were strapping, stately or even statuesque as Meyer readily proclaimed."


title: Russ Meyer

text: The tallest actress Meyer ever cast in a lead was the , slim-hipped, huge-breasted Lorna Maitland (working with whom he admitted he found intimidating). Nearly all the other women he featured were no taller than . Tura Satana's performance as Varla in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" was Meyer's only true portrayal of the large, strong and aggressive Amazonian archetype in the classic visual sense.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Film historian and Meyer biographer Jimmy McDonough posits that Russ Meyer's usage of physically and sexually overwhelming female characters places him in his own separate genre. He argues that despite portraying women as sex objects, Meyer nonetheless depicts them as more powerful than men and is therefore an inadvertent feminist filmmaker.


title: Russ Meyer

text: In many of Meyer's films, women eventually defeat men, winning sexual fulfillment as their reward, e.g., Super Vixen ("Supervixens"), Margo Winchester ("Up!") and Lavonia Shedd ("Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens"). Even in the 1950s and 1960s, his films were sometimes centered on a woman's need and struggle for sexual satisfaction ("Lorna", "Good Morning and... Goodbye!" and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens"). Additionally, Russ Meyer's female characters were often allowed to express anger and violence towards men ("Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Supervixens").


title: Russ Meyer

text: Yet in his research, McDonough also notes that Meyer's female characters were limited in how powerful they could appear; often the female lead is raped ("Up!" and "Lorna") or brutally murdered ("Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", "Supervixens", "Lorna" and "Blacksnake"). While Russ Meyer may have championed powerful woman characters, he also forced them into violent and terrifying situations, making them prove their physical and mental strength against tremendous odds. He also ensured that women's breasts were at least semi-exposed during these ordeals for comic or erotic effect. Furthermore, according to frequent collaborator and longtime lover Kitten Natividad, Meyer's love of dominant women extended to his personal life, and he was almost always in a tumultuous relationship.


title: Russ Meyer

text: During World War II, according to Meyer, he was in a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Despite his reputation, Meyer never employed the casting couch during his career's peak years, though that shifted during his post-1980 unfinished projects, and rarely had sex with any of his actresses. He had no children, though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend, Melissa Mounds, who was also found guilty of assaulting him in 1999. There is a long-standing rumor among his closest friends and at least one biographer that he had a son in 1964 with a secret lover who he would refer to only as "Miss Mattress" or "Janet Buxton."


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer was very upfront throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner or husband. Yet he is also said to have been very generous with all his friends and acquaintances, and never isolated friends from one another. Biographers have attributed most of his brutish and eccentric nature to the fact that he was abandoned by his father, an Oakland police officer, and coddled by his mother, Lydia, who was married six times. Meyer had a half-sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her 20s with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999. Mental illness ran in his family and was something he secretly feared. During his entire life, Russ Meyer always spoke of his mother and sister with the highest reverence.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, his longtime companion and the star of his final two films.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Meyer owned the rights to nearly all of his films and spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s making millions reselling his films on the home video and DVD market. He worked out of his Los Angeles home and usually took telephone orders in person. A major retrospective of his work was given at the British Film Institute which Meyer attended in 1982. The Chicago Film Festival honored his work in 1985, for which he also made a personal appearance, and many revival movie houses booked his films for midnight movie marathons.


title: Russ Meyer

text: He also worked obsessively for over a decade on a massive three-volume autobiography, titled "A Clean Breast". Finally printed in 2000, it features numerous excerpts of reviews, clever details of each of his films and countless photos and erotic musings.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Starting in the mid-1990s, Meyer had frequent fits and bouts of memory loss. By 2000, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and his health and well-being were thereafter looked after by Janice Cowart, his secretary and estate executor. That same year, with no wife or children to claim his wealth, Meyer willed that the majority of his money and estate would be sent to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in honor of his late mother.


