title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: The first "Dance Dance Revolution" as well as its followup "DDR 2ndMix" uses Bemani System 573 Analog as its hardware. DDR 3rdMix replaces this with a Bemani System 573 Digital board, which would be used up to "DDR Extreme". Both of these are based on the PlayStation.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Beginning with "Dancing Stage Fusion" in 2005, the hardware is replaced by Bemani Python, a PlayStation 2-based hardware. "DDR SuperNova", released in 2006, utilised a Bemani Python 2 board, originally found in "GuitarFreaks V" and Drummania V". Bemani Python 2 would also be used in the followup "DDR SuperNova 2".


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Along with the cabinet change, "DDR X" also changes its hardware to the PC-based Bemani PC Type 4. This more powerful hardware allows for high definition graphics and enhanced features. With "DDR A", Bemani PC Type 4 is replaced by ADE-704A (ADE-6291 for 20th Anniversary cabinets only), that is still used to this day.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: "Dance Dance Revolution" has been released in many different countries on many different platforms. Originally released in Japan as an arcade game and then a PlayStation game, which was a bestseller. DDR was later released in North American, Europe, Korea, the whole of Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South America and Mexico on multiple platforms including the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Wii, and many others. Due to demand, Japanese versions of the game, which are usually different from the games released in other countries, are often imported or bootlegged. DDR fansites make an attempt to keep track of the locations of arcade machines throughout the major regions.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: DDR games have been released on various video game consoles, including the PlayStation, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, GameCube, Wii, Xbox and Xbox 360, and even PCs. Home versions often contain new songs, songs from the arcade version, and additional features that take advantage of the capabilities of the console (e.g.; Xbox 360 versions such as the Dance Dance Revolution Universe series include support for online multiplayer and downloadable songs over Xbox Live, and high definition graphics). DDR has even reached Nintendo's Game Boy Color, with five versions of "Dance Dance Revolution GB" released in Japan; these included a series of three mainstream DDR games, a Disney Mix, and an Oha Star. The games come with a small thumb pad that fits over the Game Boy Color's controls to simulate the dance pad.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Home versions are commonly bundled with soft plastic dance pads that are similar in appearance and function to the Nintendo Power Pad. Some third-party manufacturers produce hard metal pads at a higher price.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Three version of DDR was also produced for the PC, and the 1st is released in North America. It uses the interface of "Dance Dance Revolution 4thMix", and contains around 40 songs from the first six mainstream arcade releases. It has not been as well received as the console versions.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: A last PC version of DDR, called Dance Dance Revolution Grand Prix, was also produced in Japan. It uses the interface of "Dance Dance Revolution A20 PLUS", and contains 6 licences, 9 revival licences, and over 800 songs from all mainstream arcade releases.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: DDR has also seen a number of mobile game releases on Apple iOS and Android platforms, including "Dance Dance Revolution S". It was announced alongside several other adaptations of Konami franchises to the iOS platform in January 2009. A free preview version was also released, "Dance Dance Revolution S Lite", which features one song and served as a preview for the final version and as a demo. The final version was released in the Japanese App Store on February 27, 2009. "Dance Dance Revolution S+", a sequel with in-app song purchasing, was released the same year.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Due to the success of the "Dance Dance Revolution" franchise, many other games with similar or identical gameplay have been created.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Commercial competitors of "DDR" include the Korean series "Pump It Up" and the American series "In the Groove" by Roxor Games, as well as TechnoMotion by F2 Systems, "EZ2Dancer" by Amuseworld, and "MC Groovz Dance Craze" by Mad Catz.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: "In the Groove" was met with legal action by Konami and resulted in Konami's acquisition of the game's intellectual property.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: A Christian version of "DDR", named "Dance Praise", has been made by Digital Praise. Ubisoft produced a dance game based on Disney's "The Jungle Book" titled "The Jungle Book Groove Party".


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Fan-made versions of "DDR" have also been created, many freely available to the public under open source licenses. The most popular of these is "StepMania", upon which the game "In the Groove" is based. These simulators allow for players to create and play their own songs to their own programmed steps. As a result, many "DDR" fans have held contests and released "mixes" of custom songs and steps for these simulators. Notably the Japanese "Foonmix" series and the DDR East Invasion Tournamix competitions. Other simulators include "Dance with Intensity" and "pyDance" for Windows, both of which are no longer developed, and "Feet of Fury", a homebrew game for the Sega Dreamcast.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Besides direct clones, many other games have been released that center around rhythm and dance due to "DDR"s popularity. "Dance! Online" released by Acclaim combines dance pad play with an MMO element. ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" and Codemasters' "Dance Factory" are more recent examples of games that pay homage to "DDR" and the genre it created. Konami uses music from its other rhythm game series such as "Beatmania" and "Beatmania IIDX", "Drummania", "GuitarFreaks", and "Pop'n Music", as well as making references to "DDR" in its other games and vice versa.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Tournaments are held worldwide, with participants usually competing for higher scores or number of Perfects (referred to as "Perfect Attack" tournaments). Less common are "freestyle" tournaments, where players develop actual dance routines to perform while following the steps in the game.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Many "DDR" players, in order to get better scores by focusing on timing and pattern reading, will minimize any extraneous body movement during gameplay. These players are commonly referred to as "technical", "tech" or "perfect attack" (PA) players. These technical players usually play the most difficult songs on the highest difficulty levels in an attempt to perfect their scores, and the most elite players are able to get perfect or near perfect scores on all of the hardest songs in the game. The more "technical" a song gets the more the player must use minimalistic movements in order to hit all the arrows with perfection. These players perfect using their heels as well and often hold on to the bar to take weight off their feet enabling them to move faster and tire more slowly. This style of play is the focus of most competitions.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Other "DDR" players choose to incorporate complex or flashy techniques into their play movements, and some of these "freestyle" players develop intricate dance routines to perform during a song. Freestyle players tend to choose songs on lower difficulty levels, so that the player is not restricted in their movements by large quantities of required steps. Some players can even dance facing away from the screen.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Somewhere in the middle are the players which choose to do a little bit of both of the formers. There are criticisms of the In The Groove style of play which focuses on "perfect attack". More traditional players say it takes the fun away from the game the harder the step-charts get, which makes players use much less movement overall to conserve stamina. By doing this, it is no longer a dance game and many arrows do not fit perfectly with the beat because there are simply too many of them. The middle players enjoy moving to the beat and still trying to improve their scores without having to adopt the In the Groove style of play.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: A freestyling act can also involve performing other stunts while playing. On an episode of ABC's short-lived series "Master of Champions", Billy Matsumoto won the episode when he played 5th Mix's "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love (Speed Mix)" on Heavy mode while juggling three lit torches.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: In 2004, "Dance Dance Revolution" became an official sporting event in Norway. The first official club, DDR Oslo, was founded in 2004. The tournaments in Norway were divided into two parts, first there was a group play where the 2 or 3 best players from each group went to the final rounds. Elimination of the player with the lowest game score was used for each round in the finals. The scoring system used was based on people dancing to 2 or 3 songs. Some of the songs were selected randomly and had to be played by everyone. The others were player-chosen, which introduced some strategy into the game, as some songs had higher possible scoring than others. "Dancing Stage EuroMix 2" was used for the Norwegian tournaments.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: In recent years, "Dance Dance Revolution" has been promoted by Konami as an esport, mainly through their own competitive tournament, the "Konami Arcade Championship". The tournament allows players in different regions around the world to sign up and play in specific online events to earn a spot in the grand finals, typically held in Tokyo, Japan. The first iterations of the tournament were limited only to competitors in Japan. In subsequent years, players from Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries were allowed to enter. The 6th Annual tournament, which concluded on February 11, 2017, was notable for being the first time that competitors from the United States were eligible to enter. The 7th Annual event, which concluded on February 10, 2018, added Indonesia and Canada as eligible competitor regions.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: The 9th Annual Konami Arcade Championship added eligibility for players in Australia and New Zealand. The finals took place on February 8, 2020, and resulted in Chris Chike winning the global tournament.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Community-run "DDR" esports tournaments have gained traction since 2017, and have been growing in popularity and participation every year since, particularly in North America after the release of Dance Dance Revolution A. Recently, "DDR" has been featured as part of the "CEO" game tournament event. "DDR" is also the main event in the annual rhythm game tournament event, "The Big Deal", taking place in Dallas, Texas. The 2019 event was historic for being the largest in-person "DDR" tournament in the game's history.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: In 2022, Konami announced a big expansion to its official BEMANI esports organization, the "BEMANI PRO LEAGUE". It was confirmed that "DDR" would be included in the future as a tournament league.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Many news outlets have reported how playing "DDR" can be good aerobic exercise; some regular players have reported weight loss of 10–50 pounds (5–20 kg). In one example, a player found that including "DDR" in her day-to-day life resulted in a loss of . Some other examples would be Matthew Keene's account of losing upwards of and Yashar Esfandi's claim of losing in four months through incorporation of "DDR". Although the quantity of calories burned by playing "DDR" have not been scientifically measured, the amount of active movement required to play implies that "DDR" provides at least some degree of healthy exercise, and is an effective part of a balanced workout routine.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Many home versions of the game have a function to estimate calories burned, given a player's weight. Additionally, players can use "workout mode" to make a diary of calories burned playing DDR and any self-reported changes in the player's weight. The latest arcade release, DanceDanceRevolution A3, tracks calories burned per song, as well as the total calories burned by the player for the day. Additionally, the game's interface showcases the equivalent food to the amount of burned calories (such as a banana, a bowl of rice, and spaghetti carbonara).


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: At the start of 2006, Konami announced that the "DDR" games would be used as part of a fitness program to be phased into West Virginia's 765 state schools, starting with its 103 middle schools, over the next two years. The program was conceived by a researcher at West Virginia University's Motor Development Center.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: California Institute of Technology allows its students to use "DDR" to fulfill part of its physical education requirement, as students may design their own fitness program.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: University of Kansas has a class for "Dance Dance Revolution" open for students to take as a 1 credit hour course.


