title: John Kennedy Toole

text: John Kennedy Toole (; December 17, 1937 – March 26, 1969) was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana whose posthumously published novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces", won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981; he also wrote "The Neon Bible". Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole's novels were rejected during his lifetime. Due in part to these failures, he suffered from paranoia and depression, dying by suicide at the age of 31.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole was born to a middle-class family in New Orleans. From a young age, his mother, Thelma, taught him an appreciation of culture. She was thoroughly involved in his affairs for most of his life, and at times they had a difficult relationship. With his mother's encouragement, Toole became a stage performer at the age of 10 doing comic impressions and acting. At 16 he wrote his first novel, "The Neon Bible", which he later dismissed as "adolescent".


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole received an academic scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans. After graduating from Tulane, he studied English Literature at Columbia University in New York while teaching simultaneously at Hunter College. He also taught at various Louisiana colleges, and during his early career as an academic he was valued on the faculty party circuit for his wit and gift for mimicry. His studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the army, where he taught English to Spanish-speaking recruits in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After receiving a promotion, he used his private office to begin writing "A Confederacy of Dunces", which he finished at his parents' home after his discharge.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: "Dunces" is a picaresque novel featuring the misadventures of protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, obese, misanthropic, self-styled scholar who lives at home with his mother. It is hailed for its accurate depictions of New Orleans dialects. Toole based Reilly in part on his college professor friend Bob Byrne. Byrne's slovenly, eccentric behavior was anything but professorial, and Reilly mirrored him in these respects. The character was also based on Toole himself, and several personal experiences served as inspiration for passages in the novel. While at Tulane, Toole filled in for a friend at a job as a hot tamale cart vendor, and worked at a family owned and operated clothing factory. Both of these experiences were later adopted into his fiction.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole submitted "Dunces" to publisher Simon & Schuster, where it reached editor Robert Gottlieb. Gottlieb considered Toole talented but felt his comic novel was essentially pointless. Despite several revisions, Gottlieb remained unsatisfied, and after the book was rejected by another literary figure, Hodding Carter Jr., Toole shelved the novel. Suffering from depression and feelings of persecution, Toole left home on a journey around the country. He stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi, ending his life by running a garden hose in from the exhaust of his car to the cabin. Some years later, his mother brought the manuscript of "Dunces" to the attention of novelist Walker Percy, who ushered the book into print. In 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole was born to John Dewey Toole, Jr. and Thelma Ducoing Toole. Kennedy was the name of Thelma's grandmother. The first of the Creole Ducoing family arrived in Louisiana from France in the early 19th century, and the Tooles immigrated to America from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s. Toole's father worked as a car salesman, and his mother, forced to give up her teaching job when she married (as was the custom), gave private lessons in music, speech, and dramatic expression. Toole was known to friends and family as "Ken" until the final few months of his life, when he insisted on being called John. As a child, Toole had an intense affection for his black nursemaid Beulah Matthews, who cared for him when his parents were both working.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole's highly cultured mother was a controlling woman, especially with her son. His father was less involved and sometimes complained of his lack of influence in their child's upbringing. Despite this, he and his father bonded through a mutual interest in baseball and cars. Toole's mother chose the friends he could associate with, and felt his cousins on his father's side were too common for him to be around. Toole received high marks in elementary school and, from a young age, expressed a desire to excel academically. He skipped ahead a grade, from first to second, after taking an IQ test at the age of six, and would also eventually skip the fourth grade.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: When Toole was ten, his mother gathered a group of child stage entertainers she named the Junior Variety Performers. The troupe, with Toole as its star, consisted of 50 children of varying skills and ages. It was well-received, and he also engaged in other entertainment ventures, such as playing the lead in three productions of the Children's Workshop Theatre of New Orleans, MCing a radio show called "Telekids", modeling for newspaper ads, and developing a solo show of comic impersonations entitled "Great Lovers of the World".


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Although an excellent student, Toole curtailed his stage work when he entered high school (Alcée Fortier High), to concentrate on his academic work. He wrote for the school newspaper "Silver and Blue", worked on the yearbook "The Tarpon", and won several essay contests on subjects such as the Louisiana Purchase and the American Merchant Marine. He took up debating, a skill his father had used to win the state debate championship when he was in high school. Toole spoke at gatherings of civic organizations such as Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. Toole's father bought him an Oldsmobile, in which Toole was delivering newspapers at the age of 13, even though the legal driving age was 15. In high school, Toole spent a lot of time at the home of classmate Larry McGee, and dated McGee's sister, Jane. Jane later said that Toole never wanted to go home and would purposely spend almost all of his free time at the McGees'. With the McGees, Toole would engage in mischievous pranks and go on double dates with Larry and his girlfriend, Buzz. The couples often spent their free time at the local pool, or cruising around in Toole's car.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: As a teenager in 1954, Toole made his first trip out of Louisiana to Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C. on a field trip. He especially enjoyed New York and filled a cherished scrapbook with pictures from his visit (which included trips on the New York City Subway System, an excursion on a boat in the New York Harbor, visits to the Statue of Liberty, Chinatown, Times Square) and with the program from a performance of The Rockettes he had seen.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole became the editor of the news section of the school newspaper, and maintained high marks throughout high school. He received many accolades, including winning a National Merit Scholarship, selection to the National Honor Society, and being named the Most Intelligent Senior Boy by the student body. He was one of two New Orleanians voted outstanding citizen at the Pelican (now Louisiana) Boys State convention and he was invited back to serve the following year as a counsellor. He also took part in the Newman Club, a Catholic organization for teenagers, where he won an award for outstanding student in the group. He received a full scholarship to Tulane University at age 17.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: During his senior year, Toole wrote "The Neon Bible", a short novel of Southern Gothic fiction that has been compared in style to Flannery O'Connor, a favorite author of Toole's. The book's protagonist, a boy named David, had once lived with his family in a "little white house in town that had a real roof you could sleep under when it rained," before his father lost his job forcing them into a small shoddily built home. Set in 1940s Mississippi, the backwoods Baptist community setting is similar to a location where Toole had once traveled to with a high school friend for a literary contest. The novel's sudden outburst of violence at the end has been described as incongruous with what preceded it.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole later described the novel during correspondence with an editor, "In 1954, when I was 16, I wrote a book called "The Neon Bible", a grim, adolescent, sociological attack upon the hatreds caused by the various Calvinist religions in the South—and the fundamentalist mentality is one of the roots of what was happening in Alabama, etc. The book, of course, was bad, but I sent it off a couple of times anyway." It failed to attract interest from publishers and was not released until after Toole's death.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In high school, Toole, as editor of the school newspaper, had written a section of gossip and wit under a pseudonym entitled "Fish Tales", and while at Tulane he worked on the college newspaper, the "Hullabaloo", writing articles, reviewing books, and drawing cartoons. The cartoons were noted for their subtlety and sophistication. At Tulane he first majored in engineering on the recommendation of his father; however, after a few weeks, he changed his major to English, stating "I'm losing my culture" to his mother in explanation. Around this time, Toole began hanging around a local blues band which performed at area high schools and also around the French Quarter, and the Irish Channel. Toole's classmates and family looked down on the French Quarter as being for tourists and the Irish Channel as being a place for lowlifes, so Toole kept his trips there a secret. His closest friend was guitarist Don Stevens, nicknamed "Steve Cha-Cha", with whom he bonded over their shared love of blues music and Beat poets. Stevens also had a side job pushing a hot tamale cart around town and, on days when he was unavailable for work, Toole would fill in for him. According to Stevens' bandmate Sidney Snow, Toole loved eating the tamales. Toole later used these experiences as material for his novel "A Confederacy of Dunces", whose protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly pushes a hot dog cart around town, usually eating most of the profits. Also, like Reilly, Toole later worked at a family business that manufactured men's clothing, Haspel Brothers. He worked for J.B. Tonkel, who married one of the Haspel daughters. "Ken watched the Haspels' business dealings with great interest, absorbing and remembering their troubles and intrigues," and he later constructed the similar Levy Pants Company in "Dunces", with Gus Levy and his wife becoming significant supporting characters in the novel.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In 1958, Toole graduated from Tulane with honors. He enrolled in Columbia University in New York on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study English literature. He took on a heavy workload so that he could earn his master's degree in a single year. In his free time he dated Ruth Kathmann, another student from Tulane, who was studying journalism at Columbia. The couple would go dancing at the Roseland Ballroom, as the $2.00 entrance fee allowed them to dance all night and suited their limited budget. Toole was noted to be a talented dancer. There is some question as to whether they were engaged, with friends claiming they were but Kathmann saying only that Toole asked her to marry him, but she declined. After he returned to New Orleans they rarely saw each other, and she married another man. Toole wrote his master's essay on the Elizabethan poet John Lyly, which was made easier by the fact that he had also written his honors thesis at Tulane on Lyly.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole returned home in 1959 to spend a year as assistant professor of English at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL), now renamed the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Joel L. Fletcher, a close friend, noted, "Ken has a real gift for mimicry and a refined sense of the absurd ... the English faculty at USL, which is divided into several camps of war, both fear and court Ken because of his biting comic talent." This year is generally considered one of the happiest of his life. While at USL he rented a dilapidated apartment from an elderly and eccentric widow on Convent Street. Toole described the apartment in "Conradian metaphor" to friends.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole was in constant demand and went to all the parties where it was said "he was encouraged and sometimes forced to perform, Ken would enter a room armed with quiver full of sharp stories and barbed one-liners. He would zing these out until his audience was weak with laughter, though he hadn't cracked a smile." Because he was saving for a return to Columbia to get his Ph.D., Toole was a notorious skinflint during his year at USL. His friends noticed this and forced him to pay for and throw a party at his home. The party was a success and generally considered the best party thrown that year. In contrast to this image of an outgoing, lively young man, when Toole's mother came to visit, friends noticed that he became sullen and withdrawn. His friend Pat Rickels commented that Thelma "was absolutely convinced that he was without flaw and that all the hopes of the world lay in him. It was an extreme form of maternalism, where all your pride and all your hopes are in one person. He had to grow up with that burden. She was a very ostentatious, shrill, loud-voiced, bossy, bragging woman."