title: Russ Meyer

text: Russ Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills (from complications of pneumonia), on September 18, 2004, at the age of 82. Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County, California.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The Florida State Seminoles football team represents Florida State University (variously Florida State or FSU) in the sport of American football. The Seminoles compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The Seminoles previously competed as part of the ACC Atlantic Division. The team is known for its storied history, distinctive helmet, fight song, colors, and many other traditions associated with the school.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: Florida State has won three national championships, eighteen conference titles and six division titles along with a playoff appearance. The Seminoles have achieved three undefeated seasons, finished ranked in the top four of the AP Poll for 14 straight years from 1987 through 2000 and completed 41 straight winning seasons from 1977 through 2017; from 2012 through 2014, the team won 29 consecutive games, tied for the twelfth-longest winning streak in college football and tied for the longest winning streak in ACC history; from 1992 through 1995, the team also won 29 consecutive conference games, the longest winning streak in ACC history. The 1999 team received votes from ESPN as one of the top teams in college football history.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The team has produced three Heisman Trophy winners: quarterbacks Charlie Ward in 1993, Chris Weinke in 2000 and Jameis Winston in 2013. The Biletnikoff Award, presented annually to the top receiver in college football, is named for Florida State hall of famer Fred Biletnikoff. Other awards won by Florida State players include the Walter Camp Award, the Maxwell Award, the Davey O'Brien Award, the Lombardi Award, the Dick Butkus Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the Lou Groza Award, the Dave Rimington Trophy and the Bobby Bowden Award. Florida State coaches have been honored with the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award, the Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award, the Home Depot Coach of the Year Award, the Broyles Award, and the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award. Many former Seminoles have gone on to have successful careers in the NFL.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The program has produced 219 All-Americans (45 consensus and 15 unanimous) and 250 professional players. Florida State has had six members inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, three members inducted into the College Football Coaches Hall of Fame and five members inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The Seminoles have the tenth-highest winning percentage among all college football programs in Division I FBS history with over 500 victories. Florida State has appeared in 50 postseason bowl games and rank ninth nationally for bowl winning percentage and fourth for bowl wins. The Seminoles' archrivals are Florida, whom they meet annually in the last game of the regular season, and Miami; both games are considered among the greatest rivalries in college football. A rivalry with Clemson has developed and grown due to both teams competing yearly for the Atlantic division.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The team is coached by Mike Norvell, and plays home games at Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium, the 18th largest stadium in college football and the 2nd largest in the ACC, located on-campus in Tallahassee, Florida.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: As early as the 1890s, Florida State had a football team. Florida State University traces the start of its athletic program to 1902, when Florida State College played the first of its three seasons. From 1902 to 1904, the institution then known as Florida State College fielded a varsity football team called "The Eleven" that played other teams. The Florida State players wore gold uniforms with a large purple F on the front. Their pants were lightly padded, but their upper bodies were largely unprotected. Leather helmets with ear guards covered their heads, and shoehorn-shaped metal nose guards were strapped across their faces.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: W. W. Hughes, professor of Latin and the head of men's sports at the school, served as the first coach. They played their first game against the Bainbridge Giants, a city team from Bainbridge, Georgia, defeating them 5–0. The team then played back-to-back matches against Florida Agricultural College (which later merged into what is now the University of Florida) one week apart, winning the first 6–0 and losing the second 0–6. The following season student enthusiasm grew even more, and the Eleven arranged a full schedule of six games. They competed against teams such as the University of Florida in Lake City (as Florida Agricultural College was then called), Georgia Tech, and the East Florida Seminary (another school that merged into the University of Florida), and finished the season by competing against Stetson College in Jacksonville for "The Florida Times-Union" Championship Cup. The following year Jack Forsythe, later the first head coach of the Florida Gators, replaced Hughes as coach, and the Eleven won the unofficial "state championship" by defeating Stetson in Tallahassee. Jock Hanvey assisted Forsythe.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: This would be The Eleven's last season, however, as the Florida State Legislature passed the Buckman Act, which reorganized Florida's six colleges into three institutions segregated by gender and race: a school for white males, a school for white females, and a school for African Americans. Florida State College became Florida Female College until 1909, when it became Florida State College for Women. Four other institutions (including the University of Florida in Lake City and the East Florida Seminary) were merged into the new white men's-only University of the State of Florida in Gainesville. Males who formerly attended Florida State College were required to transfer to the Gainesville campus, although several former FSC players transferred to Grant University (now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga), with five joining Grant's football team. In 1909 several veterans of the FSC Eleven founded a city team named the Tallahassee Athletics, but this folded after one season. Except for this, until 1947, Tallahassee's only organized or collegiate football team were the team from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (now Florida A&M University)./


