title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: With the aid of Fiddler, Kunta makes an escape attempt at Christmas, but is caught and flogged by the cruel overseer Connelly (Tony Curran) until he says his name is Toby, not Kunta Kinte. Kunta realizes that he will not be returning to his home in the Gambia. Fiddler tends to Kunta's bloodied back and tells him to keep his true name inside, no matter what the white men call him.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: Ten years later in 1782, during the American Revolutionary War, Kunta escapes to fight for the British army. There, Kunta makes friends with another runaway, named Carlton. Kunta's regiment is then sent to fight a faction of minutemen. But without proper weapons, Kunta realizes that the escaped slaves were only meant to act as human shields for the British, and the regiment is slaughtered. Kunta escapes with Carlton, who is later killed by an unknown gunman. Kunta is eventually re-captured and, as punishment, his right foot is chopped off.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: Kunta and Henry are sent to the farm of Dr. William Waller (Matthew Goode), in payment for his brother John Waller's debts. One year later, the Revolution ends and the United States celebrates its independence. Kunta marries Belle (Emayatzy Corinealdi), a pretty slave woman who nursed him back to health, and they have a daughter. Fiddler and Kunta take the baby into the woods for a Mandinka naming ceremony. They are suddenly surrounded by a slave patrol, which Fiddler distracts so Kunta and the baby can slip away. This results in Fiddler's murder. Kunta names the baby Kizzy, which means "stay put" in hopes of keeping their family together.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: Kizzy (played by Saniyya Sidney as a child in 1789 and by Emyri Crutchfield as a teen in 1798) grows up to be a beautiful, bright young woman and Missy (G. Hannelius), Dr. Waller's niece, secretly teaches her how to read. Kunta trains Kizzy in the ways of a Mandinka warrior, passing on her cultural heritage. She also falls in love with another slave named Noah (Mandela Van Peebles).


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: When a hurricane hits the farm, Kizzy and Noah attempt to escape. The next day, Kunta finds Kizzy hiding inside a brick oven. A search party tracks Noah to a barn. When Noah attempts to outrun them, the search party shoots him multiple times thereby killing him. They discover a forged road pass written by Kizzy. This results in Dr. Waller learning of Kizzy's literacy.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: Dr. Waller then sells Kizzy to a poor slaveholder named Tom Lea (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in North Carolina. He rapes her the same night she arrives. Nine months later, she gives birth to Lea's son, whom Tom Lea names George, apparently after his father. Kizzy contemplates killing her infant, but decides to raise him so she can pass on the story of his heritage.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: In 1816, Tom Lea takes young George (Jaylin Ogle) along with him to be trained in how to raise fighting chickens, along with another slave, Mingo. After seeing Mingo gain respect for winning a cockfight, George takes special interest in the sport. However, while George is eager to see the world, Kizzy (by now played by Anika Noni Rose) is worried about him spending so much time away from her. Over the years, George (Regé-Jean Page) becomes a skilled breeder and fighter of chickens, earning his master much money and becoming known as "Chicken George".


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: In 1828, after being insulted at a party for his low-class Irish heritage, Lea fights a bloody duel with another slave holder. George serves as his second, and Tom agrees to allow him to marry Matilda (Erica Tazel), the daughter of a slave preacher who he has been courting. His position as a trusted slave is challenged in 1831, when Lea learns of Nat Turner's slave rebellion, during a cockfight. Lea, like many other whites, begins to suspect that all slaves might be planning to rebel. During the chaos, Mingo is beaten, and badly injured. On the way home, Lea points a gun at George after being provoked by white militia men. When the three return home, they find all of the slave barracks burnt to the ground. When Lea runs off to find his wife, Patricia, George runs into the woods to find his family. Once there, Matilda reveals that it was a group of white men that burnt down the farm, due to thinking that Lea was dead. Mingo eventually dies from his wounds, causing George to become bitter and cold. George reveals to Kizzy that he's known for years that Lea truly is his father.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: George and Matilda marry and have several children, the youngest of whom is named Tom after his master. In 1835, George attends another cockfight, where Tom Lea makes a large wager with a visiting British gentleman. Lea promises that if George wins the fight, he will give him his emancipation papers. George wins and celebrates his newfound freedom. However, they fight one more round against the Englishman and lose. Lea does not have the money to pay off his debt and instead agrees to give George to the man to be taken back to England to raise fighting cocks. Before George is taken away, Lea promises to have freed his family before he returns from England.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: On the eve of the Civil War, George returns from England after his British master gave him his freedom after 20 years. He returns to Tom Lea's farm, now in ruin, and discovers that while he was gone, his mother Kizzy had died and Lea had never freed the rest of his family. He tracks down Matilda and his family, now owned by a new master, Benjamin Murray (Wayne Pére). Murray allows George to stay with his wife on the plantation, much to the consternation of his secessionist son Frederick Murray (Lane Garrison), who is engaged to marry Nancy Holt (Anna Paquin). George later leaves after discovering that his freedom will be revoked if his remains in the state for more than 90 days.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: George's son Tom is now a skilled blacksmith and valued member of the Murray plantation. Tom (Sedale Threatt Jr.) blames his father for abandoning them and initially wants nothing to do with him. When war breaks out, Nancy reveals to Tom that she is a Union spy and tries to enlist him to help her. He initially refuses, but when Frederick and his friends rape his wife, Irene, Tom decides to help. Their plans go awry and Nancy and her slave Jerusalem (Mekhi Phifer) are exposed as spies and are hanged by Frederick.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: Meanwhile, George and another black man named Cyrus (T.I.) join the Union Army. They participate in the Battle of Fort Pillow, and watch horrified when surrendering black troops are massacred. George, Cyrus, and Tom flee pursuing Confederate bushwhackers and return to the Murray plantation to learn that all the slaves have been freed by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Kinte Family stays for a time as sharecroppers, continuing to work the Murray Plantation in exchange for livestock and food. Once George returns to the Murray Plantation, he, Cyrus, Tom, Matilda and the rest of their family pack up their belongings and head to Tennessee to start a new life. When Frederick threatens them, George shoots him. Once in Tennessee, Tom and his wife have a daughter, the first Kinte born free in America. Many years later, a man named Alex Haley traces his roots to Kunta Kinte and writes a book to honor both his family and all those descended from African slaves.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: The History channel commissioned a remake of the miniseries after acquiring rights from David L. Wolper's son, Mark Wolper, and Alex Haley's estate. The new eight-hour miniseries, with Mark Wolper as executive producer, drew on Haley's novel and the original miniseries albeit from a contemporary perspective. In April 2015, it was announced that along with The History Channel, Lifetime and A&E would also broadcast the remake of the "Roots" miniseries. Will Packer, Marc Toberoff and Mark Wolper will executive produce it alongside Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal. LeVar Burton, star of the original series, and Korin Huggins will co-executive produce it.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: On February 11, 2016, a trailer for the remake of "Roots" was released and Paul Buccieri, president of A&E and The History Channels, announced that the four night, eight-hour event series would premiere on Memorial Day, May 30, 2016. The ensemble cast includes Forest Whitaker as Fiddler, Anna Paquin as Nancy Holt, Lane Garrison as Frederick Murray, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Tom Lea, Anika Noni Rose as Kizzy, Tip Harris as Cyrus, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Belle, Matthew Goode as Dr. William Waller, Mekhi Phifer as Jerusalem, James Purefoy as John Waller, introduces Regé-Jean Page as Chicken George and Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte, South African actress Nokuthula Ledwaba as Binta Kinte – Kunta Kinte's mother and Laurence Fishburne as Alex Haley.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: In the United States, "Roots" aired in four installments of approximately two hours each, from May 30 to June 2, 2016, on History, A&E, and Lifetime.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: In Canada, in addition to being available on A&E, whose U.S. feed is carried in Canada directly – but not on the licensed Canadian versions of History or Lifetime – the series was set to stream on CraveTV beginning in fall 2016.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: New Zealand state broadcaster TVNZ aired the first episode on TV One on Sunday, July 3 at 8.30pm (New Zealand Standard Time), and screened the remaining 3 episodes on the following 3 Sundays (July 10, 17, and 24th). In Australia, SBS aired the episodes on July 27 and 28, August 3 and 4, 2016.


title: Roots (2016 miniseries)