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: It was at USL that Toole met Bob Byrne, an eccentric English professor who is considered one of the primary inspirations for the character of Ignatius J. Reilly. Byrne specialized in the medieval period, and he and Toole frequently discussed the philosopher Boethius and the wheel of Fortuna, as described in Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy". Boethius was the favorite philosopher of Ignatius J. Reilly, who frequently referred to Fortuna and "Consolation of Philosophy". Like Ignatius, Byrne was a self-admitted devoted slob who played the lute, and also wore a deerstalker hunting cap, which Toole frequently chided him about.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: When he was not studying or on the faculty party circuit, Toole frequented country bars and drank beer. He would usually listen to singer Frances Faye, whom he had once heard perform in New York. On several occasions while listening to her music with friends he enigmatically remarked, "Is Frances Faye God?" He was also an avid Marilyn Monroe fan who was devastated by her death and once described his interest in her as having "reached the stage of obsession".


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In May 1960, Toole accepted a three-year fellowship to study for a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature at the University of Washington at Seattle. However, when he was offered a teaching position at Hunter College in New York, which suited his desire to study at Columbia, he chose to go there instead. At 22, he became the youngest professor in Hunter's history. Although he pursued a doctorate at Columbia, he became unhappy with his Ph.D. However, he wrote to Fletcher that he still liked Hunter, "principally because the aggressive, pseudo-intellectual, 'liberal' girl students are continuously amusing." Fletcher surmised that from these girls the character of Myrna Minkoff from "Dunces" was born. Toole, although generally only a "Christmas-and-Easter churchgoer", had some apprehension about the anti-Catholic intellectualism of some of his students, and about them seeming ever watchful for a cause they could throw their liberal zeal behind. "Every time the elevator door opens at Hunter, you are confronted by 20 pairs of burning eyes, 20 sets of bangs and everyone waiting for someone to push a Negro" he is reported to have said. When he first arrived back in New York Toole dated Emilie Dietrich Griffin, another Louisiana transplant, with whom he had worked on the "Hullabaloo" staff, and later he dated another Louisianan, Clayelle Dalferes, of whom he had learned through Fletcher. The couple loved the cinema and movie-going was a constant staple of their dates. Both women said their relationships with Toole never progressed beyond the level of a good night kiss.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole's studies were interrupted by his being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961. Toole (who was fluent in Spanish) served two years at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits. He rose quickly in the military ranks. In under a year, he attained the rank of sergeant, and received numerous awards and citations. While serving in Puerto Rico, he frequently traveled throughout the Caribbean, either alone or with members of his company. Toole, however, began to dread the frustrations of military life and the oppressive heat of Puerto Rico. He described his work there in a letter to a friend:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: He also engaged in one of the favorite activities of military personnel on the island: alcohol consumption. Both the soldiers and the instructors at the base drank excessively, as alcohol was cheap and plentiful. Toole remarked in another letter to Fletcher, "We are all rotting here at the moment. The decreased draft has meant no trainees since June ... the inactivity here, coupled with the remnants of a rainy and enervating summer has (have?) plunged the English instructors into an abyss of drinking and inertia. Occasionally someone will struggle off to the beach or to San Juan, but the maxim here remains, 'It's too hot. When Emilie Griffin paid Toole a visit in December 1961 she was dismayed at what she saw. Toole was notably depressed and while dining at a local hotel she noted that "the windows on all sides of our table were filled with perfect rainbows. Ken was sitting in a pocket of darkness surrounded by these brilliant colored arches and he never looked at them." Adding to Toole's dismay, his class ring from Tulane went missing and he searched the entire base for it, questioning everyone, until concluding that it had been stolen. Disgusted, he wrote home, "It's a wonder I haven't been stabbed yet or paralyzed by intestinal diseases on this insane little geographical mountain top protruding from the Caribbean. However, under any circumstances the loss of the ring affects me deeply."