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: Cyber Coach has sold in excess of 600 systems in schools in the UK and features the "DDR"-inspired game "Disco Disco 2".


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: The success of the Dance Dance Revolution series has resulted in two Guinness World Records: "Longest Dance Dance Revolution Marathon" which is currently held by Alex Skudlarek at 16 hours, 18 minutes, and nine seconds. and "Most Widely Used Video Game in Schools."


title: Dance Dance Revolution

text: On October 2, 2018, Deadline reported that Cara Fano would be supervising the production of a film based on the series. The report states that the film “will explore a world on the brink of destruction where the only hope is to unite through the universal language of dance.” Stampede Ventures and Branded Pictures Entertainment have partnered to produce the film. Producers J. Todd Harris and Marc Marcum are also working with Konami on the project.


title: Roshan Seth

text: Roshan Seth (born 2 April 1942) is a British-Indian actor, writer and theatre director who has worked in the United Kingdom, United States and India. He began his acting career in the early 1960s in the UK, but left acting the following decade and moved to India to work as a journalist. In the 1980s, he rose to prominence for his comeback performance as Jawaharlal Nehru in Richard Attenborough's Academy Award-winning film "Gandhi", which brought him a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and reignited his interest in acting.


title: Roshan Seth

text: He has since appeared in numerous British and American feature films and television programmes, with roles ranging from Chattar Lal in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", Amit Rao in "A Passage to India", Papa Hussein in "My Beautiful Laundrette", patriarch Jay in "Mississippi Masala" and Dhalsim in "Street Fighter: The Movie". He won the Genie Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the Canadian film "Such a Long Journey". Other projects he has appeared include "Bharat Ek Khoj", "Not Without My Daughter", "The Buddha of Suburbia", "Vertical Limit, Monsoon Wedding, Proof, Ek Tha Tiger, Indian Summers" and "Dumbo".


title: Roshan Seth

text: Seth was born in Patna, Bihar on 2 April 1942 during the British Raj, to a Hindu father and a Muslim mother. His father was a biochemistry professor at Patna Medical College. He was educated at The Doon School, then did graduate studies in history at St Stephen's College. There, he honed his theatrical skills at the Shakespeare Society, before moving to England for further training. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1965 and started working in British television and repertory theatre.


title: Roshan Seth

text: Seth first appeared in Peter Brook's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which toured in 1972. Seth entered feature films in Richard Lester's "Juggernaut" (1974). However, subsequent filmmakers only wanted Seth for limited ethnic roles, so that his career stalled.


title: Roshan Seth

text: Discouraged, Seth abandoned acting and returned to India in 1977, where he worked as a journalist and editor of the quarterly journal published by the India International Centre, Delhi. He took leave from this job after Richard Attenborough asked Seth to play Jawaharlal Nehru in "Gandhi" (1982). Seth was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the film. Seth subsequently also played Jawaharlal Nehru in "Bharat Ek Khoj", a 53-episode series on Doordarshan in 1988.


title: Roshan Seth

text: David Hare met Seth in Delhi in 1982, and asked him to play author Victor Mehta in Hare's biographical play "A Map of the World". Seth left his editing job and returned to acting. "A Map of the World" toured for several years in Australia, London, and New York. After the release of the multi-award-winning movie "Gandhi" (1982), Seth was much in demand, and when "A Map of the World"'s Broadway run finished, his movie career took off. His work in 1984 included major roles in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and David Lean's "A Passage to India". Following that he played a lead in "My Beautiful Laundrette" (1985), and he played Pancks in "Little Dorrit" (1988).


title: Roshan Seth

text: Seth's film credits in the 1990s included roles in "Not Without My Daughter" (1991), "Mississippi Masala" (1991), "Street Fighter" (1994), and Harish Saluja's "The Journey" (1997). In 1993, he played the role of Haroon Amir in the television miniseries "The Buddha of Suburbia", for which he was nominated a Royal Television Society award for "Best Actor – Male". In 1995, he played the role of Baba in "Flight", for which he won the "Best Actor" award at the Sochi International Film Festival. In 1998, he played the leading role of Gustad Noble in the film "Such a Long Journey", for which he won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.


title: Roshan Seth

text: In 2001, Seth appeared in "Monsoon Wedding" and he has continued working steadily in British and American films. In 2003 he played the lead in the American film "Cosmopolitan", which was broadcast nationally on PBS. He also recently returned to mainstream Indian cinema with his role in the 2012 film, "Ek Tha Tiger".


title: Roshan Seth

text: Seth was married to author Pepita Seth, but they separated in the late 1980s and divorced in 2004. His brother is the retired Indian diplomat Aftab Seth.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: "Walk Like an Egyptian" is a song recorded by the American band the Bangles. It was released in 1986 as the third single from the album "Different Light". It was the band's first number one single, being certified gold by the RIAA, and became "Billboard"'s number-one song of 1987.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: Liam Sternberg said he was inspired to create the song while on a ferry crossing the English Channel. When the vessel hit choppy water, passengers stepped carefully and moved their arms awkwardly while struggling to maintain their balance, and that reminded Sternberg of the depiction of human figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. He wrote the words "Walk like an Egyptian" in a notebook. Later, Sternberg looked back in the notebook, and composing the melody with a guitar, he put together an up-tempo song with lyrics about Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Nile River, crocodiles, desert sand, bazaars and hookah pipes and then segued into modern scenes of blond waitresses, school kids and police officers.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: Sternberg finished a demo version by January 1984 with singer Marti Jones. He offered it to Toni Basil, who turned it down. Lene Lovich recorded the first version of the song, but it went unreleased when she decided to take a break from music to raise her family. David Kahne from Peer Southern Publishing was the producer of "Different Light"; he received a copy of the demo and liked it, especially Jones's "offhand quality".


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: Kahne took the song to the Bangles, who agreed to record it. He had each member of the group sing the lyrics to determine who would sing each verse; Vicki Peterson, Michael Steele, and Susanna Hoffs sang lead vocals in the final version on the first, second, and third verses, respectively. Kahne disliked Debbi Peterson's leads, so she was relegated to backing vocals, which angered her and caused tension within the group. The situation was exacerbated by the use of a drum machine in place of her drumming, further diminishing her role in the song. She can be seen playing the tambourine during their 1986 performance on "The Old Grey Whistle Test". The whistling in the song was played by a machine.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: "Walk Like an Egyptian" was released as the third single from "Different Light". It debuted on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in September 1986. The song reached a peak of number three on the UK Singles Chart in November 1986 and reached number one in the US on December 20, staying at the top of the Hot 100 for four weeks, carrying it over into January 1987. The success of the song and "Manic Monday" propelled "Different Light" to number two on the "Billboard" 200 chart, making it the group's most successful album.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: The music video for "Walk Like an Egyptian" was nominated for Best Group Video at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. It features both the Bangles performing the song at a concert and scenes of people dancing in poses similar to those depicted in the Ancient Egyptian reliefs that inspired songwriter Liam Sternberg. Most of these people were filmed on the streets of New York City, although special effects were used to modify photos of Princess Diana, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and the Statue of Liberty.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: In a popular scene from the video, Hoffs was filmed in a close-up where her eyes moved from side to side, looking left and right. When asked about the scene in an interview, Hoffs explained that she was looking at individual audience members during the video shoot, which took place with a live audience. Looking directly at individual audience members was a technique she used to overcome stage fright, and she was unaware that the camera had a close-up on her while she was employing this technique, switching between one audience member on her left and one on her right.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: In 1990, "Walk Like an Egyptian" was re-issued as a single in the UK to promote the Bangles' "Greatest Hits" album. It featured new remixes for the song called Ozymandias Remix. It charted at number 73 in the UK.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: "Walk Like an Egyptian" was one of the songs which were claimed to have been banned by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Snopes in researching this found that the list was simply suggestions regarding songs to be sensitive about when deciding what to play. It was also included in a "list of records to be avoided" drawn up by the BBC during the Gulf War.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: The song was used as the theme of the ending credits of the Japanese animated series "" (based off the third part of the manga series "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure") for the first 24 episodes.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: The song is used during the closing credits of by Alain Chabat, one of the biggest successes in French movies history.


title: Walk Like an Egyptian

text: In Family Guy, Carter Pewterschmidt is shown listening to the song while singing different lyrics that relate to his life.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Bill Callahan (born June 3, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist who has also recorded and performed under the band name Smog. Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four-track tape recorders. Later he began releasing albums with the label Drag City, to which he remains signed today. His work, in addition to lo-fi music, has encompassed apocalyptic folk and gothic country.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Callahan started out as a highly experimental artist, using substandard instruments and recording equipment. His early songs lacked melodic structure and were clumsily played on poorly tuned guitars, resulting in the dissonant sounds on his self-released cassettes and debut album "Sewn to the Sky". Much of his early output was instrumental, a stark contrast to the lyrical focus of his later work. His use of lo-fi techniques was not primarily an aesthetic preference, but stemmed from his lack of resources to make and record music. Once he signed a contract with Drag City, he started to use recording studios and a greater variety of instruments for his records.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: From 1993 to 2000, Callahan's recordings grew more and more "professional" sounding, with more instruments, and a higher sound quality. In this period he recorded two albums with the influential producer Jim O'Rourke and Tortoise's John McEntire, and collaborated with Neil Hagerty. Callahan also worked closely with his then-girlfriend Cynthia Dall in his early career, and they contributed vocals to each other's albums. After 2000's "Dongs of Sevotion", Callahan began moving back to a slightly simpler instrumentation and recording style, while retaining the more consistent songwriting style he had developed over the years. This shift is apparent in albums such as "Rain on Lens", "Supper", and "A River Ain't Too Much to Love".


