title: Her Story (video game)

text: Seifert's performance in the game received high praise from reviewers. "GameSpot"s Justin Clark felt that the performance "anchored" the game. Chris Kohler of "Wired" similiary described Seifert's performance as "so captivating that I couldn't imagine this game working any other way". Katie Smith of "Adventure Gamers" wrote that Seifert is convincing in the role, particularly with small details such as body language, but was startled by the lack of emotion. "Game Informer"s Wallace echoed similar remarks, noting that Seifert "nailed the role". "Rock, Paper, Shotgun"s Smith wrote that "the whole thing might collapse" without Seifert's "convincing" performance. "IGN"s Albert named the acting "believable", stating that Seifert's performance is "appropriately both grounded and absurd". Joe Donnelly of "Digital Spy" wrote that Seifert's performance has the potential to inspire similar games, and Andy Kelly of "PC Gamer" called the performance "understated, realistic, and complex". Burns of "VideoGamer.com" felt generally impressed by Seifert's performance, but noted some "occasional bad acting". Rich Stanton of "The Guardian" wrote that "Seifert's delivery is usually matter-of-fact and emotionally convincing". "Polygon" named Hannah among the best video game characters of the 2010s, dubbing Seifert's performance as "superbly".


title: Her Story (video game)

text: The unconventional gameplay mechanics also received positive remarks from critics. "Destructoid"s Laura Kate Dale felt that the game's pacing and structure assisted the narrative, and Wallace of "Game Informer" found that making a connection between key points in the narrative was entertaining. Burns of "VideoGamer.com" praised the game's ability to make the player realise their own biases, and challenge their "sense of self". Albert of "IGN" felt that the searching tool was "gratifying", and positively contributes to the pacing of the game, while "The Washington Post"s Thomsen wrote that the database mechanic created "contemplative gaps between scenes", allowing for "poignance and power" within the narrative. "Edge" thought that by having game mechanics which require the player to deduce the story through investigation and intuition, "Her Story" was one of few games "that truly deliver on the foundational fantasy of detective work." Bendixsen of "Good Game" described the desktop as "appropriately retro", noting that she was "drawn in immediately".


title: Her Story (video game)

text: The game sold over 100,000 copies by 10 August 2015; about 60,000 copies were sold on Windows, with the remaining 40,000 sold on iOS. Barlow stated that the game's instant popularity surprised him, as he had instead expected the game to slowly spread by word of mouth "and maybe over six months it would pay for itself."


title: Her Story (video game)

text: "Her Story" has received multiple nominations and awards from gaming publications. It won Game of the Year from "Polygon", as well as Game of the Month from "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" and GameSpot. It received the Breakthrough Award at the 33rd Golden Joystick Awards, Debut Game and Game Innovation at the 12th British Academy Games Awards, the award for Most Original game from "PC Gamer", and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards. At The Game Awards 2015, "Her Story" won Best Narrative, and Seifert won Best Performance for her role in the game; she also won the Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game at the 5th Annual New York Game Awards. "Her Story" won Best Emotional Mobile & Handheld at the Emotional Games Awards 2016, Mobile Game of the Year at the SXSW Gaming Awards, Mobile & Handheld at the British Academy Games Awards, and awards for excellence in story and innovation at the International Mobile Gaming Awards, while "The Guardian" named it the best iOS game of 2015, In 2015, "Edge" ranked "Her Story" as 94th in their list of the greatest videogames of all time.


title: Eijaz Khan

text: Eijaz Khan (born 28 August 1975) is an Indian film and television actor. He rose to fame by playing the lead roles in Balaji Telefilms serials "Kkavyanjali", and "Kyaa Hoga Nimmo Kaa". He appeared in the leading role of Raidhan Raj Katara (Mukhi) in the Sony TV program "Yeh Moh Moh Ke Dhaagey". In 2019 he was seen in the web series called "Halala" that premiered on Ullu App and "Mayanagari-City of Dreams" that premiered on Hotstar. He also appeared in "Bigg Boss 14". He left the show due to his prior commitment.


title: Eijaz Khan

text: Khan was born on 28 August 1975 in Hyderabad, India. He has two siblings, a younger brother and sister. By the time he was three-years old, his parent had separated. He and his brother lived with their father in Mumbai while, his mother and sister lived in Hyderabad. His mother died in 1991, and it was after this that he finally met his sister who was 13-years old at the time. He attended Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School in Chembur, Mumbai, and Datta Meghe College of Engineering where he obtained his civil engineering degree.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: Grey Goose is a brand of vodka produced in France. It was created in the 1990s by Sidney Frank, who sold it to Bacardi in 2004. The "Maître de Chai" for Grey Goose is François Thibault, who developed the original recipe for the vodka in Cognac, France.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: Grey Goose was created by Sidney Frank Importing Co (SFIC). Sidney Frank, founder/CEO of the company, developed the idea in the summer of 1997. The idea for Grey Goose was to develop a luxury vodka for the American marketplace. SFIC partnered with cognac producer François Thibault (a French "Maître de Chai", or, Cellar Master) in France in order to transition his skills from cognac to vodka production.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: Francois Thibault designed the vodka to express the true taste and character of the ingredients. This has long been the standard for Grey Goose vodka.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: The company selected France due to the country's culinary history and it was to differentiate itself from other vodkas produced in Eastern Europe. The water used to produce the vodka came from natural springs in France filtered through Champagne limestone, and made with locally produced French wheat. The company also developed its distinctive smoked glass bottle, featuring French geese in flight and delivered its product in wooden crates similar to wine.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: In 1998, Grey Goose was named the best-tasting vodka in the world by the Beverage Testing Institute. In 2001, Grey Goose released its first flavor, L’Orange, followed by Le Citron in 2002.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: The company was eventually sold by Sidney Frank to Bacardi for a reported US$2.2 billion in 2004. That year, Grey Goose was the best-selling premium brand vodka in the United States, selling more than 1.5 million cases that year.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: The wheat used in the creation of Grey Goose vodka is grown in Picardy, France. Distilled in the same region, north and east of Paris, the distillate is then sent to Cognac, France, where it is blended with spring water and bottled. The wheat used in Grey Goose is soft winter wheat, sown in October and harvested in August, which provides it with four additional months of growth in comparison to summer wheat. The wheat sold to Grey Goose is categorized as "superior bread-making wheat", and wheat that is soft (i.e., low in protein).


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: Although made from wheat, as a distilled spirit, Grey Goose is gluten-free. The distillation process removes the gluten from the purified final product.


title: Grey Goose (vodka)

text: Enzymes are used to break down the carbohydrates into fermentable sugars. The fermentation takes place continuously over six cascading tanks, producing a 20-proof beer. The wash is then distilled into spirit using a five-step process. The water used in the vodka comes from a natural spring 150 meters (500 feet) below the blending facility in Cognac, which is lined with limestone, providing calcium-rich spring water. That water is then filtered to remove impurities. After the filtration the vodka is bottled in a plant dedicated solely to bottling Grey Goose. Grey Goose vodka is bottled with a replaceable cork rather than a screw-top cap.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Joseph Flaherty (born June 21, 1941) is an American actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy "SCTV" from 1976 to 1984 (on which he also served as a writer), and as Harold Weir on "Freaks and Geeks", and for his role in "Happy Gilmore" (1996).


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Joseph O'Flaherty was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of a production clerk at Westinghouse Electric. His father was of Irish heritage and his mother was of Italian descent.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: He moved to Chicago, where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. Along with several other Second City performers, he began appearing on the "National Lampoon Radio Hour" from 1973 to 1974. After seven years in Chicago, he moved to Toronto to help establish the Toronto Second City theatre troupe. During those years, he was one of the original writer/performers on "SCTV", where he spent eight years on the show, playing such characters as Big Jim McBob (of "Farm Film Report" fame), Count Floyd/Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager Guy Caballero, who goes around in a wheelchair only for respect.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Other memorable Flaherty characterizations included emotional talk-show host Sammy Maudlin, seedy saxophonist-private eye Vic Arpeggio, aggressive elocution lecturer Norman Gorman, myopic public-television host Hugh Betcha, and "crazy as a snake" ex-convict Rocco.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: "SCTV" ceased production in 1984. The same year, Flaherty played Count Floyd in a short film that was shown at concerts by the rock band Rush before the song "The Weapon", for their tour in support of "Grace Under Pressure" (and can be seen in the home video, "Grace Under Pressure Tour").


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Flaherty has appeared in a number of cult-favorite films, for example, playing the part of the Western Union postal worker who delivers Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to Marty McFly in "Back to the Future Part II" (1989), as well as the crazed fan yelling "jackass!" in "Happy Gilmore". In season eight of "Family Guy", Flaherty once again played the Western Union man in "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side". He likewise satirizes his "Back to the Future Part II" character in "The Big Bang Theory", this time playing a Vatican worker whose role is essentially identical to that of his Western Union character.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: In 1989, Flaherty played a guest role in "Married... with Children" in the season-four episode "Tooth or Consequences", as a recently divorced dentist who must repair Al Bundy's teeth.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: During 1997–1998, Flaherty starred in the television adaptation of "Police Academy" ("") as Cmdt. Stuart Hefilfinger. The series lasted for only one season.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: In 1999, Flaherty joined the cast of "Freaks and Geeks", an NBC hour-long dramedy set in the 1980–1981 academic year, in which he played Harold Weir, the irascible father of two teens. Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season. In the third episode, "Tricks and Treats", he dons a cheap vampire costume reminiscent of his "Count Floyd" character of the depicted era.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: He made appearances on the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens" as Father McAndrew, the priest at the Heffernans' church. He starred on the Bite TV original program, "Uncle Joe's Cartoon Playhouse", and served as a judge on the CBC program "The Second City's Next Comedy Legend".


title: Joe Flaherty

text: From 2001 to 2004, he had appeared in various Disney shows and films, including "The Legend of Tarzan" and "Home on the Range".