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In the early portion of Toole's military career one of his primary motivations for advancement was to acquire a private office. Privacy was a significant luxury on the island with some of the men renting rooms in nearby hotels so they could have some solitude. Toole's army buddy David Kubach, also an aspiring writer, lent him a green Swedish-made Halda typewriter for use in his office. The barracks consisted solely of college educated English professors, which gave it a different makeup from usual army companies. In contrast to almost all other army barracks where gays kept their sexual orientation a secret, there was an openly gay contingent which flaunted their homosexuality. The gay men reserved a portion of the barracks for themselves and as they did not proposition any of the straight instructors, they were left alone. However, this particular group of gay men drank significantly more than the rest of the group and eventually began to exhibit a loud, rowdy, and vulgar brand of behavior that made the straight men uncomfortable. Toole's response was to ignore their behavior and it lost him the respect of some of the men in the barracks. The problem came to a head when a gay instructor attempted suicide by overdosing on APC (aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine) tablets after being spurned by another soldier. When Toole found the man he waited a half-hour to call for help, hoping he would awaken on his own. His friend Kubach stated that this was because it would look bad for the soldier and that he would most likely get himself court martialed for a suicide attempt. Some of his fellow soldiers were livid and held a meeting deciding whether to report Toole's negligence. Ultimately, they did not report his behavior and the army never filed any charges but his relationships with many of the men were irrevocably changed.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: After this incident, Toole became withdrawn and began spending more and more time in his office typing what would eventually become his master work, "A Confederacy of Dunces". It was not a secret that Toole was writing a book. Late at night, his fellow soldiers could often hear the sound of the typewriter keys. Although he was secretive about the novel among the other men, Toole showed the early portions of it to Kubach who gave him positive feedback. Around this time, Kubach was transferred and took his typewriter with him, so Toole was forced to buy his own. He later commented that he began to "talk and act like Ignatius" during this period as he became more and more immersed in the creation of the book. His letter home to his parents of April 10, 1963 shows these similarities:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole received a hardship discharge as his parents were having difficult economic times, his father struggling with deafness and an increasing incidence of irrational fear and paranoia. Toole looked forward to coming home and spending time talking with his mother. Toole turned down an offer to return to his post at Hunter, and arrived home to a teaching position at Dominican College, a Catholic all-female school. He initially liked the position as it allowed him to teach for only 10.5 hours a week and afforded him the same leisure time he had during his less active periods in the service. The nuns on the faculty were enamored with Toole from the start, considering him well mannered, genteel, and charming. He used his free time to work on his novel, and to spend some time with his musician friend Sidney Snow at Snow's home in the Irish Channel and at various night clubs where he would watch Snow and his bandmates perform, among other things, covers of songs by The Beatles. The November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy caused Toole to fall into severe depression. He stopped writing and drank heavily. In February 1964 he resumed writing, at which point he added an ending and sent the manuscript to Simon & Schuster.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: "Dunces" has been described as a "grand comic fugue" and is considered one of the seminal works of twentieth century Southern literature. It has received praise for its accurate use of various New Orleans dialects, including the Yat dialect. It concerns protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a slothful, obese, self-styled philosopher who lives with his mother. After an early financial setback for the Reilly family, caused by Ignatius, he is forced by his mother to seek employment in a variety of menial jobs to help the household financially, for which he is continually resentful of her. He subsequently takes revenge on several businesses for perceived slights. He incites black workers to insurrection at Levy Pants Company, eats more hot dogs than he sells, and attempts to break up a strip club. Along the way he runs into a divergent cast of characters, including Myrna Minkoff, a rebellious socialist intellectual with whom he conducts an ongoing literary correspondence. Although Reilly is partially modeled after Toole's eccentric friend Bob Byrne, Byrne and others have stated that much of Reilly is actually based on Toole himself:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: The book eventually reached senior editor Robert Gottlieb, who had talked the then-unknown Joseph Heller into completing the classic comic novel "Catch-22". Gottlieb and Toole began a two-year correspondence and dialogue over the novel which would ultimately result in bitter disappointment on both sides. While Gottlieb felt Toole was undoubtedly talented, he was unhappy with the book in its original form. He felt that it had one basic flaw which he expressed to Toole in an early letter:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Initially, although Toole was disappointed that the novel could not be published as is, he was exuberant that a major publisher was interested in it. He entered his second year of teaching at Dominican as one of the favorite new professors on staff. Students marveled at his wit, and Toole would make entire classes burst into laughter while hardly showing any expression. He never retold a story or joke, and had many repeat students. Shortly before Christmas break in 1964, Toole received a letter from Gottlieb. In it Gottlieb remarked that he had shown the novel to Candida Donadio, a literary agent whose clients included Joseph Heller and Thomas Pynchon. Gottlieb told Toole they felt he was "... wildly funny often, funnier than almost anyone around". Also they liked the same portions and characters of the book and disliked the same parts as well. Gottlieb gave a list of things he did not like concluding with:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Later on in the letter, Gottlieb stated that he still had faith in Toole as a writer and that he wished to hold onto the manuscript in case he or Toole would be able to see a way around his objections. Toole decided that it would be best for Gottlieb to return the manuscript, saying "Aside from a few deletions, I don't think I could really do much to the book now—and of course even with revisions you might not be satisfied." Toole made a trip to New York to see Gottlieb in person; however, he was out of town and Toole came back disappointed. He felt that he had embarrassed himself by giving a rambling, uncomfortable speech explaining his situation to one of Gottlieb's office staff. He returned home having left a note for Gottlieb to call him, and they later talked for an hour on the phone. In this conversation Gottlieb re-iterated that he would not accept the novel without further revision. He suggested that Toole move on to writing something else, an idea which Toole ultimately rejected.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In a long, partially autobiographical letter he sent to Gottlieb in March 1965, Toole explained that he could not give up on the book since he wrote the novel largely from personal observation and because the characters were based on real people he had seen in his life.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Gottlieb wrote him an encouraging letter, in which he stated again that he felt Toole was very talented (even more so than himself) and that if Toole were to re-submit the manuscript he would continue to "read, reread, edit, perhaps publish, generally cope, until you are fed up with me. What more can I say?" In early 1966, Toole wrote Gottlieb one final letter, which has never been located. Gottlieb wrote him back on January 17, 1966, re-iterating his feelings on the book and stating that he wanted to read it again when Toole created another revision.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole took the rejection of the book in his intended form as a tremendous personal blow. He eventually ceased work on "Dunces" and for a time left it atop an armoire in his bedroom. He continued to teach at Dominican where he remained a favorite among the student body with his classes regularly filling up well before official registration. His comedic performances during lectures remained especially popular among students. He attempted to work on another novel which he titled "The Conqueror Worm", a reference to death as portrayed in Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same name, but he found little peace at home. Toole's mother persuaded him to take "Dunces" to Hodding Carter Jr., who was well known as a reporter and publisher for the "Delta Democrat Times" in Greenville, Mississippi, and was spending a semester teaching at Tulane. Carter showed little interest in the book, but complimented him on it. The face-to-face rejection Carter dealt Toole drove him further into despair and he became angry with his mother for causing him further embarrassment.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Except for a few trips by car to Madison, Wisconsin to see army pal David Kubach, Toole spent most of the last three years of his life at home only leaving to go to Dominican. In the winter of 1967, Kubach, who had come down to visit Toole, noticed an increased sense of paranoia on Toole's part; once when driving around New Orleans, Toole became convinced they were being followed and attempted to lose the car. The family moved to a larger rental house on Hampson Street, and Toole continued teaching, with his students noticing that his wit had become more acerbic. He continued to drink heavily, and gained a great deal of weight, causing him to have to purchase an entire new wardrobe. Toole began having frequent and intense headaches, and as aspirin was no help, he saw a doctor. The doctor's treatment was also ineffective, and he suggested Toole see a neurologist, an idea which Toole rejected.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole tried to maintain a sense of normality and enrolled in Tulane in the fall of 1968 with the hopes of acquiring a Ph.D. He took a course studying Theodore Dreiser, on whom he had lectured while at Hunter, and was particularly interested in Dreiser's close relationship with his mother and his anti-Catholic beliefs. The assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 added to his feelings of grief and heightened his paranoia. Several of Toole's longtime friends noticed he had an increasing sense of feelings of personal persecution. Toole went to see his friend Bob Byrne at his home in August 1968, where he again expressed sadness and humiliation that his book would not be published. Toole told Byrne that people were passing his home late in the night and honking their car horns at him, that students whispered about him behind his back, and that people were plotting against him. Byrne had a talk with him, which he felt, for the time being, calmed him down.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In the months before his suicide, Toole, who was usually extremely well groomed, "began to appear in public unshaved and uncombed, wearing unpolished shoes and wrinkled clothes, to the amazement of his friends and students in New Orleans." He also began to exhibit signs of paranoia, including telling friends that a woman who he erroneously thought had worked for Simon & Schuster was plotting to steal his book so that her husband, the novelist George Deaux, could publish it.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole became increasingly erratic during his lectures at Dominican, resulting in frequent student complaints, and was given to rants against church and state. Toward the end of the 1968 fall semester, he was forced to take a leave of absence and stopped attending classes at Tulane, resulting in his receiving a grade of incomplete. The Tooles spent Christmas of 1968 in disarray with Toole's father in an increasing state of dementia, and Toole searching the home for electronic mind-reading devices.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: When Toole was unable to resume his position at Dominican in January 1969, the school had to hire another professor. This greatly upset his mother and on January 19, 1969, they had a horrible final argument. He stopped by the house the next day to pick up some things and spoke only to his father, as Thelma was out at the grocery store. He left home for the final time and withdrew $1,500 (equivalent to $ in ) from his savings account. After a week she called the police, but without any evidence to his whereabouts, they took a report and waited for him to surface. Thelma became convinced that Toole's friends the Rickels knew where he was and called them repeatedly, even though they denied knowing where he had gone.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Items found in Toole's car show that he drove to California where he visited the Hearst family mansion and then to Milledgeville, Georgia. Here he most likely attempted to visit Andalusia, the home of deceased writer Flannery O'Connor, although her house was not open to the public. This was succeeded by a drive toward New Orleans. It was during this trip that he stopped outside Biloxi, Mississippi, and committed suicide by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe in through the window of his car on March 26, 1969. His car and person were immaculately clean, and the police officers who found him reported that his face showed no signs of distress. An envelope discovered in the car was marked "to my parents". The suicide note inside the envelope was destroyed by his mother, who later gave varying vague accounts of its details. In one instance she said it expressed his "concerned feeling for her" and later she told a "Times-Picayune" interviewer that the letter was "bizarre and preposterous. Violent. Ill-fated. Ill-fated. Nothing. Insane ravings." He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans. A few years earlier, Toole had driven his army buddy David Kubach to the exact spot where he would later die by suicide. As the location was unremarkable, Kubach did not understand why Toole had taken him there. He left his parents a $2,000 life-insurance policy (equivalent to $ in ), several thousand dollars in savings, and his car. Toole's funeral service was private and attended only by his parents and his childhood nursemaid Beulah Matthews. The students and faculty at Dominican College were grief-stricken over Toole's death, and the school held a memorial service for him in the college courtyard. The head of Dominican gave a brief eulogy; however, as the institution was Catholic, his suicide was never mentioned.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: After Toole's death, Thelma Toole became mired in depression for two years and the manuscript for "Dunces" remained atop an armoire in his former room. She then became determined to have it published, believing it would be an opportunity to prove her son's talent. Over a five-year period, she sent it out to seven publishers and they each rejected it. "Each time it came back I died a little," she said. However, in 1976 she became aware that author Walker Percy was becoming a faculty member at Loyola University New Orleans. Thelma began a campaign of phone calls and letters to Percy to get him to read the manuscript. He even began complaining to his wife about a peculiar old woman's attempts to contact him. With time running out on his term as professor, Thelma pushed her way into his office and demanded he read the manuscript. Initially hesitant, Percy agreed to read the book to stop her badgering. He admitted to hoping it would be so bad that he could discard it after reading a few pages. Ultimately, he loved the book, commenting in disbelief:


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Despite Percy's great admiration for the book, the road to publication was still difficult. It took more than three years, as he attempted to get several parties interested in it. "A Confederacy of Dunces" was published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, and Percy provided the foreword. At his recommendation, Toole's first draft of the book was published with minimal copy-editing, and no significant revisions. The first printing was only 2,500 copies, and a number of these were sent to Scott Kramer, an executive at 20th Century Fox, to pitch around Hollywood, but the book initially generated little interest. However, the novel attracted much attention in the literary world. A year later, in 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book eventually sold more than 1.5 million copies, in 18 languages. In 2019, the PBS show, "The Great American Read," ranked "Dunces" the 58th (out of 100) most loved books in America.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Toole's only other novel, "The Neon Bible", was published in 1989. It was adapted into a feature film in 1995, directed by Terence Davies, that fared poorly at the box office and received a mixed critical reception.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In 2015, debuting on November 11 and running through December 13, Nick Offerman, star of the TV series "Parks and Recreation", starred in a theatrical performance of "A Confederacy of Dunces", adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by David Esbjornson. The play was staged at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: In 2016, the play "Mr. Toole" by Vivian Neuwirth, inspired by the events of Toole's life, death, and subsequent publication of "A Confederacy of Dunces", debuted at the Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City.


title: John Kennedy Toole

text: Thelma Toole's tenacity in attempting to publish "A Confederacy of Dunces" is such that countless numbers of manuscripts were circulated, thus making it difficult to determine which is the "original." The Loyola University New Orleans and Tulane University archives both lay claim to early versions of the manuscript.


title: Return to Forever

text: Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhunters, and Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. Several musicians, including Clarke, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and Al Di Meola, came to prominence through their performances on Return to Forever albums.


title: Return to Forever

text: After playing on Miles Davis's jazz-fusion albums "In a Silent Way" (1969) and "Bitches Brew" (1970), Corea formed an avant-garde jazz band called Circle with Dave Holland, Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul. In 1972, after converting to Scientology, Corea decided he wanted to communicate better with his audience. This meant performing a more accessible style of music than avant-garde jazz.


title: Return to Forever

text: Return to Forever first disbanded in 1977 after five years and seven studio albums. The band never released another studio album, but occasionally reunited for live performances until Corea's death in 2021.