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Smog's songs are often based on simple, repetitive structures, consisting of a simple chord progression repeated for the duration of the entire song. His singing is characterized by his baritone voice. Melodically and lyrically he tends to eschew the verse-chorus approach favoured by many contemporary songwriters, preferring instead a more free-form approach relying less on melodic and lyrical repetition. Themes in Callahan's lyrics include relationships, animals, relocation, nature, and more recently, politics. On the subject of voice in his albums, Callahan has said, "It's usually one character per record. So, the character appears in all or most of the songs on one record and then is gone. Though it makes me feel weird to talk about. Because I don't really think in clear terms of characters. My albums as a whole could be seen as one character with many voices." His generally dispassionate delivery of lyrics and dark irony often obfuscate complex emotional and lyrical twists and turns. Critics have generally characterized his music as depressing and intensely introverted, with one critic describing it as "a peep-show view into an insular world of alienation."


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Cat Power (Chan Marshall) recorded Callahan's song "Bathysphere" on her 1996 album "What Would the Community Think" and also covered another Callahan song, "Red Apples", on her "Covers Record", released in 2000.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: In 2007, Callahan released "Woke on a Whaleheart", his first solo album released under his own name. "Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle" followed in April 2009. Both recordings were released through Drag City, worldwide. In 2009, Callahan contributed cover songs on four separate tribute albums to Judee Sill, Kath Bloom, Chris Knox, and Merge Records. In 2010, he released his first live album "Rough Travel for a Rare Thing", which was recorded in 2007 at The Toff in Melbourne, Australia. "Apocalypse", was released in April 2011 to favorable reviews. Critic Sasha Frere-Jones called it "my favorite of Callahan's albums, not because it has better songs—those are scattered among at least five others – but because it does exactly what he wants it to do: it conveys an album’s coherence." A tour film chronicling Callahan's 2011 "Apocalypse" tour was released in 2012.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: His followup to "Apocalypse", "Dream River", was released in September 2013. A dub remix of the album entitled "Have Fun With God" followed in January 2014. In 2018, Callahan was featured in the "Live at Third Man Records" series. This was his second live album, and features songs from Callahan's previous three studio albums.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Callahan took a hiatus from making music after the birth of his son in 2015 and for a time he considered quitting music altogether, citing the demands of being a parent. His musical hiatus ended with the release of "Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest," on June 14, 2019. It received favourable reviews, with "Pitchfork" contributing editor Jayson Greene referring to it as a "highlight of his career". His more prolific pace has since returned with the release of "Gold Record", in September 2020.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Callahan and Will Oldham collaborated on a series of cover songs along with several special guests that they released as a series of videos on YouTube. They compiled these songs into the album "Blind Date Party" that was released in December 2021. Callahan's latest solo album "YTI⅃AƎЯ" followed in October 2022.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: His song "Drover" features prominently in the final episode of the documentary series "Wild Wild Country", the title of which is drawn from the song's chorus. His song "America" also plays during the credits of Episode 1.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: His cover of Kath Bloom's "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" is featured in the fifth episode of the third series of "Sex Education."


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Though he was born in Maryland, Callahan's family spent a total of eight years living in Knaresborough in England's North Riding of Yorkshire, with a four-year return to Maryland from 1969 to 1973. His parents worked as language analysts for the National Security Agency. He currently lives in Austin, TX.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: Callahan previously dated other high-profile musicians Cynthia Dall, Cat Power, and Joanna Newsom. In 2013, he became engaged to photographer and filmmaker Hanly Banks; they were married the next year. Their son, Bass, was born in March 2015. They also have a daughter that was born in 2019 or 2020.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: A book of photographs of Callahan by Chris Taylor, titled "The Life and Times of William Callahan", was released in January 2013.


title: Bill Callahan (musician)

text: In October 2014, a collection of ink drawings by Callahan and lyrics spanning his first album as Smog, to "Dream River" was released, titled "I Drive a Valence".


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: Bai Meng Yan ( born 23 September 1994), known by her stage name Bai Lu (), is a Chinese Actress, Model and Singer who predominantly works in Chinese television drama industry. Bai Lu started her acting career in 2016 and has since then starred in a lot of popular dramas. She is known for her natural acting abilities and fun-loving persona offscreen. Best known for her roles in The Legends, Love is Sweet, One and Only and Forever and Ever.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2010, she enrolled into the Foreign Language major under the Changzhou Technical Institute of Tourism and Commerce. She is fond of reading and has an elegant writing style. With her teacher's encouragement, she participated in the Jiangsu Provincial Essay Writing Competition and was placed first. In addition, she also debuted as a screenwriter for a school drama on psychosocial themes and a classroom culture themed drama which were well received.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2012, Bai Lu participated in SM Entertainment's overseas audition, but was unsuccessful. After graduating her major in 2015, she then began working as a graphic model for Taobao. She shot a film for Literary Style magazine and for the first time appeared on the magazine cover of it's April edition. In the same year, Bai Lu began to pursue her career as an actress and acted in a short film《遇见你这么美好的事情》- "Meeting You Is Such A Good Thing" produced by Cat's Tree Studio.She also subsequently acted as the protagonist in a few more short films under the same production all of which gained online popularity.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2016, Bai signed a contract with Yu Zheng's entertainment company Huanyu Film. She then acted in her first television series "Zhaoge", playing a noble lady.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2017, Bai starred in the historical comedy television series "King Is Not Easy", which is her first leading role. The same year, she was cast in the fantasy drama "The Monkey King: Land of Beauty" as the female lead.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2018, Bai starred in historical romance drama "Untouchable Lovers", playing dual roles in the series, as a female general (Hou Xuan) and a prince's concubine (Le Yun). She was awarded the Newcomer Award at the iQiyi All-Star Carnival for her performance.


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2019, Bai starred in the xianxia drama "The Legends" alongside Xu Kai, where her role as an overbearing demoness received positive reviews. The same year, she starred in the youth military drama "Arsenal Military Academy" and romance comedy drama "Lucky's First Love".


title: Bai Lu (actress)

text: In 2020, Bai starred in the workplace romance drama "Love is Sweet" alongside Luo Yunxi, playing an idealistic but intelligent financial analyst.


title: Brigadoon

text: Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe. The song "Almost Like Being in Love", from the musical, has become a standard. It features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. Tommy, one of the tourists, falls in love with Fiona, a young woman from Brigadoon.


title: Brigadoon

text: The original production opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances. It starred David Brooks, Marion Bell, Pamela Britton, and Lee Sullivan. In 1949, "Brigadoon" opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End and ran for 685 performances; many revivals have followed. A 1954 film version starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and a 1966 television version starred Robert Goulet and Peter Falk.


title: Brigadoon

text: Lyricist and book writer Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe had previously collaborated on three musicals; the first, "Life of the Party", closed during pre-Broadway tryouts, and the second and third, "What's Up?" and "The Day Before Spring", had met with moderate success. Inspired by Rodgers and Hammerstein's successful collaborations "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel", they created "Brigadoon", about a magical village in the Scottish highlands.


title: Brigadoon

text: Like "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel", "Brigadoon" included a serious love story as the main plot and a lighter romance as subplot. Thematically, the musical depicted the contrast between empty city life and the warmth and simplicity of the country, focusing on a theme of love transcending time. Agnes de Mille, who had previously choreographed "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel", was hired as choreographer, and her work for "Brigadoon" incorporated elements of traditional Scottish folk dance: a traditional sword dance, a chase scene, and a funeral dance.


title: Brigadoon

text: Though Lerner and Loewe originally took "Brigadoon" to producer Billy Rose, Cheryl Crawford was the producer who actually brought "Brigadoon" to Broadway. Lerner explained the change in producer by saying: "The contract which [Billy Rose] wished us to sign negated Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves." Under Loewe's guidance, Ted Royal received a sole orchestrator credit for his work on the original production. His atmospheric arrangements have been frequently used for the revivals.


title: Brigadoon

text: Though the Highland village of Brigadoon is fictional, it is named after the (Lowland) Brig o' Doon, a bridge located south of Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland, which is the setting for the final verse of Robert Burns's poem "Tam o' Shanter".


title: Brigadoon

text: "The New York Times"'s theater critic George Jean Nathan wrote that Lerner's book was based on a German story, published in 1860 by Friedrich Gerstäcker, later translated by Charles Brandon Schaeffer, about the mythical village of Germelshausen that fell under a magic curse. However, Lerner denied that he had based the book on an older story, and, in an explanation published in "The New York Times", stated that he did not learn of the existence of the Germelshausen story until after he had completed the first draft of "Brigadoon". Lerner said that in his subsequent research, he found many other legends of disappearing towns in various countries' folklore, and he pronounced their similarities "unconscious coincidence".


title: Brigadoon

text: New Yorkers Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas have travelled to the Scottish Highlands on a game-hunting vacation, but they get lost on their first night out. They begin to hear music ("Brigadoon") coming from a nearby village that does not appear on their map of the area. They head over there to get directions back to their inn and find a fair in progress ("McConnachy Square"), with villagers dressed in traditional Scottish tartan. Andrew MacLaren and his daughters arrive at the fair to purchase supplies for younger daughter Jean's wedding to Charlie Dalrymple. Archie Beaton's son Harry madly loves Jean and is depressed at the thought of her marrying another, unable to find comfort in Maggie Anderson's devotion to him. One of the girls asks Jean's older sister Fiona when she'll marry, and Fiona answers she's waiting for the right person ("Waitin' For My Dearie").


title: Brigadoon

text: Tommy and Jeff wander into the village and ask where they are; Archie informs them that they are in "Brigadoon". Fiona invites the wanderers to have a meal and rest at the MacLaren home. Flirtatious dairymaid Meg Brockie immediately falls for Jeff and leads him off. Charlie Dalrymple appears, rejoicing in his impending nuptials. He shares a drink with Tommy, toasting to a Mr. Forsythe whom he thanks for "postponing the miracle". When Tommy asks what that means, Fiona shushes him and leads him away as Charlie celebrates the end of his bachelorhood ("Go Home with Bonnie Jean"). Tommy tells Fiona that he has a fiancée, Jane, in New York, but he's in no hurry to marry her, and Fiona reveals that she likes Tommy very much. Tommy insists on accompanying Fiona to gather heather for the wedding ("The Heather on the Hill"). Meanwhile, Meg takes Jeff to a place in the forest with a shack and a cot. She tells him she's "highly attracted" to him, but he spurns her advances, wanting only to sleep. She reflects on her 'eventful' love life ("The Love of My Life").