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Beginning in 2004, Flaherty was a member of the faculty at Humber College, where he taught a comedy-writing course. He was also on the program's advisory committee.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Celebrities impersonated by Flaherty on SCTV include: Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, William F. Buckley, Jack Klugman, Robert Mitchum, Bing Crosby, Don Knotts, Yassir Arafat, Richard Nixon, Alistair Cooke, Slim Whitman, the corpse of Albert Schweitzer, Gregory Peck, Eddie Anderson (as 'Rochester'), Alan Alda, Elvis Presley, Hugh Beaumont, John Huston, Larry Fine, Pope Paul VI, Geraldo Rivera, Art Garfunkel, Broderick Crawford, Jacques Cousteau, Lowell Thomas, Henry Fonda, Marcello Mastroianni, Sylvester Stallone, Shoo Boxx, Paul Bradley, Aaron Copland, Dom DiMaggio, Dick Beddoes, Gavin MacLeod, Prince Philip, Tom Wolfe, Peter O'Toole, Salvador Dalí, Gene Siskel, Hugh Hefner, and musician Paul Revere.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Flaherty appeared in a cameo in the deleted scenes from "Anchorman" as the salacious News Director who first employs Rita Genkin after her graduation from Syracuse University. He encourages her to wear a swimsuit to do the weather.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: Flaherty appeared as an immigration Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in the "Canadian Road Trip" episode of "That '70s Show" alongside fellow SCTV member Dave Thomas.


title: Joe Flaherty

text: In the third episode of "Freaks and Geeks", "Tricks and Treats", he is dressed up as a vampire, a reference to his character Count Floyd.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: "Alejandro" is a song by American singer Lady Gaga from her third extended play (EP), "The Fame Monster" (2009)—the reissue of her debut studio album, "The Fame" (2008). Written and produced by Gaga and RedOne, it was released on April 20, 2010, as the third single from the EP. Interscope Records intended the track "Dance in the Dark" to be the EP's third single after "Alejandro" initially received limited airplay, but Gaga insisted on the latter. A synth-pop track with Europop and Latin pop beats, it opens with a sample from the main melody of Vittorio Monti's "Csárdás". The song was inspired by Gaga's fear of men and is about her bidding farewell to her Latino lovers named Alejandro, Roberto and Fernando.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Critics praised the track's catchiness and production, but some criticized it as unoriginal, mainly due to the influence from the pop acts ABBA and Ace of Base. Retrospective reviewers ranked the song as one of Gaga's best. Following the album's release, the song charted in the UK and Hungary. Upon its release as a single, "Alejandro" topped the Czech, Finnish, Mexican, Venezuelan, Polish, Russian and Romanian charts, and reached the top five in the US, Australia, Canada and Sweden. In a 2017 journal, which studied structural patterns in melodies of earworm songs, American Psychological Association called "Alejandro" one of the catchiest in the world.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: The accompanying music video, directed by fashion photographer Steven Klein, was inspired by Gaga's admiration of her gay friends and gay love. In the video, she dances with male soldiers in a cabaret, interspersed with scenes of near-naked men holding machine guns and Gaga playing a nun who swallows a rosary. Critics complimented the video's idea and dark nature and compared it with the work of 1980s pop artists. The Catholic League bemoaned that Gaga abused religious symbols, which Klein dismissed, claiming that the scene in question—the swallowing of rosary beads—was Gaga's "desire to take in the holy". Retrospective commentators analyzed the video's thematic concerns, including BDSM, anti-fascism, sexual violence and religion. Gaga performed the song on the ninth season of "American Idol" and many of her concert tours and residency shows.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Lady Gaga and RedOne wrote and produced "Alejandro"; they also worked on vocal arrangement and background vocals. RedOne solely handled instrumentation, programming and recording, and worked with Eelco Bakker on audio engineering. The song was mixed by Robert Orton and mastered by Gene Grimaldi. Johnny Severin did vocal editing. "Alejandro" was recorded at FC Walvisch Studios in Amsterdam.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Interscope Records planned to release "Dance in the Dark" as the third single from the extended play (EP) "The Fame Monster" (2009)—the reissue of Gaga's debut studio album, "The Fame" (2008). Her own choice, "Alejandro", initially saw poor airplay and was not seen as a viable choice. Following a quarrel between Gaga and her label, "Alejandro" was chosen as the third single. Through her account on Twitter, Gaga remarked on the decision, "Alejandro is on the radio. Fuck it sounds so good, we did it little monsters." The single was officially sent to radio on April 20, 2010, in the United States. She told Fuse TV that the inspiration behind "Alejandro" was her "Fear of Men Monster". According to "NME", Gaga longs for the affection of her ex-lovers but rejects them, fearing commitment and abandonment.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: "Alejandro" is a synth-pop song with what "Billboard" describes as a "romping, stomping Euro-pop beat". "Alejandro" opens with the main melody from the piece "Csárdás" by Italian composer Vittorio Monti played on violin, as a distressed Gaga states in a Spanish accent: "I know that we are young, and I know that you may love me/But I just can't be with you like this anymore, Alejandro." In a Cambridge University Press-published journal analyzing Gaga's "musical intertexts" on "The Fame Monster", authors Lori Burns, Alyssa Woods and Marc Lafrance described her voice during this passage as "compressed and filtered to create a distant but focused effect". Gaga sings the pre-chorus where she describes her relationship as problematic and lets her lover know about making a choice: "You know that I love you, boy/Hot like Mexico, rejoice!/At this point I've got to choose/Nothing to lose." At the song's end, Gaga bids her lovers—Alejandro, Fernando, and Roberto—farewell.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the song is set in the time signature of common time, with a moderate tempo of 99 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of B minor with Gaga's vocal range spanning from F to G. The song has a basic sequence of Bm–D–Fm as its chord progression. "Alejandro" is influenced by Ace of Base and ABBA, particularly the latter's 1976 song "Fernando". Burns, Woods and Lafrance believed by referencing "Fernando", which was popular within the gay community, Gaga identifies as an advocate for the rights of marginalized minorities. This is solidified by the influence of Latin pop songs in the chorus, especially Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" and Madonna's "La Isla Bonita", which had commercial success in the LGBTQ community. Comparing the song with Ace of Base's "Don't Turn Around"—which tells the story of a woman left by her male lover—Burns, Woods and Lafrance added that "Alejandro" switches this concept where Gaga initiates the break-up. As such, the song shows Gaga's commitment to feminism and "liberat[ing]" performance art. Eve Barlow of "Vulture" praised Gaga's outspoken sex-positive feminism in the song, exemplified by the lyrics "don't want to kiss, don't want to touch/Just smoke my cigarette and hush".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: In the "European Journal of Media Studies", Anne Kustritz wrote that "Alejandro" showed Gaga's use of "unending semiotic shell game". She felt that the names Alejandro, Roberto and Fernando, the word "Mexico", and the brief Spanish lyrics confirmed either that the song is set in Latin America or Gaga's lover is Hispanic. Kustritz believed that, beyond these instances, the song conveyed little about Mexico, Latin America or intercultural relationships. Confused by the song's constant shift of viewpoint from "I" to "You" to "She", Kustritz noted how certain phrases introduce themes but do not develop them further and "merely appear, like drunken lyrical mad lib fill-ins. Words seem to have been positioned in 'Alejandro' not because they convey meaning but because of how they sound, a strategy which reverses the usual insistence that the signified trumps the formal properties of the signifier."