title: Return to Forever

text: The first edition of Return to Forever performed primarily Latin-oriented music. This initial band consisted of singer and percussionist Flora Purim, her husband Airto Moreira (both Brazilians) on drums and percussion, Corea's longtime musical co-worker Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute, and the young Stanley Clarke on bass. Within this first line-up in particular, Clarke played acoustic double bass in addition to electric bass. Corea's Fender Rhodes electric piano formed the basis of this group's sound; he had yet to discover synthesizers, his trademark sound in the group's later years. Clarke and Farrell were given ample solo space themselves. While Purim's vocals lent some commercial appeal to the music, many of their compositions were also instrumental and somewhat experimental in nature. The music was composed by Corea with the exception of the title track of the second album which was written by Stanley Clarke. Lyrics were often written by Corea's friend Neville Potter, and were quite often Scientology-themed. Clarke himself became involved in Scientology through Corea, despite leaving the religion for a period during the 1980s.


title: Return to Forever

text: Their first album, titled simply "Return to Forever", was recorded for ECM Records in 1972, and was initially released only in Europe. This album featured Corea's now famous compositions "Crystal Silence" and "La Fiesta". Shortly afterwards, Corea, Airto, Clarke and Tony Williams formed the band for Stan Getz's album "Captain Marvel" (1972), which featured Corea's compositions, including some from the first and second Return to Forever albums. Their second album, "Light as a Feather" (1973), was released by Polydor and included the song "Spain", which also became quite well known.


title: Return to Forever

text: After the second album, Farrell, Purim and Moreira left the group to form their own bands, and guitarist Bill Connors, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Mingo Lewis were added. However, Gadd was unwilling to tour with the band and risk his job as an in-demand session drummer. Lenny White (who had played with Corea in Miles Davis's band) replaced Gadd and Lewis on drums and percussion, and the group's third album, "Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy" (1973), was then re-recorded (the first recording, featuring Gadd on drums, was never released and has since disappeared).


title: Return to Forever

text: The nature of the group's music had by now completely changed into jazz-rock, and had evolved into a similar vein to that which the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and some progressive rock bands were performing at the time. Their music was still relatively melodic, relying on strong themes, but the jazz element was by this time almost entirely absent, replaced by a more direct, rock oriented approach. Over-driven, distorted guitar had also become prominent in the band's new sound, and Clarke had by then switched almost completely to the electric bass. A replacement on vocals was not hired, and all the songs were now instrumentals. This change did not lead to a decrease in the band's commercial fortunes however, Return to Forever's jazz rock albums instead found their way onto US pop album charts.


title: Return to Forever

text: In the September 1988 "DownBeat" magazine interview with Chick Corea by Josef Woodward, Josef says (page 19), "There is this general view ... that ... Miles [Davis] crystallized electric jazz fusion and that he sent his emissaries out." Chick responds, "Nah, that's Disneyland. Miles is definitely a leader ... But there were other things that occurred that I thought were equally as important. What John McLaughlin did with the electric guitar set the world on its ear. No one ever heard an electric guitar played like that before, and it certainly inspired me. ... John's band, more than my experience with Miles, led me to want to turn the volume up and write music that was more dramatic and made your hair move."


title: Return to Forever

text: While their second jazz rock album, "Where Have I Known You Before" (1974) was similar in style to its immediate predecessor, Corea now played synthesizers in addition to electric keyboards (including piano), and Clarke's playing had evolved considerably- now using flange and fuzz-tone effects, and with his signature style beginning to emerge. After Bill Connors left the band to concentrate on his solo career, the group also hired new guitarists. Although Earl Klugh played guitar for some of the group's live performances, he was soon replaced by the then 19-year-old guitar prodigy Al Di Meola, who had also played on the album recording sessions.


title: Return to Forever

text: Their following album, "No Mystery" (1975), was recorded with the same line-up as "Where Have I Known You Before", but the style of music had become more varied. The first side of the record consisted primarily of jazz-funk, while the second side featured Corea's acoustic title track and a long composition with a strong Spanish influence. On this and the following album, each member of the group composed at least one of the tracks. "No Mystery" went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.


title: Return to Forever

text: The final album by this longest-lasting "classic" lineup of the group, which had by this time left Polydor for Columbia Records, was "Romantic Warrior" (1976), the best selling of all Return to Forever's efforts, eventually reaching gold disc status. "Romantic Warrior" continued their experiments in the realms of jazz-rock and related musical genres, and was lauded by critics for both the technically demanding style of its compositions as well as for its accomplished musicianship.


title: Return to Forever

text: After the release of "Romantic Warrior" and Return to Forever's subsequent tour in support (as well as having in addition signed a multimillion-dollar contract with CBS), Corea shocked Clarke by deciding to change the lineup of the group and to not include either White or Di Meola.


title: Return to Forever

text: The final incarnation of Return to Forever featured Corea, Clarke and Joe Farrell as well as a four-piece horn section and Corea's wife Gayle Moran on vocals, but recorded only one studio album, "Musicmagic" (1977).


title: Return to Forever

text: In 1978, after issuing a live album of the tour titled "Return to Forever Live: The Complete Concert" (a four-LP set, also released in edited form as a single LP and later as a double CD), Chick Corea officially disbanded the group.


title: Return to Forever

text: In 1982, the Corea/Clarke/White/Di Meola lineup reunited to record an eleven-minute track, "Compadres", which was issued on Corea's 1982 album "Touchstone". In 1983, the same Return to Forever lineup played a short reunion tour of the U.S. and Japan, and the live recording in Japan was released in 2021. The repertoire for the tour included some new material by Corea, including one piece titled "Overture" that was later recorded by the Chick Corea Elektric Band for the live various artists double album "GRP Super Live in Concert" (1992), and another titled "The Phantom" that Di Meola later recorded on his album "Kiss My Axe" (1991).


title: Return to Forever

text: Twenty-six years later, Corea, Clarke, White, and Di Meola reunited a second time for a tour of the United States and Europe that began in the summer of 2008. A boxed set of remixed and digitally remastered tracks from the albums "Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy", "Where Have I Known You Before", "No Mystery", and "Romantic Warrior" was released to coincide with the tour.


title: Return to Forever

text: Corea, Clarke, and White (minus Di Meola) performed an acoustic tour in 2009 and released a live album in 2011 titled "Forever". It included guest appearances by Bill Connors, Chaka Khan, and Jean-Luc Ponty.


title: Return to Forever

text: In February 2011 the group began a world tour in Australia. The lineup for this tour was Corea, Clarke, White, Ponty, and guitarist Frank Gambale of the Chick Corea Elektric Band. Many dates included Dweezil Zappa's Zappa Plays Zappa band as an opening act with Corea occasionally appearing in Zappa's band on keyboards, as well as Jean-Luc Ponty performing some of the songs that he had performed with Frank Zappa.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Chukwuemeka Ndubuisi "Emeka" Okafor (born September 28, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. Okafor attended Bellaire High School in Bellaire, Texas and the University of Connecticut, where in 2004 he won a national championship. In his first season in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2004–05, Okafor was named Rookie of the Year. He was traded to the New Orleans Hornets in 2009 and was then dealt to the Washington Wizards in 2012. However, a herniated disc in his neck caused Okafor to miss four consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2017 before being medically cleared to play.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor was born in Houston, Texas. Both of his parents are natives of Nigeria, and Emeka was the first member of his family born in the United States. His father, Pius Okafor, is a member of the Igbo ethnic group.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor's family moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, when he was young because his father worked for Phillips Petroleum Company, headquartered in Bartlesville. While in Bartlesville, Okafor's father took his son to the Bartlesville YMCA to learn basketball.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor played at Bellaire High School with future Oklahoma State star John Lucas III. Okafor averaged 22 points, 16 rebounds and 7 blocks in his senior season. Bellaire was 26–5 in that season, losing 56–42 in the third round of the 2001 UIL state playoffs, to Willowridge High School and future Texas standout T. J. Ford. This game is particularly notable, however, because it featured five players who would go on to play in an NCAA Final Four (Bellaire had Lucas and Okafor, while Willowridge featured Ford, Oklahoma State's Ivan McFarlin and Duke's Daniel Ewing). All five of these players went on to play at least a season in the NBA.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor flew under the recruiting radar for much of his high school career, but by the end of his senior year was receiving late interest from top programs and chose to accept a scholarship at the University of Connecticut, choosing the Huskies over Arkansas and Vanderbilt.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor played for Connecticut from 2001 to 2004. He was teammates with Charlie Villanueva, Marcus Williams, Ben Gordon, Hilton Armstrong and Josh Boone, who all went on to play in the NBA. He majored in finance and graduated with honors after three years in May 2004 with a 3.8 GPA. Okafor was named the Academic All-American of the Year in 2004 for his work on and off the court.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor is noted for his defensive ability, especially his shot-blocking. Although plagued by back problems for most of the 2003–04 season, Okafor led UConn to the program's second national title in six seasons. He was crowned as the NCAA tournament's Most Outstanding Player. In addition, Okafor led the nation in blocks that season and was also named National Defensive Player of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. He also received the Big East Player of the Year award. Okafor graduated as Connecticut's leader in blocked shots with 441. For his collegiate achievements, Okafor was made a member of the 2004 U.S. National Men's Basketball Team that represented the U.S. at the Olympics in Athens.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On February 5, 2007, he was inducted to the Husky Ring Of Honor at Gampel Pavilion on the UConn campus in Storrs during halftime of the men's basketball game against the Syracuse Orange as part of a ceremony that recognized the accomplishments of 13 former players and 3 coaches.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On April 16, 2004, Okafor declared his eligibility for the 2004 NBA draft, giving up his one remaining year of college athletic eligibility. He did, however, receive his undergraduate degree in Accounting/Finance in three academic years. On June 24, Okafor was selected second overall in the draft, becoming the first ever draft pick by the expansion Charlotte Bobcats. The following day, he accepted an invitation to join the United States team for the 2004 Summer Olympics, which finished with the bronze medal in Athens.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: The 2004–05 season was a successful campaign as Okafor coped well with the pressures of being the star rookie on an expansion franchise. Highlights of the season included recording 19 straight double-doubles from November 21 through January 1, and finishing seventh among Eastern Conference forwards in NBA All-Star Game fan balloting with 408,082 votes, by far the highest number garnered by any rookie in 2005. At the end of the season, Okafor beat out his friend and former college teammate and roommate, Chicago Bulls guard Ben Gordon, to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On June 24, 2005, the Bobcats picked up the option for the fourth year on Okafor's contract, as he quickly established himself as the face of the franchise, and a solid player for years to come. Okafor finished his rookie season with 44.7% field goal percentage and per-game averages of 15.1 points, 10.9 rebounds (ranked 4th in the league), and 1.7 blocks.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: In the 2005 offseason, Okafor's weight increased from 260 to 280 lbs. It was this weight gain which he felt caused him to have trouble rehabbing his early season ankle injury and forced him to sit out most of the 2005–06 season with injuries to his ankle. Nonetheless, in the few games he played he was effective as he averaged a double-double for the second consecutive season. On November 4, 2005, Okafor scored a season high 24 points, alongside grabbing 11 rebounds, in a 110–93 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. For the season he finished with averages of 13.2 points on 41.5% shooting, 10.0 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: During the offseason he continued his tutorials with Hakeem Olajuwon, which he took up after his rookie season, and lost the 20 pounds which he had gained for his second season. Okafor felt this weight loss gave him more energy and mobility. He led the Bobcats in rebounds per game, blocks per game, and field goal percentage. On December 29, 2006, in a home game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Emeka would record 22 points, 25 rebounds, and 4 blocks in over 51 minutes of play, in an epic 133–124 triple overtime victory. He also had eight blocks in games against the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics. On January 12, 2007, he would record an NBA season high ten blocks in a game against the New York Knicks. His ten blocks were the most ever recorded in a single game at Madison Square Garden. In that game, he was one rebound away from recording the first ever triple-double in franchise history, finishing with 20 pts, 10 blocks, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals. Later in the season, he suffered an ankle injury which caused him to miss fifteen games. He finished the season averaging 14.4 points, 11.3 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in 67 games.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Prior to the start of the 2007–08 season, Okafor turned down a contract extension with the Charlotte Bobcats worth an estimated US$60 million over five years. Despite turning down the contract, Okafor maintained that he indeed wanted to remain with the Bobcats. Despite feuding with head coach Sam Vincent throughout the season, Okafor still managed to average a double-double for the fourth consecutive season of his career. He also played in all 82 games of the regular season for the first time in his career. At the end of the season head coach Sam Vincent was fired by part-owner Michael Jordan saying in a statement: "The decision to remove Sam as head coach after just one season was difficult, but it was a decision that had to be made because my first obligation is to do what is in the best interest of our team."