text: "Roots" received critical acclaim, with praise for the acting abilities of the cast, the faithfulness to the original, and the modern changes. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series has a rating of 98%, based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.31/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A powerfully impressive – and still relevant – update on a television classic, "Roots" boasts remarkable performances, deep emotion, and occasionally jarring beauty." On Metacritic the series has a score of 83 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The series received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Best Limited Series.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Trout Mask Replica is the third studio album by the American band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released as a double album on June 16, 1969, by Straight Records. The music was composed by Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) and arranged by drummer John "Drumbo" French. Combining elements of R&B, garage rock, and blues with free jazz and avant-garde composition, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental music and art rock.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: The album was produced by Frank Zappa and recorded in March 1969 at Whitney Studios in Glendale, California, following eight months of intense rehearsals at a small rented communal house in Los Angeles. The lineup of the Magic Band at this time consisted of Bill "Zoot Horn Rollo" Harkleroad and Jeff "Antennae Jimmy Semens" Cotton on guitar, Mark "Rockette Morton" Boston on bass guitar, Victor "The Mascara Snake" Hayden on bass clarinet, and John "Drumbo" French on drums and percussion. Beefheart played several brass and woodwind instruments, including saxophone, musette, and natural horn, and contributed most of the vocal parts, while Zappa and members of the band provided occasional vocals and narration. The well-rehearsed Magic Band recorded all instrumental tracks for the album in a single six-hour recording session; Beefheart's vocal and horn tracks were laid down over the next few days.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: "Trout Mask Replica" sold poorly upon its initial release in the United States, where it failed to appear in any charts. It was more successful in the United Kingdom, where it spent a week at number 21 on the UK Albums Chart. In recent years, however, "Trout Mask Replica" has been widely regarded as the masterpiece of Beefheart's musical career, as well as an important influence on many subsequent artists. Its highly unconventional musical style, which includes polyrhythm, multi-octave vocals, and polytonality, continues to polarize audiences and has given the album a reputation as one of the most challenging recordings in the 20th century musical canon. It was ranked number 60 on "Rolling Stone"s 2012 edition of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, and has appeared on the "best of" lists of many other publications.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band had a history of difficult relationships with record labels. A&M Records released the band's first single, a cover of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy", but dropped the contract after their first two singles failed to produce hits. Buddah Records released the band's (and the label's) first album, "Safe as Milk", in 1967. However, the label began specializing in bubblegum pop, a style in which Captain Beefheart had no place, and the band again found themselves without a record label. In late 1967 and the spring of 1968, they had several sets of re-recording sessions for what became the albums "Strictly Personal" and "Mirror Man". However, due to contractual uncertainties, they were unsure if the material would ever be released. Around this time, Van Vliet's high school friend Frank Zappa started his own record labels Bizarre and Straight, and offered Captain Beefheart, a name Zappa had given him, the opportunity to record an album with complete artistic freedom.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: In preparation, the band rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in a small rented house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times, one or another of the band members were put "in the barrel", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet. According to John French and Bill Harkleroad, these sessions often included physical violence. French described the situation as "cultlike", and a visiting friend said that "the environment in that house was positively Manson-esque". Their material circumstances also were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the band survived on a bare subsistence diet. French recounted living on no more than a small cup of soybeans a day for a month, and at one point, band members were arrested for shoplifting food (whereupon Zappa bailed them out). A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health". Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for fourteen or more hours a day. Van Vliet once told drummer John French that he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and he would see nonexistent conspiracies that explained this behavior.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy" were recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in August 1968, about seven months before the rest of the songs. These songs featured a lineup of Van Vliet, Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton on guitar, John French on drums, and Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker serving temporarily on bass as a replacement for the recently departed Jerry Handley. About a month later, Mark Boston joined the band as full-time bassist. The lineup of Van Vliet, Harkleroad, Cotton, French, and Boston recorded the rest of the tracks, with Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden occasionally guesting on bass clarinet and vocals.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Zappa originally proposed to record the album as an "ethnic field recording" in the house where the band lived. Working with Zappa and engineer Dick Kunc, the band recorded some provisional backing tracks at the Woodland Hills house, with sound separation obtained simply by having different instruments in different rooms. Zappa thought these provisional recordings turned out well, but Van Vliet became suspicious that Zappa was trying to record the album on the cheap and insisted on using a professional studio. Zappa would say of Van Vliet's approach that it was "impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not." "Hair Pie: Bake 1", one of the tracks recorded by Zappa and Kunc at the house, appeared on the finished album. Three other tracks on the album were recorded on a cassette recorder at the house, the a cappella poems "The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back" and "Orange Claw Hammer", and the improvised blues "China Pig" with former Magic Band member Doug Moon accompanying Van Vliet on guitar. "The Blimp" was recorded by Zappa in his studio while on the phone with Van Vliet prior to the album's sessions; Jeff Cotton was put on the phone to recite Van Vliet's latest poem, which Zappa recorded and put over a Mothers of Invention backing track (which had been known to the Mothers, unacknowledged on "Trout Mask"s credits, as "Charles Ives").


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: When they entered the studio, the band completed twenty instrumental tracks in a single six-hour recording session. Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. Instead of singing while monitoring the instrumental tracks over headphones, he heard only the slight sound leakage through the studio window. As a result, the vocals are only vaguely in sync with the instrumental backing; when asked later about synchronization, he remarked, "That's what they do before a commando raid, isn't it?"


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 "Rolling Stone" interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths which were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad and French later discredited this. Van Vliet also claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Mark Boston from scratch; in fact, the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band. Van Vliet also took complete credit for composition and arranging, a claim that band members strongly disputed in later years.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: According to Van Vliet, all of the songs on the album were written in a single eight-hour session. Band members have stated that two of the songs ("Moonlight on Vermont" and "Sugar 'n Spikes") were written around December 1967, while "Veteran's Day Poppy" was written around late May or early June 1968. Most of the rest were composed over a period of several months in the summer and fall of 1968 in an unprecedented process of experimentation. One influence on the compositional process was a tape that Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker had played for him. Marker, an aspiring recording engineer, was learning how to splice audio tape. He practiced by combining sections of various recordings so that they would join smoothly and maintain a consistent beat despite being from different sources. When Van Vliet heard the tape, he said excitedly, ""That's" what I want!"


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Van Vliet used a piano, an instrument he had never played before, as his main compositional tool. Since he had no experience with the piano and no conventional musical knowledge at all, he was able to experiment with few preconceived ideas of musical form or structure. Van Vliet sat at the piano until he found a rhythmic or melodic pattern that he liked. John French then transcribed this pattern, typically only a measure or two long, into musical notation. After Van Vliet was finished, French would piece these fragments together into compositions, reminiscent of the splicing together of disparate source material on Marker's tape. French decided which part would be played on which instrument and taught each player his part, although Van Vliet had the final say over the ultimate shape of the product. Band member Bill Harkleroad has remarked on "how haphazardly the individual parts were done, worked on very surgically, stuck together, and then sculpted afterwards". Once completed, each song was played in exactly the same way every time, eschewing the improvisation that typifies most popular music in favor of an approach more like a formal, classical composition.


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: French has stated that about three-quarters of the songs were composed at the piano. The rest mostly consisted of parts that were whistled by Van Vliet. In a few cases, part of the song was composed at the piano while others were whistled. Three of the pieces were unaccompanied vocal solos ("Well", "The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back", and "Orange Claw Hammer") while one was a spontaneous improvisation ("China Pig"). "Bills Corpse" was titled for the emaciated condition that Bill Harkleroad suffered before leaving an LSD cult to join the band, and possibly to similar conditions Van Vliet created within the band's house. Van Vliet called the song "Dali's Car" a "study in dissonance". "Hobo Chang Ba" was based on Van Vliet's stories "as a young teenager in Mojave of going down and hanging with the hobos. He said they were really nice people and he got to know the regulars." Drummer John French states of "Old Fart at Play", "[it] was never intended to have these lyrics. This is the only other time I saw Zappa aggressively put on his 'producer's hat' and assert his will on Don. The original title to this song was 'My Business Is the Truth, Your Business Is a Lie'." The album's title was adapted from some lines in "Old Fart at Play": ". . . the nose of the wooden mask / Where the holes had just been uh moment ago / Was now smooth amazingly blended camouflaged in / With the very intricate rainbow trout replica."


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Several of the compositions include brief passages from other songs. Some were childhood reminiscences, such as Gene Autry's recording "El Rancho Grande", from which one of the guitar lines in "Veteran's Day Poppy" was adapted, or the "Shortnin' Bread" melody used in "Pachuco Cadaver". Others were more contemporary, such as the quote "come out to show dem [them]" from Steve Reich's "Come Out" used in "Moonlight on Vermont", or a melodic fragment from the Miles Davis recording of "Concierto de Aranjuez" used as the basis for the bridge of "Sugar 'n Spikes". The ending of "Moonlight on Vermont" also includes the refrain from the spiritual "Old-Time Religion". A nonmusical influence was the art of Salvador Dalí; the instrumental "Dali's Car" was inspired by the band's viewing of an installation of Dalí's "Rainy Taxi".


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: "Trout Mask Replica" is considered to be Captain Beefheart's "magnum opus", and has appeared on lists of the greatest albums of all time. BBC disc jockey John Peel said of the album, "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then "Trout Mask Replica" is probably that work." Peel later ranked the record as the best pop album ever made. Lester Bangs, in his original review for "Rolling Stone" in 1969, hailed the album as "a total success, a brilliant, stunning enlargement and clarification of [Captain Beefheart's] art", and said that, on "a purely verbal level", it is "an explosion of maniacal free-association incantations". Years later, he wrote that "it was not even 'ahead' of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic as walking Christmas trees, constituting a genre unto itself: truly, a musical Monolith if ever there was one." Steve Huey of AllMusic lauded the album as "stunningly imaginative", and wrote that its influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk/new wave era."


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: The album's unconventional nature often alienates new listeners. Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to "Trout Mask Replica" at the age of fifteen: "I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard". John Harris of "The Guardian" later discussed the idea that the album requires several listens to "get it", concluding it still sounded "awful" after six listens. Critic Robert Christgau, in his 1969 "Consumer Guide" for "The Village Voice", said that its "weirdness" prevented him from granting it a higher grade, even though it is "great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record". Filmmaker David Lynch has called "Trout Mask Replica" his favorite album of all time and John Lydon has also listed it as one of the albums that shaped him, arguing, "It was anti-music in the most interesting and insane way ... all the bum notes I was being told off for by the teachers were finally being released by well-known artists. That was my confirmation. From then on, there was room for everything." Academic Langdon Winner referred to it as "the most astounding and important work of art ever to appear on a phonograph record".


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Included in the Mothers of Invention's "Uncle Meat" gatefold was a small book including references to the songs "Pachuco Cadaver" and "Moonlight on Vermont". In an October 1991 interview with "Guitar Player" magazine, when asked about his influences, guitarist John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers said, "the most important inspiration is undoubtedly Zoot Horn Rollo’s playing on Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica". If I listen to it first thing in the morning, I’m assured of a day of unbridled creativity."


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: In 2000 it was voted number 50 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums". He stated “This record is living proof of his bizarre genius.”