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Earlier critical reception to "Alejandro" was mixed. The song was called a summer-friendly track (BBC), a "lush paean to a love that's 'hot like Mexico (MTV News), "brilliantly catchy, deceptively simple and wonderfully melancholy" ("MusicOMH"), and light-hearted ("NME" and "Los Angeles Times"). Robert Copsey of Digital Spy praised the song's melodies, describing them as "deceptively catchy" and the lyrics as "wistful". In a mixed review, Jon Blistein of "L Magazine" wrote that "Alejandro" and "Monster", another track from "The Fame Monster", are "half-decent club/pop songs in their own right—and much more well-organized than 'Bad Romance'—they don't seem like complete thoughts".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Comparisons with other artists, especially ABBA and Ace of Base's work, were constant in reviews. Reviews from "Slant Magazine" and "Rolling Stone" believed the song paid a delightful tribute to ABBA. It was described as a modernized version of an ABBA song by AllMusic and "Pitchfork" critics. In a five-out-of-five-star review, Copsey recognized similarities to "La Isla Bonita" and Ace of Base songs, but felt that Gaga added "her own inimitable twist too". Comparing the song to "Don't Turn Around" and "Fernando", Lindsey Fortier from "Billboard" added, "By the song's end, Alejandro, Fernando and Roberto aren't the only ones sent packing—the listener is dancing out right behind them." Sociologist Mathieu Deflem dismissed the criticism of the song as an "ABBA rip-off" as he believed the reference to the band was intentional by RedOne who is also from Sweden. Other comparisons of the song included with Madonna's 1987 single "Who's That Girl" and Shakira in the chorus.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Some reviews were negative. Sarah Hajibagheri from "The Times" dismissed it as a "painful Latino warble [and] a would-be Eurovision reject". "The Boston Globe" James Reed criticized it as "a tepid dance track" where she needlessly repeats the song's title. Nathan Pensky of "PopMatters" felt that it is "a song truly made up of nothing, not even bothering to revel in its vacuity". Acknowledging its catchiness, Pensky opined that making a simple pop song was not enough, especially considering the quality of Gaga's other songs—"Bad Romance" and "Telephone".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: In retrospect, the song was ranked as one of Gaga's best by "NME", "The Guardian", "Belfast Telegraph", "Rolling Stone", "Billboard" and "Vulture". It was considered one of "Gaga's most enduring singles" by "The Guardian", and one of her catchiest pop songs by "Vulture". "Belfast Telegraph" approvingly highlighted "the inexplicably European lilt" in the spoken-word lyrics and "the femme-fatale chilliness of its chorus". For "Billboard", "The sweaty, stomping production ramps up during one of Gaga's simplest, most effective hooks to date." On the song's 10-year anniversary, Mike Wass of Idolator complimented it for still sounding "as audacious and addictive as it did back then", concluding that "every element of 'Alejandro' comes together perfectly to create dance-pop bliss".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: "Alejandro" won an International Dance Music Award for Best Pop Dance Track and a BMI Pop Award for Most-Performed Songs of the Year. It received nominations for a Gaygalan Award for International Song of the Year and a Rockbjörnen prize for Foreign Song of the Year. A 2017 journal published by "Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts" studying structural patterns in the melodies of earworm songs compiled lists of catchiest tracks from 3,000participants, in which "Alejandro" ranked number eight.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: In the US, "Alejandro" debuted at number 72 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for the issue dated April 17, 2010. The song debuted on the Mainstream Top 40 chart at number 35, and the Hot Digital Songs chart at number 71, after selling 24,000paid digital downloads according to Nielsen Soundscan. It reached number five on the Hot 100, becoming Gaga's seventh consecutive top ten single in the US. She became the second female artist to have her first seven singles reach top-ten in the US, since R&B singer Monica did so from 1995 to 1999. "Alejandro" peaked at number four on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, becoming the first single by her not to reach the number one position there. It also debuted on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart at 40 and reached the top in the issue dated July 7, 2010. The song has sold 2.63 million digital downloads in the US as of February 2019, making Gaga the second artist in digital history to amass seven consecutive two million sellers as a lead act. The track was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in October 2017. On the Canadian Hot 100, "Alejandro" peaked at number four on the issue dated May 8, 2010.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: On the ARIA Singles Chart (Australia), "Alejandro" peaked at number two, becoming Gaga's seventh top-five hit in the country. "Alejandro" was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipment of 70,000 copies of the single. The song peaked at number 11 on the New Zealand Top 40. With the release of "The Fame Monster" in November 2009, "Alejandro" charted on the UK Singles Chart at number 75. It peaked at number seven in 2010, becoming her sixth top ten song in the UK. According to the Official Charts Company, "Alejandro" has sold a total of 436,000copies as of February 2014, and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2020. They listed it as the 37th best-selling vinyl single in the UK for the 2010s. Across Europe, the song reached the top five in Austria, the Ultratop charts of Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland, topping the charts in Finland, Poland, Romania and Russia.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: In January 2010, Gaga began casting for the music video of "Alejandro". It was directed by photographer Steven Klein, whom Gaga considered the right choice as he understood her "I am what I wear" lifestyle, theater background, "love of music and love of the lie in art". She discussed her respect for Klein. "[W]e've been excited to collaborate and have a fashion photographer tell us a story, the story of my music through his lens and this idea of fashion and lifestyle."


title: Alejandro (song)

text: The video thematizes military homoeroticism and celebrates Gaga's admiration of the gay community. She explained it is about the "purity of my friendships with my gay friends, and how I've been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It's a celebration and an admiration of gay love—it confesses my envy of the courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I'm pining for the love of my gay friends—but they just don't want me to be with them." For Klein, the video is "about a woman's desire to resurrect a dead love and who can not face the brutality of her present situation. The pain of living without your true love."


title: Alejandro (song)

text: On the television talk show "Larry King Live" (2010), Gaga released a black-and-white portion from the video, in which she and her dancers perform variations on a sharp military march throughout. The video premiered on Gaga's official website and her YouTube and Vevo accounts on June 8, 2010. Days after the video's release, Gaga posted on her Twitter account: "Men are men... A soldier is a soldier." Anne Kustritz wrote that it was posted at a time when she was publicly opposing "don't ask, don't tell", a policy by the United States Armed Forces, which prohibited discrimination against closeted homosexuals but also barred openly gay people from military service. Kustritz opined the video hardly portrayed this and it was unclear whether it was for or against the policy.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: The video was inspired by the Broadway musical "Cabaret" (1966), anti-fascism, religion, BDSM, sexual violence and the gay scene in 1920s Berlin. It begins with soldiers in black leather uniforms (designed by Emporio Armani) in a cabaret. This is followed by a close-up of a soldier passed out in fishnet stockings and heels as another lone soldier stares into the distance. The scene then cuts to male dancers performing elaborate choreography while marching forward with a Star of David. As the song's intro begins, Gaga is shown leading a funeral procession and carrying the Sacred Heart on a pillow. When the lyrics begin, she sits on a throne in an elaborate headpiece and binocular-like eyepieces, holding a smoking pipe and watching her dancers perform a rigorous routine in the snow. Playing the character Sally Bowles from "Cabaret" in the following scene, Gaga dances and simulates sex acts with three men on a stage with twin beds, intercut with shots of her lying on a larger bed dressed in a red latex nun outfit.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Gaga appears dressed in a white hooded robe reminiscent of Joan of Arc, interspersed with a shot of her as a nun consuming rosary beads. Gaga and her dancers in military uniforms are shown in a black-and-white sequence, performing a tribute to the late choreographer Bob Fosse, the director of the film version of "Cabaret". Gaga is seen in a blonde bob and a similar outfit to one of Liza Minnelli's performance costumes. The video shows a scene of her in a machine gun-equipped bra and her dancers. After a shot of her in an empty club, scenes of war breaking out flash by, and the lone soldier appears again. Going back to the Joan of Arc scene, she struggles with her dancers and disrobes. The video ends with her dressed as the nun; as the camera approaches her, the film begins to burn from a frame picture of her face outwards.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Anne Kustritz believed the video is possibly set in post-World War II Argentina where Gaga's character is seduced by Nazi fugitives assuming false Spanish identities but opined that the video barely shows Latin America or Mexico. Author Joshua S. Walden saw vague allusions to a Hispanic location through the Catholic references with crucifix iconography, the red nun habit and the rosary. James Montgomery thought the video was a tribute to pre-Nazi Germany, elaborating that the "carefully crafted close-ups, languorously smoked cigarettes and oppressively cut costumes" evoke the "artistically fertile but politically and economically difficult era" before Adolf Hitler's rise to power.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: The music video received mostly positive critical reviews. It was nominated for a MuchMusic Video Award for Most Streamed Video of the Year. Praise focused on the video's dark themes and imagery. James Montgomery from MTV News commented that "Gaga has created a world that, while oppressive, also looks great" and added in another piece that "she may have finally reached the point in her career where not even she can top herself." "Rolling Stone"s Daniel Kreps labeled the video a "cinematic epic", and Nate Jones of "Time" was impressed with the combination of "self-conscious ballsiness of Gaga and director Steven Klein". Randall Roberts from the "Los Angeles Times" said that "the clip reinforces the notion that no one understands the convergence of image and music right now better than Gaga." Other critics praised the video's quality but thought it was not on par with Gaga's previous videos, mainly "Bad Romance" and "Telephone".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Critics took note of the video's length, shock value and complicated storyline. Jen Dose from "National Post" commented that "Alejandro" was another instance of Gaga's extravagance in her work. The story was described as complicated by some critics, although Jed Gottlieb from the "Boston Herald" noted its lack of a happy ending. Anthony Benigno from "New York Daily News" felt that "the shock songstress' new music video ... is chock full of bed-ridden S&M imagery that makes it look like the softcore answer to "The Matrix"" (1999).


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Reviewers saw references to artists Janet Jackson, Madonna, Laibach and The Three Stooges, as well as the films "Frankenstein" (1931), "Triumph of the Will" (1935) and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937). Because of the video's military theme, comparisons were made to Jackson's "Rhythm Nation". The connection to Madonna was made mainly with her film "Evita" (1996), and the videos for her songs "Like a Prayer", "Human Nature", "Express Yourself" and "Vogue". According to Devon Thomas from CBS News, "Express Yourself" influenced Gaga's short, cropped hair and black blazer "set against the stark, post-industrialist mood" in "Alejandro". Thomas considered the video "a visual love letter" to Madonna, particularly of the Blond Ambition World Tour era. The resemblance to "Vogue" was the black-and-white cinematography, Dolce & Gabbana vest, pantsuit and machine-gun bra. Some reviewers defended Gaga; James Montgomery believed comparing the two artists merely because of the black and white cinematography and Gaga's bowl haircut was unfounded: "[T]hat's sort of selling their vision short". Kreps thought the video's similarity to Madonna's work was because Klein had worked with her before filming "Alejandro". Kara Warner of MTV News viewed that unlike Madonna, the style of "Alejandro" is "more cutting, masculine and militant".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: "Alejandro" created a media uproar after the release of the video because of its use of religious imagery. One of the most discussed scenes in the video was when Gaga, wearing a nun's habit, swallowed rosary beads. The Catholic League criticized the video for its use of religious imagery, accusing Gaga of "playing a Madonna copy-cat". This was echoed by Mónica Herrera, who said Gaga's use of the rosary and nun's habit to make sexual references was reminiscent of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" video. In an interview with MTV, Klein explained that this scene was Gaga's act of theophagy—"the desire to take in the holy". He said that the religious imagery was not supposed to signify anything negative, but only Gaga's "battle between the darker and lighter forces" as consolidated by Gaga's nun outfit. Klein added that the significance behind her mouth and eyes disappearing was "because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation".