title: Emeka Okafor

text: During the off-season, the Bobcats' top priority was to re-sign Okafor. Through tough negotiations the Bobcats and Okafor eventually reached an agreement on a six-year, $72 million deal, the largest in franchise history. In a statement, Okafor voiced his pleasure with remaining in the organization: "The Bobcats and the entire Charlotte community embraced me from day one, and it's exciting to enter this season with a Hall of Fame coach and teammates who are committed to winning."


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor entered the 2008–09 season with active franchise-record streaks of 93 consecutive games played and 92 consecutive games started.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On July 28, 2009, Okafor was traded to the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for Tyson Chandler. During the 2010–11 season, Okafor ended up making it to his first ever NBA playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers. In a 100-86 Game 3 loss, Okafor scored 15 points and grabbed 8 rebounds, both of which would end up being postseason career highs. Ultimately, the Hornets would lose the series 4–2. The following season, on December 28, 2011, Okafor would score 13 points and record a season high 6 blocks in a 97–78 win over the Boston Celtics.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On June 20, 2012, Okafor was traded, along with Trevor Ariza, to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Rashard Lewis and the 46th pick of the 2012 NBA draft. Okafor went on to be named a finalist for the inaugural Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year Award for his contributions with the team on and off the court.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On October 25, 2013, days before the start of the 2013–14 season, Okafor was traded, along with a 2014 protected first-round draft pick, to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Marcin Gortat, Shannon Brown, Kendall Marshall and Malcolm Lee. However, he missed the entire season due to a herniated disc in his neck that was discovered in September 2013, and remained unsigned throughout the 2014–15 season, the 2015–16 season, and the 2016–17 season. On May 30, 2017, Okafor was medically cleared to play.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On September 25, 2017, Okafor signed with the Philadelphia 76ers. However, he was waived on October 14 after appearing in five preseason games. Later that month, he joined the Delaware 87ers of the NBA G League.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On February 3, 2018, Okafor signed a 10-day contract with the New Orleans Pelicans. He made his Pelicans debut two days later, playing in the NBA for the first time since 2013. He played nine minutes and had three points and two rebounds in a 133–109 loss to the Utah Jazz. He signed a second 10-day contract on February 14, and a rest-of-season contract on February 26. Filling in for the injured DeMarcus Cousins, Okafor averaged 4.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1 block in 26 regular-season games, including 19 starts. He was waived by the Pelicans on September 19, 2018, just before the start of training camp.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Because Okafor was waived by Philadelphia before the season started, the end of the 2017 - 2018 season with the Pelicans ended up being his final playing time in the NBA. His final game was Game 3 of the 2018 Western Conference First Round against the Portland Trail Blazers on April 19th, 2018. The Pelicans won the game 119 - 102 with Okafor playing 3 and a half minutes and only recording 1 foul as a stat.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: On November 22, 2019, Ulsan Hyundai Mobis Phoebus reported that they had added Okafor to their roster. Okafor made his debut for them on December 4, 2019, coming off from bench with a double-double of 11 points, 12 rebounds, two assists and two blocks in a 60–65 loss to the Anyang KGC.


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor's first name, Chukwuemeka, means "God has done well" in the Igbo language. He appeared on the cover of "NCAA March Madness 2005" video game. Okafor appeared as himself in the second season of the TV show "One Tree Hill". Okafor also appeared as himself in the second season of the TV show "".