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: In 2003, the album was ranked at number 59 by "Rolling Stone" in their list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and it was ranked number 60 on the 2012 revision of the list: "On first listen, "Trout Mask Replica" sounds like raw Delta blues", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion ... Tracks such as 'Ella Guru' and 'My Human Gets Me Blues' are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey". In his 1995 book "The Alternative Music Almanac", Alan Cross placed the album at number two on his list of "10 Classic Alternative Albums". In 1995, "Mojo" put the album at number 28 on their "The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made" list and at number 51 on their list of "The 100 Records That Changed the World". The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Writer Al Spicer called it "in many ways the ultimate blues album, conveying intense experiences under intense pressure". "The A.V. Club" called it an "avant-garde masterpiece." "Entertainment Weekly" called it "an astonishing, influential onslaught of avant-garde blues that still reveals fresh lunatic nuances on the umpteenth listen."


title: Trout Mask Replica

text: Guitar virtuoso Steve Vai also praised the album and admitted that the first time he heard it, he was appalled by how out of tune the album was and by Van Vliet's vocals, but after meeting him, he gave the album another chance and compared it to "a liberation". On April 6, 2011, the album was added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2010 by the Library of Congress. On January 13, 2012, as part of its "Inside the National Recording Registry" series, the public radio program Studio 360 broadcast a tribute to the album featuring drummer John French, biographer Mike Barnes, and Beefheart devotee Waits.


title: Mohini

text: Mohini (Sanskrit: मोहिनी, "") is the Hindu goddess of enchantment. She is the only female avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. She is portrayed as a "femme fatale", an enchantress, who maddens lovers and demons, sometimes leading them to their doom. Mohini is introduced into Hinduism in the narrative epic of the "Mahabharata". Here, she appears as a form of Vishnu following the Churning of the Ocean, a mesmerising beauty who distributes the amrita (the elixir of immortality) to the weakened devas (gods) and depriving it to the dominant asuras (demons), allowing the former to defeat the latter with their newfound immortality.


title: Mohini

text: Many different legends tell of her various exploits and marriages, including her union with the god Shiva. These tales relate, among other things, the birth of the god Shasta and the destruction of Bhasmasura, the ash-demon. Mohini's main "modus operandi" is to trick or beguile those she encounters. She is worshipped throughout Indian culture, but mainly in Western India, where temples are devoted to her depicted as Mahalasa, the consort of Khandoba, a regional avatar of Shiva.


title: Mohini

text: The name "Mohini" comes from the verb root "moha", meaning "to delude, enchant, perplex, or illusion," and literally means "delusion personified." In the Baiga culture of Central India, the word "mohini" means "erotic magic or spell." The name also has an implied connotation of "the essence of female beauty and allurement."


title: Mohini

text: The earliest reference to a Mohini-type goddess appears in the "Samudra manthan" episode of the 5th century BCE Hindu epic "Mahabharata". The Amrita, or nectar of immortality, is produced by the churning of the Ocean of Milk. The Devas and the Asuras fight over its possession. The Asuras contrive to keep the Amrita for themselves, angering the Devas. Vishnu, wise to their plan, assumes the form of an "enchanting damsel". She uses her allure to trick the Asuras into giving her the Amrita, and then distributes it amongst the Devas. Rahu, an Asura, disguises himself as a god and tries to drink some Amrita himself. Surya (the sun-god) and Chandra (the moon-god) quickly inform Vishnu, and he uses the Sudarshana Chakra (the divine discus) to decapitate Rahu, leaving the head immortal. The other major Hindu epic, "Ramayana" (4th century BCE), narrates the Mohini story briefly in the "Bala Kanda" chapter. This same tale is also recounted in the "Vishnu Purana" four centuries later.


title: Mohini

text: In the original text, Mohini is referred to as simply an enchanting, female form of Vishnu. In later versions, Mohini is described as the "maya" (illusion) of Vishnu. Later still, the name of the avatar becomes Mohini from the original phrase describing his deliberate false appearance ("mayam ashito mohinim"). Once the Mohini legend became popular, it was retold, revised, and expanded in several texts. The tales of Mohini-Vishnu also increased among devotional circles in various regions. The same expanded "Mahabharata" version of the story is also recounted in the "Bhagavata Purana" in the 10th century CE. Here, Mohini becomes a formal avatar of Vishnu.


title: Mohini

text: This legend is also retold in the Padma Purana and "Brahmanda Purana". In the "Brahmanda Purana", however, Vishnu-Mohini simply, after meditation upon the Great Goddess Maheshvari, acquires her form to trick the thieving asuras.


title: Mohini

text: Mohini also has an active history in the destruction of demons throughout Hindu texts. In the "Vishnu Purana", Mohini defeats Bhasmasura, the "ash-demon". Bhasmasura invokes the god Shiva by performing severe penances. Shiva, pleased with Bhasmasura, grants him the power to turn anyone into ashes by touching their head. The demon decides to try the power on Shiva himself. Shiva prays to Vishnu for help and Vishnu transforms into Mohini and charms Bhasmasura. Bhasmasura is so taken by Mohini that he asks her to marry him. Mohini agrees, but only on the condition that Bhasmasura follows her move for move in a dance. In the course of the dance, she places her hand on her head. Bhasmasura mimics the action, and in turn, reduces himself to ashes. The legend of Bhasmasura is retold in the Buddhist text "Satara Dewala Devi Puvata", with a slight variation. In this tale, Vishnu assumes his female form (the name "Mohini" is not used) and charms Bhasmasura. The female Vishnu asks Bhasmasura to promise never to leave her by placing his hand on his head as per the usual practice to swear on one's head. On doing so, Bhasmasura is reduced to ashes.


title: Mohini

text: In a similar legend related to the birth of Ayyappa, the demon Surpanaka earns the power to turn anyone into ashes by his austerities. The tale mirrors all other aspects of the Buddhist version of the Bhasmasura tale, where he is forced by Mohini to severe fidelity by keeping his hand on his head and is burnt.


title: Mohini

text: The prelude of the "Ramakien", the Thai version of the "Ramayana", the demon Nontok is charmed and killed by Mohini-Vishnu. Nontok misuses a divine weapon given to him by Shiva. The four-armed Mohini-Vishnu enchants Nontok and then attacks him. In his last moments, the demon accuses Vishnu of foul play saying that Vishnu first seduced him and then attacked him. Vishnu decrees that in his next birth, Nontok will be born as the ten-headed demon Ravana and Vishnu will be a mortal man called Rama. He will then fight him and defeat him.


title: Mohini

text: In a lesser-known tale in the "Ganesha Purana" (900–1400 CE) the wise asura king Virochana is rewarded a magical crown by the sun-god Surya. The crown shields him against all harm. Vishnu as Mohini then enchants Virochana and steals his crown. The demon, thus unprotected, is killed by Vishnu.


title: Mohini

text: Another South Indian legend about the demon Araka associates Mohini with Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) rather than the god himself. The demon Araka had become virtually invincible because he had never laid eyes on a woman (extreme chastity). Krishna takes the form of the beautiful Mohini and marries him. After three days of marriage, Araka's bonds of chastity are broken, and Krishna kills him in battle. Transgender Hijras consider Krishna-Mohini to be a transsexual deity.


title: Mohini

text: Stories about Mohini and Shiva have been popular in South Indian texts. In the southern version of the "Bhagavata Purana", after Vishnu deceives the demons by his maya female form, Shiva sees Mohini. He becomes "bereft of shame and robbed by her of good sense," runs crazily behind the enchanting form, while his wife Parvati (Uma) looks on. Shiva is overcome by Kāma (love and desire) in this version of mythology. Shiva's seed falls on the ground creating ores of silver and gold. Vishnu then states that emotions are difficult to overcome, and states that Maya will become a half of Shiva's Ardhanarisvara aspect. Shiva then extols Vishnu's power.


title: Mohini

text: The "Tripurarahasya", a south Indian Shakta text, retells the story, giving more importance to the Goddess. When Shiva wishes to see Vishnu's Mohini form again, Vishnu fears that he may be burned to ashes like Kamadeva by the supreme ascetic Shiva. So, Vishnu prays to goddess Tripura, who grants half of her beauty to Vishnu, begetting the Mohini-form. As Shiva touches Mohini, his seed spills, indicating a loss of the merit gained through of all his austerities.


title: Mohini

text: In the "Brahmanda Purana" when the wandering sage Narada tells Shiva about Vishnu's Mohini form that deluded the demons, Shiva dismisses him. Shiva and his wife Parvati go to Vishnu's home. Shiva asks him to take on the Mohini form again so he can see the actual transformation for himself. Vishnu smiles, again meditates on the Goddess and transforms himself into Mohini. Overcome by desire, Shiva chases Mohini as Parvati hangs her head in shame and envy. Shiva grabs Mohini's hand and embraces her, but Mohini frees herself and runs further. Finally, Shiva grabs her and their "violent coupling" leads to the discharge of Shiva's seed which falls on the ground and the god Maha-Shasta ("The Great Chastiser") is born. Mohini disappears, while Shiva returns home with Parvati.


title: Mohini

text: Shasta is identified primarily with two regional deities: Ayyappa from Kerala and the Tamil Aiyanar. He is also identified with the classical Hindu gods Skanda and Hanuman. In the later story of the origin of Ayyappa, Shiva impregnates Mohini, who gives birth to Ayyappa. They abandon Ayyappa, who is born to kill Mahishi, and the child was found by a king who raised him. The legend highlights Vishnu's protests to be Mohini again and also notes that Ayyappa is born of Vishnu's thigh as Mohini does not have a real womb. Another variant says that instead of a biological origin, Ayyappa sprang from Shiva's semen, which he ejaculated upon embracing Mohini. Ayyappa is referred to as "Hariharaputra", "the son of Vishnu (Hari) and Shiva (Hara)", and grows up to be a great hero. Another tale says after Surpanaka's destruction, Shiva wishes to see Mohini and mesmerized by her looks, has union with her resulting in the birth of Ayyapppa.