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Many critics agreed that the religious imagery was a calculated move by Gaga to create controversy. One of them was Simon Voxick-Levinson from "Entertainment Weekly": "Gaga wants to offend people. She's a provocateur. Gaga would probably be disappointed if no one was offended by her latest video. She's doing that stuff for a reason." He found the risks unoriginal and not as exciting as the ones in "Telephone". "The New York Times" Jon Caramanica viewed the controversy as Gaga's attempt to take the "Queen of Pop" title from Madonna and found the religious imagery obvious and lazy. Singer Katy Perry wrote in her Twitter account, "Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling fart jokes." "HuffPost" suggested this was directed at Gaga even if she was not explicitly mentioned. Perry responded that the tweet was not only about Gaga but more about her personal views of religion. Her comments were criticized as hypocritical by BBC's Fraser McAlpine, who accused her of capitalizing on bi-curiosity with her song "I Kissed a Girl" (2008).


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Critics analyzed the military look and scenes. The soldiers wore German underwear from the Interwar period and black shirts and leather jackets; for the authors Sally Gray and Anusha Rutnam, they represented "Italian fascist-inflected male sartorial aesthetics". In the "Journal of LGBT Youth", Gilad Padva wrote that the military look is "queered by the explicit homoerotic photography, stylized choreography, the revealing outfits, their exposed muscles, and their sensual interactions". Padva wrote that the intimate interactions between the male dancers "(choreo)graphically challenge the hegemonic heteromasculinity and machismo", and Gaga's dominance reverses "the notorious heteronormative power relations" where she becomes "the penetrator rather than the penetrated". Literary critic Craig N. Owens wrote that some scenes of Gaga and the soldiers feature misplacement of the heart and the penis. For example, the beginning shows a muscular young man in a helmet and black briefs; he covers his crotch with a pistol. Owens thought the gun symbolizes the covered penis and indicates its displacement onto the upward-facing finial on the top of the helmet on his head. Owens believed the ending portrays organ replacement in that the top of Gaga's suit is changed into a machine gun-carrying bra. He found that this alluded to the ending scene of Gaga's "Bad Romance" video, in which she wears a pyrotechnic bra.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Between 2009 and 2011, Gaga performed "Alejandro" on The Monster Ball Tour. On the original version of the tour, she wore a silver bodysuit and was then carried by her crotch by one of her male dancers and lowered onto another male dancer, engaging in a threesome with them. T'Cha Dunlevy from "The Gazette" said that "the song followed in fast order, with not quite enough to set [it] apart. It was one choreographed dance number after the next." Jeremy Adams from "Rolling Stone" commented that the performance was "[one] of several moments ... that gave parents in the audience consternation". Jim Harrington from "The Mercury News" compared Gaga's performance with that of an erotic dancer. On the revamped show, Gaga smeared herself with fake blood during "Alejandro", as she took a bath in a fountain-like architecture on the stage, a replica of Bethesda Fountain in New York's Central Park. Katrin Horn, a postdoctoral fellow in American studies, wrote that while performing "Alejandro", Gaga approached her audiences differently. She asked them to "put your hands up for equal rights!" instead of screaming to "dance" or "put your paws up" as she usually does. In this respect, she declared her desire to support political causes.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: In April 2010, Gaga performed "Alejandro" at the MAC AIDS Fund Pan-Asia Viva Glam launch in Tokyo. In a performance billed as "GagaKoh", she wore a doily lace dress and entered the stage in a procession inspired by a Japanese wedding. As the lights dimmed, she sat at her piano on the rotating stage and belted out "Speechless", followed by the performance of "Alejandro" where she was picked up by one of her dancers covered in talcum powder. Gaga taped a medley of "Bad Romance" and "Alejandro" for the ninth season of "American Idol" in an episode aired in May 2010. She was dressed in a black outfit while surrounded by shirtless dancers. During the chorus, a statue of the Virgin Mary had flames pouring out of its top, after which fog filled the stage as Gaga and her dancers performed a dance routine. Luchina Fisher from ABC News called it a "thinly-veiled performance dripping with sex and violins" and "Gaga doing her best Madonna impression". In July 2010, Gaga sang "Alejandro" on "Today" on a stage outside the studio.


title: Alejandro (song)

text: Gaga performed "Alejandro" at the Robin Hood Gala on May 9, 2011, to benefit the Robin Hood Foundation, and on May 15, 2011, during Radio 1's Big Weekend in Carlisle, Cumbria. On September 24, 2011, she performed it at the first iHeartRadio Music Festival, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It was also part of the setlist to Gaga's Born This Way Ball tour (2012–2013). The performance included her lounging on a meat couch and wearing her gun bra with half-naked men dancing around her. For her 2014 tour, the , Gaga wore a green wig and leather hot pants for the performance of the song. In 2017, she performed "Alejandro" during her shows at the Coachella Festival, while wearing a red crop-top sweatshirt. The song was also part of the setlist of the Joanne World Tour (2017–2018), where she performed it in a mesh leather cut-out bodysuit, and her Las Vegas residency show, Enigma (2018–2020).


title: Mark Walter

text: Mark Walter is an American businessman and the chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, a privately held global financial services firm with more than $325 billion in assets under management and headquarters in Chicago and New York. He is also the part-chairman of the Major League Baseball franchise Los Angeles Dodgers and co-owner of Premier League club Chelsea F.C.


title: Mark Walter

text: Walter is a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native and graduate of Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School. He attended Creighton University before earning his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University. In 1996, he co-founded the Liberty Hampshire Company, LLC with Steven E. Johnson, in Chicago. In 2000, he helped found Guggenheim Partners, LLC. Today, he is the chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, which has rapidly grown into a global, diversified financial services firm with more than $260 billion in assets under management, 2,300 employees, and 25 offices in six countries around the world.


title: Mark Walter

text: On May 1, 2012, Walter helped lead Guggenheim Baseball Management, LLC, a private partnership formed in 2011 to acquire the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the successful purchase of the storied baseball franchise for $2.15 billion. His partners in Guggenheim Baseball Management include Peter Guber, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Stan Kasten, Todd Boehly, and Bobby Patton. Billie Jean King and her partner Ilana Kloss joined the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership group in 2018. Entrepreneurs Alan Smolinisky and Robert L. Plummer joined the ownership group in September 2019.


title: Mark Walter

text: On December 10, 2012, in its annual survey of the "50 Most Influential People in Sports Business," the "SportsBusiness Journal" named Walter the 8th most influential person in sports business due to the historic Dodgers purchase.


title: Mark Walter

text: According to Forbes, Walter has personal stakes in Beyond Meat and Carvana. In 2021, it was reported that Walter had purchased numerous commercial and historic buildings in Crested Butte, Colorado for an unknown purpose.


title: Mark Walter

text: Walter also serves as a trustee or director of several organizations including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which is named after the Guggenheim family, Northwestern University and the Field Museum. In 2011, Walter made a $30,800 contribution to the Democratic National Committee, as well as a $5,000 contribution to Obama for America.