title: Emeka Okafor

text: Okafor is a distant cousin of fellow NBA player Jahlil Okafor. He has two children with his wife Ilana Nunn, the daughter of former NBA referee and director of officiating Ronnie Nunn.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Molineux Stadium ( ) in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, has been the home ground of Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers since 1889. The first stadium built for use by a Football League club, it was one of the first British grounds to have floodlights installed and hosted some of the earliest European club games in the 1950s.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: At the time of its multi-million pound renovation in the early 1990s, Molineux was one of the biggest and most modern stadia in England, though it has since been eclipsed by other ground developments. The stadium has hosted England internationals and, more recently, England under-21 internationals, as well as the first UEFA Cup Final in 1972.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Molineux is a 32,050 all-seater stadium, but it consistently attracted much greater attendances when it was mostly terracing. The record attendance is 61,315. Plans were announced in 2010 for a £40 million redevelopment programme to rebuild and link three sides of the stadium to increase capacity to 38,000 seats. The first stage of this project, the Stan Cullis Stand, was completed in 2012. The next two stages were postponed because the club prioritised funds for development of the youth academy. There are provisional plans for a longer term redevelopment of every stand that could create a 50,000 capacity.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The stadium is a few hundred yards north of Wolverhampton city centre, at the far side of the city's ring road, and is a prominent building due to its size in an area with predominantly low-rise buildings.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The Steve Bull Stand (formerly the John Ireland Stand). The Sir Jack Hayward Stand (formerly the Jack Harris Stand and also known as 'The South Bank'), is a single tier, safe standing terrace. The Stan Cullis Stand (also known as The North Bank) is the most recently renovated stand. The Billy Wright Stand holds the team dressing rooms, media booths and the family section.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The total seated capacity of the stands is approximately 31,500, with a temporary seating area lifting the present official capacity to 32,050. The current stadium design stems from the early 1990s when it was extensively redeveloped to become a modern all-seater venue in accordance with the Taylor Report, which required British football stadia to provide seating for all those attending.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: In the days before seating regulations, the ground could hold more than 60,000 spectators; the record attendance for a match at the ground is 61,315 for a Football League First Division game against Liverpool on 11 February 1939. The 1940s and 1950s saw average attendances for seasons regularly exceed 40,000, coinciding with the club's peak on the field.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Molineux has hosted England internationals. The first was a 6–1 win over Ireland on 7 March 1891. England again beat Ireland, this time 4–0, on 14 February 1903 and lost to Wales 2–1 on 5 February 1936. The last was a 5–2 defeat of Denmark in a 1958 World Cup qualifier on 5 December 1956. In 2022 Molineux hosted a 0-0 Nationals League draw with Italy and a 0-4 defeat to Hungary. It has also hosted four England under-21 internationals (in 1996, 2008, 2014 and 2018) and, in 2005, hosted some European Youth Championship qualifying matches.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: On 24 June 2003, Molineux also became Wolverhampton's biggest live concert venue, with Bon Jovi performing in front of 34,000 people.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Up until May 2011, the ground had a capacity of 29,400. However the 5,500 Stan Cullis Stand was knocked down for redevelopment and 230 seats in the lower tier of the Steve Bull Stand were taken out as part of the process taking temporary capacity down to 23,670. The lower tier of the new North Bank (holding 4,000) was opened for use in September 2011 for the team's second home game of the season, which took the stadium capacity up to 27,670. The upper tier on the new stand (3,700 seats) was completed by the start of the 2012–13 season, taking the overall capacity of the stadium up to 31,700. However the club have delayed the second phase of the redevelopment in rebuilding the Steve Bull Stand. Following relegation from the top flight in 2012, the South-West Corner was dismantled until regaining promotion six years later.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The Molineux name originates from Benjamin Molineux, a successful local merchant (and a distant relative of the now extinct Earls of Sefton) who, in 1744, purchased land on which he built Molineux House (later converted to the Molineux Hotel) and on which the stadium would eventually be built. The estate was purchased in 1860 by O.E. McGregor, who converted the land into a pleasure park open to the public. Molineux Grounds, as it was titled, included a wide range of facilities including an ice rink, a cycling track, a boating lake, and, most crucially, an area for football.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The grounds were sold to the Northampton Brewery in 1889, who rented its use to Wolverhampton Wanderers, who had previously played at Dudley Road. After renovating the site, the first-ever league game was staged on 7 September 1889 in a 2–0 victory over Notts County before a crowd of 4,000.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Wolves bought the freehold in 1923 for £5,607 (£303,338.70 in 2018 prices) and soon set about constructing a major grandstand on the Waterloo Road side (designed by Archibald Leitch). In 1932, the club also built a new stand on the Molineux Street side and followed this by adding a roof to the South Bank two years later. The stadium finally now had four stands, which formed Molineux for the next half-century. The South Bank Stand terraces were one of the largest goal stands in Britain.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: In 1953, the club became one of the first in Britain to install floodlights, at a cost of around £10,000 (£274,000 in 2018 prices). The first-ever floodlit game was held on 30 September 1953, as Wolves won 3–1 against South Africa. The referee for this match was Mr. F Read of Willenhall. The addition of the floodlights opened the door for Molineux to host a series of midweek friendlies against teams from across the globe. In the days prior to the formation of the European Cup and international club competitions, these games were highly prestigious and gained huge crowds and interest, the BBC often televising such events. A new taller set of floodlights were later installed in 1957, at a cost of £25,000 (£595,000 in 2018 prices), as the stadium prepared to host its first European Cup games.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: In 1958, plans were unveiled to rebuild Molineux into a 70,000 capacity stadium during the early 1960s, but these were rejected by the local council and there were no major changes at the stadium for another 20 years.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The Molineux Street Stand (by now all-seater) failed to meet the standards of the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act. The club set about building a new stand behind the existing one, on land where housing had been demolished. The new stand, designed by architects Atherden and Rutter, had a 9,348 capacity, equipped with 42 executive boxes, although sporting red seats in contrast to the club's traditional colours. When the construction was complete, the old stand lying in front was demolished, leaving the stand some 100 ft from the touchline. This new stand, named the John Ireland Stand (after the then-club president), was opened on 25 August 1979 at the start of a First Division game against Ipswich Town. This was intended as the first phase of a complete reconstruction of the ground, which would have given it a 40,000 capacity by 1984 and made it the first completely rebuilt stadium in postwar league football. However, the John Ireland Stand was the only phase of this project which would become reality. Further redevelopment was still a decade away.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: In 1981, plans were unveiled for further redevelopment at the stadium which would have cost more than £4million and involved five-a-side football pitches, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and an eight-lane running track. However, these were soon scrapped due to rising debts.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The John Ireland Stand (renamed as The Steve Bull Stand in 2003), completed in 1979, had cost £2.5 million (£13,675,000 in 2018 prices) and had been one of the most expensive developments at any football ground in the U.K. The cost of the stand's construction plunged Wolves deep into debt and the club narrowly avoided liquidation in 1982, when it was taken over by a group fronted by former player Derek Dougan.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: By the time Wolves slid into the Football League Fourth Division in 1986, the John Ireland Stand and the South Bank terrace were the only sections of the ground in use, after new safety laws implemented following the Bradford City stadium fire forced the closure of the North Bank and Waterloo Road Stand, which had become very dilapidated. Additionally, attendances had fallen due to the club's on-the-field decline.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The club's perilous financial situation meant the stadium fell into ruin, with no funding either for repairs or to move the pitch. The club was saved from folding in August 1986 when Wolverhampton Council bought the ground for £1,120,000 (£3,236,800 in 2018 prices), along with the surrounding land, while Gallagher Estates, in conjunction with the Asda Superstore chain, agreed to pay off the outstanding debt – subject to building and planning permission for a superstore being granted. Although the stadium continued in use, the disused sections were never reopened.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The takeover of the club and stadium by Sir Jack Hayward in 1990 paved the way for redevelopment, which was further prompted by legislation following the Taylor Report that outlawed terraces which affected Premier League and Division One stadiums from the 1993–94 season. The North Bank terrace was demolished in October 1991 and the new Stan Cullis Stand was completed in August 1992, in time for the 1992–93 season. Next came the demolition of the Waterloo Road Stand, with the new Billy Wright Stand opening in August 1993. The final phase of the redevelopment came in December 1993, when the new Jack Harris Stand was opened on the site of the South Bank terrace.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The newly renovated stadium was officially opened on 7 December 1993, in a friendly with Honvéd, the Hungarian team who had been beaten in one of Molineux's most famous original floodlit friendlies.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: In 2003, the John Ireland Stand was renamed the Steve Bull Stand (in honour of the club's record goalscorer) and, at the same time, the south-west corner of the ground was filled with 900 temporary seats, known as the Graham Hughes Stand, which, until their removal in the summer of 2006, raised the Molineux capacity to 29,400. This seating area – now officially named the Wolves Community Trust Stand – was again added on the club's return to the top flight in 2009, which lifted the capacity to 29,195 before the club began its redevelopment of the stadium in summer 2011. In August 2015, the Jack Harris Stand was renamed the Sir Jack Hayward Stand in honour of Steve Morgan's predecessor as the club's owner, who had died earlier that year.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: The record attendance for the stadium in its current configuration is 31,746, which was achieved against Liverpool on 23 January 2020 in the Premier League.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Plans were announced in May 2010 to begin an extensive multi-million pound programme of redevelopment to enlarge the stadium's capacity and develop its facilities. A full application for planning permission was submitted in September 2010, and granted three months later.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Phase 1 of this process was confirmed in February 2011, and commenced on 23 May 2011 as demolition of the Stan Cullis Stand began. In its place a new two-tier stand (seating 7,798), complete with mega-store, museum, café and hospitality facilities, was planned for the 2012–13 season which extended around into the north-east corner.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: This phase, costing an estimated £18 million, was carried out by contractors the Buckingham Group. By September 2011 the lower tier was opened to fans, permitting a temporary stadium capacity of 27,828. The stand was fully opened on 11 August 2012 for the club's first fixture of the 2012–13 season, creating a new official stadium capacity of 31,700.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Phase 2 will be the rebuilding of the Steve Bull Stand over a two-season period. Work was initially set to begin in summer 2012, but has since been postponed with no revised start date yet set. In January 2013 club owner Steve Morgan stated the club would prioritise the redevelopment of its academy facilities over the stadium. At the conclusion of this stage stadium capacity would reach around 36,000 and see this stand connected to the new Stan Cullis Stand. Proceeding with this second stage would raise the redevelopment spend to in excess of £40 million.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Phase 3 is subject to demand and finance, but is planned to be the construction of a new top-tier on the Sir Jack Hayward Stand, that will connect it to the new Steve Bull Stand. This would bring capacity up to around 38,000.


title: Molineux Stadium

text: Phase 4 is a tentative plan to completely redevelop the Billy Wright Stand in a move that would bring capacity to 50,000. However, no planning permission has yet been sought for this phase and it remains only a potential, rather than planned, development with no timeframe in place.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Aguascalientes (; ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Aguascalientes (), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. At 22°N and with an average altitude of above sea level it is predominantly of semi-arid climate (Bhs and Bhk), and it is located in the northern part of the Bajío region, in north-central Mexico, bordered by Zacatecas to the north, east and west, and by Jalisco to the south.


title: Aguascalientes

text: As of 2019, Aguascalientes has a population of 1.4 million inhabitants, most of whom live in its capital city, also named Aguascalientes. Its name means "hot waters" and originated from the abundance of hot springs originally found in the area. The demonym for the state's inhabitants is "hidrocálido" or "aguascalentense".


title: Aguascalientes

text: Aguascalientes is one of the smallest states of Mexico, either by population or land, being the 27th most populated state and the 29th biggest state by area; nonetheless, it is the 4th state by population density, and its economic development in recent years have located it as the 7th state by Human Development Index and the 8th with highest GDP per capita. It is one of the safest and most prosperous states in Mexico.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Aguascalientes was historically known for its former railroad and textile industry, as well as wine making, an industry that remains today. Aguascalientes is currently known for its industrial and economic development. In the 2010s, Aguascalientes became the fastest-growing state in the country for the whole decade. Aguascalientes is also well known for its San Marcos Fair (Feria Nacional de San Marcos), which is considered as the largest fair in Mexico and one of the largest in Latin America.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Pre-Columbian era arrowheads, potshards, and rock paintings in the caverns of the Sierra del Laurel and near the present village of Las Negritas testify to the presence of man in this territory for more than 20,000 years. Later in the colonial times, Pedro Almíndez Chirino was the first Spaniard who entered the territory, perhaps by the end of 1530 or the beginning of 1531, following the instructions given by Nuño de Guzmán.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the territory of what is now the State of Aguascalientes was inhabited by Chichimecas, who made the territory difficult to access. In fact, the total occupation of the lands of El Bajío was a task that would take about two centuries. With respect to this, Viceroy Luís de Velasco offered municipal benefits to those who established settlements to confront the Chichimeca. And for his part, Viceroy Gastón de Peralta decided to confront them directly, which did not end with good results.