title: Mohini

text: The Tamil text "Kanda Puranam" narrates about the birth of Shasta identified with Aiyanar. The text tells just before the tale that Vishnu is Shiva's "Shakti" (wife and power) Parvati in a male form. The legend begins with Shiva's request and Vishnu's agreement to show his illusionary Mohini form, that he assumed for the distribution of amrita. Shiva falls in love with Mohini and proposes a union with her. Mohini-Vishnu declines saying that union of two men was unfruitful. Shiva informs Mohini-Vishnu that he was just one of forms of his Shakti ("female consort"). Thereafter, their union resulted in the birth of a dark boy with red locks, who was named Hariharaputra. Further, he was also known as Shasta and Aiyannar.


title: Mohini

text: In the "Agni Purana", as the enchanted Shiva follows Mohini, drops of his semen fall on the ground and become "lingas", Shiva's symbols. His seed also generates the monkey-god Hanuman, who helps Vishnu's avatar Rama in his fight against Ravana in the Ramayana. The "Shiva Purana" says that by the mere glimpse of Mohini, Shiva spurts out his seed. The seed was collected and poured into the ear of Añjanā, who gave birth to Hanuman, the incarnation of Shiva. The latter is retold in the Thai and Malaysian version of the Ramayana. Though Hanuman springs from Shiva's seed, he is also considered as a combined son of Vishnu and Shiva.


title: Mohini

text: The Buddhist version of the Bhasmasura tale continues with Shiva (Ishvara) asking the female-Vishnu, who is seated on a swing, to marry him. She asks Shiva to get the permission of his wife Umayangana to take her home. Shiva returns with Umayangana's consent to find the female-Vishnu pregnant, who sends him back to get permission to bring a pregnant woman home. When he returns, a child is born and female-Vishnu is pregnant again. She requests Shiva to seek approval to bring a pregnant woman with a child home. This happens six more times. Finally, Shiva brings Umayangana with him to witness the miraculous woman. Vishnu then returns to his male form. Umayangana embraces the six youngest children merging them into the six-headed Skanda, while the eldest, named Aiyanayaka ("eldest brother") remains intact. Aiyanayaka is identified with Aiyanar.


title: Mohini

text: The rare instance where an "explicit, male homosexual act" is suggested is in a Telugu text where when Shiva is busy lovemaking with Mohini-Vishnu, the latter returns to his original form and still the lovemaking continues.


title: Mohini

text: Mohini plays a lesser role in a Shaiva legend in the "Skanda Purana". Here, Vishnu as Mohini joins Shiva to teach a lesson to arrogant sages. A group of sages are performing rituals in a forest, and start to consider themselves as gods. To humble them, Shiva takes the form of an attractive young beggar (Bhikshatana) and Vishnu becomes Mohini, his wife. While the sages fall for Mohini, their women wildly chase Shiva. When they regain their senses, they perform a black magic sacrifice, which produces a serpent, a lion, an elephant (or tiger) and a dwarf, all of which are overpowered by Shiva. Shiva then dances on the dwarf and takes the form of Nataraja, the cosmic dancer. The legend is retold in the Tamil "Kovil Puranam" and "Kandha Puranam" with some variation. This legend is also told in the "Sthala Purana" related to the Chidambaram Temple dedicated to Shiva-Nataraja.


title: Mohini

text: Another legend from the "Linga Purana" says that the embracing of love-struck Shiva and Mohini led to be their merging into one body. At this moment, Mohini became Vishnu again, resulting the composite deity Harihara, whose right side of the body is Shiva and left side is Vishnu in his male form. In the temple in Sankarnayinarkovil near Kalugumalai is one of the rarest exceptions to iconography of Harihara (Sankara-Narayana). The deity is depicted similar to the Ardhanari, the composite form of Shiva-Parvati, where right side of the body is the male Shiva and left side is female. This image's female side represents Mohini and it, as a whole, symbolizes the union of Shiva and Mohini. In a Harihara image, the Shiva side has an erect phallus ("urdhva linga") and relates to Shiva's love to his left side Vishnu-Mohini. The influence of Shakta traditions on Shaiva ones may have led to the development of composite images like Harihara, where Vishnu is identified with Shiva's consort, or Mohini. Like the "Kanda Puranam" narrative, the Shaiva saint Appar identifies Vishnu as Parvati (Uma), the female counterpart of Shiva.


title: Mohini

text: In the "Brahma Vaivarta Purana", an "apsara" (nymph) named Mohini is created by Shiva. She tries to seduce the creator-god Brahma. While doing so, she says, "A man who refuses to make love to a woman tortured by desire is a eunuch. Whether a man is ascetic or amorous, he must not spurn a woman who approaches him, or he will go to Hell. Come now and make love to me." In one breath, Brahma replies, "Go away, Mother". He argues that he is like her father, and thus, too old for Mohini. Later, Mohini reminds that his consort had emerged from him. The main theme of this incident was to break Brahma's pride and remind him of his creative nature.


title: Mohini

text: Another South Indian folktale tells of the "Mahabharata" hero Aravan (who becomes the Tamil god Kuttantavar), who was married to Mohini, before his self-sacrifice. Aravan agrees to become the sacrificial victim for the "Kalappali" ("sacrifice to the battlefield") to ensure the victory of the Pandavas, his father, and his uncles. Before being sacrificed to goddess Kali, Aravan asks three boons from Krishna, the guide of the Pandavas. The third boon was that Aravan should be married before the sacrifice so that he could get the right of cremation and funerary offerings (bachelors were buried). This third boon, however, is found only in the folk cults. To fulfill this wish in the Kuttantavar cult myth, Krishna turns into Mohini, marries Aravan, and spends the night with him. Then after the sacrifice, Mohini laments Aravan's death, breaking her bangles, beating her breasts, and discarding her bridal finery. She then returns to the original form of Krishna. The legend of the marriage of Aravan and Krishna in his female form as Mohini, and Mohini-Krishna's widowhood after Aravan's sacrifice, forms the central theme of an eighteen-day annual festival in the Tamil month of Cittirai (April–May) at Koovagam. The marriage ceremony is re-enacted by transgender Hijras, who play the role of Mohini-Krishna.


title: Mohini

text: According to mythologist Pattanaik, Mohini is just a disguise to delude the demon Bhasmasura, rather than a sexual transformation in this legend. Mohini is a disillusion, Vishnu's "maya".


title: Mohini

text: Stories in which Shiva knows of Mohini's true nature have been interpreted to "suggest the fluidity of gender in sexual attraction". Pattanaik writes while Westerners may interpret the Shiva-Mohini union as homosexual, traditional Hindus do not agree to this interpretation. He also writes that those focusing only on homoeroticism miss the narrative's deeper metaphysical significance: Mohini's femininity represents the material aspect of reality, and Mohini's seduction is another attempt to induce the ascetic Shiva into taking an interest in worldly matters. Only Vishnu has the power to "enchant" Shiva; a demon who tried to enchant and hurt Shiva in form of a woman was killed in the attempt.


title: Mohini

text: Another interpretation posits that the Mohini tale suggests that Vishnu's "maya" blinds even supernatural beings. Mohini is "the impersonation of the magically delusive nature of existence which fetters all beings to the rounds of births and deaths and vicissitudes of life." Mohini also does not have an independent existence; she exists only as a temporary delusion, and is absorbed back into Vishnu after serving her purpose.


title: Mohini

text: The legend of the union of Mohini-Vishnu and Shiva may also be written as part of the desire to have a common child of the two cosmic patriarchs of Hinduism.


title: Mohini

text: On the fifth day of Brahmotsavam, Venkateshwara is dressed as Mohini and paraded in a grand procession.


title: Mohini

text: In Goa, Mohini is worshipped as Mahalasa or Mahalasa Narayani. She is the Kuladevi (family goddess) of many Hindus from western and southern India, including Goud Saraswat Brahmins, Karhade Brahmins, Daivajnas and Bhandaris. The chief temple of Mahalasa Narayani is at Mardol, Goa, though her temples also exist in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Mahalasa has four hands, carrying a Trishula, a sword, a severed head, and a drinking bowl. She stands on a prostrate man or demon, as a tiger or lion licks blood dripping from the severed head. Goud Saraswat Brahmins as well as Vaishnavas from Goa and South Canara identify her with Mohini and call her Narayani and Rahu-matthani, the slayer of Rahu, as told in the "Bhavishya Purana".


title: Mohini

text: Mahalasa is also called Mhalsa, the consort of Khandoba, a local incarnation of Shiva. As the consort of Khandoba, her chief temple - the Mohiniraj temple - is located at Nevasa, where she is worshiped as a four-armed goddess and identified with Mohini. Mhalsa is often depicted with two arms and accompanying Khandoba on his horse or standing besides him.


title: Mohini

text: The central icon of the Jaganmohini-Kesava Swany temple at Ryali, discovered buried underground by the king in the 11th century, represents the male Vishnu in the front, while the back of the icon is the female Jagan-Mohini ("one who deludes the world") or Mohini, with a female hairdo and figure. A "Sthala Purana" tells that the flower in Mohini's hair fell at Ryali ("fall" in Telugu) when Mohini was being chased by Shiva.


title: Mohini

text: Mohini has an important, dramatic role in several mythical works of South Indian drama like "Yakshagana and Kathakali". In Kerala, however, where Mohini's son Ayyappa is popular, the "Mohiniattam" ("the dance of Mohini") is honored as an independent dance form. Named after the goddess, it is a dance meant exclusively for women and "an ideal example of the erotic form." The origins of Mohiniattam form are unknown, though it was popularized in the 1850s, but later banned as it was used by "loose women" to attract customers. The ban was lifted in 1950, after which it has seen a renewal.