title: Mark Walter

text: He later joined the bid led by his partner Boehly to buy the English football club Chelsea in April 2022.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The Battle of Hampton Roads, also referred to as the Battle of the "Monitor" and "Virginia (rebuilt and renamed from the USS Merrimack") or the Battle of Ironclads, was a naval battle during the American Civil War.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay adjacent to the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities and major industrial centers, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: This battle has major significance because it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, and . The Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram "Virginia" (built from the remnants of the burned steam frigate , newest warship for the United States Navy / Union Navy) and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, wooden-hulled ships of the Union Navy.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: On that day, "Virginia" was able to destroy two ships of the federal flotilla, and , and was about to attack a third, , which had run aground. However, the action was halted by darkness and falling tide, so "Virginia" retired to take care of her few wounded—which included her captain, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan—and repair her minimal battle damage.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Determined to complete the destruction of "Minnesota", Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting as captain in Buchanan's absence, returned the ship to the fray the next morning, March 9. During the night, however, the ironclad "Monitor" had arrived and had taken a position to defend "Minnesota". When "Virginia" approached, "Monitor" intercepted her. The two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict significant damage on the other. The duel ended indecisively, "Virginia" returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, and "Monitor" to her station defending "Minnesota". The ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on navies around the world. The preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. Although Britain and France had been engaged in an iron-clad arms race since the 1830s, the Battle of Hampton Roads signaled a new age of naval warfare had arrived for the whole world. A new type of warship, monitor, was produced on the principle of the original. The use of a small number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions, was first demonstrated by "Monitor" but soon became standard in warships of all types. Shipbuilders also incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: On April 19, 1861, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at Charleston Harbor, US President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of ports in the seceded states. On April 27, after Virginia and North Carolina had also passed ordinances of secession, the blockade was extended to include their ports also. Even before the extension, local troops seized the Norfolk area and threatened the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth. The commandant there, Captain Charles S. McCauley, though loyal to the Union, was immobilized by advice he received from his subordinate officers, most of whom were in favor of secession. Although he had orders from (Union) Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to move his ships to Northern ports, he refused to act until April 20, when he gave orders to scuttle the ships in the yard and destroy its facilities.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: At least nine ships were burned, among them the screw frigate . One (the old frigate ) was towed away successfully. "Merrimack" burned only to the waterline, however, and her engines were more or less intact. The destruction of the navy yard was mostly ineffective; in particular, the large drydock there was relatively undamaged and soon could be restored. Without firing a shot, the advocates of secession had gained for the South its largest navy yard, as well as the hull and engines of what would be in time its most famous warship. They had also seized more than a thousand heavy guns, plus gun carriages and large quantities of gunpowder.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: With Norfolk and its navy yard in Portsmouth, the Confederacy controlled the southern side of Hampton Roads. To prevent Union warships from attacking the yard, the Confederates set up batteries at Sewell's Point and Craney Island, at the juncture of the Elizabeth River with the James. (See map.) The Union retained possession of Fort Monroe, at Old Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula. They also held a small man-made island known as the Rip Raps, on the far side of the channel opposite Fort Monroe, and on this island they completed another fort, named Fort Wool. With Fort Monroe went control of the lower Peninsula as far as Newport News.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Forts Monroe and Wool gave the Union forces control of the entrance to Hampton Roads. The blockade, initiated on April 30, 1861, cut off Norfolk and Richmond from the sea almost completely. To further the blockade, the Union Navy stationed some of its most powerful warships in the roadstead. There, they were under the shelter of the shore-based guns of Fort Monroe and the batteries at Hampton and Newport News and out of the range of the guns at Sewell's Point and Craney Island. For most of the first year of the war, the Confederacy could do little to oppose or dislodge them.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: When steam propulsion began to be applied to warships, naval constructors renewed their interest in armor for their vessels. Experiments had been tried with armor during the Crimean War (1853–1856), just prior to the American Civil War, and the British and French navies had each built armored ships and were planning to build others. In 1860 the French Navy commissioned , the world's first ocean-going ironclad warship. Great Britain followed a year later with , the world's first armor-plated iron-hulled warship. The use of armor remained controversial, however, and the United States Navy was generally reluctant to embrace the new technology.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory was an early enthusiast for the advantages of armor. As he looked upon it, the Confederacy could not match the industrial North in numbers of ships at sea, so they would have to compete by building vessels that individually outclassed those of the Union. Armor would provide the edge. Mallory gathered about himself a group of men who could put his vision into practice, among them John M. Brooke, John L. Porter, and William P. Williamson.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: When Mallory's men searched the South for factories that could build engines to drive the heavy ships that he wanted, they found no place to do it immediately. At the best facility, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, building engines from scratch would take at least a year. Upon learning this, Williamson suggested taking the engines from the hulk of "Merrimack", recently raised from the bed of the Elizabeth River. His colleagues promptly accepted his suggestion and expanded it, proposing that the design of their projected ironclad be adapted to the hull. Porter produced the revised plans, which were submitted to Mallory for approval.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: On July 11, 1861, the new design was accepted, and work began almost immediately. The burned-out hull was towed into the graving dock that the Union Navy had failed to destroy. During the subsequent conversion process, the plans developed further, incorporating an iron ram fitted to the prow. The re-modeled ship's offense, in addition to the ram, consisted of 10 guns: six smooth-bore Dahlgrens, two and two Brooke rifles. Trials showed that these rifles firing solid shot would pierce up to eight inches of armor plating.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The Tredegar Iron works could produce both solid shot and shell, and since it was believed that "Virginia" would face only wooden ships, she was given only the explosive shell. The armor plating, originally meant to be thick, was replaced by double plates, each thick, backed by of iron and pine. The armor was pierced for 14 gunports: four on each broadside, three forward, and three aft. The revisions, together with the usual problems associated with the transportation system of the South, resulted in delays that pushed out the launch date until February 3, 1862, and she was not commissioned until February 17, bearing the name .


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Intelligence that the Confederates were working to develop an ironclad caused consternation for the Union, but Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles waited for Congress to meet to request permission to consider building armored vessels; Congress gave this permission on August 3, 1861. Welles appointed a commission, which became known as the Ironclad Board, of three senior naval officers to choose among the designs that were submitted for consideration. The three men were Captains Joseph Smith, Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles Henry Davis. The board considered seventeen designs, and chose to support three. The first of the three to be completed, even though she was by far the most radical in design, was Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson's .


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Ericsson's "Monitor", which was built at Ericsson's yard on the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, incorporated new and striking design features, the most significant of which were her armor and armament. Instead of the large numbers of guns of rather small bore that had characterized warships in the past, Ericsson opted for only two guns of large caliber; he wanted to use guns, but had to settle for Dahlgren guns when the larger size were unavailable. These were mounted in a cylindrical turret, in diameter, high, covered with iron thick. The whole rotated on a central spindle, and was moved by a steam engine that could be controlled by one man. Ericsson was afraid that using the full 30 pounds of black powder to fire the huge cannon would raise the risk of an explosion in the turret. He demanded that a charge of 15 pounds be used to lessen this possibility.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: As with "Virginia", trials found that a full charge would pierce armor plate, a finding that would have affected the outcome of the battle. A serious flaw in the design was the pilot house from which the ship would be conned, a small structure forward of the turret on the main deck. Its presence meant that the guns could not fire directly forward, and it was isolated from other activities on the ship. Despite the late start and the novelty of construction, "Monitor" was actually completed a few days before her counterpart "Virginia", but the Confederates activated "Virginia" first.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The Confederate chain of command was anomalous. Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones had directed much of the conversion of "Merrimack" to "Virginia", and he was disappointed when he was not named her captain. Jones was retained aboard "Virginia", but only as her executive officer. Ordinarily, the ship would have been led by a captain of the Confederate States Navy, to be determined by the rigid seniority system that was in place. Secretary Mallory wanted the aggressive Franklin Buchanan, but at least two other captains had greater seniority and had applied for the post. Mallory evaded the issue by appointing Buchanan, head of the Office of Orders and Detail, flag officer in charge of the defenses of Norfolk and the James River. As such, he could control the movements of "Virginia". Technically, therefore, the ship went into the battle without a captain.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: On the Union side, command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron was held by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough. He had devised a plan for his frigates to engage "Virginia", hoping to trap her in their crossfire. In the event, his plan broke down completely when four of the ships ran aground (one of them intentionally) in the confined waters of the roadstead. On the day of battle, Goldsborough was absent with the ships cooperating with the Burnside Expedition in North Carolina. In his absence, leadership fell to his second in command, Captain John Marston of . As "Roanoke" was one of the ships that ran aground, Marston was unable to materially influence the battle, and his participation is often disregarded. Most accounts emphasize the contribution of the captain of "Monitor", John L. Worden, to the neglect of others.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The battle began when the large and unwieldy CSS "Virginia" steamed into Hampton Roads on the morning of March 8, 1862. Captain Buchanan intended to attack as soon as possible. "Virginia" was accompanied from her moorings on the Elizabeth River by and , and was joined at Hampton Roads by the James River Squadron, , , and . When they were passing the Union batteries at Newport News, "Patrick Henry" was temporarily disabled by a shot in her boiler that killed four of her crew. After repairs, she returned and rejoined the others.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: At this time, the Union Navy had five warships in the roadstead, in addition to several support vessels. The sloop-of-war and frigate were anchored in the channel near Newport News. The sail frigate and the steam frigates and were near Fort Monroe, along with the storeship . The latter three got under way as soon as they saw "Virginia" approaching, but all soon ran aground. "St. Lawrence" and "Roanoke" took no further important part in the battle.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: "Virginia" headed directly for the Union squadron. The battle opened when Union tug "Zouave" fired on the advancing enemy, and "Beaufort" replied. This preliminary skirmishing had no effect. "Virginia" did not open fire until she was within easy range of "Cumberland". Return fire from "Cumberland" and "Congress" bounced off the iron plates without penetrating, although later some of "Cumberland"s gunfire lightly damaged "Virginia".


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: "Virginia" rammed "Cumberland" below the waterline and she sank rapidly, "gallantly fighting her guns as long as they were above water," according to Buchanan. She took 121 seamen down with her; those wounded brought the casualty total to nearly 150.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Ramming "Cumberland" nearly resulted in the sinking of "Virginia" as well. "Virginia"s bow ram got stuck in the enemy ship's hull, and as "Cumberland" listed and began to go down, she almost pulled "Virginia" under with her. At the time the vessels were locked, one of "Cumberland's" anchors was hanging directly above the foredeck of "Virginia". Had it come loose, the two ships might have gone down together. "Virginia" broke free, however, her ram breaking off as she backed away.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Buchanan next turned "Virginia" on "Congress". Seeing what had happened to "Cumberland", Lieutenant Joseph B. Smith, captain of "Congress", ordered his ship grounded in shallow water. By this time, the James River Squadron, commanded by John Randolph Tucker, had arrived and joined "Virginia" in the attack on "Congress". After an hour of unequal combat, the badly damaged "Congress" surrendered. While the surviving crewmen of "Congress" were being ferried off the ship, a Union battery on the north shore opened fire on "Virginia". In retaliation, Buchanan ordered "Congress" fired upon with hot shot, cannonballs heated red-hot. "Congress" caught fire and burned throughout the rest of the day. Near midnight, the flames reached her magazine and she exploded and sank, stern first. Personnel losses included 110 killed or missing and presumed drowned. Another 26 were wounded, of whom ten died within days.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Although she had not suffered anything like the damage she had inflicted, "Virginia" was not completely unscathed. Shots from "Cumberland", "Congress", and Union troops ashore had riddled her smokestack, reducing her already low speed. Two of her guns were disabled and several armor plates had been loosened. Two of her crew were killed, and more were wounded. One of the wounded was Captain Buchanan, whose left thigh was pierced by a rifle shot.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Meanwhile, the James River Squadron had turned its attention to "Minnesota", which had left Fort Monroe to join in the battle and had run aground. After "Virginia" had dealt with the surrender of "Congress", she joined the James River Squadron despite her damage. Because of her deep draft and the falling tide, however, "Virginia" was unable to get close enough to be effective, and darkness prevented the rest of the squadron from aiming their guns to any effect. The attack was therefore suspended. "Virginia" left with the expectation of returning the next day and completing the task. She retreated into the safety of Confederate-controlled waters off Sewell's Point for the night, but had killed 250 enemy sailors and had lost two. The Union had lost two ships and three were aground.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The United States Navy's greatest defeat (and would remain so until World War II) caused panic in Washington. As Lincoln's Cabinet met to discuss the disaster, the frightened Secretary of War Edwin Stanton told the others that "Virginia" might attack East coast cities, and even shell the White House before the meeting ended. Welles assured his colleagues that they were safe as the ship could not traverse the Potomac River. He added that the Union also had an ironclad, and that it was heading to meet "Virginia".