title: Aguascalientes

text: It was in order to be in the territory that is presently the state inhabited by Chichimecas, the so-called Guachichiles, that the conquistadors built several forts or presidios.


title: Aguascalientes

text: This was a system devised by Martín Enríquez de Almanza following the strategy that had been developing in Spain throughout the Reconquista period. Therefore, in order to protect the Camino de la Plata, which stretched between Zacatecas and Mexico City, three presidios [garrisoned fortifications] founded by the Indian fighter Juan Domínguez, were to be created, which were: the presidio at Las Bocas, later called Las Bocas de Gallardo, situated on the border of Aguascalientes, in what was the jurisdiction of the mayor of Teocaltiche, presently the border of Aguascalientes and Zacatecas; the presidio at Palmillas, which was located near what is now Tepezalá; and the Ciénega Grande presidio, established around 1570. The latter was located on what are now Moctezuma and Victoria Streets, although some historians place it on the Calle 5 de Mayo (once the Camino Real) at Moctezuma, just in front of the Plaza de Armas. This was a fortress whose purpose was the protection of the Valle de los Romero and the road to Zacatecas, entering this way to secure the passage of convoys loaded with silver and other metals.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The founding of Aguascalientes as a town came from the order that King Felipe II gave the judge of the court of Nueva Galicia, Don Gerónimo de Orozco, in which he stated that he should look for a rich man to settle in the territory with the purpose of expelling the Chichimecas and of assuring safe passage. Gerónimo de Orozco, following that order, looked for someone who would accept the king's order and found a man named Juan de Montoro in the city of Santa María de los Lagos. He accepted the assignment and, accompanied by eleven other people, headed to the territory and thus founded the town of Aguas Calientes on October 22, 1575. It has been noted that it was called San Marcos originally, changing its name on August 18, 1611, to the Villa of Our Lady of the Assumption of Aguas Calientes. And finally, from June 2, 1875, it was called the Villa of Our Lady of the Assumption of Aguas Calientes; later changing to the city of Aguascalientes, which remains its name today.


title: Aguascalientes

text: In the act of its establishment, the Villa de San Marcos (Aguascalientes) was awarded the highest mayoral jurisdiction under the Kingdom of New Galicia. As of December 4, 1786, on the occasion of the issuance of the "Ordinance of Mayors," it became a quartermaster sub-delegation.


title: Aguascalientes

text: On April 24, 1789, by order of the Superior Board of Royal Property, the sub-delegation of Aguascalientes became a dependency of Zacatecas.


title: Aguascalientes

text: In the Mexican War of Independence, in the territory which is today the state of Aguascalientes, the fires of independence were stoked by illustrious and courageous men such as Valentin Gómez Farías, Rafael Iriarte, Rafael Vázquez, and Pedro Parga.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Confusion has arisen regarding the exact date when Aguascalientes formally separated from the territory of Zacatecas. By virtue of having, de facto, defeated the liberal government of Zacatecas by rising against the central government, president Antonio López de Santa Anna passed through Aguascalientes, where he was well received by the people who had wanted to separate from Zacatecas for some time. Taking advantage of the independent souls of the Aguascalentenses, and by way of punishing Zacatecas for supporting the Revolution against them, by Federal Decree of General López de Santa Anna dated May 23, 1835, in the third article; ordered that Aguascalientes to be separated from Zacatecas territory, without granting the territory any specific category, reinstating the appointment of the political boss, Pedro Garcia Rojas. With respect to this, it must be mentioned that said order was not made official as it did not meet the legal requirements to take effect, since it was necessary that two thirds of each house, both Senators and Representatives, approved the order; furthermore it would be required that two thirds of the legislatures of the states also approved it. The second requirement not being completed, the constitutional congress convened again to develop the centralized constitution that would be known later as the Seven Laws. The constitution did not acknowledge Aguascalientes in the rank of department, but it saw fit to eliminate the states, together with the federal regime, replacing the states with departments, and because of this it continued to belong to Zacatecas. What can be said, since in the local constitution of Zacatecas of 1825, Aguascalientes was contemplated as a member of said state.


title: Aguascalientes

text: It was general José Mariano Salas who, on August 5, 1846, announced the reestablishment of federalism, convening a constitutional congress that declared current the constitution of 1824, but still didn't consider Aguascalientes as a state. Subsequently, on May 18, 1847, amendments were approved to the Constitution of 1824, but neither granted to Aguascalientes the status of a state. That brought about a war between Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, and as a consequence Zacatecas would strengthen the partitions, now municipalities, of Cavillo and Rincón de Romos. In July 1848, Aguascalientes accepted the peaceful annexation to Zacatecas; but continued making efforts to separate through Miguel García Rojas. It was not until December 10, 1853, that López de Santa Anna, using his extraordinary powers, issued a decree declaring Aguascalientes a department, based on the decrees of December 30, 1836, and June 30, 1838, without ever referring to the one from March 23, 1835. Finally, in the project that would be the Constitution of 1857, that was presented on June 16, 1856, Aguascalientes was included as a state in Article 43; it was passed unanimously by the 79 deputies present, ensuring the establishment of the state of Aguascalientes on December 10, 1856. On September 16, 1857, on the strength of said constitution, Lic. Jesús Terán Peredo reclaimed his post as constitutional governor of the state.


title: Aguascalientes

text: In the independent state, hidrocálidos (people of Aguascalientes) Jesús R. Macías, Manuel Rangel, Augustín Orona, José María Arellano and many other anonymous heroes distinguished themselves in the War of Reform.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Silvestre Dorador, Román Morales, Pedro Vital, Alfonso Guerrero Aguilera and Alberto Fuentes Dávila were forerunners of the Revolution. The explosion of the Maderist movement embraced the cause in the company of some other compatriots, and the rebel action of the town and the region stayed formalized.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The state is located about from Mexico City in the macroregion of El Bajío, specifically the Bajío Occidental (western Bajío).


title: Aguascalientes

text: It covers , or 0.3% of the area of the country, and has a little more than one million inhabitants. Most of its inhabitants live in the densely populated metropolitan area of its capital city.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The state as it is now was created on October 27, 1857, when it was separated from Zacatecas after the tale says that the wife of the governor of the state promised to give a kiss to the President of the time, in exchange for the separation of Aguascalientes from Zacatecas, which explains the shape of a kiss the state has. It bears the name Aguascalientes taken from its largest city and capital also called Aguascalientes.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The state mostly has a semi-arid climate, except in the southeastern and northeastern parts where the climate is wetter and cooler. Mean annual temperature of the state is around in which May and June are the hottest months with mean temperatures between . In these months, temperatures can exceed . January is the coldest month, averaging with temperatures dropping down to . Frosts frequently occur from November to February. Mean rainfall is low, averaging and is mostly concentrated in summer with winters being dry.


title: Aguascalientes

text: This state originated around the times of colonial Spanish influence. It is located in the middle of the country and is now beginning to make a name for itself as an industrial power within Mexico. The state was once a major silver miner and a major source of railroad transportation, the latter due to its strategic location, midway between the three most populous areas, namely Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Today, Mexico's fast growing car industry is especially important in this state. There are two Nissan factories in Aguascalientes which together produce more than half a million cars per year. Infiniti may build a plant to make vehicles like the QX30.


title: Aguascalientes

text: In the rural area, Aguascalientes was once the largest national producer of grapes and wines. This tradition ceased gradually due to the Spanish Royalty's wishes that grape and wine production be limited to the mother country. Thanks to the influx of immigrants into Mexico, the wineries and vineyards remain and flourish. Guavas are also produced in the state, specifically in the municipality of Calvillo. This county is one of the richest counties in Aguascalientes.


title: Aguascalientes

text: There are several projects for economic development such as: the Financial District Río San Pedro, a monorail, a suburban train, the construction of the newest and most modern WTC in Mexico, over four shopping malls, two theme parks, two Executive Hotels and one whose qualification is five stars, eight bridges for the next five years, a Financial District around the Airport, A Texas Instruments Assembly-Test Plant, A Nissan Assembly plant, a Toyota assembly plant and several others projects place Aguascalientes as the third most competitive state in Mexico with more than US$12,000,000 in foreign direct investment per year (around 8 percent of Mexico's FDI) even though its population is just about 1.03 percent of the country.


title: Aguascalientes

text: However, recently it has also benefited from heavier tourism, since the capital city has gained prestige and status as a national destination for its colonial beauty and cleanliness. In addition, the haciendas and baths around the state have historic and recreational importance.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Although this state is not often billed as a tourist center, international visitors, as well as citizens from all over Mexico, are attracted to San Marcos Fair, which is considered the national fair of Mexico and contributes much to Mexico's economy.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Recently, its capital city has gained the reputation as a great destination for its superb colonial architecture visible in the colonial center, as well as the modernity and dynamism in the outskirts.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The city is home to Lic. Jesús Terán Peredo International Airport, where 9 flights per day depart to Mexico City, Tijuana, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The city also hosts many conventions every year. It benefits from its excellent central location. The city is also famed for its environment of relaxation, and for its safety and cleanliness, as it is often described by people when traveling to this part of the country for conventions or tourism.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Most tourists go to the capital. A few tourists explore the former mining towns in the north of the state (in the municipalities of Asientos and Tepezalá), which are now almost ghost cities. The haciendas, hot springs, and baths scattered around the state are also of historical and recreational relevance.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The municipality of Calvillo has a humid subtropical climate, The largest producer of guavas in Mexico, it attracts some fans of watersports to its reservoirs.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The state has a Natural Protected Reserve in the higher mountains called Sierra Fría. Located at a height of above sea level, it comprises oak and pine forests. Its attractions include observing exuberant landscape and wide ravines, in which, there are pumas, lynxes, boar, white-tailed deer, wild turkey, raccoons and many other animals. There are steep-sided cycle paths, camping and picnic areas as well as several hunting clubs. It is the mountain climate and fauna that attracts locals for camping activities. In winter, the temperature sometimes falls to when the weather is poor. Usually, Sierra Fría is the only part of the state that gets snow during winter.