title: Mohini

text: The legends of Mohini are also being depicted in other dances, including the modern "Kathak". The "Sonal Nati", performed in the Saho area of Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh, retells the Mohini-Bhasmasura tale, and hence is known as the Mohini-Bhasmasura dance. It is performed on festive occasions, especially in the Saho fair held in Baisakh in the precincts of the Chandershekhar temple.


title: Financial management

text: Financial management is the business function concerned with profitability, expenses, cash and credit, so that the "organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible;"


title: Financial management

text: Financial managers (FM) are specialized professionals directly reporting to senior management, often the financial director (FD); the function is seen as 'Staff', and not 'Line'.


title: Financial management

text: Financial management is generally concerned with short term working capital management, focusing on current assets and current liabilities, and managing fluctuations in foreign currency and product cycles, often through hedging.


title: Financial management

text: The function also entails the efficient and effective day-to-day management of funds, and thus overlaps treasury management.


title: Financial management

text: It is also involved with long term strategic financial management, focused on i.a. capital structure management, including capital raising, capital budgeting (capital allocation between business units or products), and dividend policy;


title: Financial management

text: (i) Managerial finance is the (academic) branch of finance concerned with the managerial significance of financial techniques;


title: Financial management

text: (ii) Corporate finance is mainly concerned with the longer term capital budgeting, and typically is more relevant to large corporations.


title: Financial management

text: Investment management, also related, is the professional asset management of various securities (shares, bonds and other securities/assets).


title: Financial management

text: In the context of financial management, the function sits with treasury; usually the management of the various short term financial legal instruments (contractual duties, obligations, or rights) appropriate to the company's cash- and liquidity management requirements. See .


title: Financial management

text: The term "financial management" refers to a company's financial strategy, while personal finance or financial life management refers to an individual's management strategy. A financial planner, or personal financial planner, is a professional who prepares financial plans here.


title: Financial management

text: Financial management systems are the software and technology used by organizations to connect, store, and report on assets, income, and expenses.


title: Noumenon

text: In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term "noumenon" is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term "phenomenon", which refers to any object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise unknowable to us. In Kantian philosophy, the unknowable noumenon is often identified with or associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (). However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result.


title: Noumenon

text: The Greek word (plural ) is the neuter middle-passive present participle of , which in turn originates from the word , an Attic contracted form of . A rough equivalent in English would be "something that is thought", or "the object of an act of thought".


title: Noumenon

text: Regarding the equivalent concepts in Plato, Ted Honderich writes: "Platonic Ideas and Forms are noumena, and phenomena are things displaying themselves to the senses... This dichotomy is the most characteristic feature of Plato's dualism; that noumena and the noumenal world are objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values is Plato's principal legacy to philosophy." However, that noumena and the noumenal world were objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values, was disputed from the start, beginning with Democritus, his follower Pyrrho, founder of Pyrrhonism, and even in the Academy starting with Arcesilaus and the introduction of Academic Skepticism.


title: Noumenon

text: As expressed in Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," human understanding is structured by "concepts of the understanding" or pure categories of understanding, found prior to experience in the mind and which make outer experiences possible as counterpart to the rational faculties of the mind.


title: Noumenon

text: By Kant's account, when one employs a concept to describe or categorize "noumena" (the objects of inquiry, investigation or analysis of the workings of the world), one is also employing a way of describing or categorizing "phenomena" (the observable manifestations of those objects of inquiry, investigation or analysis). Kant posited methods by which human understanding makes sense of and thus intuits phenomena that appear to the mind: the concepts of the "transcendental aesthetic", as well as that of the "transcendental analytic", "transcendental logic" and "transcendental deduction". Taken together, Kant's "categories of understanding" are the principles of the human mind which necessarily are brought to bear in attempting to understand the world in which we exist (that is, to understand, or attempt to understand, "things in themselves"). In each instance the word "transcendental" refers to the process that the human mind must exercise to understand or grasp the form of, and order among, phenomena. Kant asserts that to "transcend" a direct observation or experience is to use reason and classifications to strive to correlate with the phenomena that are observed. Humans can make sense out of phenomena in these various ways, but in doing so can never know the "things-in-themselves", the actual objects and dynamics of the natural world in their noumenal dimension - this being the negative, correlate to phenomena and that which escapes the limits of human understanding. By Kant's Critique, our minds may attempt to correlate in useful ways, perhaps even closely accurate ways, with the structure and order of the various aspects of the universe, but cannot know these "things-in-themselves" (noumena) directly. Rather, we must infer the extent to which the human rational faculties can reach the object of "things-in-themselves" by our observations of the manifestations of those things that can be perceived via the physical senses, that is, of phenomena, and by ordering these perceptions in the mind help infer the validity of our perceptions to the rational categories used to understand them in a rational system. This rational system ("transcendental analytic"), being the categories of the understanding as free from empirical contingency.


title: Noumenon

text: According to Kant, objects of which we are cognizant via the physical senses are merely representations of "unknown somethings"—what Kant refers to as the "transcendental object"—as interpreted through the "a priori" or "categories of the understanding". These "unknown somethings" are manifested within the noumenon—although we can never know how or why as our perceptions of these "unknown somethings" via our physical senses are bound by the limitations of the "categories of the understanding" and we are therefore never able to fully know the "thing-in-itself".


title: Noumenon

text: Many accounts of Kant's philosophy treat "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" as synonymous, and there is textual evidence for this relationship. However, Stephen Palmquist holds that "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" are only "loosely" synonymous, inasmuch as they represent the same concept viewed from two different perspectives, and other scholars also argue that they are not identical. Schopenhauer criticised Kant for changing the meaning of "noumenon". However, this opinion is far from unanimous. Kant's writings show points of difference between noumena and things-in-themselves. For instance, he regards things-in-themselves as existing:


title: Noumenon

text: ...though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.


title: Noumenon

text: But in that case a noumenon is not for our understanding a special [kind of] object, namely, an intelligible object; the [sort of] understanding to which it might belong is itself a problem. For we cannot in the least represent to ourselves the possibility of an understanding which should know its object, not discursively through categories, but intuitively in a non-sensible intuition.


title: Noumenon

text: A crucial difference between the noumenon and the thing-in-itself is that to call something a noumenon is to claim a kind of knowledge, whereas Kant insisted that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Interpreters have debated whether the latter claim makes sense: it seems to imply that we know at least one thing about the thing-in-itself (i.e., that it is unknowable). But Stephen Palmquist explains that this is part of Kant's definition of the term, to the extent that anyone who claims to have found a way of making the thing-in-itself knowable must be adopting a non-Kantian position.


title: Noumenon

text: If by 'noumenon' we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the "negative" sense of the term.


title: Noumenon

text: But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the possibility. This would be 'noumenon' in the "positive" sense of the term.


title: Noumenon

text: The positive noumena, if they existed, would be immaterial entities that can only be apprehended by a special, non-sensory faculty: "intellectual intuition" ("nicht sinnliche Anschauung"). Kant doubts that we have such a faculty, because for him intellectual intuition would mean that thinking of an entity, and its being represented, would be the same. He argues that humans have no way to apprehend positive noumena:


title: Noumenon

text: Since, however, such a type of intuition, intellectual intuition, forms no part whatsoever of our faculty of knowledge, it follows that the employment of the categories can never extend further than to the objects of experience. Doubtless, indeed, there are intelligible entities corresponding to the sensible entities; there may also be intelligible entities to which our sensible faculty of intuition has no relation whatsoever; but our concepts of understanding, being mere forms of thought for our sensible intuition, could not in the least apply to them. That, therefore, which we entitle 'noumenon' must be understood as being such only in a negative sense.


title: Noumenon

text: Even if noumena are unknowable, they are still needed as a "limiting concept", Kant tells us. Without them, there would be only phenomena, and since potentially we have complete knowledge of our phenomena, we would in a sense know everything. In his own words:


title: Noumenon

text: Further, the concept of a noumenon is necessary, to prevent sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensible knowledge.


title: Noumenon

text: What our understanding acquires through this concept of a noumenon, is a negative extension; that is to say, understanding is not limited through sensibility; on the contrary, it itself limits sensibility by applying the term noumena to things in themselves (things not regarded as appearances). But in so doing it at the same time sets limits to itself, recognising that it cannot know these noumena through any of the categories, and that it must therefore think them only under the title of an unknown something.


title: Noumenon

text: Furthermore, for Kant, the existence of a noumenal world limits reason to what he perceives to be its proper bounds, making many questions of traditional metaphysics, such as the existence of God, the soul, and free will unanswerable by reason. Kant derives this from his definition of knowledge as "the determination of given representations to an object". As there are no appearances of these entities in the phenomenal, Kant is able to make the claim that they cannot be known to a mind that works upon "such knowledge that has to do only with appearances". These questions are ultimately the "proper object of faith, but not of reason".


title: Noumenon

text: Kantian scholars have long debated two contrasting interpretations of the thing-in-itself. One is the "dual object" view, according to which the thing-in-itself is an entity distinct from the phenomena to which it gives rise. The other is the "dual aspect" view, according to which the thing-in-itself and the thing-as-it-appears are two "sides" of the same thing. This view is supported by the textual fact that "Most occurrences of the phrase 'things-in-themselves' are shorthand for the phrase, 'things considered in themselves' (Dinge an sich selbst betrachtet)."


title: Noumenon

text: Although we cannot "see" things apart from the way we do in fact perceive them via the physical senses, we can "think" them apart from our mode of sensibility (physical perception); thus making the thing-in-itself a kind of noumenon or object of thought.