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Both sides used the respite to prepare for the next day. "Virginia" put her wounded ashore and underwent temporary repairs. Captain Buchanan was among the wounded, so command on the second day fell to his executive officer, Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones. Jones proved to be no less aggressive than the man he replaced. While "Virginia" was being prepared for renewal of the battle, and while "Congress" was still ablaze, "Monitor", commanded by Lieutenant John L. Worden, arrived in Hampton Roads. The Union ironclad had been rushed to Hampton Roads in hopes of protecting the Union fleet and preventing "Virginia" from threatening Union cities. Captain Worden was informed that his primary task was to protect "Minnesota", so "Monitor" took up a position near the grounded "Minnesota" and waited. "All on board felt we had a friend that would stand by us in our hour of trial," wrote Captain Gershom Jacques Van Brunt, "Minnesota"s commander, in his official report the day after the engagement.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The next morning, at dawn on March 9, 1862, "Virginia" left her anchorage at Sewell's Point and moved to attack "Minnesota", still aground. She was followed by the three ships of the James River Squadron. They found their course blocked, however, by the newly arrived "Monitor". At first, Jones believed the strange craft—which one Confederate sailor mocked as "a cheese on a raft"—to be a boiler being towed from the "Minnesota", not realizing the nature of his opponent. Soon, however, it was apparent that he had no choice but to fight her. The first shot of the engagement was fired at "Monitor" by "Virginia". The shot flew past "Monitor" and struck "Minnesota", which answered with a broadside; this began what would be a lengthy engagement. "Again, all hands were called to quarters, and when she approached within a mile of us I opened upon her with my stern guns and made a signal to the "Monitor" to attack the enemy," Van Brunt added.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Later during the battle, Acting Master Louis N. Stodder and officers Stimers and Truscott were inside the gun turret, discussing the course of action. Stodder was leaning against the turret's inside wall when it took a direct hit. Stodder was knocked unconscious and taken below, where it took him an hour to regain consciousness. Stodder thus became the first man injured during the battle. He was replaced by Stimers.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The battle finally ceased when a shell from "Virginia" struck the pilot house of "Monitor" and exploded, driving fragments of paint and iron through the viewing slits into Worden's eyes and temporarily blinding him. As no one else could see to command the ship, "Monitor" was forced to draw off. The executive officer, Lieutenant Samuel Dana Greene, took over, and "Monitor" returned to the fight. In the period of command confusion, however, the crew of "Virginia" believed that their opponent had withdrawn. Although "Minnesota" was still aground, the falling tide meant that she was out of reach. Furthermore, "Virginia" had suffered enough damage to require extensive repair. Convinced that his ship had won the day, Jones ordered her back to Norfolk. At about this time, "Monitor" returned, only to discover her opponent apparently giving up the fight. Convinced that "Virginia" was quitting, with orders only to protect "Minnesota" and not to risk his ship unnecessarily, Greene did not pursue. Thus, each side misinterpreted the moves of the other, and as a result each claimed victory.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory wrote to Confederate President Davis of the action:


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The conduct of the Officers and men of the squadron … reflects unfading honor upon themselves and upon the Navy. The report will be read with deep interest, and its details will not fail to rouse the ardor and nerve the arms of our gallant seamen.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: It will be remembered that the "Virginia" was a novelty in naval architecture, wholly unlike any ship that ever floated; that her heaviest guns were equal novelties in ordnance; that her motive power and obedience to her helm were untried, and her officers and crew strangers, comparatively, to the ship and to each other; and yet, under all these disadvantages, the dashing courage and consummate professional ability of Flag Officer Buchanan and his associates achieved the most remarkable victory which naval annals record.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: In Washington, belief that "Monitor" had vanquished "Virginia" was so strong that Worden and his men were awarded the thanks of Congress:


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: During the two-day engagement, USS "Minnesota" shot off 78 rounds of 10-inch solid shot; 67 rounds of 10-inch shells with 15-second fuse; 169 rounds of 9-inch solid shot; 180 9-inch shells with 15-second fuse; 35 8-inch shells with 15-second fuse and 5,567.5 pounds of service powder. Three crew members, Alexander Winslow, Henry Smith and Dennis Harrington were killed during the battle and 16 were wounded. One of "Monitor"s crew, Quartermaster Peter Williams, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: "Virginia" remained in drydock for almost a month, getting repairs for battle damage as well as minor modifications to improve her performance. On April 4, she was able to leave drydock. Buchanan, still recovering from his wound, had hoped that Catesby Jones would be picked to succeed him, and most observers believed that Jones's performance during the battle was outstanding. The seniority system for promotion in the Navy scuttled his chances, however, and the post went to the 67-year-old Commodore Josiah Tattnall III. "Monitor", not severely damaged, remained on duty. Like his antagonist Jones, Greene was deemed too young to remain as captain; the day after the battle, he was replaced with Lieutenant Thomas Oliver Selfridge Jr. Two days later, Selfridge was in turn relieved by Lieutenant William Nicholson Jeffers.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: By late March, the Union blockade fleet had been augmented by hastily refitted civilian ships, including the powerful SS "Vanderbilt", , SS "Illinois", and SS "Ericsson". These had been outfitted with rams and some iron plating. By late April, the new ironclads USRC "E. A. Stevens" and had also joined the blockade.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Each side considered how best to eliminate the threat posed by its opponent, and after "Virginia" returned each side tried to goad the other into attacking under unfavorable circumstances. Both captains declined the opportunity to fight in waters not of their own choosing; Jeffers in particular was under positive orders not to risk his ship. Consequently, each vessel spent the next month in what amounted to posturing. Not only did the two ships not fight each other, neither ship ever fought again after March 9.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The end came first for "Virginia". Because the blockade was unbroken, Norfolk was of little strategic use to the Confederacy, and preliminary plans were laid to move the ship up the James River to the vicinity of Norfolk. Before adequate preparations could be made, the Confederate Army under Major General Benjamin Huger abandoned the city on May 9, without consulting anyone from the Navy. "Virginia"s draft was too great to permit her to pass up the river, which had a depth of only , and then only under favorable circumstances. She was trapped and could only be captured or sunk by the Union Navy. Rather than allow either, Tatnall decided to destroy his own ship. He had her towed down to Craney Island in Portsmouth, where the gang were taken ashore, and then she was set afire. She burned through the rest of the day and most of the following night; shortly before dawn, the flames reached her magazine, and she blew up.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: "Monitor" likewise did not survive the year. She was ordered to Beaufort, North Carolina, on Christmas Day, to take part in the blockade there. While she was being towed down the coast (under command of her fourth captain, Commander John P. Bankhead), the wind increased and with it the waves; with no high sides, the "Monitor" took on water. Soon the water in the hold gained on the pumps, and then put out the fires in her engines. The order was given to abandon ship; most men were rescued by , but 16 went down with her when she sank in the early hours of December 31, 1862.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The victory claims that were made by each side in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hampton Roads, as both were based on misinterpretations of the opponent's behavior, have been dismissed by present-day historians. They agree that the result of the "Monitor"–"Virginia" encounter was not a victory for either side. As the combat between ironclads was the primary significance of the battle, the general verdict is that the overall result was a draw. All would acknowledge that the Southern fleet inflicted far more damage than it received, which would ordinarily imply that they had gained a tactical victory. Compared to other Civil War battles, the loss of men and ships for the Union Navy would be considered a clear defeat. On the other hand, the blockade was not seriously threatened, so the entire battle can be regarded as an assault that ultimately failed.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: However, initially after the Battle of Hampton Roads, both the Confederate and Union media claimed victory for their own sides. A headline in a Boston newspaper the day after the battle read "The Merrimac Driven back by the Steamer!", implying a Union victory, while Confederate media focused on their original success against wooden Union ships. Despite the battle ending in a stalemate, it was seen by both sides as an opportunity to raise war-time morale, especially since the ironclad ships were an exciting naval innovation that intrigued citizens.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Evaluation of the strategic results is likewise disputed. The blockade was maintained, even strengthened, and "Virginia" was bottled up in Hampton Roads. Because a decisive Confederate weapon was negated, some have concluded that the Union could claim a strategic victory. Confederate advocates can counter, however, by arguing that "Virginia" had a military significance larger than the blockade, which was only a small part of the war in Tidewater Virginia. Her mere presence was sufficient to close the James River to Federal incursions. She also imposed other constraints on the Peninsula Campaign then being mounted by the Union Army under General George B. McClellan, who worried that she could interfere with his positions on the York River. Although his fears were baseless, they continued to affect the movements of his army until "Virginia" was destroyed.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Both days of the battle attracted attention from almost all the world's navies. USS "Monitor" became the prototype for the monitor warship type. She thus became the first of two ships whose names were applied to entire classes of their successors, the other being . Many more were built, including river monitors, and they played key roles in Civil War battles on the Mississippi and James rivers.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The US immediately started the construction of ten more monitors based on Ericsson's original larger plan, known as the s. More than 20 additional monitors were built by the Union by the end of the war. However, while the design proved exceptionally well-suited for river combat, the low profile and heavy turret caused poor seaworthiness in rough waters. Russia, fearing that the American Civil War would spill into Russian Alaska, launched ten sister ships, as soon as Ericsson's plans reached St. Petersburg. What followed has been described as ""Monitor mania"". The revolving turret later inspired similar designs for future warships, which eventually became the modern battleship.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The vulnerability of wooden hulls to armored ships was noted particularly in Britain and France, where the wisdom of the planned conversion of the battle fleet to armor was given a powerful demonstration. Another feature that was emulated was not so successful. Impressed by the ease with which "Virginia" had sunk "Cumberland", naval architects began to incorporate rams into their hull designs.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The first purpose-built ram in the modern era was the French armored ram "Taureau" (1863), whose guns were said to have "the sole function of preparing the way for the ram." The inclusion of rams in warship hull design persisted almost to the outbreak of World War I.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The name of the warship that served the Confederacy in the Battle of Hampton Roads has been a continuing source of confusion and some contention. She was originally a screw frigate in the United States Navy carrying the name . All parties continued to use the name after her capture by secessionists while she was being rebuilt as an ironclad. When her conversion was almost complete, her name was officially changed to . Despite the official name change, Union accounts persisted in calling "Merrimack" by her original name, while Confederate sources used either "Virginia" or "Merrimac(k)". The alliteration of "Monitor" and "Merrimack" has persuaded most popular accounts to adopt the familiar name, even when it is acknowledged to be technically incorrect.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: A CSS "Merrimac" did actually exist. She was a paddle wheel steamer named for the victor (as most Southerners saw it) at Hampton Roads. She was used for running the blockade until she was captured and taken into Federal service, still named "Merrimac." Her name was a spelling variant of the river, namesake of USS "Merrimack". Both spellings are still in use around the Hampton Roads area.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: A small community in Montgomery County, Virginia, near the location where the iron for the Confederate ironclad was forged is now known as Merrimac. Some of the iron mined there and used in the plating on the Confederate ironclad is displayed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. The anchor of "Virginia" sits on the lawn in front of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: After resting undetected on the ocean floor for 111 years, the wreck of "Monitor" was located by a team of scientists in 1973. The remains of the ship were found upside down off Cape Hatteras, on a relatively flat, sandy bottom at a depth of about . In 1987, the site was declared a National Marine Sanctuary, the first shipwreck to receive this distinction.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: Because of "Monitor"s advanced state of deterioration, timely recovery of remaining significant artifacts and ship components became critical. Numerous fragile artifacts, including the innovative turret and its two Dahlgren guns, an anchor, steam engine, and propeller, have been recovered. They were transported back to Hampton Roads to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, where they were treated in special tanks to stabilize the metal. It is reported that it will take about ten years for the metal to completely stabilize. The new USS "Monitor" Center at the Mariners' Museum officially opened on March 9, 2007, and a full-scale copy of USS "Monitor", the original recovered turret, and artifacts and related items are now on display.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: The Battle of Hampton Roads was a significant event in both Naval and Civil War history that has been detailed in many books, televised Civil War documentaries, and in film, to include TNT's 1991 "Ironclads". In New York City, where the designer of the Monitor, John Ericsson, died in March 1889, a statue was commissioned by the state to commemorate the battle between the Ironclads. The statue features a stylized male nude allegorical figure on water between two iron cleats. It is located in Msgr McGolrick Park.