title: Brigadoon

text: At the MacLarens', Jean's friends help her pack her things to move into Charlie's home ("Jeannie's Packin' Up"). Charlie arrives to sign the MacLarens' family Bible. He wants to see Jean; told that it's bad luck to see her on the wedding day, he begs for her to come out anyway ("Come to Me, Bend to Me"). Tommy and Fiona return with a basket full of heather, and Fiona goes upstairs to help Jean dress for the wedding. Jeff arrives wearing a pair of Highland trews (trousers); apparently his own pants have been damaged on a "thistle". Jeff finds that Tommy is so happy that he can barely contain it ("Almost Like Being in Love"). Tommy notices that all the events listed in the family Bible, including Jean's wedding, are listed as if they had happened 200 years earlier. When he asks Fiona about this, she sends him to the schoolmaster, Mr. Lundie.


title: Brigadoon

text: Fiona, Tommy, and Jeff arrive at Mr. Lundie's home, where he relates a story that the two New Yorkers can hardly believe: to protect Brigadoon from being changed by the outside world, 200 years ago the local minister prayed to God to have Brigadoon disappear, only to reappear for one day every 100 years. All citizens of Brigadoon are forbidden to leave the town, or it will disappear forever. Tommy asks hypothetically if an outsider could be permitted to stay. Mr. Lundie replies, "A stranger can stay if he loves someone here – not jus' Brigadoon, mind ye, but someone in Brigadoon – enough to want to give up everythin' an' stay with that one person. Which is how it should be. 'Cause after all, lad, if ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible."


title: Brigadoon

text: The group leaves to go to the wedding, which opens with the clans coming in from the hills. Mr. Lundie marries Charlie and Jean, and they perform a traditional celebratory wedding dance. Sword dancers appear, led by Harry, and they perform an elaborate dance over their weapons. All the town joins in the dance, but it abruptly halts when Jean screams as Harry tries to kiss her. In anguish over Jean's wedding, he announces that he's leaving the town (which would end the miracle, causing Brigadoon to disappear forever into the Highland mists) and sprints away.


title: Brigadoon

text: The men of the town, including Tommy and a reluctant Jeff, frantically try to find Harry before he can depart the town ("The Chase"). Suddenly an agonized scream is heard. Harry, who appears to have fallen on a rock and crushed his skull, is found dead by the other men. Deciding not to tell the rest of the town until the next morning, the men carry Harry's body away. Fiona and her father arrive to see if everything is all right. As Mr. MacLaren leaves, Tommy sees Fiona, and they embrace. She reveals her love for him, and he tells her he believes he feels the same way ("There But For You Go I"). Fiona reminds him that the end of the day is near, and Tommy tells her he wants to stay in Brigadoon with her. They go to find Mr. Lundie.


title: Brigadoon

text: Meanwhile, in the village, Meg tells about the day her parents were drunkenly married ("My Mother's Wedding Day"), and the townsfolk dance until the sound of Highland pipes pierces the air. The gaiety is interrupted as Archie Beaton enters carrying Harry's body, led by the pipers playing a lament. Maggie, who loved Harry, performs a funeral dance for her unrequited love. The men of Brigadoon help Archie carry his son to the burial place.


title: Brigadoon

text: Tommy finds Jeff and announces his intention to stay. Jeff thinks the idea is absurd and argues with Tommy until he has convinced him that Brigadoon is only a dream. Jeff also reveals that he tripped Harry and accidentally killed him. Fiona and Mr. Lundie arrive, and Tommy, shaken by Jeff's confession, tells Fiona that he loves her, but he can't stay; he still has doubts ("From This Day On"). Fiona tells Tommy, as she fades away into darkness, that she will love him forever.


title: Brigadoon

text: Four months later, Jeff is drinking heavily at a hotel bar in New York. Tommy, who has been living on a farm in New Hampshire, enters and greets Jeff, but is still in love with Fiona and cannot stop thinking about her. His fiancée Jane Ashton, a beautiful socialite, talks to him about their impending wedding, but everything she says causes him to hear Fiona's voice and dream of Brigadoon ("Come to Me, Bend to Me" (reprise) and "Heather on the Hill" (reprise)). Tommy tells Jane that he cannot marry her, and she argues with him, but he continues to daydream about his true love ("Go Home With Bonnie Jean" (reprise) and "From This Day On" (reprise)). Jane leaves, and Tommy tells Jeff that he wants to return to Scotland, although he knows the village will not be there.


title: Brigadoon

text: The pair return to the spot where they found Brigadoon and, as they expected, see nothing there. Just as they turn to leave, they hear the music again ("Brigadoon"), and Mr. Lundie appears and says, "My my! You must really love her. You woke me up!" Tommy waves goodbye to Jeff and disappears with Mr. Lundie into the Highland mist to be reunited with Fiona.


title: Brigadoon

text: The original Broadway production, directed by Robert Lewis and choreographed by Agnes de Mille, opened March 13, 1947, at the Ziegfeld Theatre, where it ran for 581 performances It starred David Brooks as Tommy, George Keane as Jeff, Marion Bell as Fiona, Lee Sullivan as Charlie, Virginia Bosler as Jeannie, James Mitchell as Harry, and Pamela Britton as Meg. The concertmistress of the orchestra was noted American violinist Joan Field. De Mille won the Tony Award for Best Choreography, and Bell and Mitchell won the Theatre World Award. The production enjoyed an extended North American tour.


title: Brigadoon

text: The musical's original West End production opened on April 14, 1949, at Her Majesty's Theatre, running for 685 performances. It starred Philip Hanna as Tommy, Patricia Hughes as Fiona, James Jamieson as Harry, and Noele Gordon as Meg. Bruce Trent took the leading role in 1949 at His Majesty's Theatre. Two telegrams, one from impresario Emile Littler and another where the signature is difficult to identify, to Bruce Trent are dated 24 February 1949.


title: Brigadoon

text: David Brooks reprised his role of Tommy in the Summertime Light Opera's production in Houston, Texas in 1950, with Gregg Juarez as Jeff and Dorothy MacNeil of the New York City Opera as Fiona. Stage direction was by John Brownlee, principal baritone of the Metropolitan Opera, and the musical director and conductor was Frederick Fennell of the Rochester Eastman Kodak Symphony.


title: Brigadoon

text: The musical was revived at New York City Center in May 1950. It was revived on Broadway seven years later, directed by George H. Englund and choreographed by De Mille, opening on April 15, 1957, at the Adelphi Theatre, where it ran for 24 performances. The cast included David Atkinson, Helen Gallagher, Patricia Birch, and Marilyn Cooper. Another Broadway revival, directed by John Fearnley and choreographed by De Mille, opened on January 30, 1963, at New York City Center, where it ran for 16 performances. The cast included Peter Palmer, Russell Nype, Sally Ann Howes, and Edward Villella. It was Tony-nominated for Best Actress in a Musical (Howes), Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Conductor and Musical Director.


title: Brigadoon

text: The next Broadway revival, directed by Vivian Matalon and choreographed by De Mille, opened on October 16, 1980, at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 133 performances and eight previews. The cast included Meg Bussert, Martin Vidnovic, and John Curry. Vidnovic received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, Bussert earned a Tony nomination and won the Theatre World Award, and the production was Tony-nominated for Best Reproduction.


title: Brigadoon

text: The musical was revived in the West End at the Victoria Palace Theatre, opening on October 25, 1988, and closing August 5, 1989, starring Robert Meadmore (Tommy), Jacinta Mulcahy, and Lesley Mackie. The director was Roger Redfarn and de Mille's dances were rechoreographed by Tommy Shaw. "The Times" reviewer noted that those dances were "the main source of the magic."


title: Brigadoon

text: In 2014, a major revival was staged at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Directed and choreographed by Rachel Rockwell, with a revised book by Brian Hill, Charles Isherwood of "The New York Times" called the production "a first-class revival that boasts an infectious buoyancy of spirit and a welcome absence of postmodern flourishes." This version with the revised book by Hill was staged at the Shaw Festival in 2019.


title: Brigadoon

text: The 2017 Melbourne production by The Production Company at the State Theatre, with Rohan Browne, Genevive Kingsford and Nancye Hayes and directed by Jason Langley, updated the setting of the world outside Brigadoon to contemporary times.


title: Brigadoon

text: A staged concert was presented at New York City Center from November 15 to 19, 2017, with Stephanie J. Block as Meg Brockie, Aasif Mandvi as Jeff Douglas, Kelli O'Hara as Fiona and Patrick Wilson as Tommy Albright. It was directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. Reviews for this production were uniformly positive.


title: Brigadoon

text: A Cinemascope film version of "Brigadoon", directed by Vincente Minnelli, was released by MGM in 1954 with Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse in leading roles.


title: Brigadoon

text: On October 15, 1966, a television film version was broadcast on ABC. This version won five Primetime Emmy Awards.


title: Brigadoon

text: The 1966 television version used a modernized, abbreviated script that accommodated much more of the score than the 1954 film version had, though the entire production ran only ninety minutes with commercials. "My Mother's Wedding Day" was restored to this version, though "Once in the Highlands", "Jeannie's Packin' Up", and "The Love of My Life" were still absent. In this version, Tommy and Jeff were participating in an auto race when their car stalled just outside Brigadoon.