title: Noumenon

text: Though the term "noumenon" did not come into common usage until Kant, the idea that undergirds it, that matter has an absolute existence which causes it to emanate certain phenomena, had historically been subjected to criticism. George Berkeley, who pre-dated Kant, asserted that matter, independent of an observant mind, is metaphysically impossible. Qualities associated with matter, such as shape, color, smell, texture, weight, temperature, and sound are all dependent on minds, which allow only for relative perception, not absolute perception. The complete absence of such minds (and more importantly an omnipotent mind) would render those same qualities unobservable and even unimaginable. Berkeley called this philosophy immaterialism. Essentially there could be no such thing as matter without a mind.


title: Noumenon

text: Schopenhauer claimed that Kant used the word "noumenon" incorrectly. He explained in his "Critique of the Kantian philosophy", which first appeared as an appendix to "The World as Will and Representation":


title: Noumenon

text: The difference between abstract and intuitive cognition, which Kant entirely overlooks, was the very one that ancient philosophers indicated as φαινόμενα ["phainomena"] and νοούμενα ["nooumena"]; the opposition and incommensurability between these terms proved very productive in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato's doctrine of Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarics, and later in the scholastics, in the conflict between nominalism and realism. This latter conflict was the late development of a seed already present in the opposed tendencies of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant, who completely and irresponsibly neglected the issue for which the terms φαινομένα and νοούμενα were already in use, then took possession of the terms as if they were stray and ownerless, and used them as designations of things in themselves and their appearances.


title: Noumenon

text: The noumenon's original meaning of "that which is thought" is not compatible with the "thing-in-itself," the latter being Kant's term for things as they exist apart from their existence as images in the mind of an observer. In a footnote to this passage, Schopenhauer provides the following passage from the "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" (Bk. I, ch. 13) of Sextus Empiricus to demonstrate the original distinction between phenomenon and noumenon according to ancient philosophers: νοούμενα φαινομένοις ἀντετίθη Ἀναξαγόρας ('Anaxagoras opposed what is thought to what appears.')


title: Emishi

text: The (also called Ebisu and Ezo), written with Chinese characters that literally mean "shrimp barbarians," constituted an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region, referred to as in contemporary sources.


title: Emishi

text: The first mention of the Emishi in literature that can be corroborated with outside sources dates to the 5th century AD, in which they are referred to as (毛人 - "hairy people") in Chinese records. Some Emishi tribes resisted the rule of various Japanese Emperors during the Asuka, Nara and early Heian periods (7th–10th centuries AD).


title: Emishi

text: The origin of the Emishi is disputed. They are often thought to have descended from some tribes of the Jōmon people. Some historians believe that they were related to the Ainu people, but others disagree with this theory and see them as a completely distinct ethnicity. Recent evidence suggests that the Emishi that inhabited Northern Honshu consisted of several distinct tribes (which included pre-Ainu people, and admixed people), who united and resisted the expansion of the Yamato Empire. It is suggested that the Emishi spoke a divergent Japonic language, similar to the historical Izumo dialect.


title: Emishi

text: The first mention of the Emishi is actually from a Chinese source, the "Book of Song" in 478 CE, which referred to them as "hairy people" (). The book refers to "the 55 kingdoms () of the hairy people () of the East" as a report by King Bu — one of the Five kings of Wa.


title: Emishi

text: The first recorded used of the Japanese word "Emishi" is in the "Nihon Shoki" in 720CE, where the word appears in the phonetic spelling . This is in the record of Emperor Jimmu, stating that his armed forces defeated a group of Emishi before Jimmu was enthroned as the Emperor of Japan. According to the , Takenouchi no Sukune in the era of Emperor Keikō proposed the subjugation the Emishi of in eastern Japan.


title: Emishi

text: In later records, the kanji spelling changed to , composed of the characters for "shrimp" and "barbarian". The use of the "shrimp" spelling is thought to refer to facial hair, like the long whiskers of a shrimp, but this is not certain. The "barbarian" portion clearly described an outsider, living beyond the borders of the emerging empire of Japan, which saw itself as a civilizing influence; thus, the empire was able to justify its conquest. This kanji spelling was first seen in the T'ang sources that describe the meeting with the two Emishi that the Japanese envoy brought with him to China. The kanji spelling may have been adopted from China.


title: Emishi

text: The oldest attested pronunciation "Emishi" may have come from Old Japanese, perhaps from the word meaning "bowyer" (in reference to an important weapon, the bow), however some suggest that it came instead from the Ainu term meaning "sword". The "yumishi" theory is problematic, as the Old Japanese term for "bowyer" was ("yuge"), whereas ("yumishi") is not attested until the 1600s. Meanwhile, the later pronunciation "Ebisu" (derived from "Emishi") was also spelled as , which also means "warrior", possibly aligning with the proposed Ainu derivation via metonymy wherein the word for "sword" was used to mean "warrior".


title: Emishi

text: The Emishi were represented by different tribes, some of whom became allies of the Japanese (referred to as and ) while others remained hostile (referred to as ). The Emishi in northeastern Honshū relied on horses in warfare, developing a unique style of warfare in which horse archery and hit-and-run tactics proved very effective against the slower contemporary Japanese imperial army that mostly relied on heavy infantry. The livelihood of the Emishi was based on hunting and gathering as well as on the cultivation of grains such as millet and barley. Recently, it has been thought that they practiced rice cultivation in areas where rice could be easily grown.


title: Emishi

text: The first major attempts to subjugate the Emishi in the 8th century were largely unsuccessful. The imperial armies, which were modeled after the mainland Chinese armies, proved unsuccessful when faced with the guerrilla tactics employed by the Emishi. Following the adoption and development by the imperial forces of horseback archery and the guerilla tactics used by the Emishi, the army soon saw success, leading to the eventual defeat of the Emishi. The success of the gradual change in battle tactics came at the very end of the 8th century in the 790s under the command of the general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. The adoption of horseback archery and horseback combat later led to the development of the samurai. Following their defeat, the


title: Emishi

text: Emishi either submitted themselves to imperial authorities as or , or migrated further north, some to Hokkaidō.


title: Emishi

text: By the mid-9th century, most of the land held by the Emishi in Honshū had been conquered, and the Emishi became part of wider Japanese society. However, they continued to be influential in local politics, as subjugated, though powerful, Emishi families created semi-autonomous feudal domains in the north. In the two centuries following the conquest, a few of these domains became regional states that came into conflict with the central government.


title: Emishi

text: The Emishi are described in the , which presents a view of the Emishi stemming more from a need to justify the Yamato policy of conquest than from accuracy to the Emishi people:


title: Emishi

text: Amongst these Eastern savages the Yemishi are the most powerful; their men and women live together promiscuously; there is no distinction of father and child. In winter, they dwell in holes; in summer, they live in nests. Their clothing consists of furs, and they drink blood. Brothers are suspicious of one another. In ascending mountains, they are like flying birds; in going through the grass, they are like fleet quadrupeds. When they receive a favour, they forget it, but if an injury is done them they never fail to revenge it. Therefore, they keep arrows in their top-knots and carry swords within their clothing. Sometimes, they draw together their fellows and make inroads on the frontier. At other times, they take the opportunity of the harvest to plunder the people. If attacked, they conceal themselves in the herbage; if pursued, they flee into the mountains. Therefore, ever since antiquity, they have not been steeped in the kingly civilizing influences.


title: Emishi

text: The 's entry for Emperor Yūryaku, also known as Ohatsuse no Wakatakeru, records an uprising, after the Emperor's death, of Emishi troops who had been levied to support an expedition to Korea. Emperor Yūryaku is suspected to be King Bu, but the date and the existence of Yūryaku are uncertain, and the Korean reference may be anachronistic. However, the compilers clearly felt that the reference to Emishi troops was credible in this context.


title: Emishi

text: In 658, Abe no Hirafu's naval expedition of 180 ships reached Aguta (present day Akita Prefecture) and Watarishima (Hokkaidō). An alliance with Aguta Emishi, Tsugaru Emishi and Watarishima Emishi was formed by Abe who then stormed and defeated a settlement of the Mishihase (Su-shen in the Aston translation of the ), a people of unknown origin. This is one of the earliest reliable records of the Emishi people extant. The Mishihase may have been another ethnic group who competed with the ancestors of the Ainu for Hokkaidō. The expedition happens to be the furthest northern penetration of the Japanese Imperial army until the 16th century, and that later settlement was from a local Japanese warlord who was independent of any central control.


title: Emishi

text: In 709, the fort of Ideha was created close to present day Akita. This was a bold move since the intervening territory between Akita and the northwestern countries of Japan was not under government control. The Emishi of Akita, in alliance with Michinoku, attacked Japanese settlements in response. Saeki no Iwayu was appointed Sei Echigo Emishi . He used 100 ships from the Japan sea side countries along with soldiers recruited from the eastern countries and defeated the Echigo (present day Akita) Emishi.


title: Emishi

text: In 724, Taga Fort was built by Ōno no Omi Azumahito near present-day Sendai and became the largest administrative fort in the northeast region of Michinoku. As Chinju , he steadily built forts across the Sendai plain and into the interior mountains in what is now Yamagata Prefecture. Guerilla warfare was practiced by the horseriding Emishi who kept up pressure on these forts, but Emishi allies, and , were also recruited and promoted by the Japanese to fight against their kinsmen.


title: Emishi

text: In 758, after a long period of stalemate, the Japanese army under Fujiwara no Asakari penetrated into what is now northern Miyagi Prefecture, and established Momonofu Castle on the Kitakami River. The fort was built despite constant attacks by the Emishi of Isawa (present-day southern Iwate prefecture).