title: Battle of Hampton Roads

text: In Virginia, the state dedicated the Monitor-Merrimack Overlook at Anderson Park on a jetty that overlooks the site of the battle. The park contains several historical markers commemorating both ships. Also, in 1992, Virginia dedicated the $400 million, 4.6-mile-long Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, which is located less than 1 mile from the site of the battle.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature which focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual or illicit ways.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressive fiction may seem mentally ill, anti-social, or nihilistic. The genre deals extensively with taboo subject matters such as drugs, sexual activity, violence, incest, pedophilia, and crime. The genre of "transgressive fiction" was defined by "Los Angeles Times" literary critic Michael Silverblatt.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Michel Foucault's essay "A Preface to Transgression" (1963) provides an important methodological origin for the concept of transgression in literature. The essay uses "Story of the Eye" by Georges Bataille as an example of transgressive fiction.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: The genre has been the subject of controversy, and many forerunners of transgressive fiction, including William S. Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr., have been the subjects of obscenity trials.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Transgressive fiction shares similarities with splatterpunk, noir, and erotic fiction in its willingness to portray forbidden behaviors and shock readers. But it differs in that protagonists often pursue means to better themselves and their surroundings—albeit unusual and extreme ones. Much transgressive fiction deals with searches for self-identity, inner peace, or personal freedom. Unbound by usual restrictions of taste and literary convention, its proponents claim that transgressive fiction is capable of incisive social commentary.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: The basic ideas of transgressive fiction are by no means new. Many works that are now considered classics dealt with controversial themes and harshly criticized societal norms. Early examples include the scandalous writing of the Marquis de Sade and the Comte de Lautréamont's "Les Chants de Maldoror" (1869). French author Émile Zola's works about social conditions and "bad behavior" are examples, as are Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novels "Crime and Punishment" (1866) and "Notes from Underground" (1864) and Norwegian Knut Hamsun's psychologically-driven "Hunger" (1890). Sexual extravagance can be seen in two of the earliest European novels, the "Satyricon" and "The Golden Ass", and also (with disclaimers) "Moll Flanders" and some of the excesses of early Gothic fiction.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: The early development of the genre was anticipated in the work of early 20th century writers such as Octave Mirbeau, Georges Bataille, and Arthur Schnitzler, who explored psychosexual development.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: On 6 December 1933, US federal judge John M. Woolsey overturned the federal ban on James Joyce's "Ulysses". The book was banned in the US due to what the government claimed was obscenity, specifically parts of Molly Bloom's "soliloquy" at the end of the book. Random House Inc. challenged the claim of obscenity in federal court and was granted permission to print the book in the US. Judge Woolsey's explanation for his removal of the ban is often quoted: "It is only with the normal person that the law is concerned."


title: Transgressive fiction

text: In the late 1950s, American publisher Grove Press, under publisher Barney Rosset, began releasing decades-old novels that had been unpublished in most of the English-speaking world for many years due to controversial subject matter. Two of these works, "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (D. H. Lawrence's tale of an upper class woman's affair with a working class man) and "Tropic of Cancer" (Henry Miller's sexual odyssey), were the subject of landmark obscenity trials ("Lady Chatterley's Lover" was also tried in the UK and Austria). Both books were ruled not obscene and forced the US courts to weigh the merit of literature that would have once been instantly deemed pornographic (see Miller test). Similarly, the author Vladimir Nabokov published "Lolita" in 1955 to a great deal of controversy due to the hebephilia that occurs between the book's main characters, Humbert Humbert and Lolita. The transgressive nature of this subject has made Lolita a book often found on the list of books banned by governments and the list of most commonly challenged books in the United States.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Grove Press also published the explicit works of Beat writers, which led to two more obscenity trials. The first concerned "Howl", Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem which celebrated American counterculture and decried hypocrisy and emptiness in mainstream society. The second concerned William S. Burroughs' hallucinatory, satirical novel "Naked Lunch" (1959). Both works contained what were considered lewd descriptions of body parts and sexual acts. Grove also published Hubert Selby Jr.'s anecdotal novel "Last Exit to Brooklyn" (1964), known for its gritty portrayals of criminals, and sex workers and its crude, slang-inspired prose. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" was tried as obscene in the UK. Grove Press won all these trials, and the victories paved the way both for transgressive fiction to be published legally, as well as bringing attention to these works.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: In the 1970s and '80s, an entire underground of transgressive fiction flourished. Its biggest stars included J. G. Ballard, a British writer known for his strange and frightening dystopian novels; Kathy Acker, an American known for her sex-positive feminist fiction; and Charles Bukowski, an American known for his tales of womanizing, drinking, and gambling. The notorious 1971 film version of Anthony Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange", contained scenes of rape and "ultraviolence" by a futuristic youth gang complete with its own argot, and was a major influence on popular culture; it was subsequently withdrawn in the UK, and heavily censored in the US.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: In the 1990s, the rise of alternative rock and its distinctly downbeat subculture opened the door for transgressive writers to become more influential and commercially successful than ever before. This is exemplified by the influence of Canadian Douglas Coupland's 1990 novel "", which explored the economically-bleak and apocalypse-fixated worldview of Coupland's age group. The novel popularized the term generation X to describe this age demographic. Other influential authors of this decade include Bret Easton Ellis, known for novels about depraved yuppies; Irvine Welsh, known for his portrayals of Scotland's drug-addicted working class youth; and Chuck Palahniuk, known for his characters' bizarre attempts to escape bland consumer culture. Both of Elizabeth Young's volumes of literary criticism from this period deal extensively and exclusively with this range of authors and the contexts in which their works can be viewed.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: The early 21st century saw the rise of writers like Rupert Thomson, R. D. Ronald and Kelly Braffet with their protagonists further pushing the criminal, sexual, violent, narcotic, self-harm, anti-social and mental illness related subject matter taboos from the shadows of the transgressive umbrella into the forefront of mainstream fiction. Ronald's novels "The Elephant Tree" and "The Zombie Room" are based in the fictional city of Garden Heights, providing a fresh, contemporary melting pot to showcase the amalgamation of UK and US cultural and societal dissatisfaction and frustration, that had previously been portrayed very differently.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: In the UK, the genre owes a considerable influence to "working class literature", which often portrays characters trying to escape poverty by inventive means, while in the US, the genre focuses more on middle class characters trying to escape the emotional and spiritual limitations of their lifestyle.