title: Brigadoon

text: The TV film starred Robert Goulet as Tommy, Peter Falk as Jeff, and Sally Ann Howes as Fiona. Also appearing were Finlay Currie, in one of his last roles, as Mr. Lundie, Edward Villella as Harry Beaton, and Marlyn Mason as Meg. The TV film was directed by Fielder Cook.


title: Brigadoon

text: The 1966 telecast of "Brigadoon" has not been shown since its 1968 rebroadcast, nor has it ever been released on videocassette or DVD. It may, however, be viewed on the Internet Archive and on YouTube. In addition, the soundtrack of this TV adaptation was released by Columbia Records (under its "Columbia Special Products" banner) on the same year as the original broadcast.


title: Brigadoon

text: "Schmigadoon!" is a musical comedy television series which premiered on Apple TV+ on July 16, 2021. The series' title and premise is a modern-day take on "Brigadoon"'s plot.


title: Brigadoon

text: "Brigadoon" opened to very positive reviews with praise for its originality, and for integration of song and story, though some critics had minor points of criticism.


title: Brigadoon

text: Brooks Atkinson of "The New York Times" praised the musical's integration, saying: "For once, the modest label 'musical play' has a precise meaning. For it is impossible to say where the music and dancing leave off and the story begins. Under Bob Lewis's direction all the arts of the theatre have been woven into a singing pattern of enchantment". Atkinson also emphasized Agnes de Mille's contributions as choreographer: "Some of the dances are merely illustrations for the music. One or two of them are conventional, if lovely, maiden round dances. But some of them, like the desperate chase in the forest, are fiercely dramatic. The funeral dance to the dour tune of bagpipes brings the footstep of doom into the forest. And the sword dance, done magnificently by James Mitchell, is tremendously exciting with its stylization of primitive ideas".


title: Brigadoon

text: Robert Coleman of the "New York Daily Mirror" said: "It took courage to produce "Brigadoon", an unconventional musical show of marked originality... [that] still manages to pack a tartan full of popular appeal". In the "New York Herald Tribune", Howard Barnes pronounced "Brigadoon": "A bonny thing for Broadway, a scintillating song and dance fantasy that has given theatregoers reason to toss tamoshanters in air". Robert Garland of the "New York Journal American" particularly praised Pamela Britton as Meg Brockie: "Pamela Britton escaped from both M.G.M. and Frank Sinatra in time to be tough as a Scottish temptress, and rough as a singer of raffish songs". He also opined that famed Russian choreographer George Balanchine should watch "Brigadoon" to learn how a musical should be choreographed. Ward Morehouse of "The New York Sun" deemed it "A stunning show", saying: "It has whimsy, beguiling music, exciting dancing – and it has a book... "Brigadoon" is by far the best musical play the season has produced, and it is certainly one of the best within my entire play-going experience".


title: Brigadoon

text: John Chapman of the "Daily News" enjoyed the dances but thought there were too many and that they interrupted the story: "Just when I get pleasantly steamed up about the love of Mr. Brooks and Miss Bell, I don't want to be cooled off by watching a herd of gazelles from Chorus Equity running around". He particularly praised William Hansen's performance as Mr. Lundie, declaring that he "is so irresistibly able to persuade you that if there isn't a village named "Brigadoon", there ought to be".


title: Brigadoon

text: Louis Kronenberger of "PM" said: "the musical fantasy ["Brigadoon"] not only has charm; it shows a good deal of independence... its charm must lie less in any story it tells than in the general mood it creates; and it has created that mood by fusing a number of theatre elements as densely as possible". Kronenberger, however, disliked the ending, calling it "an outright blunder" done "in the corniest Broadway fashion".


title: Brigadoon

text: Richard Watts Jr. of the "New York Post" wrote: "I have seen other musical comedies that I enjoyed more, but few for which I have a deeper admiration". He opined that Lerner and Loewe's score for "The Day Before Spring" the previous year was better than theirs for "Brigadoon", explaining that: "If my first emotion last night was admiration rather than sheer enjoyment, it was because the proceedings seemed to me more marked by taste and style than by emotional warmth in book and music, but there is no denying that the authors have matured as theatrical craftsmen".


title: Samizdat

text: Samizdat () was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual reproduction was widespread, because most typewriters and printing devices required official registration and permission to access. This was a grassroots practice used to evade official Soviet censorship.


title: Samizdat

text: Etymologically, the word "samizdat" derives from "sam" (, "self, by oneself") and "izdat" (, an abbreviation of , , "publishing house"), and thus means "self-published". The Ukrainian language has a similar term: "samvydav" (самвидав), from "sam", "self", and "vydavnytstvo", "publishing house".


title: Samizdat

text: A Russian poet Nikolay Glazkov coined a version of the term as a pun in the 1940s when he typed copies of his poems and included the note "Samsebyaizdat" (Самсебяиздат, "Myself by Myself Publishers") on the front page.


title: Samizdat

text: "Tamizdat" refers to literature published abroad (там, "tam", "there"), often from smuggled manuscripts.


title: Samizdat

text: The Polish term for this phenomenon coined around 1980 was 'drugi obieg', or the 'second circuit' of publishing.


title: Samizdat

text: All Soviet-produced typewriters and printing devices were officially registered, with their typographic samples collected right at the factory and stored in the government directory. Because every typewriter has micro features which are individual as much as human fingerprints, it allowed the KGB investigators to promptly identify the device which was used to type or print the text in question, and apprehend its user. However, certain East German and Eastern European-made Cyrillic typewriters, most notably the Erika, were purchased by Soviet citizens while traveling to nearby socialist countries, skipped the sample collection procedure and therefore presented more difficulty to trace. Western-produced typewriters, purchased abroad and somehow brought or smuggled into the Soviet Union, were used to type Cyrillic text via Latin characters. To prevent capture, regular bookbinding of ideologically-approved books have been used to conceal the forbidden texts within.


title: Samizdat

text: Samizdat copies of texts, such as Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" or Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" were passed around among trusted friends. The techniques used to reproduce these forbidden texts varied. Several copies might be made using carbon paper, either by hand or on a typewriter; at the other end of the scale, mainframe computer printers were used during night shifts to make multiple copies, and books were at times printed on semiprofessional printing presses in much larger quantities. Before glasnost, most of these methods were dangerous, because copy machines, printing presses, and even typewriters in offices were under control of the organization's First Department (part of the KGB); reference printouts from all of these machines were stored for subsequent identification purposes, should samizdat output be found.


title: Samizdat

text: Samizdat distinguishes itself not only by the ideas and debates that it helped spread to a wider audience but also by its physical form. The hand-typed, often blurry and wrinkled pages with numerous typographical errors and nondescript covers helped to separate and elevate Russian samizdat from Western literature. The physical form of samizdat arose from a simple lack of resources and the necessity to be inconspicuous. In time, dissidents in the USSR began to admire these qualities for their own sake, the ragged appearance of samizdat contrasting sharply with the smooth, well-produced appearance of texts passed by the censor's office for publication by the State. The form samizdat took gained precedence over the ideas it expressed, and became a potent symbol of the resourcefulness and rebellious spirit of the inhabitants of the Soviet Union. In effect, the physical form of samizdat itself elevated the reading of samizdat to a prized clandestine act.


title: Samizdat

text: Samizdat originated from the dissident movement of the Russian intelligentsia, and most samizdat directed itself to a readership of Russian elites. While circulation of samizdat was relatively low, at around 200,000 readers on average, many of these readers possessed positions of cultural power and authority. Furthermore, because of the presence of "dual consciousness" in the Soviet Union, the simultaneous censorship of information and necessity of absorbing information to know how to censor it, many government officials became readers of samizdat. Although the general public at times came into contact with samizdat, most of the public lacked access to the few expensive samizdat texts in circulation, and expressed discontent with the highly censored reading material made available by the state.


title: Samizdat

text: Self-published and self-distributed literature has a long history in Russia. "Samizdat" is unique to the post-Stalin USSR and other countries with similar systems. Faced with the state's powers of censorship, society turned to underground literature for self-analysis and self-expression.


title: Samizdat

text: The first full-length book to be distributed as samizdat was Boris Pasternak's 1957 novel "Doctor Zhivago". Although the literary magazine "Novy Mir" had published ten poems from the book in 1954, a year later the full text was judged unsuitable for publication and entered samizdat circulation.


title: Samizdat

text: Certain works, though published legally by the State-controlled media, were practically impossible to find in bookshops and libraries, and found their way into samizdat: for example Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was widely distributed via samizdat.


title: Samizdat

text: At the outset of the Khrushchev Thaw in the mid-1950s USSR poetry became very popular. Writings of a wide variety of poets circulated among Soviet intelligentsia: known, prohibited, repressed writers as well as those young and unknown. A number of samizdat publications carried unofficial poetry, among them the Moscow magazine "Sintaksis" (1959–1960) by writer Alexander Ginzburg, Vladimir Osipov's "Boomerang" (1960), and "Phoenix" (1961), produced by Yuri Galanskov and Alexander Ginzburg. The editors of these magazines were regulars at impromptu public poetry readings between 1958 and 1961 on Mayakovsky Square in Moscow. The gatherings did not last long, for soon the authorities began clamping down on them. In the summer of 1961, several meeting regulars were arrested and charged with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" (Article 70 of the RSFSR Penal Code), putting an end to most of the magazines.


title: Samizdat

text: Not everything published in samizdat had political overtones. In 1963, Joseph Brodsky was charged with "social parasitism" and convicted for being nothing but a poet. His poems circulated in samizdat, with only four judged as suitable for official Soviet anthologies. In the mid-1960s an unofficial literary group known as SMOG (a word meaning variously "one was able", "I did it", etc.; as an acronym the name also bore a range of interpretations) issued an almanac titled "The Sphinxes" ("Sfinksy") and collections of prose and poetry. Some of their writings were close to the Russian avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s.