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: The end of World War II brought enormous pressure on the university system in Florida, which saw an influx of veterans applying for college under the GI Bill. The Florida Legislature responded by renaming the Florida State College for Women to Florida State University and allowing men to attend the university for the first time since 1905; football then returned to the university, beginning with the 1947 season. From 1948 through 1959, the Seminole football program achieved much success under coaches Don Veller and Tom Nugent. Ed Williamson, who introduced football to the school, served as the first coach of the Florida State Seminoles. In his first and only season with Florida State, the Seminoles posted an 0–5 record. Williamson has the worst record out of all the head coaches at Florida State and the only coach to have a winless mark. As the second coach at Florida State, Don Veller coached at Florida State for five years and compiled a record of 31–12–1. Veller was the first coach to find success coaching the Seminoles. In 1950, Veller led the Seminoles to an 8–0 record, the first unbeaten season in school history. Once Veller left the school, Tom Nugent became the third coach at Florida State. He stayed at Florida State for six years and compiled a record of 34–28–1. In one of his most notable accomplishments, Nugent gave the Seminoles their first win over an SEC opponent with a 10–0 victory against Tennessee in 1958. The fourth coach at Florida State was Perry Moss who coached the Seminoles for one year after compiling a 4–6 record. He became the second Florida State coach to leave the school with a losing record and the second to coach at the school for only one season after leaving to coach in the CFL.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: With the arrival of head coach Bill Peterson in 1960, the Seminoles began their move to national prominence. Under Peterson's direction, the Seminoles beat the Florida Gators for the first time in 1964 and earned their first major bowl bid. Peterson also led the Seminoles to their first ever top ten ranking. During his tenure as head coach, Peterson also gave a young assistant by the name of Bobby Bowden his first major college coaching opportunity. Although not widely known, the Seminoles achieved their first ever number one ranking during this period. In October 1964, the Dunkel College Football Index, a popular power index of that era, placed the Seminoles at the top of their poll after a stunning 48–6 win over highly ranked Kentucky (AP No. 5, Dunkel No. 3). Peterson would be named UPI national coach of the week after this program changing victory. In an era of very few bowl games, Peterson's innovative offensive system helped earn the Seminoles four bowl bids from 1964 through 1968. During this time, only Alabama and Mississippi appeared in more bowl games than did Peterson's Seminoles. Receiving a football scholarship, famed actor Robert Urich was a back up center on the Seminoles from 1964 to 1967. In 1968, Peterson's eighth year at the helm, the Seminoles claimed their third straight bowl bid as Florida State became the first major college in the state of Florida to earn such a distinction. The Seminoles would not repeat this feat again until the ninth season of the Bobby Bowden era. In the summer of 1967, Peterson also engineered another first for the Seminole program when he decided to begin the recruitment of African American football players. Apparently, he did so without approval from either the school president or its athletic director. On December 16, 1967, the Seminoles signed Ernest Cook, a fullback from Daytona Beach. Several months later, the Seminoles would sign running back Calvin Patterson from Dade County. Ultimately, Cook decided to switch his allegiance to Minnesota where he would become an All-Big Ten running back. In the fall of 1968, Patterson would become the first African American student to play for the Seminoles as a starter for the Florida State freshmen football team. In the fall of 1970, J. T. Thomas would become the first African American to play in a varsity game for the Seminoles.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: Following Peterson's successful run, the next two coaches had disappointing tenures. Larry Jones was appointed as the sixth head coach at Florida State. Jones coached for three years from 1971–1973 and compiled a record of 15–19, becoming the third Florida State coach to have a losing record. Darrell Mudra was then hired to be the seventh coach of the Seminoles. Mudra lasted just two years from 1974–1975 and compiled a record of 4–18. He became the fourth head coach to have a losing record at Florida State.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: Under head coach Bobby Bowden, who came to Florida State from West Virginia, the Seminoles became one of the nation's most competitive programs, greatly expanding the tradition of football at Florida State. The Seminoles played in five national championship games between 1993 and 2000, and claimed the championship twice, in 1993 and 1999. The FSU football team was the most successful team in college football during the 1990s, boasting an 89% winning percentage. FSU also set an NCAA record for most consecutive Top 5 finishes in the AP football poll – receiving placement 14 years in a row, from 1987 to 2000. The Seminoles under Bowden were the first college football team in history to go wire-to-wire (ranked first place from preseason to postseason) since the AP began releasing preseason rankings in 1936.