title: Transgressive fiction

text: Due to a surge in popularity in the 21st century Transgressive Fiction now has a central hub celebrating authors and books from past classics to contemporary masterpieces.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: In numerical linear algebra, the Gauss–Seidel method, also known as the Liebmann method or the method of successive displacement, is an iterative method used to solve a system of linear equations. It is named after the German mathematicians Carl Friedrich Gauss and Philipp Ludwig von Seidel, and is similar to the Jacobi method. Though it can be applied to any matrix with non-zero elements on the diagonals, convergence is only guaranteed if the matrix is either strictly diagonally dominant, or symmetric and positive definite. It was only mentioned in a private letter from Gauss to his student Gerling in 1823. A publication was not delivered before 1874 by Seidel.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The Gauss–Seidel method is an iterative technique for solving a square system of linear equations with unknown :


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: where formula_3 is the -th approximation or iteration of formula_4 is the next or -th iteration of formula_5, and the matrix is decomposed into a lower triangular component formula_6, and a strictly upper triangular component formula_7; that is, formula_8.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: Then the decomposition of into its lower triangular component and its strictly upper triangular component is given by:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The Gauss–Seidel method now solves the left hand side of this expression for x, using previous value for x on the right hand side. Analytically, this may be written as:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: However, by taking advantage of the triangular form of formula_6, the elements of can be computed sequentially using forward substitution:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The procedure is generally continued until the changes made by an iteration are below some tolerance, such as a sufficiently small residual.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The element-wise formula for the Gauss–Seidel method is extremely similar to that of the Jacobi method.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The computation of uses the elements of that have already been computed, and only the elements of that have not been computed in the -th iteration. This means that, unlike the Jacobi method, only one storage vector is required as elements can be overwritten as they are computed, which can be advantageous for very large problems.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: However, unlike the Jacobi method, the computations for each element are generally much harder to implement in parallel, since they can have a very long critical path, and are thus most feasible for sparse matrices. Furthermore, the values at each iteration are dependent on the order of the original equations.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: The convergence properties of the Gauss–Seidel method are dependent on the matrix "A". Namely, the procedure is known to converge if either:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: Since elements can be overwritten as they are computed in this algorithm, only one storage vector is needed, and vector indexing is omitted. The algorithm goes as follows:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: We must decompose formula_21 into the sum of a lower triangular component formula_6 and a strict upper triangular component formula_7:


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: Now we have formula_28 and formula_29 and we can use them to obtain the vectors formula_5 iteratively.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: First of all, we have to choose formula_31: we can only guess. The better the guess, the quicker the algorithm will perform.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: First of all, we have to choose formula_31: we can only guess. The better the guess, the quicker will perform the algorithm.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: If we test for convergence we'll find that the algorithm diverges. In fact, the matrix A is neither diagonally dominant nor positive definite.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: From the first equation solve for "x" in terms of formula_54 For the next equations substitute the previous values of "x"s.


title: Gauss–Seidel method

text: Using the approximations obtained, the iterative procedure is repeated until the desired accuracy has been reached. The following are the approximated solutions after four iterations.


title: Sycophancy

text: In modern English, sycophant denotes an "insincere flatterer" and is used to refer to someone practising sycophancy (i.e., insincere flattery to gain advantage). The word has its origin in the legal system of Classical Athens. Most legal cases of the time were brought by private litigants as there was no police force and only a limited number of officially appointed public prosecutors. By the fifth century BC this practice had given rise to abuse by "sycophants": litigants who brought unjustified prosecutions. The word retains the same meaning ('slanderer') in Modern Greek, French, (where it also can mean 'informer') and Italian. In modern English, the meaning of the word has shifted to its present usage.


title: Sycophancy

text: The origin of the Ancient Greek word () is a matter of debate, but disparages the unjustified accuser who has in some way perverted the legal system.


title: Sycophancy

text: The original etymology of the word ("/'/" 'fig', and "/'/" 'to show') "revealer of figs"—has been the subject of extensive scholarly speculation and conjecture. Plutarch appears to be the first to have suggested that the source of the term was in laws forbidding the exportation of figs, and that those who leveled the accusation against another of illegally exporting figs were therefore called sycophants. Athenaeus provided a similar explanation. Blackstone's "Commentaries" repeats this story, but adds an additional take—that there were laws making it a capital offense to break into a garden and steal figs, and that the law was so odious that informers were given the name sycophants.


title: Sycophancy

text: A different explanation of the origin of the term by Shadwell was that the sycophant refers to the manner in which figs are harvested, by shaking the tree and revealing the fruit hidden among the leaves. The sycophant, by making false accusations, makes the accused yield up their fruit. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" Eleventh Edition listed these and other explanations, including that the making of false accusations was an insult to the accused in the nature of "showing the fig", an "obscene gesture of phallic significance" or, alternatively that the false charges were often so insubstantial as to not amount to the worth of a fig.


title: Sycophancy

text: Generally, scholars have dismissed these explanations as inventions, long after the original meaning had been lost. Danielle Allen suggests that the term was "slightly obscene", connoting a kind of perversion, and may have had a web of meanings derived from the symbolism of figs in ancient Greek culture, ranging from the improper display of one's "figs" by being overly aggressive in pursuing a prosecution, the unseemly revealing of the private matters of those accused of wrongdoing, to the inappropriate timing of harvesting figs when they are unripe.


title: Sycophancy

text: The traditional view is that the opprobrium against sycophants was attached to the bringing of an unjustified complaint, hoping either to obtain the payment for a successful case, or to blackmail the defendant into paying a bribe to drop the case. Other scholars have suggested that the sycophant, rather than being disparaged for being motivated by profit, was instead viewed as a vexatious litigant who was over-eager to prosecute, and who had no personal stake in the underlying dispute, but brings up old charges unrelated to himself long after the event. Sycophants included those who profited from using their position as citizens for profit. For instance, one could hire a sycophant to bring a charge against one's enemies, or to take a wide variety of actions of an official nature with the authorities, including introducing decrees, acting as an advocate or a witness, bribing ecclesiastical or civil authorities and juries, or other questionable things, with which one did not want to be personally associated. Sycophants were viewed as uncontrolled and parasitic, lacking proper regard for truth or for justice in a matter, using their education and skill to destroy opponents for profit in matters where they had no stake, lacking even the convictions of politicians, and having no sense of serving the public good.


title: Sycophancy

text: The charge of sycophancy against a litigant was a serious matter, and the authors of two surviving oratories, "Against the Grain Dealers" (author Lysias) and "Against Leocrates" (author Lycurgus), defend themselves against charges that they are sycophants because they are prosecuting cases as private citizens in circumstances where they have no personal stake in the underlying dispute. In each instance, the lack of personal involvement appears to have been the crux of the accusation of sycophancy against them, the merits of the cases being separate matters from whether they had a right to bring them.


title: Sycophancy

text: Efforts were made to discourage or suppress sycophants, including imposing fines on litigants who failed to obtain at least one fifth of the jury's votes, or for abandoning a case after it had begun (as would occur if the sycophant was bribed to drop the matter), and authorizing the prosecution of men for being sycophants. "Statutes of Limitation" were specifically adopted to try to prevent sycophancy.


title: Sycophancy

text: Sycophants are better illustrated through the satires of Aristophanes. In "The Acharnians", a Megarian attempting to sell his daughters is confronted by a sycophant who accuses him of illegally attempting to sell foreign goods; and a Boeotian purchases a sycophant as a typical Athenian product that he cannot obtain at home. A sycophant appears as a character in "The Birds". One of his lost plays had, as its principal theme, an attack against a sycophant. In "Wealth", the character, Sycophant, defends his role as a necessity in supporting the laws and preventing wrongdoing.


title: Sycophancy

text: In daily use, the term refers to someone that purposely spreads lies about a person, in order to harm this person’s reputation, or otherwise insult his honor (i.e. a slanderer), and is doing so (i.e. slander, n., to slander: ).


title: Sycophancy

text: In legal terms, Article 362 of the Greek Penal Code defines defamation () "whoever who with in any way claims or spreads for someone else a fact that could harm that person's honor or reputation", whereas slanderous defamation () is when the fact is a lie, and the person who claims or spreads it knows that. The first case is punishable with up to two years' imprisonment or a fine, whereas slanderous defamation is punishable with at least three months' imprisonment and a fine.


title: Sycophancy

text: The word "sycophant" entered the English and French languages in the mid-16th century, and originally had the same meaning in English and French () as in Greek, a false accuser. Today, in Greek and French it retains the original meaning.


title: Sycophancy

text: The meaning in English has changed over time, however, and came to mean an insincere flatterer. The common thread in the older and current meanings is that the sycophant is in both instances portrayed as a kind of parasite, speaking falsely and insincerely in the accusation or the flattery for gain. The Greek plays often combined in one single character the elements of the parasite and the sycophant, and the natural similarities of the two closely related types led to the shift in the meaning of the word. The sycophant in both meanings can also be viewed as two sides of the same coin: the same person currying one's favor by insincere flattery is also spreading false tales and accusations behind one's back.


title: Sycophancy

text: In Renaissance English, the word was used in both senses and meanings, that of the Greek informer, and the current sense of a "flattering parasite", with both being cast as enemies—not only of those they wrong, but also of the person or state that they ostensibly serve.


title: Sycophancy

text: Sycophancy is insincere flattery given to gain advantage from a superior. A user of sycophancy is referred to as a sycophant or a “yes-man.”