title: Samizdat

text: The 1965 show trial of writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, charged with anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, and the subsequent increased repression, marked the demise of the Thaw and the beginning of harsher times for samizdat authors. The trial was carefully documented in a samizdat collection called "The White Book" (1966), compiled by Yuri Galanskov and Alexander Ginzburg. Both writers were among those later arrested and sentenced to prison in what was known as Trial of the Four. In the following years some samizdat content became more politicized, and played an important role in the dissident movement in the Soviet Union.


title: Samizdat

text: The earliest samizdat periodicals were short-lived and mainly literary in focus: "Sintaksis" (1959–1960), "Boomerang" (1960), and "Phoenix" (1961). From 1964 to 1970, communist historian Roy Medvedev regularly published "The Political Journal" (Политический дневник, or political diary), which contained analytical materials that later appeared in the West.


title: Samizdat

text: The longest-running and best-known samizdat periodical was "A Chronicle of Current Events" (Хроника текущих событий). It was dedicated to defending human rights by providing accurate information about events in the USSR. Over 15 years, from April 1968 to December 1982, 65 issues were published, all but two appearing in English translation. The anonymous editors encouraged the readers to utilize the same distribution channels in order to send feedback and local information to be published in subsequent issues.


title: Samizdat

text: The "Chronicle" was distinguished by its dry, concise style and punctilious correction of even the smallest error. Its regular rubrics were "Arrests, Searches, Interrogations", "Extra-judicial Persecution", "In Prisons and Camps", "Samizdat update", "News in brief", and "Persecution of Religion". Over time, sections were added on the "Persecution of the Crimean Tatars", "Persecution and Harassment in Ukraine", "Lithuanian Events", and so on.


title: Samizdat

text: The "Chronicle" editors maintained that, according to the 1936 Soviet Constitution, then in force, their publication was not illegal. The authorities did not accept the argument. Many people were harassed, arrested, imprisoned, or forced to leave the country for their involvement in the "Chronicle"s production and distribution. The periodical's typist and first editor Natalya Gorbanevskaya was arrested and put in a psychiatric hospital for taking part in the August 1968 Red Square protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1974, two of the periodical's close associates (Pyotr Yakir and Victor Krasin) were persuaded to denounce their fellow editors and the "Chronicle" on Soviet television. This put an end to the periodical's activities, until Sergei Kovalev, Tatyana Khodorovich and Tatyana Velikanova openly announced their readiness to resume publication. After being arrested and imprisoned, they were replaced, in turn, by others.


title: Samizdat

text: Another notable and long-running (about 20 issues in the period of 1972–1980) publication was the "refusenik" political and literary magazine "Евреи в СССР" (Yevrei v SSSR, "Jews in the USSR"), founded and edited by Alexander Voronel and, after his imprisonment, by Mark Azbel and Alexander Luntz.


title: Samizdat

text: The late 1980s, which were marked by an increase in informal organizations, saw a renewed wave of samizdat periodicals in the Soviet Union. Publications that were active during that time included "Glasnost" (edited by Sergei Grigoryants), "Ekspress-khronika" ("Express-Chronicle," edited by Alexander Podrabinek), "Svobodnoye slovo" ("Free word", by the Democratic Union formed in May 1988), "Levyi povorot" ("Left turn", edited by Boris Kagarlitsky), "Otkrytaya zona" ("Open zone") of Club Perestroika, "Merkurii" ("Mercury", edited by Elena Zelinskaya) and "Khronograph" ("Chronograph", put out by a number of Moscow activists).


title: Samizdat

text: Not all samizdat trends were liberal or clearly opposed to the Soviet regime and the literary establishment. "The "Russian Party"... was a very strange element of the political landscape of Leonid Brezhnev's era—feeling themselves practically dissidents, members of the "Russian Party" with rare exceptions took quite prestigious official positions in the world of writers or journalists," wrote Oleg Kashin in 2009.


title: Samizdat

text: Samizdat covered a large range of topics, mainly including literature and works focused on religion, nationality, and politics. The state censored a variety of materials such as detective novels, adventure stories, and science fiction in addition to dissident texts, resulting in the underground publication of samizdat covering a wide range of topics. Though most samizdat authors directed their works towards the intelligentsia, samizdat included lowbrow genres in addition to scholarly works.


title: Samizdat

text: Hyung-Min Joo carried out a detailed analysis of an archive of samizdat (Архив Самиздата, "Arkhiv Samizdata") by "Radio Liberty", sponsored by the US Congress and launched in the 1960s, and reported that of its 6,607 items, 1% were literary, 17% nationalist, 20% religious, and 62% political, noting that as a rule, literary works were not collected there, so their 1% (only 73 texts) are not representative of their real share of circulation.


title: Samizdat

text: In its early years, samizdat defined itself as a primarily literary phenomenon that included the distribution of poetry, classic unpublished Russian literature, and famous 20th century foreign literature. Literature played a key role in the existence of the samizdat phenomenon. For instance, the USSR's refusal to publish Boris Pasternak's epic novel, "Doctor Zhivago" led to the novel's subsequent underground publication. Likewise, the circulation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's famous work about the gulag system, "The Gulag Archipelago", promoted a samizdat revival during the mid-1970s. However, because samizdat by definition placed itself in opposition to the state, samizdat works became increasingly focused on the state's violation of human rights, before shifting towards politics.


title: Samizdat

text: The majority of samizdat texts were politically focused. Most of the political texts were personal statements, appeals, protests, or information on arrests and trials. Other political samizdat included analyses of various crises within the USSR, and suggested alternatives to the government's handling of events.


title: Samizdat

text: No unified political thought existed within samizdat; rather, authors debated from a variety of perspectives. Samizdat written from socialist, democratic and Slavophile perspectives dominated the debates. Socialist authors compared the current state of the government to the Marxist ideals of socialism, and appealed to the state to fulfil its promises. Socialist samizdat writers hoped to give a "human face" to socialism by expressing dissatisfaction with the system of censorship. Many socialists put faith in the potential for reform in the Soviet Union, especially because of the political liberalization which occurred under Dubček in Czechoslovakia. However, the Soviet Union invasion of a liberalizing Czechoslovakia, in the events of "Prague Spring", crushed hopes for reform and stymied the power of the socialist viewpoint. Because the state proved itself unwilling to reform, samizdat began to focus on alternative political systems.


title: Samizdat

text: Within samizdat, several works focused on the possibility of a democratic political system. Democratic samizdat possessed a revolutionary nature because of its claim that a fundamental shift in political structure was necessary to reform the state, unlike socialists, who hoped to work within the same basic political framework to achieve change. Despite the revolutionary nature of the democratic samizdat authors, most democrats advocated moderate strategies for change. Most democrats believed in an evolutionary approach to achieving democracy in the USSR, and they focused on advancing their cause along open, public routes, rather than underground routes.


title: Samizdat

text: In opposition to both democratic and socialist samizdat, Slavophile samizdat grouped democracy and socialism together as Western ideals that were unsuited to the Eastern European mentality. Slavophile samizdat brought a nationalistic Russian perspective to the political debate, and espoused the importance of cultural diversity and the uniqueness of Slavic cultures. Samizdat written from the Slavophile perspective attempted to unite the USSR under a vision of a shared glorious history of Russian autocracy and Orthodoxy. Consequently, the fact that the USSR encompassed a diverse range of nationalities and lacked a singular Russian history hindered the Slavophile movement. By espousing frequently racist and anti-Semitic views of Russian superiority, through either purity of blood or the strength of Russian Orthodoxy, the Slavophile movement in samizdat alienated readers and created divisions within the opposition.


title: Samizdat

text: Predominantly Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostalist, and Adventist groups authored religious samizdat texts. Though a diversity of religious samizdat circulated, including three Buddhist texts, no known Islamic samizdat texts exist. The lack of Islamic samizdat appears incongruous with the large percentage of Muslims who resided in the USSR.


title: Samizdat

text: Jewish samizdat importantly advocated for the end of repression of Jews in the USSR and expressed a desire for exodus, the ability to leave Russia for an Israeli homeland. Jewish samizdat encouraged Zionism. The exodus movement also broached broader topics of human rights and freedoms of Soviet citizens. However, a divide existed within Jewish samizdat between authors who advocated exodus, and those who argued that Jews should remain in the USSR to fight for their rights.


title: Samizdat

text: Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans also created samizdat, protesting the state's refusal to allow them to return to their homelands following Stalin's death.


title: Samizdat

text: Ukrainian samizdat opposed the assumed superiority of Russian culture over the Ukrainian and condemned the forced assimilation of Ukrainians to the Russian language.


title: Samizdat

text: In addition to samizdat focused on Jewish, Ukrainian, and Crimean Tartar concerns, authors also advocated the causes of a great many other nationalities.


title: Samizdat

text: Ribs, "music on the ribs", "bone records", or "roentgenizdat" ("roentgen-" from the Russian term for X-ray, named for Wilhelm Röntgen) were homemade phonograph records, copied from forbidden recordings that were smuggled into the country. Their content was Western rock and roll, jazz, mambo, and other music, and music by banned emigres. They were sold and traded on the black market.


title: Samizdat

text: Each disc is a thin, flexible plastic sheet recorded with a spiral groove on one side, playable on a normal phonograph turntable at 78 RPM. They were made from an inexpensive, available material: used X-ray film (hence the name "roentgenizdat"). Each large rectangular sheet was trimmed into a circle and individually recorded using an improvised recording lathe. The discs and their limited sound quality resemble the mass-produced flexi disc, and may have been inspired by it.


title: Samizdat

text: "Magnitizdat" ("magnit-" from "magnitofon", the Russian word for tape recorder) is the distribution of sound recordings on audio tape, often of bards, Western artists, and underground music groups. "Magnitizdat" replaced "roentgenizdat", as it was cheaper and more efficient method of reproduction that resulted in higher quality copies.


title: Samizdat

text: After Bell Labs changed its UNIX licence in 1979 to make dissemination of the source code illegal, the 1976 Lions book which contained the source code had to be withdrawn, but illegal copies of it circulated for years.