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: In the Bowden era, prior to a 1989 game against long-standing rival Miami, University of Miami mascot Sebastian the Ibis was tackled by a group of police officers at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee as the mascot attempted to put out Chief Osceola's flaming spear. Sebastian was wearing a fireman’s helmet and yellow raincoat and holding a fire extinguisher. When a police officer attempted to grab the fire extinguisher, the officer was sprayed in the chest. Sebastian was handcuffed by four officers but ultimately released. University of Miami quarterback Gino Torretta told ESPN, "Even if we weren't bad boys, it added to the mystique that, 'Man, look, even their mascot's getting arrested.'" In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the Seminoles had 14 consecutive seasons with 10 or more wins and a top four finish, with a record of 152–19–1 between these years (11 of their 19 losses were decided by seven points or less), and one of the best home records of the era. FSU's accomplishments in these 14 seasons included eleven bowl wins, nine ACC championships, two Heisman Trophy winners, and two national championships.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: On December 1, 2009 Bowden announced that he would retire from coaching after the Seminoles' game on New Year's Day 2010 against West Virginia, Bowden's former team, in the Gator Bowl. His legacy has led to the creation of two awards in his honor, the Bobby Bowden Award, an award presented to college football players, and the Bobby Bowden National Collegiate Coach of the Year Award, an award presented to college football coaches. In the spring of 2007, several FSU athletes including football players were accused of cheating in an online music history class. The NCAA ruled that Florida State was guilty of major violations, announced that it would reduce scholarship limits in 10 sports and force Florida State to vacate all of the victories in 2006 and 2007 in which the implicated athletes participated and placed the university on probation for four years. FSU vacated 12 football victories from the 2006 and 2007 seasons and Bowden finished his career with 377 career wins.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: On January 5, 2010, Jimbo Fisher officially became the ninth head football coach in Florida State history. Fisher had been a member of the Florida State staff for three years, serving as offensive coordinator. He was named head coach-in waiting during the 2008 season. In his first season as head coach, Florida State went 10–4 with a 6–2 record in ACC conference play. The Seminoles went to their first ACC Championship Game since 2005, losing to Virginia Tech 44–33, and had their first ten win season since 2003. Fisher's first Florida State team notably beat both of its in-state rivals, the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida Gators, for the first time since 1999. Florida State would go on to the Chick-fil-A Bowl, where they would beat Steve Spurrier's South Carolina team. In his second season, Florida State went 9–4 with a 5–3 record in ACC conference play. For the second year in a row, the Seminoles defeated both of their in-state rivals. Fisher's second Florida State team also defeated Notre Dame in the Champs Sports Bowl. In his third season, he led the Seminoles to their first conference title in seven years and defeated Northern Illinois to win the Orange Bowl. In the 2013 season, Jimbo Fisher guided his team to a perfect 14–0 record and a national championship with a comeback win against Auburn. In 2014, he guided Florida State to another undefeated regular season, only to be throttled by Oregon 59–20 in the Rose Bowl–the most points the Seminoles had ever surrendered in a bowl game. Florida State had victories over both in-state rivals, Florida and Miami, in six of Jimbo Fisher's first seven seasons as head coach and won ten or more games in six of his eight seasons. While the Seminoles would win at least 10 games in the next two seasons and even finished eighth in the final 2016 poll, they lost five games in ACC play–one fewer than they had lost in Fisher's first five seasons. One of those losses was a 63–20 rout at the hands of Louisville, the most points Florida State had ever surrendered at the time. In 2017, the Seminoles were ranked third in preseason polls, but a 24–7 drubbing by Alabama and a close loss to NC State knocked them out of the polls altogether for the first time since the middle of the 2011 season, and ultimately finished with their first losing on-field record in ACC play since joining the league.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: Fisher resigned as FSU head coach on December 1, 2017, to accept a record ten-year, $75 million contract to become head coach at Texas A&M. Defensive line coach and former defensive lineman Odell Haggins was named interim head coach, becoming Florida State's first African-American head coach, and coached in his first game the next day against Louisiana-Monroe. The Seminoles won, extending their bowl streak to an NCAA record 36 seasons. He went on to coach the Seminoles in the bowl game, leading them to a win and their 41st consecutive winning season.


title: Florida State Seminoles football

text: On December 5, 2017, Willie Taggart left Oregon to become the new head coach at Florida State. In his first season, the Seminoles finished with a losing record for the first time since 1976 and missed a bowl game for the first time in 36 years. On November 3, 2019, Taggart was fired following a loss to Miami and a 4–5 record throughout the first nine games of the season. Haggins was once again named interim head coach to finish out the season.