title: Aguascalientes

text: In the city of Aguascalientes one of the best sunsets in the world can be seen in Cerro del Muerto; the hill resembles the shape of a man lying down. The city of Aguascalientes is called "el corazón" which means "the heart" of Mexico because it lies in the middle of the country. This city is often considered, by its locals, to be one of the safest and cleanest in Mexico. Also, the city of Aguascalientes is known as "the land of the good people".


title: Aguascalientes

text: Club de Fútbol Gallos Hidrocálidos de Aguascalientes was a football club from Aguascalientes, Mexico.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The club was founded in 1994, when Salvador López Monroy, a restaurant business owner from Los Angeles, bought a second division franchise which he relocated to Aguascalientes where there was no professional football club.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The club played its last tournament in 2000-2001 when the Governor of Aguascalientes bought first division club Necaxa, with its national following, and relocated it from Mexico City. Gallos de Aguascalientes was then sold to Chivas, which changed its name to F.C. Tapatio de Guadalajara, affiliated to Chivas.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The city is home to the soccer team Club Necaxa, which plays in Mexican first division. The club left Mexico City and relocated to Aguascalientes following the 2003 opening of Estadio Victoria, which is now the club's home venue and one of the best stadiums in the country.


title: Aguascalientes

text: The state has one football team in the Mexican Premiere League, Club Necaxa, one professional baseball team in the Mexican League, Rieleros de Aguascalientes (The railroad men), and one professional basketball team, Panteras de Aguascalientes (Aguascalientes Panthers)


title: Aguascalientes

text: In December 2009, Necaxa was represented on the field and played their final 2009 match within the Primera División (First Division) tier in the 2009 season after losing 1-0 vs Club América. Under the rules of regulation, Necaxa would not be able to participate in the First Division competition play in the fall 2009 and spring 2010 year.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Necaxa's closing spring 2010 league performance had some accomplishments. They had an undefeated record at home throughout the fall 2009. In the spring 2010 campaign, Necaxa's only loss in the season came against F.C León, Necaxa faced this other soccer team on May 8, 2010 for the second leg of the Bicentennial Closing Spring Tournament of 2010. Necaxa won 4-2 on aggregate. Necaxa abandoned the Liga de Ascenso and returned to First Division fall 2010 season. As a result of this match Necaxa won the bi-championship in the Liga de Ascenso and First Promotion title in their franchise history.


title: Aguascalientes

text: On April 16, 2011, after a draw 1–1 with Atlante F.C., the club's first key game in 2011, Necaxa could not cumulate enough points in order to evade relegation. For a second time, Club Necaxa was relegated to the Liga de Ascenso, the second tier, for the 2011–2012 season. One of the biggest soccer to live Judith Ramírez played for this team from 2001–2017.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Aguascalientes hosts the Panteras de Aguascalientes headquarters. This team plays in the Mexican Professional Basketball League.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Aguascalientes also has important racetracks for the car and motorbike races at a national and international level.


title: Aguascalientes

text: Newspapers of Aguascalientes include: Ahí, El Heraldo de Aguascalientes, El Sol del Centro de Aguascalientes, Hidrocálido, La Jornada Aguascalientes, and Picacho Panorama de Aguascalientes.


title: Friends (season 8)

text: The eighth season of "Friends", an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, premiered on NBC on September 27, 2001. "Friends" was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The season contains 24 episodes and concluded airing on May 16, 2002. This season had an average of 24.5 million viewers, and was the most watched TV show of the 2001–02 television season.


title: Friends (season 8)

text: Collider wrote that it was the show's best season, and called its highlight "The One with the Rumor".


title: Friends (season 8)

text: Season 8 averaged 24.5 million viewers and finished, for the first time, as the most watched show of the 2001–02 television season.


title: Mortal (film)

text: Mortal () is a 2020 English-language Norwegian fantasy action film co-written and directed by André Øvredal. The film is inspired by Norse mythology, and stars Nat Wolff. The film was released on February 28, 2020 in Norway and is distributed by Saban Films. It is supported by a grant from the Government of Norway. The film's dialogue is in English and Norwegian and most of the actors are Norwegian, with the exception of Wolff and Priyanka Bose. The film's original music by Marcus Paus was nominated for the Amanda Award and was the Norwegian nominee for the Nordic Film Music Days – HARPA Award.


title: Mortal (film)

text: Somewhere in the Norwegian wilderness Eric (Nat Wolff) awakes from a nightmare that causes the trees outside his tent to burn to cinders.


title: Mortal (film)

text: He finds that his leg has terrible burns so he heads into town where he breaks into a clinic for bandages. After treating his wounds in a gas station bathroom, he begins walking down the road, presumably back to his campsite. While walking down the road, a group of teens stops to harass Eric. One of the boys, Ole, begins pushing him around. Eric warns him, saying "if you touch me, you will burn." The boy grabs Eric by the collar, then collapses dead. Eric is later picked up at a bus stop by local police.


title: Mortal (film)

text: Christine (), a young psychologist, is asked by the local police to speak with Eric, where she learns he is an American-Norwegian who is also a suspect in an unsolved fire that took the lives of five people three years ago. Since the fire, Eric has been backpacking looking for family. She convinces him to sit at the table and confirms he has many generations of Norwegian ancestry. Christine decides to have his handcuffs removed for comfort and trust, Christine also confirms that everyone in the fire were relatives of Eric. Eric admits to killing his relatives and Ole, and as he speaks Christine's hair starts to become statically charged and Eric pulls water up from her glass. He becomes agitated and his powers unleash, which causes the building to start electrical fires; Christine determines his emotions control his powers and quickly counsels him on how to focus to control his power.


title: Mortal (film)

text: The U.S. Embassy arrives to take Eric to America, but he refuses to speak to anyone other than Christine and demands they sedate him to fly in a helicopter. The sedative quickly wears off and mid-flight he starts to panic from being tied up. A thunderstorm causes the helicopter to crash into the sea, where Eric realizes that he can breathe in the water and burns his restraints away. He is able to save one American agent, Hathaway, and drags her to shore.


title: Mortal (film)

text: Eric finds Christine and she takes him to her friend's cabin, where Eric explains that the fire was caused by him bursting into flames. He finally rests and Christine notices the plants are growing rapidly around him. Back at the hospital the American agent confirms with local police that he controls weather.


title: Mortal (film)

text: Christine decides they need to head to the farm. After crashing, a trucker gives them a ride until they reach Hardanger Bridge where the police have set up a roadblock. In the middle of the bridge Eric submits and Christine is captured, but he draws upon the lightning, losing control. Christine coaches Eric to control his emotions and Eric uses the lightning to create a fence until he collapses and the storm subsides. The sheriff comes to their aid and rushes them both to the hospital. On the radio, the group hears social media is claiming he is the Norse god, Thor. At the hospital Eric's powers cause a malfunction of equipment and a boy goes into cardiac arrest. Eric revives the boy, healing him completely.


title: Mortal (film)

text: The sheriff explains after Ragnarök Thor's children built a farm which they believe to be the farm Eric's family is from. At the farm Eric is brought to his knees and unable to move while standing over a type of Vegvísir. The US officer sets up military around the farm ready to kill Eric. The team finds a cave under the farm filled with Norse runestones and a depiction of Yggdrasil. Eric is told it is time for him to go into the cave where he is drawn to a box of stone which contains Thor's glove Járngreipr, his belt Megingjörð, and his hammer Mjölnir. Eric puts on all of this equipment and causes another electrical storm, which is controlled by the hammer. Once Eric leaves the cave, Christine approaches him, and Hathaway gives the order to fire on him. A sniper hits Christine by mistake, killing her. Enraged, Eric uses the hammer to summon a massive lightning storm that engulfs the area, causing a large number of casualties.


title: Mortal (film)

text: The film ends with a news cast stating that, after the incident, a cult of Thor has emerged. Eric is at large, wanted as a terrorist.


title: Mortal (film)

text: The film's original music by Marcus Paus was nominated for the Amanda Award and as the Norwegian nominee for the Nordic Film Music Days – HARPA Award. In a review of Paus' film score, Jonathan Broxton wrote that the work is "likely to be remembered as the breakthrough of a superb ‘new’ talent because if this is any indication of his work, he’s going to be massive very soon." Daniel Schweiger described "Mortal" as "truly thunderstruck in announcing Paus’ symphonically avenging talent to a bigger playing field."


title: Mortal (film)

text: The film was theatrically released on February 28, 2020 in Norway It was released on VOD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment on November 10, 2020.


title: Mortal (film)

text: "Mortal" grossed $0 in North America and $126,068 worldwide, against a production budget of about $7.4 million, plus $2,316 with home video sales.


title: Mortal (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds approval rating based on reviews, with an average of . On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 20 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Lake Peigneur

text: Lake Peigneur (locally pronounced ) is a brackish lake in the U.S. state of Louisiana, north of Delcambre and west of New Iberia, near the northernmost tip of Vermilion Bay. With a maximum depth of , it is the deepest lake in Louisiana. Its name comes from the French word "peigneur", meaning "one who combs."