title: Samizdat

text: The act of copying the Lions book was often referred to as samizdat. In hacker and computer jargon, the term samizdat was used for the dissemination of needed and hard to obtain documents or information.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: Kanaa () is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language sports drama film starring Sathyaraj, Aishwarya Rajesh, Sivakarthikeyan, and Darshan. The film is written and directed by Arunraja Kamaraj, who is directing for the first time. It was released theatrically on 21 December 2018. The film has music composed by Dhibu Ninan Thomas, cinematography by Dinesh B. Krishnan, edited by Ruben and produced by Sivakarthikeyan in his newly established Sivakarthikeyan Productions banner. It was remade in Telugu as "Kousalya Krishnamurthy", with Aishwarya and Sivakarthikeyan reprising their roles.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: Kousalya Murugesan aka Kowsi is the daughter of Murugesan, a farmer in Kulithalai, Karur. She aspires to become an international cricketer so she can put a smile on her cricket-loving father's face by helping the country win. The reason for this being portrayed in the initial scenes where Murugesan is very eager to see India's matches in the 2007 Cricket World Cup. However, he gets heartbroken on seeing , which sees India getting subsequently knocked out. Murugesan controls his feelings before his daughter, but she witnesses him crying and being heartbroken throughout the whole night. Hence, this aspires a 11-year old Kowsi, to take up cricket seriously, represent her country, and win the world cup one day for her father's sake.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: Kowsi joins the local cricket team in the village when she is 14, who were mostly her school seniors. Kowsi's off-spin bowling technique gets her wickets, and everyone starts appreciating her talent. At the same time, she also earns the wrath of many villagers as she plays cricket with boys wearing t-shirts and trousers, which is portrayed to be non-traditional. However, Murugesan does not care for this and he supports his daughter. Kowsi decides to appear for the Tamil Nadu team selection test, but she gets rejected in her first attempt. She does not give up and tries again where she succeeds and starts playing in Tamil Nadu women's team. Her hard work pays off, and she is selected in Indian women's cricket team. Kowsi goes to Bangalore to get trained in a national cricket academy.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: Meanwhile, Murugesan faces a tough time with agriculture, as he is unable to repay the debt of Rs. 4 lakhs from a bank, resulting in a rift created between Murugesan and the bank manager. Kowsi faces a hard time in cricket academy due to internal politics where senior players ill-treating her as she cannot speak Hindi. The team's coach also hates Kowsi and demotivates her to a large extent. However, the coach retires, and there comes a new coach named Nelson Dilipkumar. Nelson, who was an ex-Indian cricketer, had to retire after his very first International Match as he sustained a terrible eye injury, leaving him partially blinded in the left eye. Nelson develops the team's spirit and gets the players ready for the upcoming T20 world cup. Nelson spots Kowsi's spin bowling capabilities and trains her in the right path. Nelson also locks horns with the team selection committee and ensures that Kowsi is present in the world cup squad. However, Nelson decides to rest Kowsi for the league matches, which makes her feel sad. However, Nelson reveals his strategy, that the intention was to hide Kowsi's talent from the opponents, and her bowling would be a surprise element in the semifinals.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: Kowsi is selected in the playing eleven during the semifinal match against the strongest team, Australia. On that day, Murugesan's house is taken away from the bank manager for not repaying the debt. Kowsi hears this and feels bad that she is not with her father. However, Kowsi is motivated by Nelson to make her father proud by playing well in the semifinals. During the match, Kowsi bowls a hat trick and also hits a six while batting, resulting in a tie. During super over, Kowsi again bowls well, leading to India's win. Kowsi is appreciated for her bowling efforts and is awarded Rs. 5 lakhs for "Woman of the Match" award. Receiving the award, Kowsi gives an emotional speech describing the situation of her father and other farmers in the country. Murugesan feels very proud of seeing Kowsi. In the closing credits, it is shown that Indian women won the T20 final against West Indies women and Kowsi was appreciated by the Tamil Nadu Government for her superb bowling tactics.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: This project was officially launched in February 2018, and actor Sivakarthikeyan is making his debut as the producer of the venture, under his newly established SK Productions banner, with actors Aishwarya Rajesh and Sathyaraj joining the cast, and debut actor Darshan was signed to play the male lead role. Dhibu Ninan Thomas, who earlier composed for Maragadha Naanayam was selected as the music director. Meanwhile, Dinesh Krishnan, Ruben, and Lalgudi N Ilayaraja was signed as a cinematographer, editor and art director for this film.This film is shot in Tiruchirapalli(Trichy, lalgudi,kulithalai),etc.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: The film's soundtrack is composed by Dhibu Ninan Thomas, who happens to be classmates with Sivakarthikeyan and Arunraja Kamaraj on their college days. The album features five songs, of which the song "Vaayadi Petha Pulla" is sung by Sivakarthikeyan and his daughter Aaradhana, alongside Vaikom Vijayalakshmi as well. The audio rights of the film are secured by Sony Music India.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: The movie has finally released on December 21, 2018 to highly positive reviews. M Suganth from "Times of India" calls the movie a "crowd-pleasing sports movie that also doubles up as a message movie on farmers and their issues", giving the film a 3.5/5 rating. The film was also dubbed and released in Hindi as "Not Out" on YouTube by Goldmines Telefilms in 2021.


title: Kanaa (film)

text: This film was remade in Telugu as "Kousalya Krishnamurthy" with Aishwarya Rajesh and Sivakarthikeyan reprising their roles from the original and Rajendra Prasad playing Sathyaraj's role.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: Deepsea Challenger (DCV 1) is a deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this goal in the second crewed dive reaching the Challenger Deep. Built in Sydney, Australia, by the research and design company Acheron Project Pty Ltd, "Deepsea Challenger" includes scientific sampling equipment and high-definition 3-D cameras; it reached the ocean's deepest point after two hours and 36 minutes of descent from the surface.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: "Deepsea Challenger" was built in Australia, in partnership with the National Geographic Society and with support from Rolex, in the Deepsea Challenge program. The construction of the submersible was headed by Australian engineer Ron Allum. Many of the submersible developer team members hail from Sydney's cave-diving fraternity including Allum himself with many years' cave-diving experience.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: Working in a small engineering workshop in Leichhardt, Sydney, Allum created new materials including a specialized structural syntactic foam called Isofloat, capable of withstanding the huge compressive forces at the depth. The new foam is unique in that it is more homogeneous and possesses greater uniform strength than other commercially available syntactic foam yet, with a specific density of about 0.7, will float in water. The foam is composed of very small hollow glass spheres suspended in an epoxy resin and comprises about 70% of the submarine's volume.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: The foam's strength enabled the "Deepsea Challenger" designers to incorporate thruster motors as part of the infrastructure mounted within the foam but without the aid of a steel skeleton to mount various mechanisms. The foam supersedes gasoline-filled tanks for flotation as used in the historic bathyscaphe "Trieste".


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: Allum also built many innovations, necessary to overcome the limitations of existing products (and presently undergoing development for other deep sea vehicles). These include pressure-balanced oil-filled thrusters;


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: LED lighting arrays; new types of cameras; and fast, reliable penetration communication cables allowing transmissions through the hull of the submersible. Allum gained much of his experience developing the electronic communication used in Cameron's "Titanic" dives in filming "Ghosts of the Abyss", "" and others.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: Power systems for the submarine were supplied by lithium batteries that were housed within the foam and can be clearly seen in publicity photographs of the vessel. The lithium battery charging systems were designed by Ron Allum.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: The submersible contains over 180 onboard systems, including batteries, thrusters, life support, 3D cameras, and LED lighting. These interconnected systems are monitored and controlled by a programmable automation controller (PAC) from Temecula, California-based controls manufacturer Opto 22. During dives, the control system also recorded depth, heading, temperature, pressure, battery status, and other data, and sent it to the support ship at three-minute intervals via an underwater acoustic communication system developed by West Australian company L-3 Nautronix.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: The crucial structural elements, such as the backbone and pilot sphere that carried Cameron, were engineered by the Tasmanian company Finite Elements. The design of the interior of the sphere, including fireproofing, condensation management and mounting of control assemblies, was undertaken by Sydney-based industrial design consultancy Design + Industry.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: The submersible features a pilot sphere measuring in diameter, large enough for only one occupant. The sphere, with steel walls thick, was tested for its ability to withstand the required of pressure in a pressure chamber at Pennsylvania State University. The sphere sits at the base of the vehicle. The vehicle operates in a vertical attitude, and carries of ballast weight that allows it to both sink to the bottom, and when released, rise to the surface. If the ballast weight release system fails, stranding the craft on the seafloor, a backup galvanic release is designed to corrode in salt water in a set period of time, allowing the sub to automatically surface. "Deepsea Challenger" is less than one-tenth the weight of its predecessor of fifty years, the bathyscaphe "Trieste"; the modern vehicle also carries dramatically more scientific equipment than "Trieste", and is capable of more rapid ascent and descent.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: In late January 2012, to test systems, Cameron spent three hours in the submersible while submerged just below the surface in Australia's Sydney Naval Yard. On 21 February 2012, a test dive intended to reach a depth of over was aborted after only an hour because of problems with cameras and life support systems. On 23 February 2012, just off New Britain Island, Cameron successfully took the submersible to the ocean floor at , where it made a rendezvous with a yellow remote operated vehicle operated from a ship above. On 28 February 2012, during a seven-hour dive, Cameron spent six hours in the submersible at a depth of . Power system fluctuations and unforeseen currents presented unexpected challenges.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: On 4 March 2012, a record-setting dive to more than stopped short of the bottom of the New Britain Trench when problems with the vertical thrusters led Cameron to return to the surface. Days later, with the technical problem solved, Cameron successfully took the submersible to the bottom of the New Britain Trench, reaching a maximum depth of . There, he found a wide plain of loose sediment, anemones, jellyfish and varying habitats where the plain met the walls of the canyon.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: On 18 March 2012, after leaving the testing area in the relatively calm Solomon Sea, the submersible was aboard the surface vessel "Mermaid Sapphire," docked in Apra Harbor, Guam, undergoing repairs and upgrades, and waiting for a calm enough ocean to carry out the dive. By 24 March 2012, having left port in Guam days earlier, the submersible was aboard one of two surface vessels that had departed the Ulithi atoll for the Challenger Deep.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: Descent, from the beginning of the dive to arrival at the seafloor, took two hours and 37 minutes, almost twice as fast as the descent of "Trieste." A Rolex watch, "worn" on the sub's robotic arm, continued to function normally throughout the dive. Not all systems functioned as planned on the dive: bait-carrying landers were not dropped in advance of the dive because the sonar needed to find them on the ocean floor was not working, and hydraulic system problems hampered the use of sampling equipment. Nevertheless, after roughly three hours on the seafloor and a successful ascent, further exploration of the Challenger Deep with the unique sub was planned for later in the Spring of 2012.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: On 26 March 2012, Cameron reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. The maximum depth recorded during this record-setting dive was . Measured by Cameron, at the moment of touchdown, the depth was . It was the fourth-ever dive to the Challenger Deep and the second crewed dive (with a maximum recorded depth slightly less than that of "Trieste" 1960 dive). It was the first solo dive and the first to spend a significant amount of time (three hours) exploring the bottom.