title: Emishi

text: 773 AD marked the beginning of the Thirty-Eight Years' War () with the defection of Korehari no Azamaro, a high-ranking Emishi officer of the Japanese army based in Taga Castle. The Emishi counterattacked along a broad front, starting with Momonohu Castle, destroying the garrison there before going on to destroy a number of forts along a defensive line from east to west established painstakingly over the past generation. Even Taga Castle was not spared. Large Japanese forces were recruited, numbering in the thousands, the largest forces perhaps ten to twenty thousand strong fighting against an force that numbered at most around three thousand warriors, and at any one place around a thousand. In 776 a huge army of over 20,000 men was sent to attack the Shiwa Emishi, an effort that failed, before the Shiwa Emishi launched a success counterattack in the Ōu Mountains. In 780, the Emishi attacked the Sendai plain, torching Japanese villages there. The Japanese were in a near panic as they tried to tax and recruit more soldiers from the Bandō.


title: Emishi

text: In the 789 AD Battle of Koromo River (also known as Battle of Sufuse) the Japanese army under Ki no Kosami Seito was defeated by the Isawa Emishi under their general Aterui. A four thousand-strong army was attacked as they tried to cross the Kitakami River by a force of a thousand Emishi. The imperial army suffered its most stunning defeat, losing a thousand men, many of whom drowned.


title: Emishi

text: In 794, many key Shiwa Emishi, including Isawa no kimi Anushiko of what is now northern Miyagi Prefecture, became allies of the Japanese. This was a stunning reversal to the aspirations of the Emishi who still fought against the Japanese. The Shiwa Emishi were a very powerful group and were able to attack smaller Emishi groups successfully as their leaders were promoted into imperial rank. This had the effect of isolating one of the most powerful and independent Emishi, the Isawa confederation. The newly appointed general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro then attacked the Isawa Emishi, relentlessly using soldiers trained in horse archery. The result was a desultory campaign that eventually led to Aterui's surrender in 802. The war was mostly over and many Emishi groups submitted themselves to the imperial government. However, skirmishes still took place, and it was not until 811 that the so-called Thirty-Eight Years' War was over. North of the Kitakami River, the Emishi were still independent, but the large scale threat that they posed ceased with the defeat of the Isawa Emishi in 802.


title: Emishi

text: After their conquest, some Emishi leaders became part of the regional framework of government in the Tōhoku culminating with the Northern Fujiwara regime. This regime and others such as the Abe and Kiyowara were created by local Japanese and became regional semi-independent states based on the Emishi and Japanese people. However, even before these emerged, the Emishi people progressively lost their distinct culture and ethnicity as they became minorities.


title: Emishi

text: The Northern Fujiwara were thought to have been Emishi, but there is some doubt as to their lineage, and most likely were descended from local Japanese families who resided in the Tōhoku (unrelated to the Fujiwara of Kyoto). Both the Abe and Kiyowara families were almost certainly of Japanese descent, both of whom represented , powerful families who had moved into the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa perhaps during the 9th century, though when they emigrated is not known for certain. They were likely Japanese frontier families who developed regional ties with the descendants of the Emishi , and may have been seen as themselves since they had lived in the region for several generations. Importantly, the Abe held the post of Superintendent of the indigenous. This post proves that the Emishi population was seen as different from other Japanese though it is unclear what the responsibilities of the post were.


title: Emishi

text: Soon after World War II, mummies of the Northern Fujiwara family in Hiraizumi (the capital city of the Northern Fujiwara), who were thought to have been related to the Ainu, were studied by scientists. However, the researchers concluded that the rulers of Hiraizumi were not related to the ethnic Ainu but more similar to contemporary Japanese of Honshū. This was seen as evidence that the Emishi were not related to the Ainu. This had the effect of popularizing the idea that the Emishi were like other contemporary ethnic Japanese who lived in northeastern Japan, outside of Yamato rule. However, the reason the study of the Northern Fujiwara was done was the assumption that they were Emishi, which they were not. They were descendants of the northern Fujiwara branch from Tsunekiyo and the Abe clan. They took liberties with giving themselves Emishi titles because they had become rulers of the previous Emishi held lands of the Tohoku.


title: Emishi

text: Many theories abound as to the precise ethnic relations of the Emishi to other ethnic groups within Japan; one theory suggests that the Emishi are related to the Ainu people. This theory is considered controversial, as many Emishi tribes were known as excellent horse archers and warriors; although the Ainu are also known as archers, they did not use horses and their war-style was clearly different. They also differed in cultural terms. Despite the cultural differences, the Jōmon people are considered the ancestors of both Emishi and Ainu in historical progression, and the names for Emishi and Ezo are the same kanji character; it is already known that the name 'Ezo' was used in the early medieval period for the people of the Tsugaru peninsula, and that the Jōmon inhabitants of Hokkaido were ancestral to the Ainu directly, so this is a logical progression according to this theory. The Esan culture of northern Honshu is associated with this population and later gave rise to the Satsumon culture which played an important role in the formation of modern Ainu people of Hokkaido. The Emishi were horse riders and iron workers (unlike the Ainu). While there is evidence for some agriculture (millet and rice), they were mostly horse riders, hunters, fishers and traders.


title: Emishi

text: Recent studies suggest that Ainu-speaking people joined with the local Japonic-speaking peoples to resist the expansion of the Yamato empire. The Matagi are suggested to be the descendants of these Ainu-speakers from Hokkaido which also contributed several toponyms and loanwords, related to geography and certain forest and water animals which they hunted, to the local Japonic-speaking people.


title: Emishi

text: Studies of the skeletal features of the Jōmon culture populations has shown unexpected heterogeneity among the native population, suggesting multiple origin and diverse ethnic groups. A 2014 anthropologic and genetic study concluded: "In this respect, the biological identity of the Jōmon period population is heterogeneous, and it may be indicative of diverse peoples who possibly belonged to a common culture, known as the Jomon".


title: Emishi

text: There are several historians and linguists which propose that the Emishi spoke a divergent Japonic language, most likely the ancient "" (the ancestor of Tōhoku dialect) and are a different ethnic group from the Ainu and early Yamato. They were likely ethnic Japanese, which resisted against the Yamato dynasty and allied themselves with other local tribes. Especially the similarity of the modern Tōhoku dialect and the ancient Izumo dialect, supports that some of the Izumo people, who did not obey Yamato royalty after the delegation of governance, escaped to the Tōhoku region and became the Emishi.


title: Emishi

text: Recent studies, such as Boer et al. 2020, concluded that the Emishi predominantly spoke a Japonic language, closely related to the Izumo dialect. Additionally, the evidence of rice cultivation by the Emishi and the use of horses, strengthen the link between ancient Izumo Japanese and the Emishi. According to the theory, the Emishi are the Izumo Japanese, who were pushed away from the Yamato Japanese, who did not accept any concurrence to the imperial rule.


title: Emishi

text: Several historians noted striking similarities between the horseriding nomads of the Amur region, specifically Tungusic peoples, and the Emishi. It is suggested that the Emishi originated from a Tungusic source population, which later assimilated Japonic-speaking Izumo migrants. Oishi Naomasa, Emuri Susumi, and others link the Emishi to the semi-nomadic Malgal/Mohe people. There was also a distinction between contemporary Honshu Emishi and Watarishima Emishi of Hokkaido. Historical evidence suggests frequent fights between Honshu Emishi and Watarishima Emishi. It is argued that the Watarishima Emishi consisted of Honshu Emishi and proto-Ainu-speakers. Kudo Masaki and Kitakamae Yasuo concluded that the Emishi were of predominantly Tungusic origin with some assimilated Japonic groups (Izumo people). They further argue that linguistic place names (toponyms) previously suggested to be Ainu, can be explained by Amur Tungusic substratum onto proto-Ainu. Kudo also suggests that the Matagi hunters are in fact descendants of the Emishi, with the specific hunting vocabulary to be of Tungusic rather than Ainu origin. Kikuchi Toshihiko argues that there was much contact between the aboriginal peoples in northern Honshu and Hokkaido who formed the Satsumon and Okhotsk cultures and Tungusic and Paleoasiatic groups in the Russian Far East, especially along the Amur River Basin and on the Manchurian Plain.


title: Emishi

text: The term "Emishi" is used for the concealed village tribe of the main character Ashitaka in the Hayao Miyazaki animated film "Princess Mononoke". The village was a last pocket of Emishi surviving into the Muromachi period (16th century).


title: Jim Courier

text: James Spencer "Jim" Courier (born August 17, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He won four major singles titles, two at the French Open and two at the Australian Open. He was the youngest man to reach the singles finals of all four majors, at the age of 22 years and 11 months. He also won five Masters titles. Since 2005 he has worked as a tennis commentator, notably for the host broadcaster of the Australian Open, Nine (for which he also commentates and co-hosts Australian Ninja Warrior), and as an analyst for Tennis Channel and Prime Video Sport.


title: Jim Courier

text: Courier was raised in Dade City, Florida, and though he excelled at youth sports in general, after a certain point it became clear that tennis was where his true talent lay. As a junior player in the 1980s, Courier attended the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy and won the prestigious Orange Bowl in 1986 and 1987 (the first to win back-to-back titles since Ivan Lendl), as well as the French Open junior doubles title in 1987.


title: Jim Courier

text: Courier turned professional in 1988 and made his Grand Slam breakthrough at the 1991 French Open when he defeated Stefan Edberg and Michael Stich to reach his first Grand Slam final. In the final he defeated his former Bollettieri Academy roommate Andre Agassi in five sets to win his first Slam. He made the quarterfinals of Wimbledon before losing to eventual champion Stich. At the US Open he defeated defending champion Pete Sampras in the quarterfinals and then Jimmy Connors in the semifinals, before losing the final to Edberg.


title: Jim Courier

text: 1992 saw Courier defeat Edberg to win the Australian Open, and he celebrated by jumping into the nearby Yarra River. He then followed this result by defeating future Grand Slam champions Thomas Muster, Goran Ivanišević, Agassi and Petr Korda to successfully defend his French Open title. Afterward, Courier charmed the Parisian crowd by delivering a victory speech in French. Courier also enjoyed a 25-match winning streak during the season. In February of that year, following the San Francisco tournament, he became the tenth player to reach the world no. 1 ranking since the ranking system was implemented in 1973, and the first American since John McEnroe; he finished 1992 as the world no. 1 ranked player. Courier also was a member of the US team that won the 1992 Davis Cup. In 1992 he was the top-seeded player at the Olympics in Barcelona, where he lost in the third round to eventual gold medalist Marc Rosset from Switzerland.


title: Jim Courier

text: In 1993, Courier again won the Australian Open, defeating Edberg in the final for the second consecutive year, and jumped into the Yarra a second time, but it was to be his last such celebration after contracting a stomach bug from the muddy and polluted river. He reached his third consecutive French Open final, which he lost to Sergi Bruguera in five sets. He also reached the 1993 Wimbledon final, defeating Edberg in the semifinals, and lost to Sampras in four sets. By reaching the Wimbledon final, Courier had reached the finals of all four Grand Slams at the age of 22, a record which still stands in men's singles. Courier also became the first player since Rod Laver to reach the finals of the Australian, French and Wimbledon in the same season; the feat was not matched until 2006 by Roger Federer. Courier again was part of the US team that won the 1995 Davis Cup.


title: Jim Courier

text: Courier captured a total of 23 singles titles and 6 doubles titles during his career. He spent a total of 58 weeks ranked as the World No. 1 in 1992 and 1993. He reached the finals of all four major championships during his career, a feat accomplished by only seven other male players in the Open Era. Courier retired from the ATP tour in 2000. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2005.


title: Jim Courier

text: Courier returned to the tour at the 2005 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships when he received a wildcard into the doubles draw partnering Andre Agassi. The pair lost in the first round to eventual finalists Martín García and Luis Horna in three sets. It would be the last match of Courier's career.


title: Jim Courier

text: Since his retirement as a top-level player, Courier has served as a tennis analyst and commentator for the Tennis Channel, USA Network, NBC Sports, TNT, ITV, Sky Sports and the Seven and Nine Network. Since 2005 Courier has headed the commentary for the host broadcaster of the Australian Open, which was Seven from 2005 to 2018 and Nine since 2019. Courier calls many centre court men's singles matches for the network and often conducts the post-match on-court interviews with the winning player. He has also provided special comments on the network's Wimbledon coverage since 2013. Courier started working with the British channel ITV for the French Open in 2012. In 2015, Courier worked with the British channel Sky Sports for their US Open coverage. The Jim Courier Club House now stands on the grounds of the Dade City Little League complex in John S. Burks Memorial Park in Dade City, Florida. Courier is an alumnus of that Little League program.


title: Jim Courier

text: In 2004, Courier founded InsideOut Sport & Entertainment, a New York-based event production company that owns and operates the Champions Series, Legendary Nights exhibitions as well as private corporate events.


title: Jim Courier

text: He also founded Courier's Kids, a non-profit organization that supports tennis programs in the inner city of St. Petersburg, Florida.


title: Jim Courier

text: On October 27, 2010, Courier was named captain of the United States Davis Cup team, replacing Patrick McEnroe. Courier stepped down from the role after the 2018 semi-final defeat to Croatia. Courier led his country with a 10-8 record and two semi-final appearances during his captaincy.


title: Jim Courier

text: Courier has the following head-to-head records against the listed opponents (No. 1 ranked players in boldface):


title: Jim Courier

text: NOTE: In Champions Series tournaments, there are only two sets. A tiebreaker to ten is held instead of a third set.


title: Album era

text: The album era was a period in English-language popular music from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s in which the album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was primarily driven by three successive music recording formats: the 33⅓ rpm long-playing record (LP), the audiocassette, and the compact disc. Rock musicians from the US and the UK were often at the forefront of the era, which is sometimes called the album-rock era in reference to their sphere of influence and activity. The term "album era" is also used to refer to the marketing and aesthetic period surrounding a recording artist's album release.


title: Album era

text: LP albums developed in the early 20th century and were originally marketed for classical music and wealthier adult consumers. However, singles still dominated the music industry, eventually through the success of rock and roll performers in the 1950s, when the LP format was utilized more for soundtrack, jazz, and some pop recordings. It was not until the mid-1960s, when the Beatles began to release artistically ambitious and top-selling LPs, that more rock and pop acts followed suit and the industry embraced albums to immense success while burgeoning rock criticism validated their cultural value. By the next decade, the LP had emerged as a fundamental artistic unit and a widely popular item with young people, often marketed using the idea of a concept album, which was employed especially by progressive musicians in both rock and soul.


title: Album era

text: At the end of the 1970s, LP albums experienced a decline in sales while the singles format was reemphasized by the developments of punk rock, disco, and MTV's music video programming. The record industry combatted this trend by gradually displacing LPs with CDs, releasing fewer singles that were hits to force sales of their accompanying albums, and inflating the prices of CD albums over the next two decades, when their production proliferated. The success of major pop stars led to the development of an extended rollout model among record labels, marketing an album around a catchy lead single, an attention-grabbing music video, novel merchandise, media coverage, and a supporting concert tour. Women and black musicians continued to gain critical recognition among the album era's predominantly white-male and rock-oriented canon, with the burgeoning hip hop genre developing album-based standards in its own right. In the 1990s, the music industry saw an alternative rock and country music boom, leading to a revenue peak of $15 billion in 1999 based in CD sales. However, the development of file sharing networks such as Napster began to undermine the format's viability, as consumers were able to rip and share CD tracks digitally over the Internet.


title: Album era

text: In the early 21st century, music downloading and streaming services emerged as popular means of distribution, as album sales suffered a steep decline and recording acts generally focused on singles, effectively ending the album era. The critical paradigm also shifted away from rock and toward more innovative works being produced in pop and urban music, which dominated record sales in the 2000s. High-profile pop acts continued to market their albums seriously, with surprise releases emerging as a popular strategy. While physical music sales declined further worldwide, the CD remained popular in some countries such as Japan, due in part to the marketing and fandom surrounding top-selling Japanese idol performers, whose success represented a growing shift away from the global dominance of major English-language acts. By the end of the 2010s, concept albums had reemerged with culturally relevant and critically successful personal narratives. Meanwhile, pop and rap artists garnered the most album streams with minimal marketing that capitalized on the digital era's on-demand consumer culture, which evolved even more rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the music industry.


title: Album era

text: Technological developments in the early 20th century led to sweeping changes in the way recorded music was made and sold. Prior to the LP, the standard medium for recorded music had been the 78 rpm gramophone record, made from shellac and featuring a three-to-five minute capacity per side. The capacity limitations placed constraints on the composing processes of recording artists, while the fragility of shellac prompted the packaging of these records in empty booklets resembling photo albums, with typically brown-colored wrapping paper as covers. The introduction of polyvinyl chloride in record production led to vinyl records, which played with less noise and more durability.


title: Album era

text: In the 1940s, the market for commercial- and home-use recordings was dominated by the competing RCA Victor and Columbia Records, whose chief engineer Peter Carl Goldmark pioneered the development of the 12-inch long play (LP) vinyl record. This format could hold recordings as long as 52 minutes, or 26 minutes per side, at a speed of 33⅓ rpm, and was playable with a small-tipped "microgroove" stylus designed for home playback systems. Officially introduced in 1948 by Columbia, LPs became known as "record albums", termed in reference to the photo album-like 78 packaging. Another innovation from Columbia was the addition of graphic and typographic design to album jacket covers, introduced by Alex Steinweiss, the label's art director. Encouraged by its positive effect on LP sales, the music industry adopted illustrated album covers as a standard by the 1950s.


title: Album era

text: Originally, the album was primarily marketed for classical music listeners, and the first LP released was "Mendelssohn: Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra Op. 64" (1948) by Nathan Milstein and the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. Film soundtracks, Broadway show cast recordings, jazz musicians, and some pop singers such as Frank Sinatra soon utilized the new longer format. Jazz artists especially, such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Dave Brubeck, preferred the LP for how its capacity allowed them to record their compositions with concert-length arrangements and improvisations. The original Broadway cast recording of the musical "Kiss Me, Kate" (1949) sold 100,000 copies in its first month of release and, together with "South Pacific" (which topped the album charts for 63 weeks), brought more attention to LPs, while the Broadway cast recording of "My Fair Lady" became the first LP to sell one million copies. However, in the 1950s and into the 1960s, 45 rpm seven-inch single sales were still considered the primary market for the music industry, and albums remained a secondary market. The careers of notable rock and roll performers such as Elvis Presley were driven primarily by single sales.


title: Album era

text: The arrival of the Beatles in the US in 1964 is credited by music writers Ann Powers and Joel Whitburn as heralding the "classic album era" or "rock album era". In his "Concise Dictionary of Popular Culture", Marcel Danesi comments that "the album became a key aspect of the countercultural movement of the 1960s, with its musical, aesthetic, and political themes. From this, the 'concept album' emerged, with the era being called the 'album era. According to media academic Roy Shuker, with the development of the concept album in the 1960s, "the album changed from a collection of heterogeneous songs into a narrative work with a single theme, in which individual songs segue into one another", "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical".


title: Album era

text: Conversely, popular culture historian Jim Cullen says the concept album is "sometimes [erroneously] assumed to be a product of the rock era", with "The A.V. Club" writer Noel Murray arguing that Sinatra's 1950s LPs, such as "In the Wee Small Hours" (1955), had pioneered the form earlier with their "thematically linked songs". Similarly, Will Friedwald observes that Ray Charles had also released thematically unified albums at the turn of the 1960s that made him a major LP artist in R&B, peaking in 1962 with the high-selling "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music".