title: Deepsea Challenger

text: "Deepsea Challenger" was donated to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the studies of its technological solutions in order to incorporate some of those solutions into other vehicles to advance deep-sea research. On 23 July 2015, it was transported from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to Baltimore to be shipped to Australia for a temporary loan. While on a flatbed truck on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, the truck caught fire, resulting in damage to the submersible. The likely cause of the fire was from the truck's brake failure which ignited its rear tires. Connecticut fire officials speculated that it was a total loss to the "Deepsea Challenger"; however, the actual extent of the damage was not reported. The submersible was transported back to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution after the fire. As of February 2016, it had been moved to California for repairs.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Poitier, produced by Hannah Weinstein and written by Bruce Jay Friedman. The film stars Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as two unemployed friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after getting framed for a bank robbery. While in prison they befriend other prison inmates. The film reunited Wilder and Pryor, who had appeared previously in the 1976 comedy thriller film "Silver Streak". The film was released in the United States on December 12, 1980 to mixed critical reviews, but was a major financial success.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Aspiring actor Harry Monroe (Pryor) is working as a waiter in a rich woman's penthouse, but is fired when the cooks accidentally use his stash of marijuana as oregano at a dinner party. His friend, playwright Skip Donahue (Wilder), is working as a shop detective when he thinks he sees a well-known actress shoplifting, and his accusation gets him fired. Skip, the optimist of the two, spins their shared unemployment positively and convinces Harry that they should travel to California. They leave New York City in a battered Dodge camper-van, taking odd jobs along the way.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: In Arizona, Skip and Harry perform a song and dance routine dressed as woodpeckers as part of a promotion for a bank. While the duo are on a break, two men steal the costumes and rob the bank. However, Harry and Skip are arrested and convicted of the crime, and given 125-year jail sentences. Their court-appointed lawyer, Len Garber, advises them to wait until he can appeal their case.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: The two are transferred to a maximum-security prison. After a failed attempt at faking insanity, they make friends with Jesus Ramirez, a bank robber, and Rory Schultebrand, an overtly gay man who killed his stepfather. After three months, Skip and Harry visit Warden Walter Beatty and Deputy Warden Ward Wilson, the head guard, to perform a "test" on a mechanical bull. To everyone's surprise, Skip is able to ride the bull at full power, so Beatty selects him to compete in the prison's annual rodeo competition.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Jesus and Rory inform Harry and Skip that the rodeo is a crooked operation run by Beatty and Warden Henry Sampson, who heads the neighboring prison. The money from the rodeo, which is supposed to go to the prisoners, ends up in the wardens' pockets. Realizing Skip will be selected as the prison's new champion, Jesus and Rory hatch a plan for escape involving Skip refusing to participate until the warden provides concessions. They warn Skip that he will be tortured by the warden first. Skip, however, has a blasé attitude towards everything the guards throw at him, including a week in the "hot box" and forcing him and Harry to share a cell with hulking, seemingly-mute serial killer Grossberger.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Harry and Skip are visited by Garber, who introduces them to his law partner, his cousin Meredith, to whom Skip is immediately attracted. Later, Skip meets with Beatty to make a deal: In exchange for his participation in the rodeo, Skip requests his own crew (Harry, Jesus, Rory and Grossberger), along with a shared cell for the five of them. Beatty agrees, later ordering Wilson to have a guard watch them at all times. Wilson reveals to his esteemed colleague, former rodeo champion Jack Graham, that Skip will not leave the rodeo alive.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: While practicing for the rodeo, Skip, Harry, Jesus, Rory, and Grossberger acquire tools they need for their escape, while Meredith gets a job as a waitress in a country western strip club searching for possible suspects and encounters the real bank robbers. At the stadium where the rodeo is being held, each member of Skip's team but Grossberger escape through a secret path, taking them through air vents to be met by either Jesus' wife or brother. Once through, they put on their disguises and re-enter the grounds as audience members.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Skip competes against rival champion Caesar Geronimo to swipe the prize: a bag of money from the horns of a large, Brahman bull. Skip suggests that they give the money to the prisoners, and offers to help Caesar win if he agrees to do so. Caesar wins, and throws the bag to the inmates, while Skip escapes and joins his friends.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: At a secret meeting spot, Jesus and Rory bid Harry and Skip farewell as they leave for Mexico. Harry and Skip get in their car, but are intercepted by Garber and Meredith. She tells Harry and Skip that the police have collared the real crooks, and Harry and Skip intend to resume their original idea of going to Hollywood. Skip asks Meredith to go with him, and she agrees to it.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: The film was shot in Manhattan, New York; Burbank, California; St. George, Utah Florence and Tucson, Arizona in 56 days from March 13 to May 8, 1980.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: The film was a box office success, setting a record opening week for Columbia Pictures of $12,972,131 and then setting a studio record $15,336,245 the following week, including a studio record single day gross of $3,237,279. It went on to gross $101,300,000, being the third-highest-grossing film of 1980, behind "The Empire Strikes Back" and "9 to 5". It was Columbia's third film to gross $100 million and third highest-grossing film of all time, after "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Kramer vs. Kramer". The box office total marked the first time a film directed by an African-American earned more than $100 million.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "Stir Crazy" has an approval rating of 69% based on 16 reviews. On Metacritic it has a score of 56% based on reviews from 6 critics.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that it "starts strong", but "once Wilder and Pryor are thrown into prison, it seems to lose its way" as "the movie gets bogged down in developing its own plot. That is not always the best thing for a comedy to do, because if we're not laughing, it hardly matters what happens to the plot." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" panned the film as "a prison comedy of quite stunning humorlessness" which "appears to have been improvised, badly, more often than written." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "Sidney Poitier has directed "Stir Crazy" as if it were as much fun as his previous comedies—e.g., "Uptown Saturday Night". But no amount of bouncy good-naturedness can disguise the stretched-thin quality of the material." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" was positive, giving the film three stars out of four and writing, "There are explosively funny moments in this prison comedy that wouldn't be there without Pryor, who radiates a comic energy in a scene even when he's merely standing still." "Variety" wrote, "The extensive comic talents of Richard Pryor take a below average film like "Stir Crazy" and make it into an often funny and saleable picture." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" also liked the film, stating that it "blends several inventive, high-spirited performing talents into a tangy, cheerful entertainment." David Ansen of "Newsweek" found the film "only intermittently funny", remarking that writer Bruce Jay Friedman is "trying for a formula film and can't land on the right formula. Is it a buddy movie, a caper comedy, a parody of prison films, an urban-cowboy neo-Western, a New York vs. Sun Belt comedy? Unfortunately it's more of a shambles than any of the above, albeit a fairly genial one."


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress for Georg Stanford Brown in drag.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: CBS adapted "Stir Crazy" as a television series as part of its 1985 fall lineup. This version starred Larry Riley as Harry Fletcher and Joseph Guzaldo as Skip Harrington, who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 132 years in prison. While working on a chain gang, they escape and set out after Crawford (Marc Silver), the man who had actually committed the crime for which they had been sentenced.


title: Stir Crazy (film)

text: None of the people involved in the film had a major role in this series. It was pulled from the CBS fall lineup in October 1985, the month after its premiere, and put on hiatus. It returned in a new time slot in December 1985 and a few more episodes were aired, also to low ratings. The program was permanently cancelled after the January 7, 1986 broadcast.


title: Samaritan woman at the well

text: The Samaritan woman at the well is a figure from the Gospel of John. John 4:4–42 relates her conversation with Jesus at Jacob's Well near the city of Sychar.


title: Samaritan woman at the well

text: This episode takes place before the return of Jesus to Galilee. Some Jews regarded the Samaritans as foreigners and their attitude was often hostile, although they shared most beliefs, while many other Jews accepted Samaritans as either fellow Jews or as Samaritan Israelites. The two communities seem to have drifted apart in the post-exilic period. Both communities share the Pentateuch, although crucially the Samaritan Pentateuch locates the holy mountain at Mount Gerizim rather than at Mount Zion, as this incident acknowledges at John 4:20.


title: Samaritan woman at the well

text: The Gospel of John, like the Gospel of Luke, is favourable to the Samaritans throughout, and, while the Matthaean Gospel quotes Jesus at one early phase in his ministry telling his followers to not at that time evangelize any of the cities of the Samaritans, this restriction had clearly been reversed later by the time of Matthew 28:19. Scholars differ as to whether the Samaritan references in the New Testament are historical. One view is that the historical Jesus had no contact with Samaritans; another is that the accounts go back to Jesus himself. In , Jesus promises the apostles that they will be witnesses to the Samaritans.